Ma Gok lifted his hand and, without a word, passed the sealed oilcloth bundle across the narrow parapet to Jang. The cloth was coarse—spun from tremor-leaf fibers—and slick with resin that smelled faintly of wormwood. Jang frowned at the bundle's weight before tucking it beneath his cloak. Steam curled between them like a third presence, hiding their exchange from prying eyes below.
"When the ledger speaks," Ma Gok said, voice low enough that only wind and steam carried it, "it must never sound alone." He tapped the bundle with a knuckle, an echo of that secret code thrice repeated. "Inside: duplicate flogging records, and a sketch of ash-vent passages—crawlways under the ink-house and through the boilers. They could carry a man unseen to the heart of the archives."
Jang's fingers itched to unwrap the cloth, to see red strokes on bamboo strips, but he held still. "Proof is flint," Ma Gok went on, almost to himself, "but strike only when tinder is ready. Sparks cast light—and shadows."
The old man's gaze went distant, tracing shapes in the tower's curling vapors. For a heartbeat, Jang imagined those clouds as the stirrings of unseen conspirators—Black-Vulture agents skirting through hidden channels, tagging pages with rune-keys stolen in the night. He could feel the ledger's promise pulsing against his ribs.
Ma Gok straightened, his silhouette swallowed by steam. "Remember—steel bent by force can snap back." He tapped the cane once more, a muted chime that reverberated in Jang's chest. "Soften them first."
Before Jang could ask how to light such a fire, the elder stepped back, fading into the mist until he was no more than a breath of iron-sharp air. The cane's last echo slipped downhill, then was gone. The parapet felt suddenly vast, the moon a distant witness to Jang's solitude.
Alone, he unwrapped the bundle. The ledger duplicates lay in neat stacks, bamboo strips bound with crimson thread. Each bore neat columns of cinnabar strokes—those bars of punishment that once measured flesh against folly—now numbered beyond the appointed limit by forty strokes. Anger flared in Jang's chest, a raw, hot weight that matched the Gate's ache beneath his ribs.
He flipped open the folded map tucked beneath the ledgers: a fine ink-drawn diagram of ash-vents, narrow as serpent spines, running from the servant baths, under the infirmary floor, threading behind the jade screens of the Inner Archives, and resurfacing in the ink-house's rafters. If one navigated by steam whispers, the blowpipes could carry him straight to the heart of the sect's hidden knowledge.
Lightning flashed across the sky—no thunder yet—but Jang imagined that heaven itself had heard the ledger's accusation. He tucked strips and map into his sash, letting the cloth's wormwood scent anchor him to purpose. The tower's wind buffeted his ash-grey headband, snapping it like a flag of rebellion against his temples.
He closed his eyes and let Lotus-Mist flicker around his heart, a trembling bloom of jade-silver energy so faint even he almost missed it. Then he stilled it, forcing breath into measured counts, letting the wind carry away the excess echo in his ears. In that stillness, he could hear distant sluice valves turning, laundry tubs groaning with their hidden cargo, the heartbeat of the Sect itself, blind to the insurgent pulse he now carried.
Three cane taps snapped behind him—sharp, deliberate. He spun, ready for threat, only to see empty stone and swirling steam. No footfall, no pipe ember, only the night's quiet breathing. The signal, old as their secret code, told Jang that Ma Gok's watchers were everywhere: in the steam vents, in the bell towers, in the silent obsidian courts.
He stood on the edge of the parapet, moonlight pooling at his feet, held by nothing more than mist and the ledger's silent testimony. Inside, his heart hammered with the memory of every injustice recorded, every stroke of red that mapped cruelty metered by law. The archival codes, the forged scroll, the headband's knot—all were tools waiting for the right hammer.
Jang pressed a hand to the ledger's rough bundle at his side, feeling the bamboo's grain and the thread's tension. He could summon the servants to rise, brandish the proof before every elder and disciple, tear open the cupboards of state. Or he could bury it, let the ashes of discretion hide the spark until a hotter flame could seize the iron.
The wind stilled, and in the sudden hush, Jang voiced his vow, so quietly it merged with the steam's exhalation: Gather fire, bend iron.
He folded the bundle against his chest, letting the moon catch the ledger's red stains and the grey petal tucked in the fold; a promise etched in blood and ash. No trumpets sounded, no lanterns flickered—only the distant wash of laundry steam on stone.
And in that silent coronation, he felt the weight of both power and price settle on his shoulders, ash-crown cold as the obsidian beneath his knees.