The night was a different kind of enemy. It didn't scream or charge. It listened. It held its breath, waiting for a misstep.
The cold was a physical presence, leaching through Lin Wei's cloak, a stark contrast to the feverish heat of the medical tents he'd just left. He moved like a ghost through the sleeping camp, the directive in his mind painting a minimalist, urgent overlay on the darkness:
"[OBJECTIVE: REACH EASTERN PICKET LINE. AVOANCE: SENTRY PATTERNS (MARKED), COMMISSION QUARTERS (HOT ZONE)]."
He was a surgeon navigating the anatomy of a sleeping beast, careful not to touch a nerve.
The eastern picket was a line of nervous green troops, their eyes wide as they peered into the black. They jumped when Lin Wei, Ox Li, Sly Liu, and Young Kuo materialized from the gloom. Lin Wei carried his medical bag.
Ox Li, moving with a stiff, careful gait that spoke of the angry red scar beneath his armor, carried a coil of rope and a woodsman's axe that was not standard issue.
Young Kuo had a satchel of his field medic's tools. Sly Liu carried nothing but the night itself, wrapped around him like a second skin.
"Surgeon-General?" the young sentry captain stammered. "Is there… an attack?"
"Medical emergency in Willow Market," Lin Wei said, his voice the same flat, authoritative tone he used in the operating tent.
"Suspected contagion. We're going to contain it. You have not seen us. If anyone from the Commission asks, a patrol went east to investigate lights. Understood?"
The captain, terrified of the surgeon, the giant, and the intense silence of the other two, just nodded mutely. They slipped past the line and were swallowed by the farmland beyond.
Willow Market wasn't a town. It was a casualty of the war's ebb and flow—a once-prosperous village at a crossroads, now a shuttered, skeletal place occupied by a company of Song troops and haunted by the ghosts of its former inhabitants and the living specters of the black market.
Liu led them not by the road, but along a drainage ditch that stank of rot, then through the husk of a burned-out temple.
"The warehouse is on the north edge, near the old granary," Liu whispered, his words barely audible. "Two doors. Front is watched. The Commission has two men there, trying to look casual. The back faces an alley. That's where we go in. The merchant, Lao Fen, is locked inside with the goods. The Commission's real security—four tough bastards from the capital garrison—are billeted in the house across the square. They'll come at dawn with the arrest order and the keys."
"The diversion," Lin Wei said, looking at Ox Li.
The big man grunted. He pointed a thick finger towards the southern end of the sleeping hamlet, where a few military supply wagons were parked. "The Commission's own wine cache. For their 'victory celebration.'" A grim, jagged smile split his beard. "A celebration needs a toast. A big one."
Lin Wei nodded. "Wait for my signal. Kuo, you're with Liu. You know the medical supplies. Get the linen, the sulphur, the alcohol. Prioritize. Leave the rest. Liu, find the merchant's ledgers. Everything. Ox, with me. We handle the distraction and the exit."
They split. Lin Wei and Ox Li became shadows sliding through deeper shadow, circling wide to the south. The Commission's compound was a large, commandeered farmhouse with a courtyard. Two bored guards stood at the gate. Inside, a lantern glowed in a ground-floor window—the night clerk. And in the courtyard, under a tarpaulin, were a dozen ceramic jars of expensive southern rice wine, stamped with the vermillion mark of the Imperial Winery. Vice-Minister Wang's personal victory reserve.
"Ready?" Lin Wei breathed.
Ox Li's answer was to heft a rock the size of a man's head. He didn't throw it at the wine. He threw it through the thatched roof of a small stable twenty yards from the compound's rear wall.
The crash was spectacular in the silent night—a splintering, tearing roar followed by the panicked shrieks of the two mules inside. The guards at the front gate shouted, running towards the sound. The lantern in the window bobbed as the clerk rushed out.
"Now," Lin Wei said.
Ox Li moved with a speed that belied his size and wound. He was at the courtyard wall, over it, and beside the wine jars in three strides. He didn't smash them. He uncorked one, upended it, and let the clear, pungent liquid pour onto the dry straw and timber of the stable's adjoining shed. From his belt, he took a soldier's flint and steel. A spark, a second, and then a soft whoomp as the alcohol-lit straw exploded into hungry, golden flame.
The fire was a beacon, a screaming alarm. It was also a perfect, legitimate chaos. Soldiers and clerks spilled from buildings, yelling about Jin saboteurs, about accidents. The two guards from the warehouse across from Lao Fen's would be looking this way.
Lin Wei's mind flashed a status:
"[DIVERSION: ACTIVE. ESTIMATED WINDOW: 8 MINUTES.]"
He and Ox Li melted back into the darkness, circling towards the warehouse's rear alley.
As they arrived, Sly Liu was already there, the simple lock on the rear door picked in seconds. Inside, it was pitch black and smelled of dust, mildew, and the sharp, clean scent of raw sulphur.
Young Kuo struck a small, shuttered lantern. The scene was a smuggler's den. Bales of coarse, unbleached northern linen. Jugs of strong, clear baijiu. Bricks of yellow sulphur. Bags of salt. And in the corner, hunched and terrified, was Lao Fen, a wizened man with the eyes of a ferret.
"The ledgers," Lin Wei said, his voice cutting through the man's whimpering.
Liu was already at a strongbox, his picks probing. "He's not just ours. Look." He gestured to shelves holding rolls of silk, Jin arrowheads, and small, exquisite jade carvings—luxury goods for corrupt officers on both sides.
The strongbox clicked open. Liu pulled out three thick, cloth-bound ledgers. He flipped one open, his eyes scanning in the dim light. His breath hissed. "Doc. This is… it's not just goods. It's information. Shipment routes for Jin reinforcements. Names of Song quartermasters taking bribes to look the other way." He looked up, his face pale. "This man sells everything to everyone. This isn't a black market. It's a treason market."
Lao Fen wailed. "I was forced! They made me!"
"Load the cart," Lin Wei ordered Kuo and Ox, ignoring him. "Linen and sulphur first. Then the alcohol. As much as we can take." He took the ledgers from Liu. The weight of them was immense. This was no longer about saving bandages. This was about holding a live coal that could burn down the entire Commission, and perhaps the whole corrupt rear echelon.
They worked with frantic silence. Ox Li piled the bales onto a small, hand-drawn cart they'd hidden nearby. Kuo stacked the jars with a medic's care. The window was closing. Shouts from the direction of the fire were getting more organized.
"Time," Ox Li grunted, the cart now laden precariously high.
"Go," Lin Wei said. "The ditch path. Kuo, with them. Liu, with me. We're the sweep."
Ox and Kuo pushed the groaning cart into the alley and vanished towards the drainage ditch. Lin Wei turned to Lao Fen. The man cowered.
"They'll kill me! The Commission will say I'm the Jin spy!"
"You are," Lin Wei said, his voice devoid of pity. He was diagnosing a disease. The man was a vector of corruption. The system's logic was cold and clear: quarantine or excise. He couldn't let the man fall into the Commission's hands alive. Their story would become his, and it would point to Lin Wei. He also couldn't kill him in cold blood. He looked at Sly Liu, and gave the smallest nod. It was not an order. It was a recognition of necessity.
Liu understood. His face, for once, held no mockery, only a grim resignation. "Come on, uncle," he said, his voice oddly gentle. "The Jin are attacking. You need to hide. I know a place." He pulled the terrified merchant to his feet and guided him not towards the door, but towards a heavy grain sack in the corner. "Just until the noise dies down."
Lin Wei turned away. He heard a soft, precise thud, a sigh, and then the sound of a body being dragged. He didn't look. He was checking the room one last time with the lantern, ensuring they'd left nothing—no green sash thread, no distinctive tool. The directive approved:
"[SANITIZATION: COMPLETE.]"
They slipped out the back just as the sound of marching boots, disciplined and angry, came from the square in front. The Commission's security, finally tearing themselves from the fire, were arriving for their dawn raid.
The race back was a silent, heart-pounding sprint through the ditches and fields. They caught up to Ox Li and Kuo just outside the picket line. The cart was a nightmare to maneuver quietly, but the sentries, now buzzing with rumors of a "Jin sabotage attack on the Commission," let them pass with wide eyes, believing their own cover story.
Back in the hidden culvert near the medical compound that served as Lin Wei's secret stash, they unloaded the goods. The linen, the sulphur, the alcohol—it was life itself, stolen back from the jaws of the state. Kuo began cataloguing it immediately, his hands steady.
Lin Wei stood apart, under a gnarled tree. In his hands were the ledgers. He opened one to a random page in the lantern light. The entries were in a neat, coded hand. 'Delivery to Supply Master Heng, 4th Division: 20 bolts silk. Information: Song grain convoy route via Red Valley. Payment received: Gold ingot, two.'
It was a map of the rot, a detailed anatomy of the cancer killing the campaign from within. It named names. It listed dates. It was power, pure and deadly.
Sly Liu approached, wiping his hands on his trousers. "Lao Fen won't be talking. He's part of the grain in his own sack. The Commission will find an empty warehouse and a missing traitor. They'll assume he fled to the Jin with his secrets. They'll be furious, but they'll be clean."
Lin Wei nodded, still staring at the ledger. The healer had set out to steal medicine. He had returned with a diagnosis of treason and the names of the infected. The directive in his mind, which had guided him through the precise steps of the heist, now settled on a new, terrifying conclusion.
"[OPERATION GHOST SUTURE: STATUS - SUCCESS.]"
"[ASSETS SECURED: MEDICAL SUPPLIES (QUANTITY SUFFICIENT FOR 14 DAYS). INTELLIGENCE ASSETS ACQUIRED: LEDGERS (CONTAINING EVIDENCE OF SYSTEMIC CORRUPTION/TREASON).]"
"[PARADIGM SHIFT CONFIRMED.]"
"[NEW CAPABILITY UNLOCKED: POLITICAL/SYSTEMIC DIAGNOSIS.]"
"[NEW THREAT PROFILE: POSSESSION OF SAID INTELLIGENCE MARKS USER AS PRIMARY TARGET FOR ALL CORRUPT ELEMENTS.]"
He was no longer just a surgeon mending bodies. He was a pathologist who had just isolated the plague virus, and he was holding the vial in his hands. He had the means to cure the disease. And he now had a target on his back that was brighter than any Jin banner.
In the distance, the first grey light of dawn began to bleed into the sky. Somewhere, Vice-Minister Wang was surveying the ashes of his celebration wine and the empty warehouse, his neat, bureaucratic world violated by a night of fire, theft, and murder.
The war had entered a new, darker phase. The Front was everywhere. And Lin Wei, the healer, had just fired the first shot in a shadow war where the only medicine was blackmail, and the only surgery was assassination.