Mu Tao's schedule was written in neat, confident strokes.
That alone told Wuchen everything.
Mu Tao wasn't a rat scrambling for crumbs. He was a runner who believed the floor under him was solid.
Solid floors were what Deacon Han liked to break.
Wuchen read the folded note once in his alcove, then burned it over the basin lamp until the characters curled into ash. He didn't need the paper after his eyes had eaten it.
Three places. Two times. One weak point.
Mu Tao left the Ridge Patrol drafts in a wooden slot box behind the registry hall, under the third stone lion where the mortar line cracked. He passed the slot at dusk. He passed again before dawn.
A routine.
Routines were leashes you put on yourself.
Gu Yan had said: give me noise.
Not loud noise. Not shouting. Noise that moved eyes.
Wuchen's job was to make Jiang Ren lie larger.
To do that, he needed to let Jiang Ren think Wuchen was obeying him… while quietly turning the act into a trap.
So Wuchen planned a stain.
Not a missing seal. Too obvious. That would point to sabotage immediately.
A wrong time stamp was cleaner.
Ridge Patrol reports were stamped with the hour block in ink at the bottom right corner. If the stamp was wrong by one block, it made the whole report look like it was filed outside the permitted time window.
That was enough for Han to bite.
Enough to make Mu Tao bleed.
Enough to make Jiang Ren panic.
At dusk, Wuchen walked toward the registry hall with a runner's bundle under his arm. The bundle contained blank sheets and a small ink stone pouch, ordinary. Hidden inside his sleeve seam was a tiny wedge of wax and a cheap hour stamp pad he had borrowed from the copying room earlier.
Borrowed meant stolen, but only for one breath.
He moved through corridors where servants crossed, letting them see him, because being seen made him look innocent.
At the registry hall's rear passage, he slowed and bowed to a scribe he recognized, then passed the third stone lion and slipped into the shadow behind it.
The wooden slot box was there.
Simple.
Locked only by habit, not by iron.
He waited.
Footsteps approached.
Mu Tao arrived exactly on schedule.
He was older than Wuchen by a few years, hair tied tight, robe trim clean. His eyes were quick but not paranoid. He carried a narrow wooden tube and a small cloth bundle of seals.
He knelt at the slot box and unlocked it, sliding out a folded stack of patrol drafts, then began stamping the bottom right corner with the evening hour.
Wuchen watched from shadow.
Mu Tao's hand was steady.
Too steady.
When Mu Tao finished stamping and began to slide the papers back into the slot box, Wuchen moved.
Not toward Mu Tao.
Toward the lantern.
A wall lantern hung above the third lion, flame low behind glass.
Wuchen reached up and tilted the lantern glass a finger's width.
The flame flared as air rushed in, then sputtered, then steadied.
But the flare threw a sudden brighter light across the passage.
Mu Tao flinched and looked up, annoyed.
In that moment, his stamping hand paused.
His thumb smudged the inked hour stamp slightly, making the block look warped.
Mu Tao swore under his breath and leaned closer, squinting at the stamp impression.
He pulled the stamp pad out again to correct it.
That was when Wuchen slipped behind him, silent as oil, and pressed his own cheap stamp pad against the corner of the top sheet for half a heartbeat.
A different hour block.
Not wildly wrong.
Just one block off.
Then Wuchen retreated into shadow again, breath stacked, heart steady by force.
Mu Tao didn't notice the extra touch. He was focused on fixing his own smudge.
He stamped again, correcting what he thought was the problem, then slid the papers into the slot box and locked it with a practiced flick.
He stood, adjusted his robe, and walked away, irritation fading back into routine.
Wuchen waited until footsteps were gone.
Then he stepped out, lowered the lantern glass back into place, and walked away at a runner's pace.
No missing seal.
No stolen paper.
Just one wrong hour block on the top sheet.
A stain that would be discovered only when the report was opened and read.
The next morning, Deacon Han's platform would see the draft.
Han would see an irregularity.
Han would choose whether to punish Mu Tao or demand explanation from Ridge Patrol.
Either way, Jiang Ren's offer had now become dangerous for him.
Wuchen returned to Gu Yan's courtyard before midnight and knelt.
Gu Yan's eyes lifted. "Done?" he asked softly.
Wuchen bowed. "A stain," he said. "Not obvious."
Gu Yan smiled faintly. "Good," he murmured. "Now we wait and see whose hands get counted."
Wuchen kept his gaze down, stomach tight.
He had just used a paper knife to cut another runner.
He told himself it was bait, not cruelty.
But he could already feel the truth underneath.
In this sect, bait was just cruelty that pretended to be strategy.