The glazed tiles of the Forbidden City shimmered coldly in the moonlight. Chen Yuan's crystalline boots clicked against the white jade balustrade as he gazed at the familiar jade pendant in the display case—the very one he'd touched on Earth—now faintly glowing with a secret aquamarine light that pulsed in step with the talisman at his chest. Reflections of astral radiance from his crystalline pauldron danced across the placard: "Ming‑Dynasty Cloud‑Thunder Jade Pendant." Beneath the label he could just make out the barely visible protective runes swirling—his mother's hidden star‑map.
"Old Qing," he muttered, tracing the new astral filigree on his mechanical arm, "you sure left a classy back‑door for me on Earth." His fingertip brushed the case's glass; at the touch, the cloud‑thunder scales on his gauntlet resonated with the warding sigils painted there. Suddenly, ghostly script appeared on the glass:
"Tamperer—warranty void. —Chen Yuanshan"
He laughed. Even transposed into star‑runes, his father's wobbly handwriting was unmistakable.
Lilith's shadow‑cloak whispered over his pauldrons; her silver eyes flicked to the CCTV cameras rotating overhead.
"Seleni's astral core just detected chaos‑tainted energy on the third floor—like the spawn of a Cthulhu horror." Her fingertip traced the glass, and where it passed, dark sigils from her own shadow‑magics sparked against his talisman. "This museum's CCTV is even trickier than tentacles—every lens is sealed with scraps of Ming‑ and Qing‑era talismans."
Old Mo's caravan idled by the West Corner Tower, mechanical tendrils dipping through the window to greedily absorb residual astral energy from the roof tiles. The once‑nomadic gear‑smith was now cursing at his in‑car compass:
"Kid, your mother secretly re‑enchanted nine pieces here back in the day—somewhere in the Hall of Supreme Harmony, one of the dragon‑roof gargoyles can swallow chaos‑cores like candy." He waved his new astral compass; its needle spun wildly, pointing toward an underground storeroom.
"And wherever your dad stashed his final Entropy Notes, I bet it's partying with that bronze cauldron full of tentacle abominations."
Chen Yuan's crystalline fingers tightened; the display case's glass spider‑cracked.
"So we're sneaking into the Palace at midnight, not for the relics but to sweep your old stash for mines?" He kicked the white marble balustrade—where his cloud‑thunder scaled boots struck, tiny sigils etched themselves into the stone.
"Seleni, can we avoid that bronze cauldron when you lock onto chaos‑energies? I'd hate to make headlines tomorrow: 'Mysterious Android Breaks Into Palace, Ancient Cauldron Vanishes.'"
The iron gate to the sublevel storeroom yawned before them, rusted solid. As Chen Yuan's bone‑resonance brushed the metal, the memories of hundreds of Qing‑dynasty tomb‑wardens flooded his mind—they'd sacrificed their finger‑bones as talismanic paper to guard this vault. His crystalline arm took shape into a bone‑forged key, cloud‑thunder sigils locking crisply into the warded keyhole. Within came the snap and hiss of hidden gears—the same mechanical heartbeat of Ironhold's clockwork prosthetics.
"Old Qing, you pick locksmiths with exquisite taste." He peered inside. Suspended in the gloom hovered a bronze lampstand—its oil not ordinary brimstone but solidified astral essence, flames flickering in cloud‑thunder patterns.
"Next time I visit the Dreamlands, remind Nika to upgrade the Palace locks—at least finger‑print scanners, so I'm not handing over gold‑blood when I visit." At that moment, his talisman slew a pulse of astral light into the lamp, igniting its flame to full brilliance and revealing heaps of bronze artifacts stacked to the rafters.
A dull groan rattled from the back. Chen Yuan's stellarsense picked up seventeen aberrant ley‑lines converging on him. He grabbed Lilith and dove aside just as the cauldron's lid blew sky‑high—and out crawled a half‑clockwork horror. Its bronze-carapace bore twisting runes of Cthulhu script; embedded in its belly rot was a fragment of the Heart of the Furnace; its claws were forged from Ming‑era blades.
"If the museum finds out this cauldron harbors a tentacle‑monster, they'll revoke my pass." Chen Yuan's crystalline arm shifted into a chainsaw‑blade, the cloud‑thunder edge humming perfectly to the bronze's density.
"Lilith, seal its chaotic core with shadow‑magic! Old Mo, train your eyeball‑amulet on its Furnace shard—let's perform a painless disassembly and file a deaccession!"
The fight was uncanny: the horror absorbed mechanical energies, each saw‑cut drained his arm's power—until he realized its Furnace shard matched his own crystalline graft. In a spark of insight, he shifted into the Inverse Entropy Rite, matching his aura to the shard's resonance. It floated from the beast's belly into his hand, faint runes spelling "Yuanshan."
"Defective pirated parts," he chuckled, locking the shard into his arm's energy well. Right before his eyes, the cracks in the crystal healed, gears meshing in harmony.
"Mo, can that shard serve as a spare battery? Last time it short‑circuited, and I ended up barbecuing my leg."
Old Mo's tendrils snatched the recovered Entropy Notes from the cauldron. His eye‑amulet clicked in delight:
"Better than batteries—that's pure chaos quintessence your father refined. It'll immunize your arm against Cthulhu corruption. But…" He tapped the Entropy Notes, the cover reading A Guide to Raising Cthulhu Beasts—"Dad nearly turned the Palace's guardian lions into walking corpses. Good thing your mother anchored their souls with astral runes, else the museum would've noticed."
Seleni's star‑shards floated overhead, drawing a warning astral glyph on the marble floor:
"Chaos‑cores approaching—Earth‑branch cultists at twelve o'clock!"
Their heavy footfalls echoed—through a vent, Chen Yuan saw a dozen spleen‑bringers in Zhongshan suits carrying a bronze coffin bound with living gears, each cog inset with human finger‑bones etched in cloud‑thunder sigils—bones he recognized. One bone wore the same prosthetic‑ring on Its ring finger.
"Cthulhu‑style antiquities smugglers?" he murmured. His crystalline arm morphed into triple autocannons; cloud‑thunder star‑flak shredded their bone‑cogs. Each blast splintered runes into fragments of the Scroll of Returning Spring—his father's warding inscription—detonating across the cryptic gears.
"Lilith, sever the coffin's neural wards with shadow!» «Seleni, pinpoint the True Core inside—tonight, we hold an auction of cursed relics, and teach these cultists antiquities law."
They flung open the coffin. Inside lay a half‑clockwork corpse: breastplate inset with his mother's identical jade pendant, an artificed heart of astral energy beating beneath bronze plates. On her wrist, a fine inscription: 0731‑1999—his birthdate and her death‑day. His crystalline finger traced the rune‑brand: 0731—his own birth.
"Mom…" His voice caught. The crystalline arm flared, scales igniting into protective wards—his mother's final guardian spells wove across his flesh.
"Old Qing," he murmured, "you really skimped on Mom's heart mechanics? Those tolerances aren't even as precise as Ironhold's limbs—no wonder she escaped the Deep Ones." His talisman throbbed violently, pouring his mother's talisman‑shard power into his graft until its pulse matched his own cybernetic veins.
The cultists' bodies erupted in chaos energies. Chen Yuan swept his mother's coffin into the talisman's sanctuary. His crystalline arm revealed its full might—twelve tri‑colored wings of gear, star‑path, and thunder‑sigil. Each wing launched bone‑arrows etched with Cultural Relics Protection Regulations, blasting the corruption away.
"Mo! Catch your new museum piece!" he called, flinging stolen chaos‑cores into the caravan. Old Mo's tendrils caught them; runes on the cores rearranged into Mandarin warnings: "No unauthorized excavation of cultural relics."
"Seleni, what'll Mom be most upset about? Me—or Mo?"
Seleni's astral core glistened: the shards formed her mother swinging a wrench. "The stars… say she'll check your maintenance logs first—did Nika forget to teach you gearbox lubrication? And why are your boot‑treads caked with palace moss?"
By dawn, the Palace's drums sounded. Chen Yuan stared at the jade pendant, now humming in perfect unison with his own. The glass warding became his mother's script:
"Yuanchild—seek the third astral anchor at the Nanjing Museum. P.S. Change the oil in your arm—don't use Palace incense!"
Old Mo, atop the caravan, tuned Furnace shards as the first rays of sun touched him. His eye‑amulet mirrored a young Chen Yuanshan at Nanjing, snapping a peace sign beside a giant bronze urn:
"Kid, your mother hid seven astral anchors on Earth. One's locked in that Nanjing shrine," he chuckled.
Lilith pointed: several hazmat‑suited officials approached, electric torches bearing cloud‑thunder sigils. "The Earth chapter of the Grey Robes—here to reclaim chaos‑cores." Her silver eyes glinted mischievously as she pressed an honorary "Imperial Relics Specialist" badge onto his crystalline arm.
"Do we tell them your arm's forged from Yongle's meteoric iron?" she teased.
"Nah." He tapped a wheel. The treads left cloud‑thunder tire‑prints in the dust.
"I'm more worried if Nika can design Mom a new mechanical limb—something in the Palace's Hanlin Academy style, lotus‑scroll gears, a jade bangle interface. Gotta match her taste, not my 'Cthulhu farm‑chic.'"
As the caravan dove into the astral rift, Chen Yuan glanced back at the Forbidden City. Guards were patrolling wreckage lines around the dismantled bronze cauldron—it was reforming into an ordinary artifact. He touched his talisman, feeling his mother's shard hum; his crystalline arm unconsciously carved a new astral rift—its far end shimmering with the flying eaves of Nanjing Museum, stone beasts on the roof nodding in greeting.
"Talisman," he whispered to the void, "if I trademark 'Entropy Reversal Restoration', can I corner the Cthulhu‑antiquities market? Who else polishes bronze with a mech‑arm while purifying chaos?"
His talisman pulsed warmly—the voice of the First Magus echoing across time.
And deep below, in the hidden vault, the coffin's gears quietly turned. His mother's heartbeat synced with his crystal graft. Old Mo slipped another Furnace shard inside, smiling as he pulled out a yellowed steamer‑ticket: Nanjing to Chongqing, 1937—the names read Chen Yuanshan & Su Mingyue. Their true names, on a long‑forgotten voyage.
Lilith's shadow‑cloak sealed the caravan as they vanished into the star‑rift. In her silver gaze danced the image of a future lecture at Nanjing Museum—children with jade pendants learning proper documentation of clockwork revenants, one of them stamped with the same lotus‑gear motif as his mother's new arm.
"Wait," he laughed, "before I become the PLA's star lecturer, let me turn the First Magus's memory‑bubbles into a palace night‑lamp—way better than drinking my childhood fears for dinner."
The caravan's bells died away on the astral winds of the fractured plains. And behind them, the city's ley‑lines glowed brighter—ruins and relics alike now humming with cleansed energies. Those who once knelt in fear now raised lanterns of bone‑gruel, celebrating the paradox: an Earthling‑turned‑magus, who repaired bronze and shattered chaos, walking the razor‑edge between two worlds, writing a new symphony of entropy reversed.