NOVEL NEXT Chapter 308: Everyone Has A List
Yaozu's eyes smiled even if his mouth didn't. He liked work he didn't have to apologize for.
Longzi shifted his weight a fraction. Not restlessness. Calculation.
"You want something," I told him.
"A headcount," he returned. "Not guards. Not ministers. The men and women who actually keep this place standing. Laundries. Oil-cellar. Night kitchen. People who move before dawn and after last bell. I want to know their names before they learn mine."
"You'll get a list," Mingyu offered, reaching for a bamboo slip that wasn't there because I'd already given it to the laundries last week.
"No list," Longzi replied. "Names are remembered better when you hear them first."
"Go with Yaozu," I ordered. "Speak when spoken to. Learn where not to stand. If someone hands you a broom, use it. That way they'll believe you when you say you know where the dust goes."
"That's going to make him popular," Yizhen purred.
"Popular is useless," I muttered. "Believed is better."
Lin Wei pressed the empty cup into Deming's hand and, for the first time that day, looked past my sleeve at the doorway without flinching. He didn't step toward Longzi. He didn't retreat either. He just watched, breath even, fingers curled in the silk at my wrist but not clamped.
"Stance two," Deming prompted gently. "Slow."
Lin Wei set his feet. Drew breath on my count. The weight of wood didn't look so heavy now.
"Good," I told him. "Again."
He tried. Missed the heel set by half a thumb, and then corrected without breaking the line.
Deming's mouth tightened—pride he wouldn't spend out loud. Yizhen pretended not to watch and failed. Even Shadow lifted his head a degree and let it fall like, fine, the boy can keep the sword another day.
A runner knocked against the jamb with more enthusiasm than caution. Longzi's shoulder turned—reflex, nothing more—blocking half the doorway without entering the room.
It was a good move, the right move. And now I didn't have to cut him for learning.
"Speak," I told the boy.
"West cloister reports arrival of Lady Huai's mother," he blurted. "She has… opinions. And a list."
"Everyone in this city has a list," Mingyu murmured, because he'd been writing them all day.
"Have her write it twice," I instructed. "First copy goes to Rites for burning. Second comes to me. If the two don't match, we'll match them with her tongue."
The runner gulped. "Yes, my— yes."
"Go," I added, softer, because terror wastes messengers.
He vanished. Longzi didn't chase the moving thing the way young officers do when they think speed is worth more than aim.
"Deming," I said, not turning. "Your drills move to dawn for a week. Inner court only. No call-outs. Hands, not mouths."
"Already planned," he returned.
"Good. And you," I went on, to Longzi, "walk with Yaozu now. If you try to organize the kitchens, he'll break your fingers. If you try to fix a brazier, I'll break your head. Learn first. Then touch."
"Learning," he answered.
"And tonight," I finished, "make sure you get some sleep."
That pulled three looks at once—Mingyu with amusement, Yizhen with mischief, Deming with agreement he disguised as indifference.
Longzi's mouth twitched. "Are you actually ordering me?"
"You're of no use to me dull," I returned. "Men who want to impress me stay awake until they fail. Men who belong to me learn when to put themselves away."
He didn't pretend not to understand the difference. "Understood."
Yaozu turned, smooth as a hinge that had never squeaked. Longzi followed him out without looking over his shoulder. The doorway rule held. The air changed only because fewer bodies were in it, not because anything important had shifted.
Mingyu rubbed at the bridge of his nose, then dropped his hand and watched Wei finish stance two without tripping over his own feet. "You know," he murmured, "if the ministers could see this room, half their poetry would die."
"Tell them to write about rugs," I replied. "The rugs are doing more for the empire than they are."
"That line is going into an edict," he warned, eyes warm.
"Do it," I told him, and reached for the cloth to wipe Lin Wei's fingers clean. He yielded the hand without looking away from Deming's quiet nod. Trust moved from one man to the next without fanfare.
That was the kind I kept.
Yizhen stretched like he'd been working and not watching. "I'm going to ensure the jasmine supply never disrespects you again."
"Do that," I hummed, because he liked being given nonsense that wasn't nonsense.
He drifted, a shadow that liked being noticed, and still somehow furniture when Lin Wei needed a place to lean.
Deming set the cup aside and rose. "Again?"
Lin Wei lifted the wooden sword and the corner of his mouth—just a fraction—remembered how to be a child's. He moved through the stance, cleaner now. He didn't look to the doorway at all.
"Good," I told him, and I didn't make it sound like mercy.
A second knock. Then a third, lighter, as if the knuckles had learned from the first mistake.
"Enter," I called.
A clerk slid in with a wrapped bundle and a bow he'd practiced in a mirror. "For the Captain," he offered, presenting the new brass seals Mingyu had ordered for the routes. He looked at me while he said it, not at the doorway. He was already learning where decisions lived.
"Leave them on the sill," I instructed. "He'll lift them when he earns the next step."
The clerk set the bundle on the threshold—exactly at the line—and retreated before he broke a rule he didn't know existed yesterday.
"Again," Deming prompted, and Lin Wei's shoulders settled into the rhythm.
I touched the edge of the seals with one finger as I passed the doorway. Cold metal. A promise I had forged out of stubbornness and utility, not romance. Longzi would carry them like a man carries good weight.
Deming would pretend he didn't count how often they clicked at the Emperor's back. Yaozu would know where they were even in the dark. Mingyu would sleep.
I stepped back inside. The room held.
"Doorway only," I reminded no one in particular.
"Doorway only," Longzi's voice drifted from the hall, already moving away with Yaozu's quieter stride.
Lin Wei didn't flinch. He set his feet for the next stance, wood balanced, breath matching mine.
"Tap," I murmured. "Set. Breathe."
The latch clicked once as the corridor beyond shifted to its evening work. I lifted my hand for Lin Wei to mirror the line—
—and a pigeon from the message loft skittered through the outer screen, lost, absurd, alive, throwing small shadows across the brazier as Deming's gloved hand came up without thought.
He caught the bird gently mid-flap while I reached for the cord at the scroll tube on its leg and Mingyu leaned in with a grin he didn't bother to hide and Yizhen laughed under his breath and Shadow huffed as if to ask whether we truly intended to keep this palace civilized if even the birds refused to obey the rules.