The back room of the Hall of Assembled Treasures had become their war room.
The air, thick with the scent of aged sandalwood and Xiao Tong's calming tea, was now charged with a nervous, electric energy. In the center of the room, on a large sheet of rice paper, Chen Wei had meticulously replicated the energy patterns he had recorded at the Elysian Spire.
It wasn't a drawing of symbols, but a complex flowchart of interconnected nodes and energy currents, looking more like a server architecture diagram than an ancient magical formation.
Xiao Tong stared at the diagram, her brow furrowed in deep concentration. She had a cup of tea in her hand but hadn't taken a sip.
"It's a Thất Tinh Mê Hồn Trận—a Seven Star Bewilderment Formation," she said, her voice low and grave. "An ancient array designed to confuse the senses and trap spirits. But this... this is a monstrous mutation of it."
"How so?" Chen Wei asked, leaning closer.
"The traditional formation uses seven anchors—talismans, sacred stones, or mirrors—placed according to celestial alignments," she explained, pointing a slender finger at one of the nodes he'd drawn. "But she's not using stones. Your diagram shows the anchor points are... what are these labels? 'Sonos-Main,' 'Router-2.4G,' 'OLED-Display'..."
"Her high-end electronics," Chen Wei confirmed. "The smart speakers, the primary wi-fi router, the main television. They are the seven 'stars' of her formation."
It wasn't just magic; it was genius. A distributed network, Chen Wei thought, translating it into his own language. Instead of a centralized server, she used multiple, seemingly independent devices to create a decentralized, resilient security system. If one node failed, the others could compensate. It was a spiritual mesh network. The ancient principles were the operating system, but the hardware was cutting-edge. Hu Meilan wasn't just a monster; she was a brilliant, terrifying systems architect.
"So, to break it, we just need to destroy the devices?" Chen Wei asked, his mind already calculating the logistics.
"No," Xiao Tong countered immediately, her voice sharp. "Destroying one would be like throwing a rock at a hornet's nest. The others would instantly react, the whole array would go into lockdown, and she would know we were there in a second. Brute force is a trap."
She traced a finger over the diagram. "This formation is designed to be elegant, balanced. So our solution must also be elegant."
As she spoke, a small, carved wooden cricket cage on a nearby shelf began to vibrate silently. Chen Wei, hyper-attuned to his surroundings, felt it first—a faint, discordant hum.
"Xiao Tong," he said quietly, pointing. "That."
She glanced over. Her eyes narrowed. The vibrations were growing stronger, and the tiny wooden cricket, a simple automaton powered by a minuscule sliver of spiritual energy, began to move erratically, its legs twitching in a chaotic rhythm. The array's residual energy was corrupting the simple charm, driving it "insane."
Xiao Tong moved swiftly. She grabbed a small, bronze bell from her toolkit, walked to the cage, and rang it once. The clear, sharp tone cut through the air, and the foul vibrations ceased. The wooden cricket fell still.
"See?" she said, returning to the table. "Even a tiny echo of that formation is enough to cause chaos in a lesser system. We can't afford any mistakes."
The small interruption served as a stark, physical reminder of the power they were dealing with. This wasn't just a diagram on paper. It was a living, dangerous thing.
"You mentioned before... about deceiving it," Xiao Tong said, her focus returning to the diagram. "Your idea about creating a system error. Explain."
"The array works by maintaining a specific energy frequency, a state of perfect balance between its nodes," Chen Wei explained, his confidence growing as he returned to his area of expertise. "If we can introduce a signal that mimics its own frequency but with a flawed, corrupted piece of 'data,' we could trick the system into trying to 'correct' the error. While it's busy running diagnostics on itself, it would create a temporary vulnerability—a window where the bewilderment effect is weakened. We could slip through."
He pointed to a spot on the diagram. "I can create a device, a 'trojan horse,' to broadcast that corrupted signal. I'll need to use my ability to tune it perfectly to the formation's frequency."
Xiao Tong stared at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "A Trojan Horse... A 'magic USB drive.' Chen Wei, you are a menace. A brilliant, sacrilegious menace." She laughed, a rare, genuine sound of appreciation. "It could work."
Her smile faded as a new thought struck her. She looked from the diagram to Chen Wei, a new concern in her eyes. "Wait. To create the 'ghost battery,' you channeled the raw power of a city block. It nearly flattened you. The signal you're describing... it wouldn't need that much raw power, but it would require an incredible amount of precision. You'd have to hold a single, complex, and 'unnatural' frequency steady for several minutes. The mental strain would be immense."
She walked over to a locked cabinet. "When a Daoist performs a complex ritual, we use aids to help focus our will. But for what you're describing, you'll need something more."
She unlocked the cabinet and carefully removed a small, intricate object. It was a "Mind-Calming Disc," a disc of pure, white jade inlaid with a complex silver pattern that seemed to shift and move if you stared at it for too long.
"This will help you hold your focus," she said. "But it's a passive tool. To generate the kind of signal you need without frying your own brain, you'll need a better power source than just your own stamina."
She looked around the room, her eyes landing on the eight unused obsidian spheres from their session with Qian Lao Gui.
"That's it," she said, her eyes lighting up. "We can't use raw urban qi again; it's too volatile. But we can use the stored energy in these. We'll create a new device, a 'filter' or a 'capacitor.' It will draw the stable, pre-processed yin energy from these batteries, and you will act as the final 'modulator,' shaping that clean energy into the corrupted signal we need. It will be safer, more controlled."
Chen Wei looked from the complex diagram to the obsidian spheres to the Mind-Calming Disc in Xiao Tong's hand. The plan was becoming more complex by the second. Every solution they found only seemed to uncover a deeper, more complex layer of the problem.
But for the first time, Chen Wei didn't feel overwhelmed. He felt a thrill.
This was a challenge. This was a system waiting to be cracked.
"Alright," he said, picking up the jade disc. Its surface was cool and smooth, and holding it seemed to quiet the frantic buzzing in his mind. "Let's build a capacitor."