The spirit stones under the floor were a ticking clock. Not just for the deadline, but for him. A mortal with wealth was a walking target. A mortal who spent wealth, however, was an investment portfolio.
Li Fan spent the morning of the second day not in the archives, but in the servant's corridors and the guard's muster yard. He watched. He listened. He identified the cracks where a little light could slip in.
He found the kitchen servant, a harried woman named Mei, being berated by a steward for a burnt offering cake. Li Fan waited, then approached her alone in a pantry corridor. He didn't offer sympathy. He offered a transaction.
"The stewards are unforgiving," he said quietly, holding up a single, faintly glowing low-grade spirit stone. "A mistake can cost a week's wages. This could cover it. In return, I need to know: in the last month, have any special deliveries for the elder's quarters bypassed the main kitchen? Unusual herbs, metals, pungent salts?"
Mei's eyes locked on the stone, then darted to his face. Fear and want warred. The stone represented safety. The information felt harmless. "There… were two crates for Elder Liu's private pavilion. Sealed. They smelled… sharp. Like lightning and wet stone. The guards complained about the weight."
Array materials. Foundation stones for a siphon. "Thank you." He pressed the stone into her flour-dusted hand. It disappeared into her apron. She gave a quick, terrified bow and scurried away.
He found a guardsman, Lao Chen, looking glum outside the barracks. Li Fan had heard the others laughing about his lost bet on a spirit-beetle fight. He sat on a bench nearby, not looking at him. "Rough luck."
Lao Chen grunted. "The beetle was a coward."
"A man should never be at the mercy of a coward's choices," Li Fan said, placing a spirit stone on the bench between them. "I find myself needing to appreciate the palace's quieter beauty at odd hours. A map of the less-traveled ways, the routes the patrols find… tedious, would be worth this. No one needs to know about the beetle."
Lao Chen stared at the stone. His debt was to a fellow guard, a man who wouldn't be kind. He looked at Li Fan, a mortal official with strange requests. He grabbed the stone. A minute later, a folded scrap of parchment, hand-sketched with alleyways and garden walls, was in Li Fan's hand.
It was a start. A network of one.
He returned to his room. He had one audience with the Empress scheduled before the final day. He needed to present something real. He focused on the System store. His Favor Points were at zero, but he had given gifts. The System log showed a tally: minor services, information provided. It granted him 5 FP. Enough.
He purchased the cheapest mental buff: [Basic Truth Discernment (Single Use): 5 FP]. The description was vague: "Aid in perceiving veracity in a subject's immediate reaction." A lie detector, for one conversation.
When he was summoned that afternoon, he activated it. A cool, sharp clarity settled behind his eyes.
Empress Huang Yue was in her annex. She looked tired. The earth in her eyes seemed dulled, the weight of the mountain literally on her shoulders.
"Your time dwindles, Minister Li. Do you have a solution, or just more observations?"
Li Fan bowed. He chose his words as carefully as placing stones on a scale. "Your Majesty. I have studied the failure. The symptoms do not match any natural decay in the archives. The energy is not fading. It is being pulled. Against the flow. The veins are not sick. They are being bled."
He stopped. He offered no evidence he couldn't explain. No names. Just the conclusion.
The room was silent. Huang Yue's expression did not change. But the Truth Discernment buff flared behind Li Fan's eyes. He saw it—a micro-expression. A flicker in the depth of her gaze. Not surprise. Not doubt. It was recognition. A deep, weary, pained recognition. She had known. Or at least, she had feared this.
She had hoped she was wrong.
"Bled," she repeated, the word flat. "By whom?"
"The direction of the pull is internal, Your Majesty," Li Fan said, carefully. "Towards the heart of the palace. Who has the knowledge, the access, and the motive to weaken the foundation of your power?"
He was stating the obvious. He was also giving her an out. He wasn't accusing; he was outlining a profile.
She leaned back, her fingers steepled. The weariness was now layered with something harder: resolve. "Suspicion is not proof. A ruler cannot act on a minister's… geomantic intuition."
"Proof requires access," Li Fan ventured. "To compare energy output logs with material requisition logs. To see if the drain correlates with any… internal projects."
She looked at him for a long moment. The buff showed him the calculation in her eyes. He was a tool. A blunt, strange, mortal tool. But he was pointing where she could not afford to look directly. If he found proof, it was his doing. If he failed and made an enemy, he was the expendable mortal.
"The Vein Maintenance Logs are under the purview of Elder Liu," she said finally, her voice devoid of all emotion. "He maintains them with diligence. You may ask him for the relevant volumes. Tell him I commanded it."
The order was a masterpiece of political poison. She was giving him authority, while throwing him directly at the source of the corruption. She was testing both him and Liu.
Li Fan bowed, accepting the deadly chess piece. "I will see it done, Your Majesty."
As he left, the Truth Discernment buff faded, leaving a dull headache. He had confirmation. The Empress was not blind. She was trapped. And she had just handed him a knife, told him to inspect it, and sent him into the workshop of the man who forged it.
He walked slowly back to his room. The spirit stones were mostly gone, spent on whispers and a map. The Favor Points were spent on a glimpse of truth. All his capital was now invested in a single, dangerous move: walking into Elder Liu's domain and asking for the book that would incriminate him.
This wasn't economics. This was high-stakes poker. And he was about to show his hand to the player he suspected of cheating.