Steam rose from the jade vessel over the brazier. Li Mei sat on the treatment room's low bench, the cloth unwound from her hands. Without it, Ben could see how white her fingertips had become.
Tian knelt beside the brazier, drawing the last of the coldvein lotus's medicinal power into the solution.
"Are you certain now is the time for this?" Li Mei asked.
"The final session is still days away," Tian said. "Let me see to your hands while we have the time."
Ben had promised to examine her properly with his father once the clan was steady again. He had not expected to do it while the delegation was still in Redstone, but he was glad his father had brought them here.
Tian filled the cup and gave it to her. She drank, set it aside, and held out her wrist. He placed two fingers against it and sent his qi after the medicine, guiding its power through the secondary channels toward the obstruction that had kept her in early-stage qi condensation for nearly thirty years.
Ben sat beside her. She offered him her other hand, and he supported it with his fingers at her wrist. Her skin was cold. He sent his spiritual sense into her channels and followed the medicine as his father guided it.
The treatment was much like the one that had helped restore Tian's meridians. Ben had never followed its course inside another person before. At the first bottleneck, the medicinal power met a dense band of what seemed to be scarring. Tian directed it against the obstruction, but the band did not yield.
Ben examined the junction more closely.
[OBSERVATION: Apparent scarring arranged at regular points around the advancement junction.]
[ANALYSIS: Pattern inconsistent with injury. Consistent with deliberate structure.]
His father had told him the damage looked shaped rather than broken. Ben could follow that regularity now, point after point around the channel. The medicine passed over them without shifting any of them.
[Prior observation, subject Li Mei: data now sufficient. Classification revised. Sealing formation confirmed.]
A formation in his mother's meridians. He kept following its shape, trying to understand how it held her qi. The still, even circulation he had puzzled over for months continued beneath his attention.
Three places drew him back. If he changed the flow at one of them, perhaps he could loosen the obstruction. His mother's cold hand lay in his, and for a moment he wanted to try.
[Structure exceeds Host capability. Direct intervention not advised.]
Ben stopped. He had found places where the flow might change; he did not know what changing them would do to her. He withdrew his spiritual sense and let her hand rest in her lap.
Tian's fingers stilled on her other wrist.
"It is not working."
Li Mei looked at Ben. He could not yet tell her what they ought to do, and he had to resist taking her hand again.
A sigh came from the doorway. His grandfather stepped into the room. Ben had not heard him approach. Tiexin looked at Li Mei for a long moment.
"Come to my study," he said. "All three of you."
...
In the study, Tian told his father how little the coldvein lotus had done. Tiexin listened with his hands folded on the table. When Tian finished, he took a jade slip from his storage ring and placed it before Li Mei.
"Your father left this with me the day he went into the Blackwood. If he did not return, and your cultivation began to trouble you, I was to give it to you alone."
Li Mei kept her hands in her lap.
"What does it say?"
"I have never read it," Tiexin said.
She reached for the slip and sent her spiritual sense into it. The jade warmed in her hand. A hollow image of Li Cheng appeared at the end of the table, the room still visible through him.
Li Mei leaned forward. "He looks just as he did when he left."
"Mei," the image said. "I am sorry I did not come back."
Her hand shook. She steadied the jade with her other hand and waited for him to go on.
Li Cheng seemed to be looking at her. After a few moments his expression grew solemn.
"When you were born, I found that you had the Profound Yin Ice Physique. One in a million is born with such a constitution. Given time, you could have become a great cultivator.
"But there was something in your spiritual sea that I could not remove. I have been trying to find a way to help you ever since. For now, you must not cultivate. I sealed your meridians because continued exposure to qi will rouse it from its slumber."
Ben watched his mother. She had not moved since steadying the slip.
"If the seals deteriorate, have Wang Tiexin do his best to mend them," Li Cheng said. "Do not let them break and stay broken. Your cultivation will rise, and with it the danger lying dormant in your spiritual sea. A fate worse than death waits for you if that happens."
The image's gaze moved across the room and paused on Ben. He sat still beneath it, uncertain whether a record could see him. Then Li Cheng looked back toward his daughter.
"Your grandmother used to say the cold preserves. She said it to comfort herself. For you there is no comfort in it. The cold is a sign that the seals are deteriorating. Because of your physique, exposure to qi wears the formation down, year after year.
"This slip carries the method to restore the seal to its full strength. That should keep your physique in check for another few decades. Mei, hold on until I can come back."
He looked at her a little longer. Then the image vanished.
Li Mei was still leaning toward the place where he had stood. She lowered the slip to the table, keeping her fingers on it.
[Figure reclassified: containment. Contents: no match at current resolution.]
[Restructuring requires (unreadable). Access: restricted.]
Ben read the second line again. The System had been unable to answer him before, but it had never barred his access like this. He waited for something more. Nothing came.
Tian was looking down at his hands. Ben remembered the medicine pressing against the obstruction and the three places he had wanted to alter. He had been so eager to help her that he had nearly tried it without knowing what he was undoing.
"Your father was trying to protect you, Mei," Tiexin said. "He left us a way to mend the seals."
Ben held out his hand. His mother lifted the jade and gave it to him.
He sent his spiritual sense into the slip. As he followed the recorded instructions, the System gathered them. He kept at it until it had taken in everything the jade held, then passed it to his grandfather.
Tiexin read for a long time. Ben watched him, waiting for some sign that the work was within his reach. By the time his grandfather set the jade down, the window behind him was dark.
"Is there no other way to help her?" Tian asked.
"I cannot fully understand a formation like this," Tiexin said. "I think that would take a grandmaster at the very least. Perhaps even a great grandmaster. But Li Cheng has left the method for restoring it. I believe Ben and I can follow it."
He turned to Li Mei.
"If your father returns with a way to remove the danger, we may be able to do more. For now, I can try to restore what he left to protect you."
She looked down at the jade again.
Tiexin turned to Ben. "What do you think?"
The System compared the instructions with what Ben had observed in the treatment room.
[ANALYSIS: Restoration by the recorded sequence is feasible.]
[ANALYSIS: Reconstruction cannot be interrupted once begun. Required output exceeds Host capacity. At core formation strength, estimated duration is one full night.]
Ben could follow the instructions, but his own cultivation would not sustain the work. He looked from the slip to his grandfather.
"I can put it onto a formation diagram before you begin. Every node, in its order. You will have to do the rebuilding. I believe I can watch for flaws as it takes shape and tell you if I find one."
He paused, then added, "I trust you to do it."
He had said nothing about the System. His grandfather accepted the offer without asking how much of the formation Ben could have understood alone.
"Mei," Tiexin said, "once we start, we must finish. It could take me the whole night."
Tian took her hands between his own. She looked at him, then at Ben, and finally at the patriarch. No one hurried her.
After a while, she nodded.
"Tomorrow night, then," Tiexin said.
He rose and asked Ben to come with him to the clan archives. The jade slip lay on the table as they left.
Outside, the night air was cold. Somewhere in the house Chen began to cry. Ben listened as they crossed the yard, but someone soon hushed the child. His thoughts started toward blood and inheritance, and he stopped them there.
...
After nightfall, a procession of carriages approached the southern gate. Their beds sat low, and the nearest guard looked along the line as the heavy wheels rolled toward him. He did not recognize the old driver at its head. A golden wolf fang hung from the man's belt.
The driver held out a paper. The guard saw that its seal matched the delegation's, and stepped aside. He asked nothing about the cargo and made no move to examine it.
The carriages passed slowly beneath the wall. When the last had entered, the gate closed behind them.