The brothel on Lotus Street was unnaturally still that night.
No laughter spilled from behind silk screens. No music drifted on the breeze. Even the painted girls kept their heads low, as if the shadows themselves were listening. Word of the executions had reached the capital by nightfall. And wherever whispers gathered, the name Yan Luo soon followed.
Upstairs, in the innermost chamber overlooking the koi pond, Yan Luo stretched out on a divan upholstered in imperial red, a half-empty wine cup dangling from his fingers. His robes were loose, more artfully so than accidental, with gold thread catching the lamplight in sharp, flickering lines.
He wasn't drunk. He rarely was. But he played the part well—lazy, indifferent, a fox too full to bother with the hunt.
Until the flutter of wings broke the silence.
