The merchant lay prostrate in the dust, sweat streaking through the grime on his silk robes. The painted board strapped across his shoulders bore cruel black characters:
"A SWOLLEN GUT FED BY THE PEOPLE'S BLOOD."
At first, only a few passersby paused, whispering behind their hands. Then a boy threw the rind of a rotted melon. It struck the merchant's ear, leaving a dark smear. Laughter rose, and with it, the crowd's courage.
An old woman spat on him. A rice-seller poured the dirty bottom of his wash bucket over the merchant's head. Soon a slow line formed — each villager, farmer, or hawker who'd ever been crushed under doubled grain prices, forced to mortgage their fields for a winter's rice, took their turn.
The merchant sobbed. But no officials came to spare him. The new Imperial edict on war taxes had made examples politically fashionable.
Ziyan stood at the edge of the square, Li Qiang beside her, Lian'er held close to her hip.
"So easily they turn on him," Li Qiang muttered. His face was unreadable, though his hand rested lightly on his sword hilt. "Yesterday they bowed. Today they spit."
"Because shame is safer than revolt," Ziyan said. Her voice was low. "They can't strike the ministers who demanded their sons for war, so they strike the nearest fat throat."
She turned away. "It's still not enough. This is just rot lancing itself. The roots are deeper — and my father's hands are tangled through every one."
They returned to the teahouse to find Lianhua waiting on the balcony, her fan tapping sharply against her palm.
"You've made quite the show in the streets," she said coolly. "The other guild lords are sending polite inquiries on whether you plan to publicly shame them too."
Ziyan's smile was like a knife. "If they'd like appointments, I'm sure I can find spare boards and fresh paint."
But as they stepped inside, another voice drifted from the shadows near the courtyard screens.
"You'll bankrupt every sign painter in the city with your righteousness."
Wei stepped forward, robes simple but the quality of the cut unmistakable. His eyes glimmered with amused disdain as they swept over the crowded ledger tables and half-drunk tea bowls.
"I trust your morning's street theater satisfied something in your conscience," he drawled. "Meanwhile Qi sharpens knives for Xia's throat, and half your court is busy betting on how many months it takes to starve the border provinces."
Ziyan's mark pulsed. "That's why we struck the Merchant Guild first. A small tremor to rattle the bigger stones loose."
Wei tilted his head. "And now?"
"Now," Ziyan said, "you will look after this teahouse. Quietly. You'll let it be the nest where our schemes hatch — and you'll keep Lian'er safe while we drag the capital's filth into the sun."
Wei's gaze slid to Lian'er, who peeked warily from behind Ziyan's sleeve. His lips twitched, but it wasn't quite a smile.
"Very well. A reluctant guardian for your little lotus. And in return?"
"In return, you use this place for your own spy threads," Ziyan said. "You gather secrets for Xia, we gather them for Qi. If we're clever, we'll both cut deeper than either throne expects."
That night, Wei made himself at home as if he had always owned the place. His quiet agents slipped through the kitchen door, leaving scraps of coded paper beneath tea jars. He watched from the upper balcony, cold gaze scanning every face that entered.
Lianhua disliked it immediately. "He's too calm," she muttered to Ziyan over the account books. "If he ever decides we're no longer useful—"
"Then he'll gut us as neatly as we gutted the Merchant Guild," Ziyan finished. "But not yet. Not while we still both want Qi's secrets bleeding."
The days that followed blurred into long hours of ink and hushed strategy.
Ziyan pored over imperial histories and old court rulings until her vision swam. Lianhua drilled her on obscure salt tax precedents and subtle metaphors hidden in Confucian parables. "They'll bury poison in poetry," Lianhua warned. "Miss a single nuance, and they'll mark you an uneducated brute."
Li Qiang studied alongside them, though his approach was blunt as ever. He recited military case judgments like battle chants, brow furrowed, muttering curses whenever the phrasing tangled.
Sometimes at night, he rose to spar alone in the courtyard — blade whispering through lantern shadows. Ziyan would watch from the balcony with Lian'er in her lap, the girl's head heavy against her shoulder.
"Will the pretty writing keep them from stabbing you?" Lian'er asked once, half-asleep.
Ziyan stroked her hair. "No. But it will let us stand close enough to decide who gets stabbed first."
On the eve of the spring exam, Wei joined them in the teahouse's rear chamber. He stood by the open screen, arms folded, face unreadable.
"When this ends," he said, "Qi will either stand weaker than it ever has or it will tear you apart for daring to shame its finest bureaucrats."
Ziyan met his gaze, calm. "Then let it try. Either way, your masters get what they want — an Empire off balance, ripe for Xia's manipulations."
Wei's smile was thin and cruel. "And you think that protects your people?"
"It protects Lian'er," Ziyan said softly. "And that's enough for now."
For a long moment, they simply watched each other. Then Wei inclined his head a fraction, conceding the point.
At last, the day arrived.
They joined the flood of hopeful scholars flowing through the capital's main avenue, their fresh robes bright against the grey stone. Lianhua walked ahead, back straight, her fan tucked neatly into her sleeve. Li Qiang walked to Ziyan's right, his scholar hat slightly askew despite his best efforts.
At the examination hall's gates, an imperial officer checked their documents. His brows rose slightly at Ziyan's family name. "Li Ziyan… the Minister of Education's own?"
Ziyan smiled faintly. "His most troublesome daughter."
The officer paled and waved them through.
Inside, rows of desks stood beneath a vast awning, paper and ink set carefully at each station. Overhead, wind bells chimed, their silver tongues clicking against the carved beams.
Li Qiang took his place near the front, jaw tight. Lianhua settled gracefully at a desk by the center column. Ziyan found hers near the edge, close enough to see both of them if she turned slightly.
She laid her hand over the fresh scroll. Her phoenix mark throbbed — eager, dark, like something that had been waiting lifetimes to write this very moment.
A bell rang. Across the courtyard, thousands of brushes dipped in unison.
The first question was written in flowing crimson strokes across the opening sheet:
"What sustains the heart of Empire: law or mercy?"
Ziyan's mouth curled. Her brush moved, lines flowing sharp and sure.
"Law is but the knife by which a ruler carves away rot. Yet without mercy to temper it, he finds one day he has carved away his own flesh — and stands as a hollow ghost upon the throne."
When the bell sounded hours later to end the first session, Ziyan rose on trembling legs. Li Qiang's eyes met hers from across the rows — exhausted, but alive with a feral spark. Lianhua lifted her chin in quiet triumph.
Outside the hall, the capital still bustled, war banners snapping on high poles. But inside these walls, they had begun something far larger than even Qi's hungry generals could comprehend.
And in the teahouse's shaded courtyard, Wei waited — eyes narrowed, already calculating how these ink-stained blows would ripple through thrones and borders alike.