Morning came not with warmth, but with tension that clung to the Zhao estate like mist on cold stone.
No one spoke directly of what happened the night before. Yet whispers moved faster than truth. Servants murmured of shadows slipping through corridors, of the young lady's chamber door found ajar, of a corpse discovered near her bedside with its neck twisted unnaturally.
Rumors grew faces and names. A ghost? A guardian? The heavens themselves?
No one dared speak of a servant.
And that suited Shen Lan perfectly.
He moved through the estate like he always had—head bowed, back straight, voice meek. But in the silence of his mind, pieces clicked into place like stones on a game board.
He returned to the stables, mucked the stalls, washed blood from his tunic beneath a barrel of icy water. His wound stung where the assassin's blade had sliced across his shoulder, but he did not flinch.
Pain was memory. And memory was power.
As twilight came, he found his way to the old storehouse under the guise of organizing herbs and supply crates. Few came here unless ordered to, and fewer still knew of the narrow crawlspace beneath the floorboards.
He pried it open.
Inside, as expected, were scrolls—old family records, unused seals, documents that hadn't seen light in years. Shen Lan flipped through each with precision.
Then he found it.
A sealed ledger—one meant for inner house affairs. Hidden deep beneath tax forms and spoiled grain tallies.
He slit the seal with a straw knife and opened the first page.
Numbers. Transactions. Names. All masked in the dull, coded language of the corrupt.
Then, a familiar signature.
Huang.
Three days ago: A "courier fee." A sum too high for any delivery. Matched perfectly with the day the assassin must've been hired.
It was no longer suspicion. It was proof.
But as Shen Lan turned more pages, another pattern emerged—odd transfers, repeated requests for rare herbs known only to alchemists, and shipping routes that made no sense for an estate this size.
This wasn't just a murder attempt.
It was a slow bleed. Someone was gutting House Zhao from within. Stealing it piece by piece—quietly, carefully.
By the time the ledger closed, Shen Lan sat perfectly still.
Not angry.
Not shaken.
Just… aware.
He left the storehouse before the guards changed shift, returning to the servants' courtyard just as a chill wind blew fog across the tiles.
He stood under a skeletal tree, its bare limbs reaching like bones toward the pale moonlight. The fog coiled around his legs, soft and voiceless.
And there, he whispered to himself:
"Once, I ruled empires with a thought.
Now, I watch rats gnaw at stone walls.
But the fog does not shout.
The fog waits."
His eyes narrowed toward the manor's main hall, where warm light flickered behind silken windows.
"And when it moves again…
it swallows everything."