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Upon returning home, Liu Ying lit a lamp and carefully examined the Star Chart.
"Tai Bai is the benefactor, Zi Wei is destiny," she repeated to herself, deep in thought. Suddenly, she noticed a line of tiny writing in the corner of the note: "Beware when stargazing; the Heavenly Mechanism Hides Jade Balance."
Jade Balance? She furrowed her brow. The Jade Balance was originally a stargazing instrument; could there be more to this?
As she pondered, a bird call came from outside. Alert, she looked out the window to see a White Dove perched on the sill, with a note tied to its leg.
Unfolding the note, she found only a few numbers: "the Hour of the Rat. At the tavern on Zhengyang Street, stargazing and fortune-telling."
"This handwriting..." Liu Ying's heart skipped a beat. It was unmistakably Xu Yuan's style.
The night was deepening, and Zhengyang Street was nearly deserted. In the distance, lanterns at the tavern swayed in the wind, casting a solitary figure. Xu Yuan appeared as eccentric as ever, talking to the moon.
" Lady Liu has indeed come," he grinned upon seeing Liu Ying. "The stars said you would."
"Since you know I would come, you must also know what I have," Liu Ying replied as she sat across from him.
"Oh?" Xu Yuan fanned himself with a tattered fan. "The stars only mentioned that you hold a key to unlock secrets."
Liu Ying's heart tightened. Did he really know about the Copper Key?
"The key is one thing," she said nonchalantly as she took out the Star Chart. "What you should be more concerned about is this."
Xu Yuan paused for a moment, his eyes sparkling with interest. "Interesting; it seems to be my father's handwriting." He quickly resumed his eccentric demeanor. "What a pity, what a pity—madmen cannot comprehend such nebulous matters."
"Is that so?" Liu Ying scoffed. "Then why did that madman appear precisely when Tai Bai was seen during the day? Why does he know so much about the celestial phenomena from twenty years ago?"
"Because..." Xu Yuan suddenly became serious, his voice low. "Some truths are written in the stars."
He picked up his teacup and slowly turned it. By candlelight, Liu Ying suddenly noticed that the shadows reflected at the bottom of the cup were remarkably similar to the arrangement on the Star Chart.
"When my family was raided years ago, an important item went missing," Xu Yuan casually remarked. "I heard it was a Bronze Mirror."
Liu Ying's heart jolted. Wasn't it a Bronze Mirror that her grandfather had entrusted to her before he passed?
"What do you mean by that, Mr. Xu?"
"Nothing much," Xu Yuan replied, reverting to his eccentricity again. "Just heard that mirror is quite special; if held up to moonlight, it reveals different celestial phenomena."
Liu Ying pondered this thoughtfully. Recalling the Copper Key and then thinking of the Bronze Mirror, she sensed there must be a connection between them.
Just then, footsteps echoed outside. Xu Yuan's expression changed; he quickly left something on the table and turned to leave. "It's getting late; we'll talk another day."
Liu Ying looked down to see a Bronze Fragment with faint runic patterns visible on it. Just as she leaned in for a closer look, she heard someone outside ask, "Did anyone come by just now?"
"Nothing, nothing, just a madman talking to himself," came the voice of the innkeeper.
Once the footsteps faded away, Liu Ying let out a sigh of relief. She carefully stored the Bronze Fragment, but her heart was in turmoil. The patterns on this fragment were strikingly similar to those on the bronze mirror left by her grandfather!
On her way home, she pondered deeply. If she connected the Heavenly Mechanism Hides Jade Balance from the Star Chart with Xu Yuan's hints... Suddenly, she stopped in her tracks.
"A Fu," she called to the young servant following her, "go prepare a Bright Lantern. Tonight, I want to take a close look at that bronze mirror."
As night deepened and a bright moon hung high in the sky, Liu Ying's room was ablaze with light. She held the Bronze Mirror up to the moonlight and examined it closely. As she did so, she couldn't help but gasp in surprise.
The surface of the mirror revealed a Star Chart under the moonlight, and when combined with Xu Yuan's Bronze Fragment, she could faintly make out a line of text:
"Qixi Midnight, under The Purple Forbidden Enclosure, Tian Ji can be deciphered..."
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