Night in Cell 114 was measured by the drops in the flue. Three doors down, an old cultivator coughed until he had to stop for breath. Burnt broth and hot grease came through the gaps around the door. Inside, the lamp held a steady yellow flame.
Pei Jing sat straight on the wooden stool. The Black Mountain Whetstone still shone with the water from eighty strokes. Across the table, the soft jaws of the vise held the first needle blank.
Between them lay his tools. The diamond point on his awl had come from a deep-mine drill. It was a rough gray chip that could mark hard steel without wearing down. Three finer scribes waited beside it for clearing burrs.
He poured a little Thunder-Horn Viper bile into a porcelain dish. It looked black until the light caught a green sheen on the surface. The smell reminded him of copper and lightning.
Before touching the needle, he put a streak of the bile on a scrap of copper and sent a thread of Chaos Qi into it. A tiny blue spark ran all the way across. The copper stayed cool. The fluid didn’t dry out or sputter.
“It holds,” he said.
