The cave was freezing. Han Jue's hands shook so hard he had to shove them into his armpits just to stop the rattling.
"Think, Han Jue, think," he hissed. The modern slang felt stupid and small against the jagged stone walls.
Behind him, Zhou Yan let out a wet, rattling moan. It didn't sound like a person anymore; it sounded like a dying animal.
Han Jue scrambled over, dragging a flat stone under the General's head to keep it out of the mud. It was hard and cold, but it was all he had.
Outside, thunder cracked. The sky was turning a nasty, dark purple. The storm was seconds away.
"Fire. We need fire or he's going into shock," Han Jue whispered. He bolted to the cave mouth, eyes darting over the wet dirt.
He snatched a handful of pine needles sheltered under a root, a piece of flint-heavy river stone, and a dead cedar branch.
He knelt, his expensive indigo silks dragging in the muck. He tried to remember that one survival video he'd watched instead of studying for his trig exam. He slammed the stones together.
Clack. Clack.
Nothing.
"Work, damn it!" he screamed, his voice cracking. Sweat stung his eyes.
Finally, a tiny orange spark caught the needles. He hovered over it, shielding it with his body like it was his own pulse. He blew—softly, then harder—until the cedar finally took.
The orange glow hit the walls.
Han Jue let out a shaky, hysterical laugh that turned straight into a sob. He was crying and grinning at the same time, his face smeared with soot.
"It's warm, Yan! Look, we've got fire!"
But the light only showed the truth: the blood was still soaking through Zhou Yan's bandages.
Han Jue's laughter died. He needed medicine.
Now.
Suddenly, his brain felt cold. A clinical, transparent map overlaid his vision. His "Identification" as the Shadow Merchant kicked in, and a library of forbidden info started scrolling through his head.
Sanqi. Panax Notoginseng. The King of Hemostatics.
"Stay here, Big Cat," Han Jue breathed, his eyes going wide and flat. "Don't go AFK. I'll be back."
He sprinted into the woods just as the rain started to dump. He didn't see a forest; he saw data points. Then, he spotted a flash of blue fabric—a local girl with a wicker basket.
Han Jue didn't hesitate. He moved faster than he thought he could. He ripped the silver-tipped pin from his own hair and lunged. He slammed the girl against a tree, pressing the sharp point right against her throat.
"The herb," he growled. His voice wasn't high-pitched with panic anymore. It was the Merchant—flat, dangerous, and empty.
"Show me where the Sanqi grows. Now."
The girl's eyes went huge. She let out a terrified sob. She looked at him like he was a monster.
Han Jue's heart was screaming: Stop it! Put the pin down! But his hand wouldn't move.
The "Identification" held his arm like a vice. He pressed the pin just hard enough to leave a red mark.
"The bleeding won't stop," he hissed, his face inches from hers. "If he dies, your basket won't be the only thing empty tonight. Lead me to the Sanqi."
--
The cave wasn't empty for long.
A shadow moved at the back of the cavern. Commander Wei Da had been following the blood trail for miles. He had watched the boy start the fire from the darkness, waiting for him to leave.
Wei Da stepped into the light. His armor was dented and caked in mud. He didn't pray or talk to himself. He just knelt by the mossy stone and checked the General's pulse.
"General," Wei Da rasped. He saw the gray skin and the shallow breath. He didn't waste time.
With a grunt, Wei Da hoisted Zhou Yan's dead weight over his shoulder. The General's head lolled against his back, blood staining the Commander's tattered cloak.
Outside, the storm broke.
Wei Da didn't look at the fire Han Jue had almost died for. He whistled once. A battle-scarred warhorse trotted out from the trees.
Wei Da heaved the General onto the saddle and climbed up behind him to hold him steady.
"Hold on, sir," Wei Da hissed into the rain. "I'm getting you out of this hole."
He dug his heels in. The horse bolted. The thunder drowned out the sound of the hooves. The cave was empty.
Twenty minutes later, Han Jue burst back into the cave. His silks were shredded, and his hands were stained a deep, bruised green from the crushed Sanqi he'd forced the forager to dig up.
He was gasping, his face wet with rain and tears. The Merchant persona had finally receded, leaving him raw and shaking.
"Yan! I got it! I got the—"
Han Jue stopped. The fire was still crackling, but the flat stone was empty. The moss was there. The smell of wet cedar was there. But the General was gone.
"Big Cat?" Han Jue's voice was a tiny, pathetic thread. He dropped the herbs into the dirt. He ran to the stone, feeling for the lingering warmth where a body used to be.
"Yan! This isn't funny! Big Cat!"
He spun in a frantic circle. A freezing trickle of rainwater had worked its way down the back of his neck, soaking into his inner layers. He wanted to scream—not just because the General was gone, but because his toes were numb and his left boot was making a pathetic squelch sound with every frantic pace.
He collapsed in the dirt. He had threatened a life, lost his mind, and crossed a mountain, only to find himself alone in the dark.
"Don't leave me here," he whispered to the empty stone. "I don't know the way home."
He sat there for a long time, staring at the embers. The panic turned into a cold, hard knot in his stomach.
If I can't find him, I'll make the person who took him come to me.
He thought of the man in the gold-threaded robes—the one with the predatory eyes. The Tyrant.
"You want the General?" Han Jue whispered.
"Fine. Let's trade."
He used a charred piece of wood to scrawl a message on a scrap of silk. He didn't use names.
To the One who hunts the God of Death:
The Ledger of the Northern Bribes is in my hand. If you want the names of the traitors, meet me at the Willow Bridge. Midnight. Bring the man you took from the cave. No soldiers. No banners. Or the truth dies with me.
He tied the silk to a branch at the mouth of the cave. He knew the scouts were out there. He just had to wait.
---
The timing was off.
Su Cheng's carriage had barely come to a halt before he was out the door, The hem of his robe was a sodden, heavy weight, caked in three inches of orange clay. Every time he stepped, the wet silk slapped against his shins like a cold, muddy rag."
He wasn't just out of breath; his throat tasted like copper. He leaned against the cave wall, his chest heaving so violently it made his ribs ache.
He tried to think, but the lack of oxygen turned his 'data points' into a blurry mess.
He stopped at the entrance, his lantern shaking. The smell hit him instantly—the sharp scent of burnt cedar and the heavy, sickening smell of iron.
Blood.
He rushed to the flat stone.
Empty.
The fire was dying, the orange embers gasping for air. He saw the crushed green herbs scattered in the mud like trash and the moss "pillow" still indented from the weight of a head.
Su Cheng stood there, the silence of the cave ringing in his ears. He reached out and touched the stone. It was still warm. He had missed them by minutes.
"Seriously?" he hissed, his voice cracking. "I'm late? My calculations are not functioning well, huh?"
He started pacing, his boots splashing in the muck. He looked at the floor like he was trying to read a broken hard drive. One heavy boot print near the exit. One set of smaller, frantic prints heading toward the woods.
The cave was a freezer, smelling of wet rock and the iron tang of the General's blood. Su Cheng didn't wait for his guards. He scrambled toward the dying embers, his fingers staining black with soot as he snatched a scrap of silk snagged on a root.
His eyes scanned the frantic, messy scrawl. Willow Bridge... midnight... ledger.
Su Cheng let out a short, sharp huff. A ledger?
The "Identification" in his head told him the Shadow Merchant was a greedy parasite, but this note felt desperate.
Amateur.
Like someone playing at being a criminal and doing a bad job of it. He didn't know the Merchant was Han Jue, but he knew a bluff when he saw one.
"Master Su! The Prince is at the forward camp!" Official Lu called out from the rain.
Su Cheng shoved the silk deep into his inner pocket, feeling a fresh jolt of anxiety. He already had a meeting at that same bridge tomorrow with the "Shadow." Now this Merchant was forcing a collision.
"The math is getting messy," Su Cheng muttered, mounting his horse. "Lu, don't mention the cave was empty. We're going to the Prince."
A mile down the ravine, the fight was finally tilting, the air was thick with the smell of sulfur and wet horse hair.
The woman was flagging. Every time her slender blade met Li Feng's broadsword, the vibration rattled her teeth. She was fast, but she was hitting a wall of Imperial muscle.
Then came the sound of more boots.
Thump-thump-thump.
Black Banner reinforcements.
She didn't wait to be surrounded. She threw a handful of silver needles into the mud to create a distraction and launched herself backward into the trees.
"After her!" a guard screamed, leveling a crossbow.
As she vanished, a low branch caught her veil. It ripped away, fluttering through the rain like a dead bird. Li Feng reached out, his gauntleted hand snatching the silk before it hit the dirt.
The soldiers charged, ready to hunt her down, but Li Feng raised his heavy scabbard horizontally. It was a silent, iron command. They stopped instantly, heads bowed.
Li Feng stood alone in the mud, staring at the charcoal silk in his hand. He brought it to his face.
Wild vanilla.
The scent hit him like a punch to the gut. It was too sweet for a graveyard. It belonged in a bakery, or a classroom—somewhere that wasn't this hell.
"What the heck is her problem?" he murmured. His voice sounded small, stripped of the Prince's roar.
He gripped the veil, his golden "Identification" eyes scanning the dark woods, but all he could think about was why a killer smelled like a dream he couldn't quite remember.