The dead patch of earth beneath the tree was a black eye staring up at the sky. Wei Ji studied it from his window, the empty tea pot beside him. They had tried a direct poison. The subtle, invitation-based plots were off the table. That meant the next move would be either more direct, or more clever.
He started with the name. Cook Hong.
"I need to know everything about him," Wei Ji said to Old Wen, who was still looking raw-eyed but steadier after his confession. "Not as a spy. As a man. Why does a palace cook owe the Revenue Minister a debt large enough to kill for?"
Old Wen's knowledge of the palace's underbelly was deep and sour. By mid-morning, he had the shape of it. "His daughter. Twelve years old. She lives with her mother in the artisans' quarter. She fell ill two years ago—a wasting sickness, a corruption of the spiritual veins that would cost a fortune to treat. The clinic that took her in is the 'Golden Jade Sanctuary.' It is owned by a cousin of Minister Hua Tai. The debts… are astronomical."
A sick child. It was the oldest, dirtiest lever in the world. Wei Ji felt a familiar disgust, cold and sharp. He'd seen it before—loans tied to voting blocs, medical bills that decided elections.
"I need to see that clinic," Wei Ji said.
Using his ministerial seal for the first time, he commandeered a simple palanquin. He didn't bring guards. Spectacle was not the goal. Information was.
The Golden Jade Sanctuary was in a wealthy merchant district. It looked serene, with a white wall and a graceful roof. It smelled of expensive incense and despair.
Wei Ji walked in, wearing his one decent robe. He projected an air of bored authority. "I am Minister Wei Ji, Office of Strategic Affairs. Imperial audit of charitable institutions. I require your patient ledger for the last three years. Now."
The head clerk, a man with overly oiled hair, sputtered. "Minister, this is highly irregular! Patient confidentiality—"
"Is secondary to imperial oversight," Wei Ji interrupted, his voice flat. "The Empress is concerned about the flow of charitable funds. Would you prefer I return with the Office of Imperial Censors?"
The threat was vague, but the man's fear was specific. He fetched the ledger.
Wei Ji scanned the entries, his heart a cold stone in his chest. There it was. 'Hong Mei. Chronic Spiritual Atrophy. Treatment: weekly Qi-infused acupuncture, spirit-herb baths…' The costs listed were staggering.
"I wish to see this patient's current prognosis," Wei Ji said. "Fetch her treatment scroll."
The clerk hesitated, then disappeared into the back. He returned with a single scroll. Wei Ji unrolled it. It was detailed, full of complex medical terminology. Too detailed. The handwriting was too uniform, too perfect. It was a story, not a record.
"When was her last examination?" Wei Ji asked.
"Yesterday, Minister."
"I will see the physician who performed it."
"He… is not in."
"The herb mixes prescribed. I will see the recipe logs."
"They are with the alchemist, who is also out."
Wei Ji leaned forward, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Let me tell you what I think. I think the girl Hong Mei was mildly ill two years ago. A fever. And you made it into a golden goose. I think the diagnosis is as fake as the compassion in this room. The debt is a chain. Now, you can give me the real records, or I can have this building shut down and you can explain your fraud to the Minister of Justice, who, I hear, dislikes people who exploit sick children."
The clerk's face drained of blood. He vanished again and returned with a different, much thinner scroll.
Wei Ji read it. His knuckles turned white.
Hong Mei had been treated for a seasonal fever. Two weeks of common herbs. She was pronounced fully recovered twenty-three months ago. Every document since was a fabrication. The debt was pure fiction.
The Revenue Minister hadn't just found a lever. He had built the entire lever from lies.
The palace kitchens were a universe of steam, shouting, and clanging metal. Wei Ji found Cook Hong in a corner, pounding dough with a frantic, terrified energy. He was a small man, sweat plastering his thinning hair to his scalp.
"A word, Cook Hong," Wei Ji said. "In private."
Hong flinched as if struck. He led Wei Ji to a stifling, small storeroom off the main kitchen, sacks of rice stacked to the ceiling.
"I know about your daughter," Wei Ji said, closing the door.
Hong's knees buckled. He grabbed a sack to steady himself. "Minister, please… I had no choice…"
"She's not sick, Hong."
The cook stared, uncomprehending. "What?"
"The ailment. The spiritual atrophy. It was a lie. The clinic fabricated it. Your daughter has been healthy for nearly two years. The Revenue Minister's people have been lying to you to keep you in debt. To keep you as their weapon."
Hong's mouth opened and closed. Denial, confusion, and a dawning, horrific hope fought in his eyes. "No… they showed me her, she was pale… they said the treatments were keeping her alive…"
"They were keeping your fear alive," Wei Ji said, his voice relentless but not unkind. "Think. After you poison me, what happens? A murder in the palace. An investigation. A cook with suspicious debts. You are the perfect loose end. They will hang you, Hong. And with you dead, who pays the 'debts' on your healthy daughter? They own her, then. Or they drop the pretense, and she wonders why her father killed himself after committing murder."
The logic was a cold knife, slicing through the man's desperation. Hong slid down the rice sack onto the floor, a broken puppet. He didn't cry. He just trembled.
"They gave me the powder," he whispered, staring at his flour-dusted hands. "It was to go in your noon meal tomorrow. Tasteless. Works in six hours. Looks like a Qi blockage."
Wei Ji crouched down, bringing himself to Hong's level. "You have a choice. You can be their ending. Or you can be my beginning."
Hong looked up, eyes red-rimmed. "What choice?"
"Serve me. Feed them false information about my habits, my health, my schedule. Play the terrified accomplice. And I will have your daughter and wife moved out of the city tonight, to a real healer in the south who owes Old Wen a favor. They will be safe. The debt will vanish, because it never existed."
The offer hung in the dusty air. It was not forgiveness. It was a transaction. A lifeline made of cunning, not compassion.
"Why?" Hong breathed. "Why would you do this? I was going to kill you."
"Because a willing spy is more valuable than a dead cook," Wei Ji said, standing. "And because the man who controls the poison, controls the feast."
He left Hong sitting among the sacks, the truth and the offer settling onto his shoulders like a new weight—one that might just keep him from drowning.
Returning to his office, Wei Ji found it occupied.
The Head Maid, Su Lin, stood in the center of the room. She was a woman in her forties, her hair in a severe, perfect bun, her posture so straight it seemed to defy gravity. Her eyes swept over the barren space like a general surveying a worthless battlefield.
"Minister Wei," she said, her voice cool and smooth as porcelain. "A routine inspection of administrative office cleanliness. The Empress desires all branches of the court to reflect the empire's dignity."
She moved, not waiting for his response. Her fingers trailed along the windowsill. She adjusted the lone chair an inch to the right. She paused at his desk, her gaze falling on the stack of blank paper. With a faint, almost imperceptible nod, she reached out and straightened the stack, her sleeve brushing against the wall behind the desk.
"Disorder is a breeding ground for neglect," she said, her eyes meeting his for a fraction of a second. There was nothing in them. No warmth, no malice, nothing. "A clean workspace is a clear mind."
She left as silently as she had arrived, leaving behind the scent of starch and plum blossom.
Wei Ji went to his desk. He looked where her hand had brushed the wall. The plaster there, near where he'd found the first crude listening formation, felt different. Cooler. He pressed it. A tiny, almost undetectable flow of energy that had been present since he arrived—a background hum he'd attributed to palace Qi—was gone.
She hadn't just inspected. She had deactivated a listening formation he hadn't even found. And she had done it without a word, under the thinnest of pretexts.
Was it a warning? I can access your space. Or was it help? You had another ear.
He couldn't tell. The game was layers deep.
The information from Cook Hong, now his double agent, was immediate. "The Revenue Minister," Hong had stammered before he left. "He is not just greedy. He is afraid. He whispers about 'stone shipments' and 'audit trails.' He fears you will look at the numbers."
Spiritual stone shortages. The thread from the ledger. It was all connected.
As dusk painted the room in deep blue, the formal challenge arrived.
It was delivered not by a servant, but by a sneering young man in military disciple robes. He slammed a letter, sealed with a personal sigil, onto Wei Ji's desk.
"From Disciple Lang Kwei of the Iron Mountain Sect, attached to the Imperial Guard," the youth announced. "You have insulted the martial honor of the court by refusing a display of strength. You are a coward hiding behind paperwork. To restore balance, he challenges you to a duel of honor. Dawn tomorrow. The Garden of Whispering Willows. Weapons: optional. Death: acceptable."
The young disciple spat on the floor and left.
Wei Ji picked up the letter. Disciple Lang Kwei. A name he'd heard in Old Wen's gossip. A brutish, low-talent cultivator from a minor family known for buying his post. Also known for duels where his opponent always seemed to 'slip' or 'misjudge' Lang Kwei's 'uncontrolled' power.
The military faction hadn't retreated. They had simply switched from an accident to an execution.
He had no cultivation. He had a day.
The Head Maid's gift of tea sat on his desk. The calm she wished for him felt like a very dark joke.
He looked at the challenge, then at the dead patch of earth outside his window.
The first move had been poison. The second was a blade.
He had until dawn to find a third option.