The days after Jin's death passed like smoke.
Ziyan's team moved quickly—too quickly. They relocated again, this time to an abandoned butcher's storeroom that smelled faintly of dried salt and betrayal. Shuye reinforced the doors with scrap wood. Lianhua burned all identifying ledgers. Feiyan barely slept, always within reach of her blade.
"We can't keep hiding," Feiyan snapped on the fourth morning, pacing the cracked tile floor. "He's picking us off one by one."
"We're not hiding," Ziyan said. "We're repositioning."
"He's watching us bleed, and we're giving him a bowl to catch it in."
"We strike soon," Ziyan promised. "But we do it our way."
That same evening, news arrived: a spice caravan tied to Li Jun would pass near the Sun Market at dawn, with no military escort. A soft target. A perfect opportunity.
Or bait.
Ziyan read the courier's message twice, then passed it to Shuye without a word.
Feiyan stepped beside her. "You're not seriously considering it?"
"We need a win," Ziyan said.
Lianhua's voice was soft. "Or we're walking into his teeth."
Ziyan stared out at the city lights. "Then let's make him choke on them."
The Sun Market flared to life in a haze of early dawn.
Vendors unrolled their silks. Hawkers shouted half-hearted greetings. Ox-carts clattered through muddy alleys. Everything was too calm.
Ziyan crouched behind a stack of date crates with Shuye. Feiyan watched the street from a tailor's awning. Their contact, a spice runner named Kwan, was supposed to meet them near the dye-seller's tent.
He never came.
Instead, two guards appeared—then four.
Then six.
One of them leaned casually against the cart marked with the lotus seal: Ziyan's bait.
Shuye whispered, "They're waiting for us."
"I know," Ziyan said.
That's when the shouting began.
A cart overturned. A fire broke out in a fabric stall nearby—not theirs, not planned. Just chaos.
Then the guards began moving—not toward the fire, but toward them.
Ziyan's heart sank.
"Run."
High above the chaos, Lord Li Jun sipped his morning tea in a tower window, watching the smoke rise from the Sun Market.
A steward knelt behind him. "They took the bait."
Li Jun smiled. "Of course they did."
He turned to his desk—where several scrolls lay already opened, annotated in his tight, slanted script. The names of merchants Ziyan had leaned on. Couriers she had paid in favors. Debt collectors bribed to look the other way.
"They're unraveling," he said. "And they think they're in control."
"They barely escaped this morning," the steward added. "We lost no men."
"Good," Li Jun said. "That's what I wanted."
At the apothecary safehouse, Feiyan slammed a bowl to the floor.
"Set-up. Full set-up."
"We still made it out," Shuye said quietly.
"Barely. Jin didn't. Kwan didn't."
"We were testing his net," Ziyan said. "Now we know how wide it spreads."
Feiyan glared at her. "You're talking like we meant to lose."
Ziyan didn't respond. Not yet.
She turned to Lianhua, who was already rewriting distribution paths on a fresh scroll.
"He's watching everything," Lianhua murmured. "He's not just anticipating. He's predicting."
Ziyan exhaled, then reached into her sleeve and pulled out a sealed letter.
A Phoenix-marked scroll.
"I know," she said. "That's why we wrote the script for him."
Back at the Ministry of Rites, Li Jun sat across from Duan Rulan.
Their tea was untouched.
"You've seen what she's doing," Li Jun said. "She's destabilizing everything—guilds, markets, morale. And I know she passed through your network."
Duan Rulan offered him a cool smile. "What makes you think I'd help a reckless girl?"
Li Jun unfurled a scroll stamped with imperial crimson. "Because I know you won't stand against the court."
Duan Rulan's expression didn't change. But her fingers twitched ever so slightly on the porcelain rim.
He pushed the scroll toward her. "Sign it. Authorize an audit of every merchant she's contacted. We'll find the weak link. Pull it. She'll collapse."
Duan Rulan paused, then bowed her head.
"I serve the empire," she said. "You'll have your audit."
He left convinced he had won.
Hours later, in a shuttered corner of the Silk Guild compound, Duan Rulan met Ziyan beneath a half-lit lantern.
"You were right," Duan Rulan murmured. "He brought the scroll. He thinks I'm his now."
Ziyan nodded. "Then we're right where we need him."
She handed Duan Rulan a mirrored copy of the audit scroll.
"Now feed him what we want him to see."
Duan Rulan's eyes gleamed. "How much?"
"Enough to feel confident. Not enough to see the knife."
The Phoenix mark on Ziyan's palm burned hot.
Their trap had been set in silence.
Now, it was already closing.