The city celebrated the saving of the grain with river lanterns—tiny paper houses set afloat to carry hunger away.
From the palace balcony Yue watched thousands of orange specks drift downstream, each a promise that tomorrow would not starve.
She knew better; she had signed the requisition forms. Tomorrow would simply be hungry in a different way.
Behind her, the council's newest decree lay open on lacquered stands:
Protector of Grain Routes Lan Yue is hereby charged with permanent escort of imperial caravans north and south, and with rooting out every tributary of the dissolved Red Lantern Guild.
She will answer only to the Throne.
A bigger lamp, a brighter target.
Imperial Mint – three days later
Copper coins for paying drivers, silver for bribing border guards, gold leaf for the trap.
Yue walked the vaults with the Mint's vice-director, a thin man whose abacus clicked like nervous teeth.
"Protector," he bowed, "we can stamp new tally-sticks, but we cannot track every forgery already in the provinces."
She lifted a fresh-minted grain token—square, hole in center, rim carved with micro-script:
"Heaven feeds the people; the people feed Heaven."
Beautiful, easy to counterfeit.
She dropped it back into the chest.
"Then we change the game, not the coin."
The River Docks – night
Barges unloaded salt, silk, smuggled weapons.
Yue arrived in dock-hand clothes, hair under felt cap, Chen Wei beside her hauling a fake barrel.
They followed a whisper: Red Lantern survivors meeting tonight, re-branding themselves White Moon Society, planning to hijack the first spring convoy—the one meant to seal the treaty forever.
In a mildewed storehouse, lanterns glowed crimson beneath paper painted white—half mourning, half disguise.
Men in porters' garb circled a table where a woman in river-pilot blue counted silver.
Yue recognized her: Captain Ling Yao, once licensed to carry imperial couriers, dismissed last year for "excessive toll charges."
Now she wore rebellion like perfume.
Ling's voice carried:
"Hit the convoy at Willow Narrows. Grain into river, prices sky-rocket, White Moon buys cheap futures, guild rises from the foam."
A murmur of approval.
Yue counted twenty-five blades, two crossbows, one hand-cannon.
Enough to sink a barge, not enough to hold it.
They needed inside intelligence—routes, timing, guard rotations.
Her own report, filed yesterday, sat in the palace archive.
A traitor inside the bureau.
She felt the jade-and-stone tokens thump against her breastbone—roots heavier than wings.
Signal – midnight
She slipped outside, uncorked a tiny clay bottle—firefly larvae bred by Wen Ruo.
Green glow painted three short flashes on the water.
Upstream, hidden archers (Han's picked men) answered with one long flash—acknowledged.
She returned inside, barrel now leaking slow trail of black oil—pungent, unmistakable.
The Ambush of the Ambush
Ling raised her hand to adjourn when the first arrow thunked into a lantern.
Oil-soaked paper whooshed; flames leapt ceiling-high.
Screams, blades clearing throats.
Yue kicked the barrel; burning river ran across floor, herding cut-throats toward the main door—where Han's guards waited, crossbows levelled.
Ling drew twin short-swords, eyes finding Yue through smoke.
"Dock rat turns out to be palace hawk," she snarled.
"Hawk learns from wolves," Yue answered, fan snapping open—white swan amid orange fire.
Steel rang.
Ling was fast, trained on rocking decks; Yue fought like ice cracking—sudden, angled, relentless.
Fan edge caught Ling's cheek, blood sizzling on hot metal.
In the same breath Yue spun, crossbow bolt from her sleeve burying in a gunner's shoulder—hand-cannon clattered, discharged into ceiling.
Ling lunged—one sword pierced Yue's cloak, grazed ribs.
Pain flared; Yue trapped the blade with fan ribs, twisted—sword snapped, hilt flying.
She slammed fan hilt into Ling's throat—captain dropped, gasping.
Fire licked walls; roof beam cracked.
"Out!" Han shouted.
Guards dragged prisoners through smoke.
Yue hauled Ling by collar, last to leave before storehouse folded into inferno.
On the quay, flames reflected in black water—White Moon dying before it rose.
Interrogation – pre-dawn, river patrol barge
Ling, wrists iron-bound, spat blood.
"Kill me quick, swan-envoy."
Yue knelt, voice low. "Give me the bureau mole and you live to sail again—maybe."
Ling laughed, broken. "Mole wears jade, not ink. Look to the palace, not the docks."
Jade.
Only one department issued jade passes: the Minister of Ceremonies—a stickler for protocol, keeper of archives, cousin to the disgraced ex-Minister of Revenue.
Yue felt cold deeper than river fog.
A second minister, a second lantern, a second trap inside the walls.
Palace – Sandalwood Hall, emergency council
Dawn torches still burned.
Yue laid Ling's confession—sealed in river-wax—before the Dowager.
Zhao Shen read it aloud; faces paled.
The Minister of Ceremonies protested innocence, demanded trial by peers.
Yue stepped forward, removed the black signal cloth from her wrist, held it up.
"Your seal was copied onto convoy schedules. Only your office holds the master cipher."
The minister's eyes flicked—guilt, not outrage.
Dowager sighed, almost weary. "Another uncle, another ledger of treason. House arrest until inquiry."
As guards led him away, he whispered to Yue: "You see lanterns on the river, girl. I see currents beneath. Cut one head, two rise."
Rooftop – night again
She told Shen the proverb.
He answered, "Then we learn to swim, not just to sail."
They sat beneath a moon one night short of full, same phase that once glared at Ice-Lock, at burning storehouses, at every choice.
He produced a third strip of black cloth—embroidered now with tiny silver grains.
"For the next current."
She tied it beside the other two—braided warnings on her wrist.
Below, lanterns still floated—fewer, soggy, some snagged in reeds.
But new ones replaced them, launched by children who believed paper could keep hunger away.
She exhaled fog into moonlight.
"Every lantern we save reveals a deeper shadow."
He bumped her shoulder. "Then we follow the river until shadows run out of darkness."
They sat until the moon dipped, sharing silence like bread—two conspirators learning the shape of loyalty, one lantern at a time.
And somewhere downstream, half-drowned by fire and water, a second red tally-stick bobbed against the reeds—a promise that the game was not over, only the pieces rearranged.