Chapter 11

Chapter 11

Before the ceremony began, Bai Linye was ordered to fetch me.

He still wore that same cold expression, looking as if everyone owed him their life. As I followed him through the long corridor, the music ahead was at its peak. The laughter of the nobility leaked through the latticed windows like sounds from another world.

When we reached a junction, he suddenly veered off, leading me into an old, deserted gallery.

“His Highness ordered me to show you something,” he said.

I watched him warily, my hand already gripping the short blade hidden in my sleeve.

Bai Linye ignored me and simply pushed open the door to an old room at the end of the hall.

The room was very dark. By the light from the corridor, I saw the walls were covered in children’s drawings. They were drawn with childish simplicity-stoves, apples, women in long dresses, and a little boy lying in a bed. A cluster of blue fire was drawn over the boy’s chest, with crooked characters written beside it: “Ah Chuan cannot be cold.”

A thick stack of ledgers was piled on the table. The open one was filled with names and dates. Ah Qiao, Dongsheng, Xinger, Ming Yinxing… Behind every name was recorded the duration of the Dream Fire, the visions seen after ignition, the child’s state of death, and even their final words.

The handwriting was messy at first, only gradually becoming steady in the later entries.

I recognized it. It was Yan Zhichuan’s hand.

“When His Highness was seven, the Late Emperor made him live in the Greenhouse,” Bai Linye stood by the door, his voice as flat as if he were reading an official report. “It wasn’t to treat his illness; it was to make him see clearly who was dying in his stead. For every child that died, he had to record their name and their dream. If he got even one detail wrong, he had to sleep with the corpse for a night.”

My fingers tightened around the ledger.

Bai Linye continued, “After your mother died, he privately stopped the fire three times. The first time, eight hundred people died in the south of the city. The second time, someone in the palace took advantage of the chaos to dump frozen children in the civilian quarters, claiming His Highness had caused it. The third time, the Late Emperor had all the children still alive in the Greenhouse carried to his bedside and made him choose: burn them, or watch the entire city freeze to death.”

“So he just accepted his fate?”

“He didn’t.” Bai Linye looked up at me. “All these years, he has been looking for someone who can enter the Furnace Core. But Royal Blood cannot enter, and outsiders cannot enter. Only the lineage of Yi Yinchun can approach the Third Gate. Because the blood of the original Fire Seed Woman was stained with the ashes of the Snow Queen.”

My throat tightened.

“Then what about Ming Yinxing?” I asked. “Was she also just a bargaining chip to you?”

Bai Linye was silent for a moment. He pulled a flat wooden box from the bottom shelf and handed it to me.

Written on the lid was the name “Ming Yinxing.”

“She is already dead,” he said. “She died last night. His Highness had the box intercepted so it wouldn’t be sent for ignition.”

My hand trembled, and I nearly dropped the box. It was very light-so light it felt as if there was nothing inside. But I knew that Ming Yinxing’s last bit of warmth was contained right here.

Hidden at the bottom of the box was indeed a second key, along with a small, flattened copper plate. A line of fine characters was engraved on the copper.

“The third lock of the Furnace Core requires the blood of a Fire Seed Woman.”

I closed my eyes, my chest feeling as though it had been struck by a blunt instrument.

Bai Linye looked at me and suddenly said in a low voice, “Yi Jiangxue, I am not a good person. But if you really can stop the fire tonight, I will see to your burial.”

I pulled the box into my arms and looked up at him. “Why are you helping me?”

For a moment, his gaze was cold and empty.

“Because Ah Qiao was my sister.”

After saying this, he turned and left.

Silence returned to the room. I looked down at the box of matches bearing Ming Yinxing’s name, feeling as if I were holding a bundle of weightless bones.

It turned out that everyone in this city was borrowing fire.

Some borrowed it with an air of entitlement, while others, in the end, didn’t even dare to lift their heads.