Chapter 217 – Spirits Blossoming (VI)

Chapter 217

Spirits Blossoming (VI)

Long Tao stepped out of the compound, past the pair of yawning guards that seemed none the wiser. His pace was brisk and nonchalant as he navigated the few narrow alleyways that led past the looming buildings and onto the main street, stepping into a new world.

It was a familiar boulevard–not that he had ever seen this one, but he had seen many like it. A singular path dividing a city into two was as cliche as tying loose iron ropes between the two ends and hanging lanterns from them to light up the street at night.

On either side, rows of tiered pavilions and soaring watchtowers climbed in terraces, their upturned eaves and carved balustrades catching stray currents of invisible Qi. He paused for a moment and breathed it all in; the purity of Qi here, in the city, was actually marginally better than on the outside, as there was likely an array embedded somewhere in its bodice doing its best.

He began to walk slowly, moving past a cluster of colonnaded arcades where silver lanterns swung from wrought-iron hooks, causing dappled light to break across the jade-inlaid benches beneath. Beyond these lay a series of semicircular loggias, with patches of tiny gardens clustered between them.

Everywhere he looked, pillars of white and silver granite supported wraparound verandas festooned with silk banners, mostly crimson and silver, with gold-thread dragons and phoenixes and other mythological beasts skillfully embroidered in them.

A whisper of wind carried a mixture of scents–lotus incense from a distant shrine, freshly fried fish from the nearby food stalls, and even a mixture of foul odors from the parlors nestled within the spottier buildings in the back.

He came to a halt at a midway point through his stroll across the promenade, spotting a lonesome sakura tree in full bloom, its cherry-colored petals scattering gently with each gust of the wind.

It was less so the ‘impressiveness’ of the city that made him feel melancholic and more so the reminders of the sights he witnessed in his former life. Shaking off the sensation, he resumed walking toward his destination–a looming tower on the other end of the walkway, visible from virtually every point of the city.

It was hewn from pale-silver marble veined with jade-green streaks, its ground level featuring a deep-set portico framed by fluted columns that supported a beautifully carved entablature and a low stone balustrade.

The pavilion had precisely six levels above the portico, five hexagonal tiers receding in perfect symmetry, each faced in iridescent moonstone tiles that seemed to draw in the nearby strands of Qi almost like an array would.

Between each level, wooden duogong brackets fanned outward almost like blossoming lotus petals, their lacquered undersides painted in vermilion. Each tier had a narrow balcony with a carved balustrade, depicting a story, Long Tao realized–the story of their clan.

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Far up above, the roofline culminated in a gilded cupola of overlapping silver plates, each etched with the clan’s emblem–an arrayed set of blades in the pentagonal shape. Finials of reflective black obsidian soared from the upturned eaves, with the nearby lanterns of pale chrysanthemum glass swinging gently from the iron hooks, casting latticed shadows across the facade.