The music swelled as the night deepened… louder, messier, drowning the hall in drunken shouting, clattering dice, and the shrill laughter of men who had spent too much silver and too little conscience.
The Golden Lute Pavilion breathed chaos with every beat of the drums. Perfume clung to the air like fog. Wine spilled onto lacquered tables and sticky floors. A group of officials roared at their winning hand of dice while a drunk merchant argued with a courtesan over whether he had paid her last round.
Through it all, Jin Yue moved unnoticed.
He kept to the shadows, weaving between bodies with the effortless quiet of someone trained to be unseen. His veil hung low, sleeves long enough to hide his hands, every step a ghostly drift that stirred no suspicion. Even his breath was measured, tucked small behind the gauze of his disguise.
He had learned long ago that silence was its own form of survival.
But his ears were sharp.
Sharper than anyone here could imagine.
And tonight… they finally caught something.
While refilling cups at a cramped table near the back corridor, he lingered just long enough to overhear two brothel attendants whispering behind their sleeves...voices low, but careless in the noisy storm of drunken revelry.
"…that girl's still sick?" one murmured, fanning her flushed face. "Locked away for days now."
"Madam said no one's allowed near the second-floor storage room," the other muttered, darting nervous glances around. "Only the Guards go in and out."
"Is she really that valuable?"
"Uncle Zhang said she's worth triple the usual price. Some high-ranking buyer wants a 'docile, pretty one with clear eyes.'"
She grimaced. "Disgusting."
The first woman scoffed, folding her arms.
"He's the disgusting one. Beating a girl half dead just to make her obedient…"
Jin Yue's grip tightened around the wine jug.
Hard.
The laughter around him dimmed beneath the hard thrum of blood in his ears. The music blurred into meaningless noise. He could smell the faint copper tang of anger in the back of his throat.
Second-floor storage room.
Locked.
Guarded.
Shen Ling.
The pieces aligned with a sinking clarity.
A heartbeat later, one attendant sighed dramatically.
"I hope she doesn't die before the trade. Madam will lose money."
"Zhang will lose money," the other corrected sharply. "He's supposed to return tomorrow to finalize everything."
Tomorrow.
Too close.
Far too close.
Jin Yue set down a cup with steady fingers, though his pulse pulsed like stormwater beneath his skin. He faded from the table before they could notice his sudden, dangerous stillness.
The hall was a battlefield of noise...men shouting, dice clattering, silk brushing against silk...but Jin Yue felt the silence beneath it. The thin threads of patterns. The vulnerabilities. The cracks where he could slip through.
Staying well away from the curious young master's table, he drifted toward the far side of the hall… near the staircase that spiraled upward like a throat swallowing secrets.
But just as he neared it...
Two guards descended the steps, boots thudding heavily against lacquered wood.
"…fever's worse," one said with a shrug careless enough to be cruel. "She might not last the night."
"Good. Sick ones don't try to run."
A low laugh.
"Makes it easier."
Jin Yue paused mid-step, veil unmoving, mask unbroken.
Inside, something twisted tight.
Shen Ling might not last the night.
He drifted closer, pretending to pour wine for a group of half-conscious gamblers. Their cups overflowed, unnoticed. A man burped loudly, slamming his chopsticks onto the table, but Jin Yue barely registered it.
His focus was locked on the guards.
"Boss said keep both doors locked," one grumbled. "Inner room and corridor."
"And no one gets near her," the second added. "Girl still kicks like a feral cat when she's awake."
"Uncle Zhang should've broken her spirit earlier."
Broken her spirit.
The words landed like a blade sliding between his ribs.
Jin Yue's fingers whitened on the jug's handle. For a moment, he thought the clay might crack beneath the pressure.
Enough.
Tonight, he would find the room.
Tonight, the guards would fall.
Tonight, Shen Ling would breathe air that wasn't thick with sweat and rot.
He stepped back into the drifting current of servants, veil swaying like a quiet ripple in a storm.
Every movement already calculated… angles, shadows, blind spots, timing. The brothel seemed loud to everyone else, but to Jin Yue, the world was sharpening into focus. The path unfolding itself step by silent step.
He could feel the wind's direction. The rhythm of the guards' patrols. The way the lanterns burned lower every hour, dimming the corners into safe havens for a ghost to slip through.
The ascent would be silent.
The deaths even more so.
But as he glided past the young master's private table, that familiar feeling pricked along his spine… soft yet unyielding.
Those doe-like eyes were on him again.
Watching.
Curious.
Worried?
Suspicious?
He couldn't afford to find out.
The young master leaned forward ever so slightly, the faintest crease forming between his brows as he followed the drifting figure of the veiled "girl."
He wasn't drunk enough to miss the differences.
Her silence.
Her precision.
Her refusal to linger near their table.
Her steps...too light for a courtesan, too steady for a servant.
Jin Yue felt the weight of that attention like a soft, dangerous touch at the back of his neck.
He did not turn.
He did not slow.
He could not afford distraction.
Not now.
Not tonight.
Not with a life hanging by a thread upstairs.
There was a girl locked in darkness, burning with fever.
A woman who prayed for her.
A promise he had accepted without words.
Time was slipping through his fingers like river water.
And Jin Yue would not let it run out.
He reached the shadowed edge of the stairway.
The guards were laughing with someone across the hall. A brief opening...just a sliver...but all Jin Yue ever needed was a sliver.
The lantern above flickered.
Shadows thickened.
Noise surged.
Perfect.
He stepped upward, quiet as moonlight.
Tomorrow, the brothel would wear the scent of blood.
But tonight…
tonight was the last night Shen Ling would cry in darkness.