The corridors of the Phoenix Hall still echoed with whispers when Wei Lan returned to her pavilion.
"Bring me the memorials and the accounts of the Inner Court," she ordered without pause.
Her attendants exchanged nervous glances, but quickly obeyed. Scrolls and ledgers bound in silk were placed upon her lacquered table.
Wei Lan dismissed most of them with a flick of her fingers. Only her closest maid remained to help set the lamps.
She shed the heavy scarlet robes of ceremony and changed into a simple night gown of pale ivory. Her hair, freed from its crown braid, cascaded down her shoulders like a dark river. Yet even in her unadorned state, there was a severity in her bearing — the sharpness of a commander in her private tent after battle.
Seated at the side table, she unrolled the ledgers one by one. Columns of numbers, lists of tributes, allocations of silks, spices, and grain — she studied them with the precision of a general scanning supply lines.
Her brows drew together.
"Here," she murmured, tapping the parchment with her slender finger. "The record of sandalwood incense… the quantity written here exceeds the shipment listed by the Ministry of Works."
Her maid leaned closer, frowning. "My Lady, the difference is great."
Wei Lan's eyes glinted with cold amusement. "Not difference. Theft."
She turned another scroll, her movements deliberate. A similar discrepancy appeared in the accounts of the embroidery workshop, and again in the kitchens' monthly rations.
One by one, the mistakes unfolded before her — not errors of negligence, but deliberate bleeding of resources.
Wei Lan leaned back in her chair, her lips curving into the faintest smile.
So… the battlefield of the Inner Court bleeds not only poison, but silver.
She pressed the scroll closed with a firm hand, her voice low but decisive.
"Prepare fresh ink and paper. Tomorrow, I will summon the stewards of the Inner Court."
The maid bowed low, sensing the storm that brewed behind her mistress's calm.
In the flickering lamplight, Wei Lan returned to the accounts, her gaze unyielding, her soldier's precision cutting through silk and deceit alike.
The night in the pavilion was still, broken only by the soft rustle of silk and the faint scratching of a brush across parchment.
Wei Lan sat at the low side table, her night gown draped lightly over her shoulders, the pale fabric glowing faintly in the lamplight. Before her lay stacks of memorials and ledgers—the lifeblood of the Inner Palace.
Her gaze was sharp, her brush steady. Each miswritten number, each inflated expense, each twisted account was carefully marked and copied into her own neat revision. Where another woman might have found the task tedious, Wei Lan worked with a soldier's patience and a scholar's calm.
She had long loved history in her own world, tracing the strokes of calligraphy, memorizing the rise and fall of dynasties through the ink left behind. Writing with the brush was no burden to her—it was second nature, each stroke deliberate, strong, yet graceful. The accounts unfolded under her hand with clarity, the falsehoods stripped bare.
Hours passed unnoticed. Candles burned low, replaced silently by a drowsy maid. Outside, the gardens shifted from midnight to the paling edge of dawn. Still, Wei Lan wrote, lips pressed together in focus.
The scroll before her grew into a weapon, line by line. To the untrained eye, they were merely numbers. To Wei Lan, they were the traces of an enemy's hand—hidden channels of silver flowing into the Yi faction's pockets.
She paused only when her wrist ached faintly, flexing her fingers before resuming with renewed focus. A faint smile curved her lips, not of joy, but of certainty.
On the battlefield, you don't strike blindly. You wait, you watch, you gather the enemy's flaws in your hand until their downfall is inevitable.
By the time the cocks crowed in the distance, Wei Lan finally set her brush aside. Before her lay a clean set of accounts—precise, irrefutable, marked with her own hand.
She leaned back, her eyes reflecting the last glow of the oil lamps. Quiet, patient, calculating.
Concubine Yi would not even realize the noose was already being tied.
The pavilion was hushed, the faintest glow of candlelight spilling from the lattice windows.
The Emperor paused outside, his hands clasped behind his back. The eunuch beside him drew in a breath to announce his arrival, but a single flick of His Majesty's fingers silenced him.
"Open it," the Emperor murmured softly. "But quietly."
The servants obeyed, easing the doors inward with barely a sound.
Inside, Wei Lan sat at her desk, brush moving with measured precision over parchment. The flick of ink, the steady rhythm of her strokes, filled the silence like the drumbeat of a campaign.
Yet though her eyes never left the accounts before her, something shifted in her posture. The fine hairs at the nape of her neck stirred; her shoulders tensed, barely perceptible beneath the silk. The moment the door's wooden frame creaked, her senses sharpened.
A soldier's instinct never dulled.
Her hand did not pause, but her awareness shifted—attention split cleanly between the scroll before her and the presence at the threshold.
Intruder… No. Footsteps steady. Breathing controlled. Familiar.
Without looking up, she dipped the brush once more, marking a flaw in the records. But her free hand, resting lightly on the table, curled as though ready to strike at a moment's notice.
The Emperor watched her in silence, his gaze tracing the quiet strength of her profile lit by the wavering flame. He had expected to find a court beauty playing with ink. Instead, he found a commander in silk—eyes sharp, movements precise, her very presence a blend of grace and hidden steel.
His lips curved faintly. Even here, surrounded by silk and shadow, she is still a soldier.
He stepped forward at last, the soft tread of his boots carrying across the jade floor.
"Working through the night?" His voice broke the stillness, low and warm.
Wei Lan finally set down her brush, raising her head with deliberate calm. Her gaze met his—not startled, not flustered, but keen, assessing, as if she had already known he would be there.
She bowed slightly, composed as ever. "Your Majesty walks softly," she said. "But this consort does not sleep ."