The palace corridors stretch before Yile like a gilded serpent's spine, their jade-paneled walls inlaid with mother-of-pearl depictions of the First Emperor's conquests—tongueless scholars, rivers choked with bones. His silk slippers whisper over tiles carved with the eight-petaled lotus of imperial divinity, but the scent here is not incense or ambition. It's the cloying sweetness of peonies left too long in stagnant water.

He pauses before a mural of the Phoenix Ascendant, its gold-leaf wings framing a mosaic moon. The same moon under which Kuan once pressed a jade cicada into his palm—for luck, he'd said, as if such trinkets could ward off the rot festering in the imperial marrow. Yile's fingers drift to the hollow beneath his ribcage where the cicada rests, cold as the emperor's laughter had been that night in the Black Peony Pavilion.

Kuan.

The name is a shard of broken glass in his throat. He sees it still—the way Kuan's hands had trembled when they learned of Hunan's execution, the oath they'd sworn. But Kuan chose exile. Chose someone else.

A peony petal drifts from an alcove shrine, wilting as it grazes Yile's cheek. He catches it, crushes it to pulp between thumb and forefinger.

"Magnificent."

Kexing materializes from the shadow of a lacquered pillar. A pouch dangles from her sash—innocuous, unless one knows to smell the arsenic-laced needles inside.

Yile doesn't turn. "The Crown Prince entertains mongrels in the hall. I don't know how long this interruption will take."

"Do we keep the plan?" Kexing asks, too gently.

He whirls. The petal's carcass smears across her cheek as he grips her chin.

Kexing doesn't flinch. Her eyes, twin voids in a face carved from moonstone, reflect the phoenix's crumbling wings. "The minister's son is a reed in the storm. I'll pluck him for you."

"Reeds cut," Yile hisses. He releases her, fingers trailing the braids of her hair. "But the storm remains. The emperor still breathes."

A shudder ripples through him.

Kexing's hand hovers near his sleeve. "The poison in his tea weakens his lungs. By autumn—"

"He won't drink the tea." Yile's laugh curdles the air. He plucks a hairpin from her bun, its tip glistening with viper's kiss. "I've spent so many years weaving rot into the throne's roots for nothing."

Kexing retrieves the pin, wiping it on her sleeve.

"Meice," he says abruptly. "Is she back?"

"Not yet…"

...

The Hall of Accord drips with the cloying scent of peony incense. But the marble floor beneath the nobles' silk slippers is cracked, veined with moss where mortar has crumbled. Even the ancestral tablets lining the walls seem to lean away from the gathering, as if ashamed.

Young Master Liwei traces the frayed embroidery of his crane-patterned sleeve, a relic from his great-grandfather's tenure as Minister of Rites. Across the low table, Lord Wenqing sloshes rice wine into a jade cup.

"—filthy drafting tax edicts!" spits Lord Xun, his jowls quivering beneath a beard threaded with silver. "My grandfather bled to secure the Grain Census Office for our house. Now some gelded scribe with painted nails decides which granaries thrive?"

A murmur ripples through the nine gathered nobles. Lady Meifeng, her hair pinned with phoenix pins only consorts should dare wear, flicks a lychee pit into a bronze spittoon. "At least the eunuchs don't spawn bastards to claim your lands. Small mercies."

Lord Wenqing's cup meets the table with a crack. "You joke while they gut our birthright? The Auditors' Council is now seven eunuchs to three nobles! Soon they'll vote to strip our garrison rights!"

Liwei's thumb rubs the family seal on his ring. Choose your words like arrows, his father had taught him. Once loosed, they cannot return.

"Respectfully," Liwei says, imitating Yile's tone, "the Auditors' Council has always served the throne's interests. If His August Majesty trusts eunuchs with such duties, perhaps we should examine why our own stewardship… faltered."

Lord Xun's face purples. "Faltered? When my son led the suppression of the Balang revolt? When your father—"

"—signed treaties that lost three border forts," interrupts Lady Meifeng. She smiles, all venom. "But yes, let's blame eunuchs for our collective decline."

A servant enters—a boy of twelve with the shaved brows and cobalt sash of a eunuch's apprentice. The room stiffens. He refills wine jars with hands that do not tremble, though the scar across his throat suggests he's learned the cost of trembling long ago.

Lord Wenqing waits until the boy leaves to hiss, "See how they infiltrate even servant ranks? That whelp's eyes were memorizing our faces for lists!"

"Paranoia," mutters Lord An, the youngest and quietest, his fingers worrying a rosary. "The emperor's favor shines on all loyal subjects."

"Does it?" Lady Meifeng leans forward, her phoenix pins glinting. "Why then did the throne 'request' my nephew's battalion to guard the Western Tombs—a week before bandits conveniently sacked our silver convoy?"

Liwei's ring bites into his palm. "The royal family has always balanced the realm's harmony. If nobles are reassigned, perhaps it's to… streamline governance."

Lord Xun snorts. "Streamline? Boy, your naivety reeks. This is predation. The crown prince purges anyone with power to question his pet eunuchs' schemes. First garrisons, then taxes—soon they'll take the very roofs over our ancestral halls!"

"Ridiculous!" Lord An slams his rosary down. Beads scatter. "His August Majesty is the sun that nourishes us all. To imply—"

"—that the sun burns as well as nurtures?" Liwei interjects. The room stills. He feels the words slip like a blade from its sheath—irrevocable. "History teaches that even emperors… prune gardens that grow too wild."

Lady Meifeng's eyes narrow. "Prune. Such a gentle word for what befell the Hu clan."

A collective inhale. Five years ago, the Hu's eighty-year matriarch had thrown herself into the Celestial Well after the emperor "invited" her grandsons to oversee a plague-stricken province. Their bones still moldered there.

...

The Zhou estate had always been a fortress of tradition, its vermilion gates etched with the celestial dragons of ministerial lineage. Liwei, at thirteen, was a sparrow in a peacock's cage—small, sharp-eyed, and perpetually outshone by his elder brother's accomplishments. His father, Minister Zhou Ming, had once been the Jade Throne's favored strategist, a man whose counsel had quelled three rebellions and brokered the controversial Treaty of An'alm. But favor, like spring blossoms, wilted swiftly. When whispers of the minister's "overreach" reached the emperor's ear, the minister made a bargain: his resignation in exchange for his sons' safety. Liwei's brother was dispatched to govern the malaria-ridden south. Liwei, deemed too clever and too curious, was left in the imperial city—a hostage in silk robes.

It was then that Yile and Kuan entered his life.

The eunuchs arrived on an autumn morning; their palanquins lacquered black as a widow's hair. Yile stepped out first, his robes the gray of storm clouds. Kuan followed, all fox-like grins.

"Young Master Liwei," Yile had said, bowing just shallow enough to remind Liwei of his diminished status. "Your father begged us to mold you into something… survivable."

For two years, they were his shadows. Yile taught him the arithmetic of power—how to count allies like coins, debts like daggers. Kuan, between stolen sips of sorghum wine, showed him the art of reading palace murals: which concubines' portraits hung closest to the throne, which generals' statues faced north.

But it was Meicong who unraveled him.

Assigned as his bodyguard by Yile, she arrived on a night thick with the stench of lotus. With eyes like smoked quartz and scars slicing her skin, she wore a dark leather tunic under her hanfu.

"You'll address me as Meicong," she said, her voice low and rough. "Not 'sister,' not 'miss.' And you'll never ask about the past."

Liwei, fourteen and aching to prove himself, had retorted, "What if I want to?"

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

She'd pinned him against the courtyard's moon gate, her dagger hovering at his throat. "You'll learn, or you'll die."

...

They settled into a rhythm. Mornings with Yile, dissecting memorials in the scriptorium. Afternoons with Kuan, mapping the palace's secret tunnels. Evenings with Meicong, whose idea of "combat training" involved tossing Liwei into the estate's carp pond until he learned to surface silently.

"Again," she'd say, perched on a gingko branch. "The water's ripple betrays you faster than any spy."

One evening, after Liwei emerged shivering and triumphant, she tossed him a towel. "You're improving. For a noble brat."

He grinned, breath fogging the air. "Does that mean you'll stop trying to drown me?"

"It means I'll use colder water next time."

But her eyes softened—a flicker he stored like a stolen sweet.

The turning point came during the Moon-Bathing Festival, when the imperial city floated on lantern light and lychee wine. Liwei, permitted one night of freedom, wandered the markets with Meicong as his escort. She'd swapped her assassin's garb for a plain blue tunic, her hair braided with crimson threads.

They paused at a puppet theater where wooden eunuchs danced for coins. "Look," Liwei joked, "Yile and Kuan!"

Meicong didn't laugh. "You're right." But she was undeniably amused.

He turned, chastened. "Do you admire them?"

"I admire no one." She nodded at the puppets, now enacting a beheading. "You? You've never clawed for anything."

Liwei's cheeks burned. "You don't know me."

"I know your type."

...

By sixteen, Liwei could recite the Analects of Power backward, negotiate with tax envoys, and disarm a would-be assassin (provided the assassin was Kuan, half-drunk and giggling). But Meicong remained an enigma.

One evening, after sparring in the snow-dusted courtyard, he asked, "Why do you hide?"

She froze, her practice blade inches from his heart. "Hide?"

"You're always like this, pretending you're…"

"A girl?" She stepped back, snow crunching underfoot. "What did Kuan and Yile tell you? I do not consider myself woman or man. You can think of me as you prefer."

"I don't care about that," he said.

She sheathed her sword. "You should."

...

The reckoning came in spring.

Yile summoned Liwei to the Black Peony Pavilion. Kuan lounged by the koi pond, tossing crumbs to fish.

"Your father's been corresponding with the Northern Marquis," Yile said, sipping tea. "Treasonous, if misunderstood."

Liwei's pulse spiked. "My father's loyal."

"Loyalty is a weathervane. But fret not." Yile slid a letter across the table—a forgery so perfect even Liwei doubted its falsity. "Burn this, and the emperor need never know."

"What do you want in return?"

"Get close to the Crown Prince. That is all."

Liwei's throat tightened. He'd met the Crown Prince before but had been greatly intimidated.

...

Liwei found her, sharpening daggers in the armory.

"Don't do it," she said without looking up.

"You heard?"

"Walls have ears. So do I." She tested a blade's edge. "Befriend the Prince. Play Yile's game."

He gripped the whetstone. "I am scared."

"You're a fool," she whispered.

...

Liwei stepped forward, the soft rustling of his lavish attire whispering through the otherwise serene chamber. His voice, melodic yet imbued with a certain impetuousness, pierced the tranquility that Yile often sought in his own space.

"Yile," Liwei began, the affable demeanor that was often presented in court slipping away, revealing a sharpness, like a blade concealed within a silken sheath. "Where is Meicong? I've been looking for her everywhere!"

Yile, unperturbed by the sudden intrusion and the demanding tone, bowed gently, his voice retaining its calm, gentle timbre. "Young Master, Meicong is assisting Kuan and will not be available for a while. Might I be of service instead?"

...

The Hall of Accord shimmers with tension. Lord Xun's voice ricochets off the gilded murals, his beard quivering as he stabs a finger toward the empty throne.

"Our ancestors built these border forts with blood!"

Lady Meifeng's laughter is a silver dagger. "Oh, put your ancestors to rest, Xun. They're too busy weeping in the afterlife to care about your wounded pride."

Liwei steps between them. "Honored lords, this discourse serves only fractured spirits. The Auditors' Council seeks stability, not spite. Should we not—"

"Stability?" Lord Wenqing slams his wine cup down, liquor sloshing over the Eight Trigrams inlaid on the table. "When the Western Bureau seized my salt shipments last week, was that stability? Or predation?"

A murmur swells. Liwei's gaze flicks to the hall's entrance, where sunlight slices through cedar doors. Shadows shift. A figure glides in. Her face, the way she moves, catches his breath mid-throat.

Meicong.

...

"Postpone the plan," Yile murmurs, his voice silk over steel. The Crown Prince's laughter drifts from the nearby pavilion, cloying and honeyed. "Our prince entertains guests. They give him an alibi." He spits the words like a curse. "They could ruin it."

Kexing tilts her head. "Alright."

A cacophony erupts beyond the gates—shouts splintering the day.

They sprint through archways. The commotion crescendos at the crossroads where Yile and Sima had parted mere hours ago. Sima of the Western Bureau, who now kneels in a pool of his own indigo robes, the intricate embroidery torn and muddied. Four Imperial Guards in scaled armor drag him forward, their faces obscured by helmets. A gaggle of Western Bureau eunuchs trail behind, their hands fluttering like caged sparrows.

"Honored sirs, this is a misunderstanding!" they plead.

Yile steps forward, his pulse a war drum. "By what authority?" he demands.

The lead guard pivots, his iron boots grinding bone dust into the mosaic floor. "By order of His August Majesty, the Son of Heaven, who sees all under the Infinite Sky." He unfurls a vermilion scroll. The words shimmer with gold ink, each character a blade: Conspiracy against the Dragon Throne. Immediate arrest. Full interrogation.

Yile's throat tightens. He knows those words. His words, murmured into the emperor's ear as the man lay on a bed of tiger pelts. The Western Bureau's audits grow too broad, too bold. Who checks the checkers, Son of Heaven? A petty strike against a rival, a flick of the wrist in their endless game.

Sima raises his head. "Yile," he croons. "Come to mourn or gloat?"

"They will let you out," Yile says, cold as winter steel.

Sima barks a laugh. "You filthy swine."

The guards yank him backward. Sima stumbles but rights himself with the dignity of a condemned prince. "Tell the emperor this," he calls over his shoulder, voice rising like a war chant. "The Western Bureau's records are written in blood—his blood. And blood always surfaces."

The eunuchs wail as the guards march Sima away. Yile stands paralyzed. The cicada burns against his skin. He sees Kuan vanishing into monsoon rains.

...

Meicong glides between them, her steps silent as snowfall. Her hands, steady and pale, refill cups with wine the color of twilight. But Liwei notices: the scar that once laddered her knuckles is gone. The way her hanfu cinches too loosely at the waist, as if borrowed. The scent too—Meicong smells of pine and iron, not this cloying sweetness.

"Where is the Crown Prince?" Liwei asks, his voice slicing through Lord Wenqing's slurred toast.

The girl bows, her neck curving like a swan's before the ax. "Attending to urgent matters, Young Master."

Lord Xun drains his cup, wine dribbling into his silver beard. "To the Son of Heaven! May his reign outlast the stars!"

Liwei's fingers brush her sleeve as she reaches for his cup. "You've changed your perfume," he murmurs.

Her eyes flash, dark as ink spilled on snow.

Then—

Lord An chokes. A wet, guttural sound, like a butchered hog. His rosary clatters to the floor, beads rolling like eyeballs across the tiles. Blood erupts from his lips, black and viscous, splattering the Eight Trigrams mosaic. The lords recoil, their finery suddenly funeral shrouds. Lady Meifeng stands, clutching her throat, lychee flesh and gore oozing between her fingers. She collapses onto the table, overturning dishes of pickled plums and braised duck—now a banquet for flies.

"Poison!" Lord Wenqing croaks, his face purpling. He staggers toward the doors, but his legs buckle, tendons snapping like lute strings. His skull cracks against a pillar adorned with carvings of the Dragon's Ten Mercies, painting the woodwork in crimson fractals.

Liwei seizes the girl's wrist. "Who are you?"

She smiles.

Her free hand tears open her hanfu, revealing a sash. From its folds, she withdraws a crescent scythe. The chain coiled around her arm jingles softly.

The surviving lord—young Lord Hui—draws his ceremonial dagger, its hilt inlaid with his clan's crane motif. "Treacherous snake!"

Meicao whirls. The scythe sings. Lord Hui's head tumbles, his body still upright for three blasphemous heartbeats before crumpling. The head rolls to Liwei's feet, mouth frozen in a plea to ancestors who long ago abandoned this hall.

Liwei bolts. His silk slippers slip on blood-slick tiles, past murals of emperors trampling rebels under chariot wheels. Laughter trails him—Meicao's, high and mocking, harmonizing with another voice deeper, colder.

A shadow detaches from the alcove. Meibei. She twirls her staff.

The staff arcs. Liwei ducks, the wind of its passage ruffling his hair. He lunges for a bronze censer, hurling it at her. Meibei shatters it midair, shards embedding in the mural of the Celestial Weaver—now blind in one eye.

Meicao appears behind him, chain slithering across the floor like a metallic serpent. It wraps around Liwei's ankle, barbed links biting through silk and flesh. He falls, palms scraping across shards of pottery and teeth.

"Little lord," she coos. "The prince sends his regards."

...

The port of Bo'anen chokes on its own chaos. Flames claw at the sky from a gutted tax office, their reflections writhing like demons in the harbor's oil-slicked waters. A statue of some long-dead Moukopl general lies toppled, its stone head repurposed as a battering ram by a gang of fishmongers. Goeghon shoulders through the throng, Sen's essentials clanking in a burlap sack, Saya's dagger pressed to his back like a promise of violence if he slows.

"Fifty silvers!" bellows the shipmaster, a walrus of a man perched on the gangplank of a weathered junk. His finger jabs at Goeghon's chest, rings glinting with ill-gotten jade. "Per passenger! And that's charity, you slum-sucking leech!"

Goeghon's laugh is sharp as a gutting knife. "Your hull's barnacled enough to scrape the ocean floor, and your crew smells like a brothel's latrine. Five. Total."

Behind him, Sen wrestles a contraption of copper pipes and chicken wire. "But the self-cooling tea engine is vital!" she wails as Saya pries it from her grip and hurls it into the harbor. It sinks with a resentful gurgle.

The shipmaster's jowls quiver. "Twenty!"

"Ten," Goeghon counters, tossing a pouch of saltpeter onto the gangplank. The powder spills, pearlescent in the inferno's glow. "And a recipe for fire that'll make your enemies shit embers."

The shipmaster hesitates. His first mate—a skeletal man with a scar where his nose should be—leans in, whispering. "That's the alchemist's brother. The mad one."

Saya seizes the moment. She steps forward, her blade now at the shipmaster's throat, its edge kissing a wart. "Five," she purrs, "or I'll see if your neck floats."

"Done!" he squeaks.

Sen whoops, dumping her sack onto the deck. A collapsible trebuchet the size of a terrier unfurls, nearly braining a passing sailor. "Behold! The Pocket Doom!"

"No," Saya and Goeghon chorus, kicking it overboard.

The ship cuts through the ink-black waves. Behind them, Bo'anen burns in the ravenous conflagration of a city devouring its chains. The port writhes, a living tapestry of fury: silhouettes of rioters scale watchtowers like ants swarming a carcass, their knives glinting as they hack at the Moukopl banners nailed to every post, every arch, every symbol of imperial rot.

A woman straddles the shoulders of a toppled statue, her hair wild as a stormcloud, and plunges a torch into the mouth of a banner held taut between two fishermen. The crowd's roar shakes the docks as she hurls the burning emblem into the harbor. It floats for a heartbeat, a phantom beast writhing on the waves, before the sea gulps it down.

END OF PART 3

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