Lord Yao Chen had always struck Yuan as one of the gentler faces in a court otherwise built on careful performance, a quiet young man in his middle twenties who spent most of his time overseeing charitable grain distributions to the capital's poorer districts rather than jockeying for influence the way so many of his relatives did. It made the evidence pointing toward him feel, from the very first moment Lei laid it out, deeply, uncomfortably wrong.
"His appointment schedule matches the timing we identified," Lei said, spreading the documentation across the study table with none of his usual satisfaction at a breakthrough. "He carries the crest legitimately, through his mother's line. And critically, he was present at the palace on the exact night the training yard schedule change was leaked, according to the guard logs at the inner gate."
