Nan Shu wore winter the way old soldiers wear scars—without ceremony. Smoke rose from squat roofs in thin, disciplined threads, and the river slid by like someone who had stopped bothering to greet neighbors. When Ziyan and Feiyan came by the orchard track at dusk, the town did not look up. Nan Shu had learned that attention was a tax.
They followed lanes that had not been paved in years, skirting the main road and its questions. They passed a shuttered shrine whose paint had learned humility, a granary with its stencil half-flaked, and a row of pottery sheds breathing faint smoke.
Feiyan stopped before a door that sagged inward as if bowing to no one. She knocked twice, soft as habit. The door opened wider than expected and a man stood there with soot up to his elbows and a grin already ready.
"You look worse than the last time you limped in," he said, voice warm and steady as a hearth that had been banked all day.
Feiyan's mouth tugged into a shadow of a smile. "That's how you know it's me."
Shuye stepped aside, brushing clay dust from his palms. "And you brought someone who carries trouble bigger than your knife."
"Ziyan," Feiyan said simply.
Shuye's eyes lingered, curious but not prying. He nodded once, like a man accepting another log for the fire. "Then come in. The kiln's still warm. You can sit where the bowls dry; they won't mind sharing."
Inside, the air smelled of wet clay and cedar ash. Shelves lined the walls, holding bowls in every stage of their lives: raw, drying, glazed, waiting for heat. In the corner, the kiln crouched with its mouth glowing, its breath steady.
Madam Wen emerged from the back, apron dusted white as if she had just wrestled with flour instead of fire. "You're late," she said to Feiyan, though her voice carried no sharpness.
"You always say that," Feiyan replied.
"And I'm always right." Madam Wen's gaze turned to Ziyan, measuring her the way a potter measures a lump of clay: how much could be shaped, how much would resist. "You bring someone who walks like a question. Good. Sit."
Before Ziyan could settle, Shuye crossed the room and crouched near the table, ear bent toward the lane. "Banners in the street," he murmured. "Iron-threaded. Close."
"Still keeping score?" Feiyan asked.
"Someone has to," Shuye said, flipping the false plank from the table in one motion. Beneath lay a bin of raw slip, cool and grey. "Give me the bundle."
Ziyan hesitated only a heartbeat before placing the ledgers in his hands. He unwrapped them with a reverence that did not slow him down, then nodded toward Madam Wen.
"Clay will hold them till morning," she said, already pulling down a lidded jar from a high shelf. "Then we fire them into something soldiers won't bother to break."
They worked quickly, wrapping the scrolls in cloth and straw. Ziyan's fingers shook—not from fear but from the sudden, sharp trust she felt in this place. Shuye lowered each scroll into the jar like placing bones back into a body.
When the last one was inside, Madam Wen sealed the lid with slip and pressed her thumb into the edge. "People don't question jars with flaws. They recognize themselves in them," she said.
The patrol passed outside, boots crunching in rhythm, voices sharp. One man hammered a proclamation onto the post at the corner. The words were read aloud, their sound slicing the night:
By order of the emergency council, fugitives of the capital are believed to be within Nan Shu. Hospitality without permit is treason. Those who harbor Li Ziyan will be named her tongue and cut from the city's mouth.
Shuye snorted softly and wiped his hands. "They always make it sound like we should thank them for the threat."
"Eat first," Madam Wen said. "Soldiers are easier to argue with when you've eaten."
Bowls of millet porridge appeared, steam rising in thin, untroubled lines. Ziyan sat and let the warmth seep into her palms. It felt strange to be given food not in haste, not in pity, but because someone had decided she deserved to eat.
"You used to sit on that stool," Shuye told Feiyan, nodding to the bench. "After the knife fight near the bridge. You wouldn't talk for two days. I thought you'd gone deaf."
"I had," Feiyan said dryly. "To bad advice."
Ziyan looked between them. "You've known each other long."
"Long enough," Shuye said, eyes crinkling. "We buried enough nights together that I stopped counting. I keep count for other things now."
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Word is the courier squad brought a summons for the magistrate today. And for Wang Yu—the clerk who knows which storehouse locks are older than Zhang's ambitions. They'll question him by second bell tomorrow."
Ziyan's back straightened. "If they have him, they have the last piece of the ledger puzzle. He will give them what they want—or they'll take it."
"Then we get there first," Feiyan said.
Madam Wen stoked the kiln, cedar light dancing across her face. "Be quick about it. This town has learned to forget trouble quickly, but soldiers have better memories these days."
Later, Ziyan followed Feiyan and Shuye up to the roof. From there, Nan Shu stretched out like a quiet thought. Three watch fires burned at the outskirts, and the river glimmered in dark bands.
"East ward," Shuye said, pointing. "Second house past the granary with the cracked stencil. Wang Yu keeps his lamp burning until his wife snores. You'll know the sound—she has lungs like a bellows."
Feiyan gave a small grunt of approval. "Still watching your neighbors."
"Someone has to," Shuye said again. "Better me than Zhang's men."
Ziyan let the night's air brush her face. For the first time since leaving the capital, she felt the shape of a plan forming rather than just the press of survival. "We'll meet him tonight. Before the summons does."
Feiyan looked at her, unreadable in the dark. "You're sure?"
Ziyan nodded. "We didn't save the ledgers to watch them be completed in Zhang's favor."
Shuye grinned, though his hand had already gone to the short club at his belt. "Good. I was getting bored."
They moved through the alleys like smoke. Shuye led, taking paths that bent twice before arriving anywhere, pointing out which dogs would bark and which fences could be vaulted without a sound.
When they reached Wang Yu's house, the lamp was still lit. Feiyan picked the latch with a touch so light the door sighed open.
Inside, the clerk looked up from his table, eyes going wide, then narrowing with recognition.
"I am not brave," he said at once.
"You don't need to be," Ziyan replied. "Just precise."
She stepped into the light and let him see her face. His breath caught. "If I help you, I cannot stay in this street."
"Then come to mine," Ziyan said, voice soft but carrying the weight of the ledgers in her care. "But first, show me where Zhang keeps the pages he fears most."
Wang Yu hesitated. The house was silent except for the sound of his wife turning over in the next room. Then he pushed his chair back and rose. "Before second bell," he said, voice tight. "Meet me at the granary. I will open the door no one uses."
When they returned to Madam Wen's, the kiln's glow painted the room in patient fire. Shuye dropped onto a bench, already sketching a route in the dust on the floor.
"Second bell," he said. "And don't take the lane with the bucket—its slat bites."
Feiyan crouched beside him, tracing the route with her finger. "Good. We're ready."
Ziyan rested her hand on the sealed jar in the kiln's heat. The thumbprint Madam Wen had left looked like a crescent moon. It was imperfect, but it would hold.
"Tomorrow," she said quietly, "we start making Zhang fear something he cannot burn."
The kiln hissed softly, as if in agreement.