The Phoenix Under Heaven

Lianhua didn't trust quiet mornings.

Silence was only useful when it followed clarity — not confusion. And lately, there was nothing clear about Duan Rulan's disappearance, the investors' sudden coldness, or the scroll of revised contracts they now kept under lock and key.

Ziyan hadn't slept much. That was obvious. She was chasing shadows, waiting for a sign.

Lianhua wasn't.

She dealt in records. In trails. In proof.

And numbers always told the truth — if you knew how to read them.

She moved through the teahouse with purpose, nodding to Feiyan and Shuye as they left for training. Li Qiang ghosted after them without a word. Ziyan was already gone, walking the city with her mark half-covered and her worry fully worn on her face.

That left Lianhua with the one thing she needed.

Room to think.

She locked herself in the back office and rolled out three ledgers across the floor.

One was theirs — tea shipments, ingredient purchases, bribes, protection coin. Another was Rulan's, smuggled out from one of her lesser warehouses two days ago. And the third... that one came from a spice merchant who had once whispered rumors of Rulan's trade network crumbling.

Each page bled with inked transactions — some real, some false, most meant to bury trails.

Lianhua flipped between dates, matching volume discrepancies and port codes. Her fingers moved faster than most scribes could track, flicking between supplier abbreviations and grain estimates.

"There," she whispered.

Rulan's goods had stopped flowing through her usual routes a week earlier.

But instead of halting, they'd rerouted — briefly — through a lesser-known dock managed by the Plum River Consortium.

That name meant nothing to nobles. But Lianhua remembered it.

Before her family lost their silk business, they'd paid monthly bribes to a shadow office with that name. They were middlemen, silent partners, and—according to rumor—smugglers for whoever held the most gold.

She circled the entries. The dates didn't lie.

Three days before Rulan vanished, a sudden spike in silver moved through the Consortium's accounts.

And the name listed for delivery confirmation?

Wei.

Lianhua sat back, eyes narrowing.

The name was common enough. But something about it felt deliberate.

She rose from the floor, wrapping the ledgers back in cloth, and left the teahouse by the rear gate. She didn't tell anyone where she was going. Not yet.

Her walk took her across the Eastern Capital — past scent-heavy bazaars, past shrines ringing with hollow bells, past courtyards where court officials whispered behind perfumed screens.

The Plum River Consortium operated out of a three-story house with white walls and clean windows. It pretended to be a spice brokerage.

Lianhua walked in like she belonged.

The clerk at the desk opened his mouth to protest — and closed it the moment she dropped her old brothel insignia on the counter.

"You'll want your boss," she said.

Five minutes later, she was seated across from a bald, heavyset man with too much ink on his sleeves and not enough subtlety in his smile.

"Miss…?"

"Lian," she lied. "I handle estate conversions for Madame Qian in the western quarter."

He raised a brow. "And what brings you to us?"

She slid the ledger page forward, the one with Wei's signature.

"Looking to trace a former client. A woman of means. Duan Rulan."

The man paused just long enough to confirm her suspicions. Then he smiled.

"Never heard of her."

"Pity," Lianhua replied, tapping the paper. "Because she paid you in old silver stamped with a mint no longer in use since the Xia embargo. And you don't want anyone knowing that."

His smile faltered.

"You're not estate management."

"No," she said. "I'm worse."

He considered her for a long moment, then sighed.

"She chartered a private shipment south — no manifest, no crew list. Just a payment, a destination, and a warning: if anyone asked questions, they were to say nothing."

"What destination?"

"Qilin Port."

Lianhua frowned. That was a border town. Barely more than a military dock. No merchants went there unless they wanted to disappear.

"Did she make it?"

The man hesitated.

"I don't know. But she wasn't alone."

He pushed a second slip across the table. It was a dock pass — folded and worn.

She picked it up. The passenger name was falsified.

But the seal in the corner wasn't.

It matched the old courier seal used by the western border officials of Xia.

Lianhua stood. "Thank you. I won't mention you. Yet."

She left him sweating behind his desk and returned to the teahouse just before dusk. The sun fell like a blade through the haze, and her mind was already ten steps ahead.

Qilin Port.

That wasn't a detour.

That was a handover.

She stepped into the front room to find it empty. Ziyan was still gone. Feiyan and Shuye were upstairs. Li Qiang sat in the corner sharpening a blade in silence.

And then the bell above the teahouse door rang.

A man stood in the doorway — travel-worn, cloaked in dust, but familiar in the worst way.

He had a scar on his left brow. A voice that once whispered kindness to Ziyan in chains. A face Lianhua remembered from the story of their escape.

The guard.

He bowed slightly.

"Apologies for intruding," he said. "I'm looking for Ziyan. I was told she might be here."

Lianhua stepped forward, cautious.

"She's not. But I know who you are."

He studied her for a beat, then removed a worn emblem from his coat — a half-burned copper token stamped with a design she didn't recognize.

Until he turned it slightly.

The seal wasn't from Qi.

It bore the twin dragons of Xia.

"My name isn't Wei," he said softly.

"I'm here because something's coming."

Lianhua's throat tightened.

"And it's not just about Ziyan anymore."