The evidence arrived before dawn.
Not carried by a messenger, but discovered—as if it had always been there.
Wu Jin was handed a sealed ledger pulled from a collapsed records room near the inner barracks. Its bindings were scorched, but the pages inside were intact. Too intact.
He read the first entry without blinking.
The second made his fingers tighten.
By the fifth, the room felt too small to breathe.
Shen Yue's name appeared three times.
Supply reroutes.
Night movements.
Private access to command corridors.
All logged under emergency authorization—bearing Wu Jin's own seal.
Forgery again.
Perfect.
But worse than before.
Because this time, the orders weren't merely tactical.
They described patterns—timing sabotage to moments when Wu An was isolated, when Zhou probes coincided, when internal confusion would be maximized.
Wu Jin closed the ledger slowly.
"She would never—" General Han began.
"I know," Wu Jin said.
But knowing did not dissolve the weight pressing against his ribs.
Across the city, Wu An received his own gift.
A prisoner was brought to him just before sunrise, alive and unbroken—another deliberate choice.
The man knelt, shaking.
"He told us everything," Liao Yun said evenly, standing beside Wu An.
The prisoner swallowed hard.
"They said… they said I was to report to Commander Liao Yun directly. That he was coordinating the alley failures. That he ordered us to pull back at the Causeway."
Wu An's gaze did not flicker.
"And who told you this?" he asked.
The man hesitated, then whispered, "Zhou officers. They said the Golden Dragons were compromised. That Liao Yun wanted the brothers divided."
Silence followed.
The being inside Wu An aligned sharply—threat vectors tightening—but Wu An did not move.
Liao Yun met his gaze without flinching.
"Too clean," Liao Yun said. "Too symmetrical."
Shen Yue arrived moments later, breathless, having been summoned urgently.
She took in the scene in a single glance.
"They're turning us into mirrors," she said quietly. "Each of us made to look like the other's knife."
Wu An studied her face.
Not searching for guilt.
Searching for deviation.
He found none.
Liao Yun folded his hands behind his back.
"I anticipated this after the Causeway," he said. "If I were Zhou—or Father—I would poison trust by targeting the pillars, not the throne."
"And your response?" Wu An asked.
Liao Yun allowed himself the smallest, sharp smile.
"I already moved the real signals."
He gestured toward the eastern rooftops.
"Decoy command paths have been active since midnight. Anyone acting on forged orders will expose themselves by where they go, not what they say."
Shen Yue exhaled softly. "You're baiting the saboteur."
"Yes," Liao Yun replied. "And Zhou will think it's working."
Wu An felt something tighten inside him—not suspicion, not relief.
Approval.
Across the city, Wu Jin confronted Shen Yue alone.
He did not accuse her.
Which somehow made it worse.
"They want me to doubt you," he said quietly.
She met his gaze steadily. "They want you to doubt him too."
He nodded.
"And they're succeeding."
She did not deny it.
But she said, "If you act on that doubt, they win."
Wu Jin turned toward the window, where Zhou's distant campfires dotted the hills.
"They're close enough to finish this," he said. "But they won't."
"No," Shen Yue agreed. "Because this isn't about conquest. It's about collapse."
Far to the south, the Southern King received another sealed message.
Hold.
Only that word.
He folded the paper carefully.
Ling An was not ready yet.
Back in the tower, Wu Shuang traced the lotus sigil with one finger, feeling the city's tension ripple through it.
"They're suspecting the wrong fractures," she said softly.
Her father smiled faintly.
"They always do."
"And Liao Yun?" she asked.
"A variable," the Lord Protector replied. "Intelligent ones always are."
Wu Shuang tilted her head.
"Then we should account for him."
Her father's smile widened.
"Yes," he said. "Soon."
Below, in the battered streets, Wu An stood beside Liao Yun and Shen Yue as Zhou's cannons shifted again—closer now, within killing distance.
The alliance still stood.
But every pillar was under strain.
And someone, somewhere inside Ling An, was counting how long before trust finally collapsed under its own weight.