Lucheng's gates opened with the slowness of old men stretching their backs. Dawn had only just thought about waking, and the frost on the wagons creaked as if annoyed to be moving. Ziyan and her companions entered with the grain caravans, cloaks drawn, their horses steaming. No one looked twice at a merchant's pack horse, even one that carried a jar that could tilt a kingdom.
Inside the walls, the city smelled of cabbage soup and old wine. Prices were scrawled in thick chalk on boards nailed to the market post; someone had rubbed one line away and written a higher number above it. Soldiers leaned against the gate towers, their pikes upright but their shoulders slouched. They watched everyone, but not too hard — the watch of men who feared their own officers more than enemies.
"Gaoling's name is on every tongue," Shuye murmured as they passed the teahouse row. "Xia banners are near enough that people argue about what color they are."
Ziyan's jaw tightened. "Then we are not too late."
By evening, Shuye had done what he promised. The wine boy had been given a handful of coin and a story about a visiting merchant who admired Meng's taste in cellars. By dusk, a servant in a faded coat brought word: His Lordship will see you tonight. Cellar door. Bring no more than three.
The wine cellar of Lord Meng's manor smelled of stone, cedar, and dust that had grown comfortable with its owners. Candles guttered in iron sconces, their light too narrow for ease. Meng sat on a broad stool, fur-lined robe around him like a judgment. His hair was iron-grey and bound in a knot that had learned dignity decades ago.
"You carry trouble in your wake, girl," he said, not unkindly.
Ziyan bowed, deep enough to show respect, not so deep that it begged. "Then let me pour it here and not in your hall."
Feiyan stood a pace behind her, knife sheathed but not forgotten. Li Qiang waited at the base of the steps, silent as a carved guardian.
Ziyan set the kiln-fired jar on the table. The ledgers within were carefully unwrapped, their cedar-scent filling the cellar. She laid one open, the ink stark against the page.
"This is what Zhang did," she said, calm but cutting. "He took grain meant for Gaoling's garrisons and sold it where the price was highest. He starved the road so that Xia's soldiers could walk it more easily."
Meng's face did not move, but the hand that stroked his beard slowed. "You ask me to betray the council that names him Regent."
"No," Ziyan said. "I ask you to betray starvation."
The old lord's mouth twitched. "You have your father's tongue."
"Then perhaps he has my silence," Ziyan answered. "He serves Zhang still, does he not? But even his silence cannot feed three prefectures."
That struck. Meng looked away, toward the casks that lined the cellar like listeners. At last, he spoke. "You have proof enough to make a noise. But noise is not victory."
"Then let the noise buy you time," Ziyan said. "Hold your gates. Refuse Zhang's summons. Do nothing more. Doing nothing is the hardest work now, but it will keep your people alive long enough to choose when the choosing matters."
Meng's fingers tapped the table, slow as a water clock. Then he nodded once, the movement as sharp as a seal pressed to wax. "I will hold my gates. But I will not raise your banner."
"You will," Ziyan said softly, gathering the ledgers back into the jar. "When you have no other left to raise."
They left before the manor slept, slipping back into the city's veins and leaving the cellar behind them. In the alley outside the west gate, Shuye's grin found its old shape. "One crack in the floor," he said. "That will spread."
"Not yet enough," Wei grumbled. "One gate held closed does not make a wall."
"Then we open another," Ziyan replied. "Pingyuan next."
Pingyuan was louder, brighter, hungrier. Lord Zhao's house stood on a hill that thought itself higher than it was. They arrived under the excuse of trade and were met not with suspicion but curiosity. Zhao liked novelty, and Ziyan's name—whispered as the girl who defied Zhang—was novelty enough.
That night, they were invited to a private banquet in a small hall lined with painted screens. Zhao was young, handsome in a way that had never been tested, and wore a smile that looked well-practiced.
"They call you traitor," he said as he poured his own wine. "You don't look like one."
"I look like what I am," Ziyan replied, meeting his gaze. "I am the question in Zhang's throat. He can call me what he wishes, but if he feared me less, he would not pay so much to silence me."
Zhao laughed, delighted. "You talk like a gambler who thinks she has all the dice."
"I talk like someone who knows which throw will turn the table," Ziyan said.
She let him believe that being first to support her would make him appear bold, cunning, the man who saw the future first. She hinted—not promised—that Qi might favor those who helped her. Feiyan leaned against the wall like a shadow given patience, saying nothing but letting Zhao feel her presence like a whetstone against his pride.
By the end of the banquet, Zhao clapped the table. "I will host you again. And perhaps, when the drums beat, I will open my gates to your road."
"Open them soon," Ziyan advised. "The drums are already warming their skins."
Two days later, as they left Pingyuan, a new proclamation greeted them at the gate. This one was different: the ink thick and black, the words more venomous.
By order of Regent Zhang: Any who give aid to Li Ziyan, fugitive and traitor, are declared conspirators with the foreign power Xia. Their houses will be struck from the register. Their heirs will be nameless.
A crowd had gathered, muttering. Some spat. Some only stared. One woman made a sign against evil and then bowed her head to Ziyan as she passed, quick and secret as prayer.
"They are afraid," Wei said.
"Good," Ziyan said, pulling her hood low. "Fear makes people choose. We will give them a better choice than Zhang."
That night, in a rented room above a shuttered weaver's shop, Ziyan sat by the window and tied the blue silk tighter around her wrist. The jar sat near her knee, warm as a heartbeat.
"Zhang no longer pretends to ignore you," Feiyan said from the shadows.
"Then we are no longer invisible," Ziyan replied.
Outside, a drum rolled somewhere in the hills, too far to call soldiers, too close to be forgotten.
"Let him send watchers," Ziyan said quietly. "Let them see something worth the money."
She blew out the lamp, and the room vanished into the dark that now felt like ally, not cover.