Lianhua slipped back into the teahouse just as the sun began to set behind the tiled rooftops of the Eastern Capital. The copper dock pass still burned in her sleeve, the seal of Xia etched faintly into its corner like a whisper no one was supposed to hear.
Qilin Port. Falsified names. Foreign coin.
She didn't have all the pieces yet, but something was shifting. Something dangerous.
The others weren't back yet—Feiyan and Shuye were still out with Li Qiang, chasing leads through the western trade districts. Ziyan had vanished at dawn, following her instincts into the smoke of Duan Rulan's secrets.
So Lianhua returned alone, hoping to cross-reference names in their ledgers with the shipment trails. Maybe, just maybe, there was still a thread left to pull before it snapped entirely.
The silence inside was both comforting and unsettling. Tea, sandalwood, dust… but underneath it, a strange tension lingered in the air. She moved quietly, lighting a single lantern, sliding her ledgers back into the shelves.
Then came the noise—a soft creak of floorboards. Not hers.
Lianhua stopped.
A man was already in the room.
Dust clung to his sleeves. His eyes were sharp, his face familiar in the way you remembered someone from a story. Scarred brow. Measured stillness. A figure from Ziyan's past—the one who had freed her from the traffickers and vanished into the rising sun.
He stood slowly, unthreatening, and bowed his head.
"I was hoping to speak with her," he said. "But you'll do."
Lianhua didn't relax. "You know Ziyan."
"I do. I saved her once. Now I've come to warn her."
He reached into his cloak and produced a copper token—scorched, old, and unmistakably foreign. Twin dragons, coiled in opposition.
Xia.
Lianhua's heart skipped. "So it's true."
"I was one of theirs," he said. "An informant stationed near Qi's western routes. But I left that post the night I helped her escape. That choice didn't come without cost."
"You saved her," she said flatly, "and then disappeared."
"I had to. If I stayed, I would've endangered everything she was trying to do. But now…" He looked around. "Now her name is surfacing in places it shouldn't be. Xia. Qi. The Consortium. She's being used."
Lianhua narrowed her eyes. "You think Duan Rulan used her?"
"I think Duan Rulan built something bigger than either of us realized. Something meant to spark from Qilin Port."
"She's missing. Gone."
"That's not an accident. She's preparing something. And if Ziyan continues down this path without knowing the full stakes, she'll be crushed by it."
Lianhua crossed her arms, her sharp gaze unwavering. "You speak like you know exactly what Rulan was planning."
"I don't know all of it. But I know enough. The Consortium took orders from someone with ties to both Xia and Qi. That kind of coordination only ends in blood."
He paused, his voice low. "Rulan built a fuse. And Ziyan is standing at the edge of the spark."
Lianhua studied him. Every instinct told her not to trust this man. But something in his voice—something in the way he spoke Ziyan's name—carried a weight she couldn't ignore.
"You came here at risk to yourself," she said. "Why?"
"Because I owe her. And because she doesn't yet know the cost of what she's carrying."
Footsteps echoed in the courtyard.
Feiyan's voice: "We're back!"
The door slid open. Shuye entered, Li Qiang behind him. All three halted when they saw the stranger.
Feiyan's eyes went wide. "You…"
The man nodded once. "I left for a reason."
"You could've said goodbye."
"I couldn't."
Shuye tensed. "Why now?"
Before he could reply, a thunderous knock rattled the gate.
"Open! In the name of the Emperor!"
Lianhua froze.
Ziyan wasn't back yet.
Six guards filed in, bronze armor gleaming. At their front, a prefect in black ceremonial robes, bearing the crimson crane of internal affairs. He held a scroll in his gloved hand.
"Lady Lianhua," he declared, "you are hereby arrested for harboring a fugitive, and for suspected conspiracy with foreign agents."
Feiyan stepped forward, blade half-drawn. "This is utter nonsense—"
"Stand down," Lianhua ordered, voice low but sharp.
She turned—but the Xia agent was gone. Slipped out like smoke in wind.
Only the copper token remained on the table.
The guards moved in, binding her wrists not in chains, but red silk cords—the symbol of a high-born traitor.
The street outside was growing darker. Lanterns flickered to life. The magistrate's escort cart stood just beyond the gate.
As they led her toward it, she glanced back—once—at the teahouse door. No one followed. No one stopped them.
Until—
"Lianhua?!"
Ziyan's voice, rushing through the alley, desperate, almost breathless.
But the prefect stepped into her path.
Ziyan never saw her.
And Lianhua, heart heavy, let herself be taken.
If they've started with me, she thought, then the storm is already above her head.