They didn't fight their way out of the Gutter Market.
They dissolved.
That was Luo Xian's gift: knowing where bodies stopped being people and became traffic. The moment the Court's sweep began, she shoved Shen Jin and Gu Xingzhou into a seam between stalls—two hanging rugs that looked like dead weight to anyone who didn't know better. Behind the rugs, a narrow crawl gap opened into the underside of a rooftop walkway.
"Up," she whispered. "No noise."
Gu went first, hauling his weight like a man born to climb walls. Shen Jin followed, careful with his sleeve. The Broken Ring Key still burned, and he refused to give it a chance to scrape stone and announce itself.
They emerged onto a roofline littered with tarps, crates, and sleeping dogs. Fog pooled in the gutters like milk. Below, the market churned as merchants folded their lives into bundles and vanished into alleys. Court enforcers pushed through the chaos with halberds raised and torches hissing in damp air.
Luo Xian didn't look down for long. She moved with purpose—three steps, a leap, a soft landing on the next roof. Shen Jin matched her as best he could. Gu moved like gravity didn't apply to him.
"Your den," Gu hissed, "had a warning bell. That means someone's paying attention."
"Someone always is," Luo Xian murmured. "The question is who."
They crossed five rooftops before Luo Xian stopped at a trapdoor half-hidden under coiled rope. She lifted it without a creak and dropped inside. Shen Jin and Gu followed.
The room below was narrow and dry—rare in a city built on wet bones. Shelves lined the walls, holding jars of pigments, ink-sticks, rolled maps, and metal stamps. Luo Xian lit a single candle, then turned on Shen Jin like a blade.
"Tell me what you're carrying," she said.
Gu shifted. "He doesn't—"
"I'm not asking you," Luo Xian snapped. Her eyes were fixed on Shen Jin's sleeve again. "You're hunted by Court and Guild and you walked into my place with something they want. If I'm putting my brother on the line, I'm not doing it blind."
Shen Jin pulled the Broken Ring Key out and set it on the table.
The candlelight bent around the black-gold shard as if reluctant to touch it. Luo Xian's breath caught. Gu Xingzhou went still.
"That," Luo Xian said softly, "is a myth."
"A problem," Shen Jin corrected.
She reached toward it, then stopped herself. "And the Court says you stole it."
"The Court says whatever keeps the city calm," Shen Jin said. "The Guild says whatever keeps the coin flowing."
Luo Xian looked at him like she was seeing the outline of a storm. "And the Feather-Oath Legion?"
Shen Jin didn't enjoy answering. "They want it too."
Luo Xian's jaw tightened. "Then your life just became expensive."
Shen Jin nodded. "So did yours."
Gu cleared his throat. "We're not here to debate morality. We're here because she wants her brother out, and we need her eyes."
Luo Xian's gaze flicked to Gu, then back to Shen Jin. "And you need money. Real money. Entry taxes, bribes, supplies."
Shen Jin set the pouch of Ring Marks on the table and poured the discs out again. The candlelight revealed what the fog had hidden: among the true discs, the two counterfeits sat like teeth that didn't belong.
Luo Xian's eyes narrowed. "Fake."
Shen Jin nodded. "Good eye."
"I see a lot of fake," she said. "But these are clean. Too clean."
"That's what scares me," Shen Jin replied. He picked up one counterfeit disc and tapped it lightly with the copper pin. The sound was wrong—too bright, too hollow. "Someone with skill is flooding the market."
Gu leaned in. "Why? To buy things without paying?"
"To plant trails," Shen Jin said. "Counterfeit marks are a leash. Once you spend them, someone can point and say you're guilty of fraud. Or they can trace where they went."
Luo Xian's eyes sharpened. "Trace."
Shen Jin nodded. "At the auction, the Guild bidder never once looked worried. He wasn't bidding with money. He was bidding with certainty."
Luo Xian tilted her head. "Explain."
Shen Jin closed his eyes, pulling the memory up like a thread.
"In the front row," he said, "the Guild's bidder had two attendants. One stood behind him with a ledger. The other stood slightly to the right, fingers resting on the edge of the seat."
Gu frowned. "So?"
"The right attendant didn't clap," Shen Jin said. "He tapped. Every time the bidder raised the price, the attendant tapped the chair frame with a different rhythm."
Luo Xian's mouth tightened. "Signal bidding."
"Exactly," Shen Jin said. "Not to the host. To someone outside the room."
Gu's eyes narrowed. "A runner."
"A watcher," Shen Jin corrected. "Someone in the shadows who was setting the ceiling and feeding the bidder exact numbers. That's why the bidder smiled. He wasn't guessing."
Luo Xian stared at the counterfeit Ring Mark in Shen Jin's fingers. "So the bidder had backing. And the fake marks—"
"Could be the backing," Shen Jin said. "Or the tool that makes the backing possible."
Luo Xian pushed the discs into separate piles with quick, practiced fingers: true, suspect, false. "If the Guild is printing," she said, "the Court will pretend not to notice."
"Unless it benefits them to notice," Shen Jin said.
Gu's voice went low. "So what do we do?"
Shen Jin looked at Luo Xian. "We need your brother. Tonight. Because the Court's sweep wasn't random. It was aimed."
Luo Xian's eyes flashed. "He's in South Cage."
Gu's eyebrows rose. "That's not a prison. That's a demonstration."
"Exactly," Luo Xian said. "They keep him there so people can look at him and remember what happens when you speak the wrong truth."
Shen Jin stood. "Then we don't break in like thieves," he said. "We go in like contractors."
Gu snorted. "You have a badge?"
"I have a craft," Shen Jin replied.
They moved an hour later, when fog thickened and the market's chaos began to settle.
From a distance, South Cage looked like a warehouse.
Up close, it looked like a mouth.
A ring of iron fences enclosed a courtyard lit by harsh lanterns. Inside, cages hung from crossbeams like meat hooks. Prisoners sat inside them, knees to chests, faces bruised. The public could see them from the street, could watch the slow punishment and feel safer for it.
Gu's fists tightened.
Luo Xian's jaw trembled once, then went still.
Shen Jin forced his attention onto the supply gate. Two guards stood there, spears propped against the wall. Their posture screamed boredom.
Shen Jin stepped forward with a repaired seal-plate in hand, voice calm as paperwork.
"Inspection," he said.
One guard squinted at him. "At this hour?"
Shen Jin didn't blink. "At this hour," he said. "Because the Court doesn't like surprises."
The guard snorted. "Neither do we."
Shen Jin held up the counterfeit Ring Marks. "Then don't be surprised," he said, and let three discs drop into the guard's palm.
The guard's eyes flicked to the sheen, then to Shen Jin's face. He hesitated. For a heartbeat, Shen Jin felt the world tighten.
Then the guard closed his fist and shoved the discs into his pocket. "Quick," he muttered. "In and out. I don't want to know your name."
Shen Jin smiled without warmth. "You won't."
They slipped inside.
The moment the gate shut behind them, Shen Jin felt the Key burn in his sleeve, as if warning him: you've stepped deeper into the script.
Luo Xian moved ahead, eyes scanning the cages.
"Third row," she whispered. "Top."
Shen Jin followed her gaze.
A thin young man sat in the upper cage, wrists bound, face bruised. His eyes were open, but unfocused, like he was staring at something only he could see.
"Jian," Luo Xian breathed.
Gu's voice went hard. "How do we get him down?"
Shen Jin looked at the pulley system above the cages, then at the guards patrolling inside the yard.
"We don't," he said.
Gu turned. "What?"
Shen Jin held up the seal-plate like authority.
"We get the guards to bring him down," Shen Jin said. "Then we leave before anyone asks why."
Above them, a patrol turned toward the supply gate, lantern raised.
Shen Jin stepped forward with the seal-plate in hand, ready to lie like it was a craft.
And in his sleeve, the Broken Ring Key burned, as if it wanted to see what price he'd pay for a brother he hadn't lost.
(End of Chapter 4)