The second day dawned cold. Li Fan hadn't slept.
He had paced his stone cell until his legs ached, trying to think. This was a problem. Every problem could be broken down. He was good at that. In his old life, he'd break a policy issue into data points: history, stakeholders, resources, opposition.
Here, he had none of that.
But he had to start. So, he left his room. The guard outside gave him a bored look but didn't stop him. Probably thinks it doesn't matter, Li Fan thought. A dead man walking.
The Amber Palace was a maze of soaring arches and silent corridors. He found a servant, a young girl carrying linens.
"The archives," he said, trying to sound like he had authority. "Where are they?"
She pointed a timid finger down a side passage, then scurried away.
The archive room was vast and dusty. Scrolls and crystal slabs lined shelves that reached the ceiling. Li Fan pulled a scroll free. The script was elegant, flowing… and completely alien. He recognized maybe one in ten characters. It was like reading poetry in a foreign language through a fogged window. A history of the Amber Dynasty's founding, maybe. Useless.
He tried a crystal slab. Touching it, a rush of images and sensations flooded his mind—a mountain splitting, golden energy flowing. It was overwhelming, nauseating. He jerked his hand back, breathing hard. He couldn't comprehend the foundational concepts. He was illiterate and blind.
Frustration, sharp and acidic, rose in his throat. He was trying to fix a nuclear reactor with a pamphlet on steam engines.
He left the archives, his politician's mask cracking. In a wider corridor, he passed two guards in polished bronze armor. They didn't bother lowering their voices.
"…found him in the archives. Looking at the basics like a lost child."
A snort. "Waste of time. Elder Liu's disciples are at the primary vein site now. They say the corruption is deep. Nothing a mortal can do."
"Three-day deadline. More like a one-day head start for Liu's faction. The mortal will be paste by tomorrow noon."
They walked away, their laughter echoing.
Li Fan's hands clenched at his sides. Elder Liu. The primary vein site.
He followed the general direction the guards had come from, descending outdoor staircases carved into the mountain face. The air grew colder, richer with a strange, metallic scent. Ahead, a cavern entrance glowed with a faint, sickly yellow light. Two men in gray robes stood before it, arms crossed. They weren't guards. They were cultivators. Their eyes held a faint glimmer, and they looked at him with open contempt.
"Halt," one said, his voice flat. "The Crimson Root Vein is unstable. Authorized personnel only."
"I am Minister Li Fan," he said, the title ash in his mouth. "I am tasked by Her Majesty to investigate the crisis."
The other cultivator smirked. "Your task is your business. Our task, from Elder Liu, is to secure this site. Your… lack of cultivation is a contamination risk. Leave."
The dismissal was absolute. They turned their backs on him.
Li Fan stood there, the mountain wind cutting through his thin robes. He was locked out. Of the data, of the site, of everything. Despair, cold and heavy, began to settle in his gut. He was going to die. He was going to be dragged screaming from a throne room for failing a test he never signed up for.
No.
The thought was quiet, but fierce. He hadn't clawed his way up from nothing on Earth to die cowering in a palace corridor. He might not know magic. He might not have strength. But he had one thing left: the ability to read a room. To see the unspoken power dynamics. And he had seen one, single, incongruous detail.
The hairpin.
It was stupid. It was insane. It was the only card he had to play.
He turned and walked back up the stairs, not toward his quarters, but toward the heart of the palace. Toward the throne room. His mind was clear now, cold with focus. He was not going to ask for access. He was going to create a new entry point.
The same guards stood at the giant doors. They looked surprised to see him.
"I require clarification on a historical point from Her Majesty," Li Fan said, his voice steadier than he felt. "It is crucial for my diagnosis."
He must have looked convincingly desperate, or perhaps just pathetically determined. After a silent exchange, one guard slipped inside. He returned a moment later and gave a sharp nod. The doors opened just enough for Li Fan to slip through.
The throne room was less crowded now. Empress Huang Yue was on her dais, speaking quietly with a stern-faced man in elder's robes—Elder Liu himself. The man had a neatly trimmed beard and eyes like chips of flint. He glanced at Li Fan, and his expression didn't change, but the air grew slightly colder.
Li Fan approached, the long walk feeling longer than ever. He stopped at the prescribed distance and bowed.
"You return early, Minister Li," Huang Yue said. Her voice was neutral, giving nothing away. "Your clarification?"
Li Fan's mouth was dry again. He had rehearsed a question about vein harmonics, but the words fled. All he could see was the jade phoenix, still slightly, infuriatingly tilted on its axis.
"Your Majesty," he began, his voice trembling with genuine fear he didn't have to fake. "The historical records… the first convergence of the veins… was it before or after the great eclipse of the Third Era?" It was nonsense. Pure, fabricated nonsense.
Huang Yue's brow furrowed slightly. "The eclipse marked the stabilization of the veins. Any archive would tell you this. Is this the extent of your insight?"
Elder Liu's lips thinned in what might have been amusement.
This was it. The precipice.
Li Fan took a deep, shuddering breath. He took one step forward. Then another. The guards at the base of the dais stiffened, but Huang Yue raised a finger, stopping them. Her earth-colored eyes watched him, intrigued by the audacity.
"Forgive my profound ignorance, Your Majesty," Li Fan said, his words tumbling out. "The texts are… complex. But some principles are universal." He was close now, too close. He could see the fine texture of her robes, the absolute stillness of her form. He bowed again, deeper. "In all things, balance is paramount. Symmetry. Alignment."
He raised his eyes to meet hers. His heart was a drum in his ears.
"Your emblem… the phoenix of rising fortune… it is not perfectly aligned. Forgive my presumption."
Before the shock could fully register on her face, before the guards could move, he acted. He lifted his hand. His fingers, cold and shaking, touched the cool jade of the hairpin. He adjusted it. A tiny, precise movement. The phoenix settled, its wings now level, its form centered in the dark sea of her hair.
The gasp from the courtiers was a single, sharp intake of breath.
Elder Liu's eyes widened.
Empress Huang Yue did not move. She did not blast him into atoms. Her gaze was locked on his, shock giving way to something unreadable, deep and calculating. The sheer intimacy of the act hung in the air, thicker than any cultivator's aura.
And then, a voice. Cold, clear, and mechanical, spoke directly into the core of Li Fan's mind.
[Tenfold Return System Activated.]
A translucent blue screen, visible only to him, superimposed itself over his vision.
[Gift: Service (Aesthetic Adjustment) to Empress Huang Yue.]
[Reward: 10 Favor Points.]
[Favorability with Huang Yue: Neutral → Slightly Curious.]
Li Fan staggered back a step, the phantom screen blinding him. The mechanical voice echoed in his skull.
The Empress finally moved. She lifted her own hand, her fingers brushing the now-straight hairpin. She looked at him, not with anger, but with a piercing, intense curiosity.
"An interesting… principle, Minister Li," she said softly. The room was so quiet they could hear the distant groan of the mountain. "Your approach is… unorthodox."
Elder Liu found his voice, tight with controlled anger. "Such a breach of decorum—"
"Is noted," Huang Yue interrupted, her eyes still on Li Fan. "You may continue your work, Minister. You have… gained my attention."
It was a dismissal, but it was also a lifeline.
Li Fan bowed, unable to speak, and backed away. He felt the weight of every stare in the room—the shock, the envy, the burning suspicion from Elder Liu.
He exited the throne room. The doors closed behind him.
He leaned against the cold wall of the corridor, his legs weak. The blue screen was gone, but the words were burned into his mind. Tenfold Return. Favor Points. Slightly Curious.
He had a tool. A terrifying, incomprehensible tool.
And he had just made himself the most visible target in the entire court.