The palace grew restless. Rumors hissed through corridors like snakes in the grass: a treasury audit gone missing, rice shipments vanished, soldiers bribed. At the center of each rumor stood Minister Zhao, calm as a mountain, untouchable.
Yun Xi knew better. The ledgers she had stolen proved his guilt. Yet the Emperor still delayed, cloaking himself in silence.
That silence nearly cost her life.
One evening, as she returned from the archives, two masked men stepped from the shadows of the cloister. Their blades gleamed faintly in the moonlight.
"Scholar Yun," one hissed. "Our master sends his regards."
Steel arced toward her throat. Yun Xi twisted, the blade slicing her sleeve. She stumbled, running across the stones. Her shouts echoed, but the guards were far.
The assassins pursued, their footsteps soft, relentless. She darted into the bamboo grove, heart pounding, until a third shadow appeared—Eunuch Chen, holding a lantern and a dagger no eunuch should possess.
"Run!" he barked.
Steel clashed. Lantern light swung wildly. Yun Xi fled, clutching her wounded arm, until guards finally arrived. By then, the assassins were gone, vanished like smoke.
Back in her chamber, Chen pressed a cloth to her cut. "Minister Zhao grows bold," he muttered. "If he dares to move against you inside the palace, imagine what he does beyond its walls."
Yun Xi's voice shook. "Then the Emperor must act. He cannot ignore this."
But Chen's expression was grim. "The Emperor may already be trapped. Zhao controls the Censorate, half the military, and the flow of grain. To accuse him without unshakable proof is to invite the court to crumble."
The words chilled her. If the Emperor faltered, who could stand against Zhao?
The following morning, whispers greeted her in the scriptorium. Some scribes avoided her eyes; others stared with thinly veiled suspicion. Someone had already spread rumors: that Scholar Yun consorted with traitors, that she herself tampered with records.
Zhao was poisoning the palace against her.
Later, at the Lotus Pavilion, she encountered Mei. The concubine studied her bandaged arm with a sly smile.
"My, Scholar Yun," Mei said sweetly. "The palace grows dangerous, does it not? Even learned men bleed when snakes bite."
"Perhaps the snakes should fear the fire," Yun Xi replied, surprising herself.
Mei's eyes sparkled, as if amused. "Then beware, fire can burn its master as well."
That night, Yun Xi sat awake, the candles guttering low. Every shadow seemed to hide a blade. Every silence whispered her name.
If Zhao's reach extended even here, she had but two choices: to cower and be devoured—or to strike back first.
And Yun Xi had never been one to cower.