The morning began with red ink.
Not blood—yet—but something close.
A record scroll had been slashed through with a dagger, its contents smeared, a message scrawled over the accounts in hastily brushed characters:
"The wolf grows fangs where the emperor cannot see."
It was found on Captain Yuchi's desk.
"I was gone from my quarters for half an hour," Yuchi said, jaw locked, eyes livid. "The guard saw nothing. No sound. No prints."
"They wanted to be found," muttered Zhao Yue. "That message isn't for secrecy. It's for panic."
They stood in the war hall with Wei An, the estate guard, and Lianhua, who listened without interruption.
No one mentioned Lord Shen.
He had not appeared that morning. Nor the night before.
But Lianhua felt his absence like a wound.
By noon, the courtyard buzzed with quiet tension. Servants moved too quickly. Subordinates whispered too cautiously. Eyes flitted between doorways.
Zhenli entered Lianhua's chamber that afternoon, tossing off her fur cloak with more frustration than grace.
"Something's wrong," she said. "No one says it, but everyone feels it. The officers aren't sleeping. Even the kitchen girls are jumping at shadows." Lianhua nodded. "Because we've been left in the dark too long."
"You can fix that," Zhenli said.
"How?"
"Ask him."
Lianhua looked toward the closed doors of the west hall. "He won't speak."
"Then stop waiting for words."
That evening, as dusk dimmed the halls into silver and blue, a guard was found unconscious near the eastern corridor. His scroll pouch had been emptied. The courtyard gate had been left unlatched.
There were no footprints.
No stolen goods.
Only one thing is missing—a coded report regarding Liwei 's personal military posts.
That night, Lianhua did not go to her room.
She went to the war chamber.
Liwei stood at the map table, one hand gripping the edge, the other wrapped in a length of black cloth. He had been training again. Too hard. Too long.
When she entered, he remained silent.
So she did.
"You should tell them the truth." He glanced at her—barely.
She stepped forward.
"They're afraid. And you—" she hesitated, then let the words burn, "—you're too proud to let them see that you bleed." Still, he said nothing.
She moved closer.
"You once told me I wore silence better than words," she whispered. "But now I wonder if you use silence to run."
At last, he looked up. There was no anger in his eyes—only weariness. And grief.
"Running would mean I still believe I could escape," he said.
She froze.
And in that breath of pause, something cracked open between them.
He turned back to the map.
"An attack is coming," he said. "From outside, or within. I don't know which yet."
"Then let me help."
His eyes met hers again. This time, he did not look away.
"You already are."
That night, Lianhua stood in the cold outside his chamber again.
But this time, when the door opened, he did not close it.
And when she stepped inside, he did not stop her.
Love does not always arrive in words.
Sometimes, it waits—until silence becomes unbearable.