The Return to Moonlit City
Days later, the snow still hadn’t ceased.
I draped myself in a gray healer’s robe, my face deliberately smudged with medicinal powder to blur my features. Li Jun, disguised as a common merchant, waited outside the city as my contingency.
This was no convalescent’s return. I was hunting the truth—was the black market grain trail connected to the academy?
The Hidden Trail
Zhu Yuanzhang’s academy stood unchanged: gray tiles, green bricks, the murmur of recitations drifting through courtyards.
I slipped into the rear archives, a neglected corner with access to the storage cellars.
“Who are you?” A young attendant materialized, eyes sharp with suspicion.
My pulse spiked, but I kept my voice steady. “Sent by Master Zhu to inspect the medicinal stores.”
The boy studied me, then muttered, “They’ve tightened security. Don’t wander.”
That single phrase ignited my nerves.
Why would a scholarly academy need guards? And whom did they fear?
The Discovery
Behind a false wall in the cellar, I found it—a hidden door, dust-coated but recently disturbed.
Beyond lay a sealed chamber: maps, ledgers, and rows of Northern Desert military grain sacks.
I flipped open the ledger. Page after page documented shipments—food, medicine, weapons. The final entry froze my blood:
"Next batch: Overseen by 'Shen Ci.' Route: Danxi → Ridge Pass."
Shen Ci.
A senior lecturer I knew well. Reserved. Respected.
A traitor.
I barely had time to process it when a voice cut through the silence:
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Shen Ci stood in the doorway, his expression not angry, but eerily calm. A thin sword glinted in his hand.
“You dug too deep,” he said, advancing. “I didn’t want to kill you. But if you take one more step—only one of us leaves alive.”
I met his gaze and smiled coldly.
“Are you certain it won’t be me?”
His hesitation lasted a heartbeat—just long enough for me to lunge with my dagger.
This fight wouldn’t end with words. If he walked away, every clue would vanish.
Steel shrieked. The air thickened with the scent of blood and old paper.
The Truth Behind the Spy
When Shen Ci fell, his last words were a whisper: “…I only wanted to save someone.”
A faded portrait tumbled from his robes—a woman in Northern Desert attire, her smile gentle.
A spy.
A lover.
The Aftermath
I took the ledger and the portrait. The chamber burned behind me.
This round was mine. But the black market pipeline wouldn’t end with one man.
The true mastermind still lurked in deeper shadows. And I would trace this thread until I tore their entire network apart.
That night, I stared at the moon over the city, breathing in the cold.
The imperial court wasn’t far now.
But I would return not as a pawn—but as a storm.
and then Add to home screen.