Longzhou bled, but quietly.
Since Zhou Fen's execution, no riots erupted. No mobs chanted through the alleys. Instead, there was just stillness — the kind that follows a hanging, or the silence in a temple where no gods remain.
And then came Lady Sun Lian.
She stepped into the ruined city like it was a stage.
Silk robes. Court diction. A voice polished like lacquer. She arrived under the banner of unity, but the message was clear:
Wu Kang was watching.
Her presence meant one thing: the court expected me to fail.
I let her speak. I let her count grain stores, visit the markets, review the ledgers. She commented politely on my restoration edicts, praised my "firm control" of unrest.
She never once asked why the ink in the canal never dried.
But Longzhou was not only politics. It was a sickness of the spirit — older than the famine and deeper than the ruined irrigation canals.
I saw it in the faces of the people. They no longer prayed.
They watched. And every so often, one of them simply vanished. A street scribe. A beggar. A rice merchant. Their homes left open. Their ink pots full.
The canal shimmered black at night. I summoned Qu An.
He arrived silently as always, his face wind-worn, eyes heavy with exhaustion. No ceremony, no pretense.
He brought scrolls. Maps. And three stones etched with faint symbols.
"I followed a man into the shrine tunnels," he said. "Blind in one eye. Carried ink jars. Disappeared. But I found the stair."
He unrolled the map of Longzhou. His finger landed on the eastern edge — the collapsed shrine district. "The foundation here is older than the rest of the city. Maybe older than the city itself. The steps lead deeper than bedrock."
He paused. "Something's wrong below, my lord. I won't pretend to know what. But it's not rebellion. It's belief."
We moved quickly.
I cleansed the markets. Stationed guards at shrines. Banned new construction without a royal seal.
I ordered water rerouted. Dug fresh wells. Sent out new grain under torch escort.
I had the old priests brought before me — the ones who still spoke in riddles.
Most I dismissed.
Two, I hanged.
One, I had sealed inside the broken bell tower.
His last words: "The petals turn. She comes when the sixth folds inward."
I told the people he had confessed to poisoning the canals. It wasn't true. But it gave them a name for their fear.
The improvements were real.
For the first time in months, food reached the inner wards.
The sick received proper medicine.
The children stopped waking screaming in the night.
Lady Sun Lian gave me a quiet smile and remarked, "You've accomplished much, Prince Wu An. Perhaps too much for such a cursed city."
I offered her a polite nod.
But I watched her servants move through the crowd with red-threaded notebooks.
That evening, I returned to the shrine.
The one beneath the street. The one Qu An found.
The steps led downward in spirals — smooth stone worn by centuries. No torch could hold its flame there for long.
At the bottom was a mirror.
Clouded. Cracked.
And in it, a figure behind me.
A woman.
Veiled in red. Crowned.
Her hands folded like the statues of mercy in ruined temples.
I did not turn.
When I spoke, my voice echoed like I was underwater. "What do you want?"
The mirror did not answer.
But the ink shimmered at its base.
I awoke on the shrine floor with no memory of sleep. The air was cold. My breath visible. In my hand was a piece of paper.
Blank — until it touched my skin.
Then, a symbol formed. Not a word. A shape.
A lotus, half-closed, with six petals.
I burned it before anyone else could see.
Over the next week, I brought order.
The grain flowed.
The city watch operated under new command.
I imposed new rites — daily readings of imperial law in the plazas, supervised "spiritual hygiene" ceremonies, enforced through fear and spectacle.
The ink in the canals faded.
The whispers grew quieter.
But the deeper problems remained.
The steps below the shrine had returned — though we had sealed them.
The mirror still pulsed in my sleep.
People stopped vanishing... but now, they spoke in riddles when questioned. They wept when I touched them. Some knelt. Others ran.
The ink basin in my room never dried.
And worst of all— The city had stopped resisting me.
That, more than anything, disturbed me.
Then the summons came.
A courier from the capital. Pale, eyes sunken. He offered me the scroll without bowing.
"His Excellency, the Lord Protector, requests your presence at the New Year Assembly."
It wasn't phrased as a request.
I was being called home.
To be judged.
I stood that night on the northern wall of Longzhou, watching the fog roll over the broken fields.
Qu An stepped beside me.
"You brought them order," he said. "Fear, yes. But also food. Safety. They obey now."
"They obey because they don't understand what they've become," I murmured.
Qu An didn't speak for a while. Then he said, "Should I continue investigating the tunnels while you're gone?"
I hesitated.
"No," I said at last. "Burn the entrance again. Seal it. Forget it."
"But the markings are spreading again," he replied. "On the shrine doors. On the homes. Even on the mayor's fan."
I looked to the mountains.
"The capital needs answers. Longzhou can wait."
As I prepared to leave, Lady Sun Lian met me one last time.
"You will be missed, Your Highness," she said, handing me a scroll of notes for the Lord Protector.
Her smile lingered too long.
On the seal of the scroll, painted faintly in red ink, was a symbol I recognized:
A flower. Six petals. One folded inward.
I said nothing and mounted my horse.
Longzhou faded behind me like smoke.
But I knew the fire had only just begun.