By his seventh day of practice, Pei Jing could tell the hour in Cell 114 without a bell. Twice a day the sea pushed black water six feet up the canal. A smell of salt and sulfur came through the drains. Outside his door, people argued over dice, wash water, and what Golden Sun had taken from them that week.
Before dawn, Pei Jing set the Black Mountain Whetstone on the table. Three drops of water, forty strokes along one face of the cleaver, and forty along the other. By the time he wiped the steel, his pulse had settled at sixteen. His breath moved as slowly as a tide.
Only then did he turn to the vise.
He could cut the lines now. Getting the fluid to hold evenly inside them was harder. Paper soaked up ink by itself. On steel, the same drop curled up into a bead. He could feel where a gap in the bile would leave the rune weak.
There was another problem. Thunder-Horn Viper bile carried Yin-Water qi. The Fire-Burst Rune wanted Yang-Fire. Push them together through a single channel and they’d fight until the blank broke. The Chaos Root let Pei Jing hold the two apart and guide them into the steel with the other elements.
