The streets of East Market were alive that morning—alive in the way that only chaos could be alive. Smoke from food stalls swirled in the air, hawkers shouted over one another, and a small boy chased after a runaway chicken, yelling words that made grown women gasp and cover their ears.
Hua Lian—her straw hat pulled low, her hair pinned in the plain style of a servant girl—slipped through the throng with her usual grace. Only this morning, her steps faltered slightly. Beneath her sleeve, her left arm throbbed with a dull ache. The shallow cut was nothing compared to the battles she had endured as Yue Ying, but each step reminded her of the danger lurking in the shadow.
"Shallow," she muttered under her breath, her lips twitching with a mix of irritation and reluctant admiration. "But perfectly aimed. Whoever Hei Lang truly is, he strikes like thunder."
A cabbage rolled across her path. She sidestepped just as a stout woman barreled after it, skirts flapping like angry sails.
"Move aside, pretty girl! This cabbage is worth more than your life!" the woman barked.
Hua Lian raised an eyebrow. Truly, the market never fails to amuse.
The woman scooped up the runaway cabbage, slapped it against her hip as though disciplining a child, and gave Hua Lian a suspicious squint. "You're new here, aren't you? Or are you hiding from debt collectors? You look the type."
"Me?" Hua Lian said, bowing slightly with feigned meekness. "I hide only from loud cabbages and fiercer women."
The stall woman blinked, then snorted so loudly a group of passersby turned their heads. "Hah! You've got a sharper tongue than most maids. Careful, girl, men like that only marry trouble."
From behind them, a lanky scholar with crooked spectacles stumbled into the scene, his arms overloaded with bamboo slips. He tripped on a stone, flailed dramatically, and the slips rained down like autumn leaves.
"Oh my God!" he cried. "My life's work—ruined!"
"Your life's work looks like recipes for dumplings," the cabbage woman muttered, rolling her eyes.
Hua Lian crouched to help him gather the slips, suppressing the smirk tugging her lips. The man sniffled as though fate itself had personally targeted him.
"They are not recipes," he protested, adjusting his crooked spectacles. "They are… they are theories of grand reform! A new tax system that will bring fairness to all! Someday, emperors will thank me."
The cabbage woman cackled so hard she nearly dropped her prize vegetable again.
Hua Lian chuckled quietly. Everywhere is filled with an endless troupe of jesters walking about. Or perhaps fate throws them in my path to keep me from growing too cold.
As the comedy of the cabbage and scholar unfolded, Hua Lian's ears caught a different current beneath the market noise. A pair of imperial guards were questioning vendors a few stalls down. Their armor glinted in the sun, but it was the emblem stitched on their sashes that made her blood tighten.
The royal seal.
The cold hearted crown prince was their general.
"Have you seen a masked fighter? A figure cloaked in black who vanishes into shadows?" one guard barked. "Rumors say Yue Ying passed through last night."
Hua Lian's hand froze on a bamboo slip.
The scholar looked up at her, blinking. "What's wrong? You look like you've just bitten into sour plum."
She forced a smile, stuffing the last slip into his arms. "Only remembering I left my dumplings steaming at home."
Her gaze flicked past him. The guards moved closer, their questions spreading through the stalls like oil on water. So, they
are sniffing again. For Yue Ying… for me.
" Whew! There's fire on the mountain" she thought to herself.