The Mirror of Startling Beauty: Her courtiers are everywhere

Tang Xixue calmed herself, carefully put the silver key close to her body, and then took out a Seven Star Compass from the heart of Cangxue.

The compass was no bigger than the palm of your hand, neither gold nor jade, yet it had a weighty, warm feel when held in your palm.

On the dial, the Tianchi magnetic needle is as white as jade, and the mountains, constellations, and directions of the celestial sphere are all inlaid with extremely fine silver wires, making it exquisitely detailed.

Every line looks like it was drawn inch by inch, as if it were made by crushing starlight.

She got this compass from He Lichen.

It was called taking, but it was only with his tacit approval.

That day in the carriage, she held it in her hands and played with it, reluctant to put it down, turning it over and over to look at the landscape patterns on the plate.

He glanced at it briefly, said nothing, and that was considered a gift.

It was an unspoken understanding between them, a little bit of unspoken affection.

Holding this compass, one can discern the coordinates of heaven and earth and dispel the mysteries of the world.

At this moment, she stood on the edge of the cliff, holding a compass. Her green and white alchemist robes fluttered in the mountain wind, her wide sleeves like feathers.

Beneath our feet lies a vast expanse of empty space, with surging clouds and endless white waves stretching as far as the eye can see, as if it had been slumbering here since the beginning of time.

Occasionally, clouds and waves would roll, revealing a bottomless abyss below.

That abyss was not pure darkness, but a very faint silver-gray, suppressed under a thousand layers of clouds and mist, like a sigh sealed for a thousand years.

She lowered her eyes, focused her mind, and gently stroked the edge of the compass with her fingertips.

In the Heavenly Pool, the magnetic needle trembled slightly, spun gracefully, and then stopped, pointing due north.

"Qian represents Heaven, and Kun represents Earth. Heaven and Earth are in their proper positions, and mountains and lakes communicate with each other."

She spoke.

The sound was like a clear chime, each word striking the cliff that had been silent for thousands of years.

"Here, the sea of ​​clouds is formed by the sky as a plate and the earth as a seat. In the northwest, the Qian position, the clouds are high and thin, like a suspended mirror in the sky; in the southeast, the Kun position, the clouds are low and thick, like thick earth supporting a deep abyss."

"Although the forces of heaven and earth are formed, the clouds in the Qian and Kun palaces do not converge. There is an invisible barrier that stands between them, cutting off the energy flow of heaven and earth in half."

She narrowed her eyes slightly and lightly traced the edge of the compass with her fingertip.

"Using clouds as ink and wind as a brush, the universe is blocked, and nothing can live. This is the beginning of a dead end."

She observed intently, and the more she looked, the clearer her mind became.

This vast sea of ​​clouds before my eyes is no ordinary cloud or mist.

It was clearly a game of chess magnified to the scale of heaven and earth.

The clouds form the chessboard, the lines are latitude and longitude, and there are nineteen lines in total, each line clearly defined.

Every surge of the clouds, every arc of the cloud wisps, silently tells the story of the rules of this game of chess.

The heavens and earth are the chessboard, the sea of ​​clouds are the lines, and the pieces have already been placed.

"When the eight trigrams are misplaced, all eight palaces are in chaos."

She spoke in a low voice, her tone tinged with coldness.

This is the work of Heaven.

It prevents anyone from inheriting the legacy of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God.

Because the Way of Flowing Clouds is a Way that defies Heaven.

With a mortal body, she reversed life and death, protected a city with her own strength, and pioneered the medical path for all ages as a woman.

Such a path is intolerable to Heaven.

So it set up this chessboard of heaven and earth here, sealing the place of inheritance deep in the clouds and mist, using latitude and longitude as locks and the sea of ​​clouds as a prison.

Over the centuries, many physicians with great fortune have found this place.

They endured countless trials in the Glazed Heaven Secret Realm, and with their profound knowledge of pharmacology, they gained the approval of their former guardians and reached this precipice.

But medicine and Taoist practices are ultimately two different paths.

Those doctors exhausted all their knowledge but still couldn't understand the direction of the clouds, the layout of the clouds, or the hidden dangers and opportunities for survival within the wispy clouds.

They were trapped here, unable to advance or retreat, and ultimately they were trapped in the sea of ​​clouds, exhausted their luck, and died with regret.

It's too difficult to inherit the legacy of the Flowing Cloud Medicine God.

It's just that Heaven didn't leave this path for healers at all.

But she was different.

She is Tangxi Xue.

She practices both medicine and Taoism; her Taoist methods were taught to her personally by the Grand Preceptor of the Temple of Fate on Holy Spirit Mountain.

She suddenly remembered a long time ago, on the stone steps of the observatory.

At that time, she was just a five or six-year-old girl with two little buns in her hair, swinging her short legs, and looking up at the starry sky.

The young man in white sat beside her, his moon-white robe spread out on the stone steps like a falling snowflake.

He held a white chess piece between his fingers and gently placed it on the chessboard, his voice clear and melodious.

"Zhizhi, look at this game of chess. The black pieces are like clouds, and the white pieces are like stars. It seems chaotic, but in fact, every piece has its own reason."

"I don't understand."

The little girl lay on the edge of the chessboard, her chin resting on the back of her hand, murmuring in a soft, sweet voice.

"Brother Huaixian, these chess pieces are so densely packed, how am I supposed to know where to place them?"

"You don't need to know where to place each piece."

The boy turned his head, a gentle smile spreading across his frosty eyes.

He stretched out his long, slender fingers and gently placed them on the top of her head, his fingertips lightly stroking her soft, wispy hair.

Her movements were as gentle as if she were afraid to startle the snowflakes falling from the branches.

"All you need to know is that there are rules on this chessboard. Once you understand the rules, you'll know where to place your pieces; once you understand where to place your pieces, you'll never get lost again."

At that time, she only vaguely understood, feeling that Brother Huaixian's voice was like a clear mountain spring, pleasant to hear, but his words were too difficult to understand.

She looked up at him, blinked, and asked, "When will I understand?"

"No rush."

The boy withdrew his hand, moved a white piece on the chessboard to a different position, and spoke calmly and composedly.

"You grow up slowly, and I'll teach you slowly. I'll teach you until the day you understand."

She did grow up later.

As I grew up, I came to understand the intricacies of chess, the principles of Yin and Yang, and the hidden meaning in the eyes of that boy when he said "No rush."

It's not that I'm not in a hurry for her to understand, it's that I can't bear to let her understand too soon.

The price of understanding the rules is seeing the cruelty of this world.

He wanted to keep her innocent for a few more years, even if it was just a few years.

As she stood before this sea of ​​clouds, He Lichen's voice from over a decade ago suddenly pierced through time and landed clearly in her ears.

It guided her on her path and in her direction.

But she didn't copy his chess moves.

She studied for many years.

Today, she's going to walk her own path.

"The North White Star still has a breath left. Water overflows and wood floats, which is inherently inauspicious. But if I start from the Kan Palace and borrow the power of metal and water generating each other, then the wood energy can be restored and the life gate can be opened. Once the life gate is opened, the whole situation will come alive."

She held the key in her palm, her fingertips tracing the silvery sheen that flowed across its surface.

"When water overflows and wood floats, I place a piece in the Kan Palace. Water is nourished by metal, and wood thrives with water."

"When a piece falls into the Kan trigram, water nourishes wood, wood connects to the Li trigram, fire from the Li trigram generates earth, earth generates metal, and metal generates water again."

"The five elements return to their proper places, and the eight trigrams are restored to their original positions. Even a dead end can be overcome."

She understood.

The Kan Palace is due north, and it is the key to breaking the deadlock in this game.

She held up the key, pointing it towards the due north direction, indicating the location of the Kan Palace.

"Heaven has laid out this deadly game with mountains and rivers, and I will break it today."

She raised her hand and threw the key towards the direction of the Kan Palace, making a desperate gamble.

The moment the key left her hand, she didn't throw it towards Tianyuan, but instead aimed it precisely at Kan Palace.

That was what He Lichen had taught her: "The move is not placed in the center, but at the life gate."

But this time, the hand that made the move was her own.

She learned from him, but not to become him; rather, she surpassed him.

A silvery arc of light pierced through the churning clouds, like a shooting star flying backwards, like a white rainbow piercing the sun.

"bite--"

The crisp sound of the stone being placed echoed throughout the heavens and earth for a long time.

The key did not fall; instead, it stopped at the Kan Palace location.

It hangs deep in the sea of ​​clouds to the due north, in the Kan Palace position of this chessboard of heaven and earth.

A silvery-white halo suddenly bloomed around her, shimmering and colorful, like a Udumbara flower blooming in the dark night.

It was as if a star that had been forgotten for a thousand years had finally returned to its rightful place.

One piece fell into the pit.

Everything is in order to thrive.

"If Heaven sets up obstacles, I will walk on its own."

"Today, I am playing chess with Heaven, and I will surely win by half a move."

Tang Xixue stood with her hands behind her back atop the precipice, surrounded by surging clouds that resembled a stampede of horses, yet she remained unmoved.

Like the most solitary sword in the world, its first glimpse of its sharpness already awes all around.

As the wind blows, their clothes flutter like cranes spreading their wings; their hair dances in the air like ink splashed across the sky.

She slightly raised her eyes, her peach blossom eyes reflecting the magnificent light that shone through the splitting sea of ​​clouds.

Between his brows and eyes was a cool indifference tempered by frost and snow, a clarity after the vicissitudes of life, and a composure and certainty that showed no fear of heaven, no respect for fate, and no entrusting one's life to anyone else.

Her hair was styled in a cloud-like bun, and she stood gracefully in the wind.

You don't need to borrow anyone else's light; you are your own light.

There's no need to climb anyone else's peak; establish yourself as the peak.

A woman's hands can hold a silver needle and can hold up the heavens.

She will walk the path that the Flowing Cloud Medicine God did not finish.

She played the moves that countless predecessors had never played.

Between heaven and earth, on the chessboard, she alone plays white, makes her own move, and breaks the deadlock that has lasted for a thousand years.

At that moment, she held the light of day in her own hands!