Lian was found three days after the warehouse search, released rather than rescued, discovered wandering the eastern district's outer market at dawn with her hands bound loosely enough that she'd worked one wrist free within the hour and no clear memory of how she'd arrived there beyond a hazy, drugged fog that Han identified immediately as the residue of a sedating qi suppression technique, one designed to keep a captive compliant without leaving visible marks of mistreatment.
She was thinner, pale, her usually immaculate hair tangled and unkempt, but alive, and Yuan felt the relief crash over him with a force that nearly buckled his knees when the messenger arrived breathless at the palace gates with confirmation.
