2026-08-18 23:00:54From a distance, the Imperial Palace of Bei Fang looked like a tranquil night painting. High roofs caught the moonlight, guard lanterns hung in orderly lines, and ponds between pavilions held mirrorlike reflections.
Up close, that tranquility vanished. The palace was built to watch who approached, decide who could pass, and erase intruders before they left a trace.
Rong Tian stood on an outer roof ridge dressed in close-fitting black clothes that diss
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The Servant Beneath the Red Curtain
The next hour tested Rong Tian’s patience. He moved repeatedly between tables carrying bamboo-leaf wine, lady’s wine, chrysanthemum tea, osmanthus sweets, bird’s nest soup, and plates of sweet-and-sour fruit, all while studying the room without appearing to study anything.At the southern tables, three young nobles drank too quickly and laughed too loudly. Their jade rings struck their cups, and the sleeves of their expensive robes became increasingly disordered each time another wine jar was emptied.“Play that song again,” one called toward the stage, raising his cup. “If I go home now, even my household servants will know I am a coward.”His red-faced companion laughed. “Go home? Your house has no pipa like this, no wine like this, and no woman who understands when to keep quiet.”An attendant behind them suppressed a laugh. An older official a
The Dragon-Carved Door
The steward appeared again at the edge of the inner corridor. He stopped a servant with two fingers pressed against the man’s shoulder, quietly but firmly enough to drain the color from his face.“Wrong route,” he said. “The monk-fruit tea goes to the northern room, not the small door.”The servant trembled. “I thought that room requested more cups.”“If that room wanted anything, they would not send the request through you,” the steward replied. “Go, and if your eyes still cannot tell one corridor from another tomorrow, do not come back.”The warning sounded ordinary. The brief way both guards by the carved door turned their heads was far more useful.No ordinary room made the steward measure his words that carefully.Rong Tian passed near the table of the young nobles who had been drinking to
Music Behind the Smiles
Rong Tian carried the wine out just as a qin player in the front hall finished a slow phrase. The first applause rose from the banquet room, followed by drunken laughter that tried to sound refined and failed to hide its arrogance.The main hall was spacious but not designed for empty extravagance. Low tables were positioned according to status, crystal lanterns hung at equal heights, and the gaps between pillars allowed servants to pass without brushing against guests who valued their robes more highly than another man’s life.The people seated there were not cheap revelers. Young nobles wore layered indigo yuanlingpao, stout officials kept neat futou and jade belts, sea-route merchants displayed rings on their fingers but spoke too carefully to be truly drunk, and several attendants pretended to be idle while their eyes continued working.Rong Tian lowered his head and entered the flow of servants. Somewhere insi
Behind the Red Lanterns
Lin Zhao was accepted too naturally by a place whose business depended on pretending not to recognize its guests. If the answer Rong Tian wanted was hidden here, waiting on the roof would only allow the night to move on without him.He slipped down toward the rear of the building. The truth behind the red lanterns would not come outside on its own.The rear of Orchid Pavilion was far more honest than its front. The main veranda sold music, red lanterns, measured smiles, and the illusion that every guest who entered belonged there, while the side alley revealed wine crates, kitchen refuse, water barrels, and servants running with breathless urgency.Rong Tian paused on a low rear wall and studied the available entrances. The front door was for guests, the side door for wine and supplies, and the back door for kitchens and everything that men in expensive robes preferred not to see.A house that sold p
The State Preceptor’s Trail and the Red Lanterns
Not far from the lakeshore stood a pavilion with a dark blue roof, white pillars, and a narrow veranda facing the water. Two jade lanterns hung beside the entrance, while the breeze from that direction carried a refined blend of ru xiang and mo yao, an expensive fragrance burned not to soothe sleep but to mark the residence as belonging to someone who refused to be mistaken for an ordinary official.Six guards stood outside. The distance between them was generous, yet the angles of their bodies and lines of sight were disciplined, suggesting that whoever commanded them preferred room to breathe over a crowd of watchful eyes.A man like Lin Zhao did not need many guards to feel safe. Usually, that meant he was the most dangerous guard in the room himself.Rong Tian had not yet descended from the roof when the pavilion door opened from within. A man stepped outside without announcement, additional torches, or guards rushin
A Shadow Above the Emperor’s Walls
From a distance, the Imperial Palace of Bei Fang looked like a tranquil night painting. High roofs caught the moonlight, guard lanterns hung in orderly lines, and ponds between pavilions held mirrorlike reflections.Up close, that tranquility vanished. The palace was built to watch who approached, decide who could pass, and erase intruders before they left a trace.Rong Tian stood on an outer roof ridge dressed in close-fitting black clothes that dissolved the shape of his body into the darkness. The night wind tugged at his sleeves, but the fabric remained quiet against the old tiles.He ignored the gardens and bridges, studying instead the lanterns, patrol rhythms, blind spots beneath covered corridors, and intervals between guard shifts.In Jianghu, people guarded face. In the palace, they guarded doors, light, and the timing between footsteps.Two eunuchs passed through a cov
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