NOVEL NEXT Chapter 297: What To Do Next
"Say it," I told him. "Or stop standing in my way."
Longzi didn't blink. His gaze held mine like a hand on a hilt. Lady Huai's fingers hooked themselves into his sleeve; he didn't look down to shake them off, and he didn't move aside either.
"You've changed," he said.
"I adjusted," I replied with a shrug. "You can keep up or you can get stepped on."
A flick at the corner of his mouth—annoyance or amusement, I couldn't tell. Lin Wei's grip tightened in Yizhen's robe; I laid my palm on the boy's head without breaking the stare.
"You walk the market as if you're not the most watched person in it," Longzi said. "That's either courage or carelessness."
"Or practice," I said. "Which do you think?"
He didn't give me the compliment. "Risk."
"Then learn how to carry it," I said, and let my hand slide once down WeiWei's hair so he could borrow the steadiness. "Some of us don't get to put it down."
Lady Huai tugged harder. "My lord, we are not required to trade words with—"
"With the Empress?" I asked her, still not looking away from him. "Be careful finishing other people's sentences. You might find your tongue cut out for what you say."
Color stamped itself in her cheeks. The nearest vendors leaned in, pretending to arrange skewers and cloth while they counted each breath we spent.
"Why is he here?" Longzi asked finally, eyes cutting to Yizhen for the first time. "You had officers, guards, half the court throwing themselves at your feet last night, if rumor has the hour right. Why him?"
"Because my son chose him," I answered. "And because he didn't put the child down even when his arms went numb."
Yizhen didn't speak. He adjusted his sleeve a fraction so the small fist could anchor easier and watched Longzi the way a hunter watches a ridge line—without fear and without invitation.
Longzi took that in. The calculation shifted behind his eyes; I didn't miss the small white line at his knuckles where he almost clenched a fist and didn't.
"You intend to keep him close," he said.
"I intend to keep my son breathing," I said. "If that requires men who don't ask permission to show up, I'll budget for the inconvenience."
Lady Huai's laugh was short and sharp. "So that is the new standard in Daiyu—whoever clings tightest to a child gets a place at the table?"
"No," I said. "The new standard is 'whoever doesn't drop him when the knives come out gets a place at the table'."
Deming cleared his throat—not a warning, only a reminder that the crowd had swelled. Yaozu's gaze did a clean sweep of the faces nearest us and put two on a list without moving his hands.
"Markets test prices," I said, bringing my attention back to Longzi. "Let's test yours. If you had to hold the north gate with half your lanterns out and your rope dealer already bought, what would you do first?"
That angered him—pride pricked and bled. "Replace the rope with Palace cut and stamp," he said, too fast.
"Too late," I said. "It isn't cut yet."
His jaw worked. Then he swallowed the first answer. "I'd stop trusting bells. Change to drum-codes, two men to each station, and a runner who doesn't mind frostbite."
"Better," I said. "And if your watch captain asks to leave for his mother's illness?"
"Deny it," he said without hesitation, and a low sardonic note entered his voice. "And then invite him to routine inspection at third bell. Routine," he repeated, tasting the word the way I had a day ago. "If he runs, he's guilty, and we follow."
"Not terrible," I said. "You can keep standing here."
He exhaled through his nose. The faintest not-smile. It wasn't flattery. It was recognition.
A boy darted between us with a string of tin bells; the chime broke the line of sight for a heartbeat. When it cleared, Longzi's attention dipped, as if he'd seen the small tremor that still lived in Lin Wei's shoulder.
"What does he need?" he asked—quietly, and not for show.
"Warmth," I said. "Food he can recognize. Routes with no blind corners. Men who can be furniture."
"I can be furniture," Yizhen said mildly, the first words he'd offered since the chestnut. "I think I would make a perfect bed."
Longzi's eyes flicked to him, sharp. "You were never good at standing still."
"I never had reason to before," Yizhen replied. "Now I do."
Lady Huai bristled hard enough to creak. "You dare answer your betters as if—"
"As if my mother raised me with ears," Yizhen said, and the softness of it made her flinch more than volume would have.
I tilted my head at Longzi. "You asked why he was with me. Here is the better question: where are you going from here?"
He understood what I was offering: a path, not a guarantee. He also understood what it would cost.
The jealousy had not left him—he didn't pretend it had—but it sat now beside the more practical truth that the board had changed while he was looking in the wrong direction.
"You're asking me to step toward you," he grunted, his eyes narrowing on the men standing over my shoulder.
"I'm telling you where I'll be," I said. "Whether you arrive is your decision."
"And if I come with him?" Lady Huai snapped, heels grinding the frost as if she could force the ground to agree.
"If you bring her," I said, still to him, "you bring a problem I don't have time to solve in public."
He didn't look at his fiancée. He didn't promise me anything either. "You want proof," he said at last.
"I want results," I said. "Proof is for men who need stories after."
Deming shifted the basket higher on his arm, impatience warming his eyes now that he knew I wasn't going to stab anyone in a market lane. Mingyu had gone idle in that lazy way of his that meant he was watching everything—hands, mouths, the angle of a man's shoulders when he lied.
I stepped half a pace closer to Longzi until the winter between us felt like something I could cut.
"Dusk," I said. "Side path between the water gate and the old kiln yard. Come with one man you trust to keep his mouth shut. Not a retinue. Not a trumpet. If you're late, be useful enough that I forgive you."
"Alone?" Lady Huai spat. "You would ask my betrothed to meet you—"
"I didn't ask," I said. "I told him what he needed to do next."