The legend of “Laozi leaving through Hangu Pass” says only that he drew seven strands of ominous energy into the seven slips and sealed them with bronze clasps of phoenix, huang, and luan.
Perhaps under his call, the first teams of five were formed—risking life and death, traveling thousands of miles, and fulfilling their mission.
What power did Laozi use to oppose the Seven Stars, the “lords of death”? The Five Elements? Or the five nearby celestial bodies? The phoenix and Luan evoke solar fire—perhaps the clasp’s power came from there.
All of this is lost to time.
After Laozi, Mozi, and Lu Ban became the second to glimpse the truth. Their contributions were immense: the black box, the Four-Archway Observatory, the silver-eyed bats—all were Lu Ban’s designs. And the Mohists decisively crushed organized worship of the ferocious slips, as evidenced by the pit discovered at Cao Village.
Perhaps they should all thank the Mohists. From the Xiao Shang River onward, they mostly faced individuals possessed by the slips—not organized conspiracies. What if countless malicious minds had been manipulating events from the shadows from the start?
It was chilling to consider.
That purge must have been brutal—but it failed to eradicate the root.
The heart is a strange organ. People say “a thought arises from the heart,” yet we know that’s the brain’s function. Still, phrases like “black-hearted” or “kind-hearted” echo Laozi’s view: the essence of a person is the heart—a yin-yang balance of good and evil, equal at the base, differing only in activation.
“The power of the Seven Stars devours good and exalts evil.” If good and evil are inherent factors, then the Seven Stars act like a virus or radiation—consuming good, activating evil, even transforming good into evil, throwing the heart’s balance into chaos.
Luo Ren pointed at the diagram. “The Seven Stars Killing Formation has three parts: Heaven, Earth, and Man. Heaven is the Big Dipper, eternal. Earth is its terrestrial layout—the range determines the formation’s influence.”
“Man refers to those possessed by the slips, reenacting the ancient murders. After committing all seven crimes, their hearts may be transformed—but as Hongsha said, it’s only half-activated. Full activation requires completion of the formation.”
Mu Dai pondered. “So far, only Leopard’s ancestor was half-activated?”
Luo Ren shook his head. “Not just one more—there’s another.”
“Who?”
His gaze fell on Cao Yanhua.
Cao Yanhua started with a dumb grin, then panicked. “Me? Brother Luo, that’s not a joke you can make!”
“Not you,” Luo Ren said. “The one who escaped the pit at the end of the Qin dynasty and founded Cao Village.”
He continued, “Remember when we asked Ya Feng why she chose Qingshan? She said: Because he’s different—and many people in Cao Village are different.”
“Not everyone there is descended from that man,” Luo Ren said, “but some are. They inherited it by blood—just like Leopard.”
Leopard’s ancestor completed one-seventh of the formation and was half-activated. Leopard inherited that bloodline, and with fewer generations between them, she resonated more easily with the slips—her blood, her drawings, even the residual aura of the slips could be sensed.
What would happen if the Seven Stars Killing Formation were fully completed?
The silk said:
When the Seven Stars align, sacrifices complete, the formation fulfilled, the ghostly miasma will surge—bringing the risk of annihilating entire clans.
“Ghostly miasma” didn’t mean superstition. In ancient China, epidemics were often called “ghostly energy.”
Luo Ren speculated: once complete, the activated host would gain the ability to infect others, like radiation.
In other words, it would be an outbreak. After sufficient buildup, seven mobile sources of infection would emerge. They would no longer need the slips; each could infect the next, spreading outward from points to lines to vast areas.
Yan Hongsha stared. “What does the Big Dipper want from all this? It’s just cosmic radiation…”
Wan San corrected her. “This isn’t something the stars want. Ultraviolet light doesn’t intend to cause cancer—it just shines. The stars don’t know or care.”
The radiation simply triggers a reaction—strengthening bodies, reversing death, altering something fundamental.
The ones trying to build the formation weren’t the stars—it was people.
Those who worshiped evil wanted the world to follow their logic, free of restraint. Even if it meant infection, they wanted more of their kind—total control.
No wonder Ya Feng said, “In the end, you’ll be just like us. Everyone is the same.”
She gambled that they wouldn’t succeed. If they didn’t, the disaster would spread unseen.
Greed, plunder, domination, selfishness, exclusion—all would sprout and permeate society.
Hospitals wouldn’t overflow; the media would just lament moral decline. There would be chaos, conflict, and destruction.
Perhaps Laozi foresaw this catastrophe and sealed the slips as he left Hangu Pass.
Mozi and Lu Ban may have seen even further: human desire has no bottom. Even faint, activated bloodlines could reawaken given the chance.
So they prepared—one crushing the cult, the other hiding and preserving the system. If the slips ever returned, there would be people and mechanisms ready to act.
The final line of the silk read:
When the slips align with the stars, and the observatory’s seven lights burn bright, urgency reigns. Dead men must be sent, wave after wave, to resolve this calamity.
This time, there had been a small deviation. Mu Dai was likely meant to be that “dead man”—but by the time she saw this, she had long been entangled in the mire.
…
Outside the tent, Cao Jiefang suddenly crowed loudly. Yan Hongsha opened the flap and gasped—the sky was already beginning to lighten.
Thick fog filled the valley, glowing with the first light of dawn.
Cao Yanhua coughed twice. “Brother Luo… can you explain something? This ‘dead man’—it doesn’t mean what I think it means, does it?”
He forced an uneasy smile. “I started down this road to help my master, then to help San San. I never wanted to be a suicide operative. I wasn’t aiming to die.”
Sam Williams On TYMIMA Chapter 152