40: Chapter 40 Serpent Emblem

The steam train returning to Tingen from Backlund arrived in the early morning.

As Lu Li stepped off the platform carrying his suitcase, the gas streetlights on Zoutland Street had not yet been extinguished, casting halos of dim yellow light in the mist.

He had barely slept on the train, his mind repeatedly turning over the spacing pattern of the letters in the line of text on the back of the silver snake-shaped pendant.

The pattern itself was not complicated; he only needed to extract the letters corresponding to the positions with wider spacing and rearrange them to spell out a word.

However, the word formed was neither Hermes script nor Giant language, but a word that could only be automatically translated above the gray fog—a script created by Roselle.

It meant "jiaowei".

He hailed a rental carriage on the street outside the waiting room of the Tingen train station and returned directly to the Blackthorn Security Company.

Rozanne was at the front desk organizing the night shift patrol logs; hearing footsteps, she looked up and sized him up.

"You look like you've been on that train for a week."

"Only one night."

Lu Li placed his suitcase at the foot of the stairs and took out the refolded paper crane and the small copper box containing the silver pendant from his inner pocket. "Is Old Neil in the Potion Room?"

"Yes. He stayed up all night measuring the decay data of the mold samples and should still be recording it now."

The door to the Potion Room was half-ajar, with the cold white light of phosphorescent stones shining from within.

When Lu Li pushed the door open, Old Neil was sitting at the workbench, holding his enamel cup, with a half-filled data sheet spread out in front of him.

The distiller on the table emitted a constant, low hum.

Old Neil didn't even look up. "You're back?"

"I'm back."

Lu Li placed the paper crane and the copper box on the workbench and sat down on the chair opposite him.

Old Neil put down his enamel cup, picked up the paper crane, and scrutinized it under the phosphorescent light for a moment.

His fingers traced a circle along the strokes of the snake-shaped ring, then he placed the paper crane back on the table and opened the lid of the copper box.

The silver pendant lay quietly on the black velvet lining at the bottom of the box, the Hermes script engraved on the back shimmering with a dark metallic luster under the light.

"Snake's Ring, Blood's Key."

Old Neil flipped the pendant over and gently pressed his thumb against the engraving on the back. "The brushwork of this line of text is identical to the font on the title page of the imitation notebook you brought back from the Tingen old bookstore last time. It was engraved by the same person."

"The person who did the engraving hid information in the letter spacing. By extracting the letters from the positions with wider spacing and rearranging them, I spelled out a word: it's a script created by Roselle—'jiaowei'. The previous owner of this pendant knew of the existence of 'jiaowei' and knew how to read Roselle's script. Or at least, he knew that letter spacing could be used to convey encrypted information."

Old Neil turned the pendant under the phosphorescent light at a few different angles. A moment later, he put the pendant back into the copper box and leaned back in his chair.

"The encryption method is very sophisticated; it's not something just anyone can do. To hide another word using letter spacing, one needs to calculate two different letter-spacing grids in their head while typesetting the original text—one is the uniform layout on the surface, and the other is the hidden, encrypted layout. This technique is usually only mastered by specially trained church scribes or ancient document restorers."

"Old Eye said the same thing. He said the encryption method of this line of text is identical to several sealed old archives he saw in the church archives."

"Those archives recorded a transaction that occurred in the late fourth epoch—a spice merchant named Gustav exchanged a severed finger of his own for permission to 'walk out' from an existence sealed beneath the Chanis Gate. The other party in the transaction was none other than the Snake of Fate itself. Gustav was the later Emperor Roselle Gustav. He made the deal but didn't fulfill it, and the debt remains unpaid to this day."

Old Neil was silent for a while. The distiller in the corner emitted a constant low hum. Then, he set his enamel cup next to the data sheet and crossed his fingers on his lap.

"The unpaid debt left behind from Roselle's deal with the Snake of Fate—if it can be passed down through the bloodline to this day, then the snake emblem on that pendant is a token marking this debt."

"The engraving on the back of the pendant, 'Snake's Ring, Blood's Key,' is itself a shorthand for the terms of the transaction: using the snake emblem as the ring, and the bloodline as the key. When the moon is full, the door shall open—the door refers to the Chanis Gate. The method of payment is not a Sealed Artifact, nor is it a Beyonder characteristic; it is the bloodline. The descendants of the Gustav family are still bound by this unpaid debt to this day."

"But the bloodline of the Gustav family was dispersed after Roselle was assassinated. There are almost no people named Gustav now, but the bloodline does not disappear just because the surname changes. If someone has inherited this debt, they must be holding the other token that pairs with this pendant—the other half of the snake emblem."

Old Neil closed the lid of the copper box and placed the copper box and the paper crane side-by-side on the edge of the workbench.

"The pendant will stay in the Potion Room for now. Its residual spirituality is very weak, but its structure is stable and won't cause contamination. What you need to find is not the pendant itself, but its other half—the other half of the snake emblem."

"The other half of the token should also have the same Hermes script engraving, but the encrypted content might be different. If the information hidden in this pendant is 'jiaowei', then the information hidden in the other half is very likely the specific details of this debt."

He picked up the enamel cup again. "What else did you find in Backlund?"

Lu Li thought for a moment and said, "The buyer of the hyoid bone powder is a middleman codenamed A. Abraham, Sequence 7 of the Apprentice Pathway. He cleared out all the stock for a client who has never appeared. The client placed the order using paper cranes, and the paper cranes had the snake emblem on them."

"The list of materials requested for purchase includes Deceiver hyoid bone powder, pituitary extract from an adult Transformation Lizard, and more than a dozen other main potion ingredients for Sequences 9 to 6 of the Marauder Pathway. The quantity purchased is enough to concoct three portions of Sequence 9 potion, two of Sequence 8, and one of Sequence 7. He isn't preparing them for himself—he is systematically cultivating Beyonders of the Marauder Pathway for some organization."

"The Abraham family is a legacy family of the Door Pathway; their needs do not overlap at all with the Marauder Pathway. The only reason he would accept such a proxy purchase request is either because the reward was too high to refuse, or because the client's identity made him afraid to refuse."

"You said the client has never appeared and all requests were transmitted via paper cranes—this method of transmission requires attaching the client's spiritual imprint to the paper crane in advance so that the paper crane can fly into Abraham's shop on its own. A spiritual imprint cannot be forged. Abraham recognizes this client's spiritual signature, but he is unwilling to tell you."

Old Neil tapped the rim of the enamel cup with his fingertips. "Clearing out all the inventory four months ago coincides perfectly with the time before The Dark Channel incident. When the array in the Underground Channel Secret Room was activated, the pressure on the outer seal of the Chanis Gate spiked instantly."

"If the will of the Snake of Fate sent out a spiritual pulse at that moment, everyone holding a snake emblem token would have received the signal. Upon receiving the signal, the client began accelerating the purchase of potion materials—he was preparing for the Spirit Descent Ritual."

"But the Spirit Descent Ritual did not succeed in the end. The three anchors were purified, and the backup runes were destroyed. The client paused all purchases after The Dark Channel incident—he knew the ritual hadn't succeeded, but he also knew the token was still there and the debt hadn't been paid. He only paused; he didn't give up."

Old Neil stood up and walked to the cast-iron safe in the corner of the Potion Room, turned the combination lock, opened the cabinet door, and took out the lead tray from inside.

In the center of the tray lay the silver snake key; the garnet on the handle had completely cooled, and the snake relief shimmered with a dull metallic luster under the phosphorescent light.

"The Antigonus bloodline imprint inside the key is still there. Although the mold's root system has gone dormant, as long as there is another fluctuation in the sealing pressure, the root system will reactivate. The concentric positioning circles will automatically re-lock onto the marked target. Although the backup runes were destroyed, the main anchor has always been here—this key itself is the last insurance policy left by the Snake of Fate outside the Chanis Gate." He put the key back into the safe and locked it.

"No matter who that client is, he will act again sooner or later. The paper cranes, the snake emblem, and the hyoid bone powder are all in the hands of the same person—he must have the other half of the token. If you find that half, you will be able to know the specific details of the debt and the conditions for repayment."

"The other half of the token should still be in Backlund. Old Eye said the locker was rented by the client in the Underground Commercial Street in Backlund, and the pendant was discovered in the locker. If he intended to leave a token, he wouldn't have left just one—he should have also engraved the snake emblem that pairs with the pendant on the other half of the token."

"You should prepare the Sequence 7 potion in Tingen first. 'jiaowei' is still in Backlund; it won't be too late to go there again after the approval goes through." He picked up the enamel cup, took a sip, and picked up the data sheet on the workbench again.

Lu Li stood up, left the paper crane and the copper box on the workbench, and pushed the door open to leave the Potion Room.

In the hallway, Klein was leaning against the wall outside the archives room, holding two cups of freshly brewed black tea.

He handed one of the cups to Lu Li. "What did Old Neil say?"

"The encrypted information on the pendant points to 'jiaowei'. The other half of the token is still in Backlund; finding it will reveal the specific details of the debt."

Klein held the teacup and was silent for a moment. "Could the text engraved on the other half of the token also be hidden in the letter spacing?"

"Very likely. But we need to find it first." Lu Li took a sip of tea.

Outside the window, the bell tower of Saint Selena Cathedral struck the hour. The sound of the bells spread through the morning mist, deep and distant.