Snow had a way of making the palace louder. Every footfall on the frozen courtyards rang like a small confession, and every whisper seemed to carry farther than it should. Li Ziyan used that. The night after the furnaces, while the city still smelled of wet ash and singed glue, she tied three threads and waited to see which one would cut a finger first.
The first thread ran through the Education Ministry like a vein: a "donor roster" copied in Ziyan's spare, clean hand and dirtied just enough to look handled by fools. It named families who bought posts for their sons, temples who sold winter bursaries, and a modest river of silver that always found the same low door—Li house. She left the roster in a lacquer sleeve with her family's ribbon and a flaw only an Education clerk would brag about spotting.
The second thread ran through the Censorate, where the true ledger waited in the night box under Prince Ning's seal. A feather-thin watermark nested in the corner where only a collector would look. Jinrui's watchers would note the first hand to smudge that margin.
The third thread ran through rumor, because rumor is a cord you need not pay for. Wei carried a careless word past Lord Gao's steward—about a "private reading" in the Li ancestral hall where the family would unveil a "restoration plan" for the academies. On the same breath, Yufei planted in two copying rooms that the Li cousins had new influence enough to make or unmake clerks. Pride does not check a seal; pride checks its reflection.
By dawn, the Li ancestral hall had been swept twice. Incense crawled like thin ghosts up toward the tablets. Madam Chen, powdered into courtesy, arranged seats as if arranging a stage play. Second Aunt floated past the brazier with a fan that snapped at servants like a little mouth. Second Uncle wore a robe too bright for winter and a smile too sharp for kin. Li Rou and Li Mei stood in matching silks, their hair jewels winking as if they had learned to speak and were practicing.
"Ziyan," Madam Chen cooed when the daughter she disliked arrived without escort. "You honor the house. We thought to… lighten your burdens." She glanced at the tablets, then at the doorway, calculating which audience mattered more.
Ziyan bowed to the ancestors first. "Light is a kind of weight," she said mildly. "If one has to hold it higher than one can bear."
Li Cheng, cheeks chapped, hovered near the brazier, clutching a packet with the eagerness of a dog that thinks it has brought a wolf a stick. "Cousin," he burst, "Second Uncle says the prefect of Qiao has asked our house to recommend four school supervisors. Qiao! He says we can cleanse the academies of rot."
"Second Uncle says many things," Ziyan said, and warmed her hands without seeming to.
Servants set trays. Uncles set their faces. Aunts set their traps out where everyone could admire the teeth. The family sat; the room adjusted. Behind the pillars, in the shadow that comes when lantern light is too well-placed, two of Jinrui's men leaned the way temple guardians lean, eyes empty and hands waiting. Near the courtyard gate, a boy in Censorate brown pretended to be lost.
Li Wenxu did not come. He sent a cousin to say he was "in conference," which was a word that smelt like dry ink and a full wastebasket.
"Begin," Second Uncle declared, the tone of a man assigning traffic to the river.
Second Aunt rose, savoring the small climb. She held up a lacquer sleeve that might have been any lacquer sleeve if you didn't know the nick on the lower edge or the sea-green ribbon that meant urgent—eyes only. "Our house," she said, "has drafted a memorial for the Emperor—on Education's reform. In it, we name names. We propose a schedule. We put our stamp where weaker families fear to place theirs."
Ziyan's palm rested on her knee. The pulse in her wrist did not hurry. She saw Madam Chen try to read her and get as far as her sleeve.
Second Aunt let the sleeve travel down the line of uncles like a prize on a festival rope. There are men born to read; there are men born to move paper so that it thinks it has been read. When the sleeve reached Li Cheng, he puffed and made a face of weight. When it reached Ziyan, she did not take it.
"Read your plan," she said, "if you trust it."
Second Uncle snorted, took the sleeve back, broke its clasp as if breaking a horse. He unrolled the roster with a flourish meant for poorer cousins. His finger traced the neat columns. "'Donations'—ah, here—temples—ah—and the river silver—ah—" He paused. Arrogance can drink any wind; it does not drink silence well. "This," he said louder, "is the filth we will cleanse. The names—" he tapped three with relish—"these we will… trim."
"Trim," Second Aunt echoed, as if tasting a sweet. "And who will hold the knife? Family. Family must."
The boy in Censorate brown lost himself more convincingly. Jinrui's guardian yawned like a statue learning theater.
"An admirable plan," Ziyan said. "The Emperor will be comforted to know Education reforms itself before the bell."
Madam Chen fluttered. "We shall submit it as a family—"
"It already bears a family ribbon," Ziyan said.
Second Uncle, emboldened, wagged the parchment. "Your father will sign it tonight."
Ziyan smiled without humor. "Will he." She looked not at Second Uncle but at the ink in the margins, at the tiny cicada Yufei had brushed in diluted ash where only a hungry eye would seek a watermark. Pride eats sugar first. It does not see cicadas.
Voices swelled: boasts, promises, little cruelties disguised as "advice." Ziyan let them, the way a fisherman lets a line run before it tightens. The ancestral hall filled with the sound of people who thought blood should be a road. When the sound had ripened into self-importance, snow squeaked at the threshold.