The Court of Eastern Records was quiet in the early morning, save for the scratch of brushes and the muted rustle of robes. Dust-motes danced in the shafts of sunlight slanting through the lattice windows. Scrolls lined every wall like weapons in an armory—each one a record, a secret, a chain.
Li Ziyan stepped into her new post without fanfare. No parade, no soft claps of congratulation. Only the cool glance of the Archivist, who barely nodded at her arrival, and the stiff backs of two junior officials who stood when she passed—then whispered as soon as she sat.
She wore her court robes with precise modesty, violet silk pinned with a jade clasp. Her phoenix mark pulsed faintly beneath the sleeve. Not hot. Not cold. As if it, too, were observing.
Wen Yufei stood beside her desk like a statue carved of windless bamboo, hands tucked into his sleeves. His expression betrayed nothing, but his eyes flicked across each official who passed too close.
Her assigned task: compiling military edicts for the southern prefectures, under the guise of reorganizing tax levies for the upcoming campaign.
But the real purpose was different.
Wei's report lay folded beneath her brush stand—its pages filled with coded alerts and names she had not heard since the old capital. General Yun. Burned fields. Disappearing orders. The Grand Commandant's signature on documents dated after his death.
There was no physician's record of Zhao's illness. No mourning rites entered in the temple archives. She had checked twice before her brush touched the first official scroll.
This was no death by natural cause. It was erasure.
"Minister Ziyan," came a voice, syrupy and too loud.
She looked up.
A young noble, dressed in flamboyant crimson, strolled past her desk with two girls trailing like silk shadows. He wore a golden feather pin—House Lu, distant cousin of the Empress.
"I see the palace is more open-minded these days," he said lightly. "Allowing women and nameless sons to rise with ink rather than blood. How progressive."
Ziyan inclined her head. "Perhaps you'll rise the same way, Lord Lu. If ink doesn't prove too heavy for your wrist."
The two girls gasped faintly. The noble flushed, but walked on without reply.
Behind her, Wen Yufei's mouth twitched just slightly at the corner.
Ziyan returned to the scroll before her, eyes sharp. The report Wei gave her hinted at something deeper than mere military deception. A reshuffling of southern contracts. Supply chains for an army that wasn't officially mobilized. And missing names—commanders replaced in silence, others "retired" without public cause.
Meanwhile, far from the palace, the teahouse still breathed.
Wei sat behind the counter, arms crossed, a half-sour scowl on his face as two bickering scholars argued over cup sizes. He poured tea with the grim precision of a man accustomed to war but trapped in diplomacy. The scroll copies he'd sent to Xia were encoded in double cipher, enough to keep them busy while he bought time.
But Wei wasn't the only one watching.
Lian'er sat quietly by the door, her eyes large and unreadable. She never said much, only followed Wei's movements with a quiet intensity that unnerved even him. Once, he found her watching an ant crawl across the table, whispering to it in a language he didn't know.
When Wei asked what she said, she replied: "He was lost. So I gave him a name."
He hadn't pressed further.
But Wei noticed something else now—birds no longer landed on the eaves above her. The street dogs, once common outside, no longer came near. And the servants claimed to hear footsteps at night when the girl was asleep.
Whatever Zhao had left behind in her was still growing.
Back in the palace, Li Qiang stood in the southern compound, where the guards drilled with halberds under banners of war. His post, now formalized under the Bureau of Martial Audit, gave him access to troop orders and strategic planning charts. He had found three sets of falsified orders—slightly mismatched seals, suspiciously fast courier approvals.
Too clean.
Too fast.
He sent word to Ziyan via coded ink on a slip folded between two rice ration reports.
Lianhua, in turn, had uncovered something in the Hall of Cultural Harmony—buried among old ceremonial records. A log of court guests visiting the Empress's private garden two days before Zhao's death. Among them, one of the nobles now leading the southern grain tax reforms.
She pocketed the record, smiling faintly at the fawning court musician beside her. She had learned long ago to sing one song while memorizing another.
That night, the three gathered once more in the teahouse after dark.
"Wei's right," Ziyan said, spreading her documents. "They're hiding something beneath the supply reforms. A military restructuring? A secret army? Or worse—preparing for civil fracture?"
Li Qiang added, "There's no reason to conscript from the southern plains unless they've lost trust in the border clans. That suggests internal betrayal."
Lianhua slid the record forward. "And this noble? He wasn't on the war committee a month ago. Now he meets the Empress privately, and sits with the Chancellor."
Ziyan frowned. "Zhao's death may have been the first move. But the game's still being played. And we still don't know who sits at the center of the board."
In the corner, Lian'er sat quietly with her clay cup of warm tea. Her small hand stirred the steam.
"A storm is coming," she said softly. "But the thunder won't fall where you think it will."
The three paused.
Wei looked up from the scroll he'd been frowning at.
"She speaks like a priest," he muttered. "Or something worse."
Ziyan didn't answer.
Her phoenix mark flared once beneath her sleeve—sharp, hot. But no vision came. No whisper. Just heat. As if something behind the veil had noticed her gaze and waited.