The page arrived folded inside a routine delivery of fresh linens. No note. Just a single, torn sheet of high-quality rice paper, hastily shoved between two plain towels. Li Fan's heart skipped a beat the moment his fingers felt the different texture.
He waited until nightfall, barring his door, before he unfolded it under the flickering light of his single candle.
It was a ledger page, but unlike the pristine, public records of the court. This was private accounting. The script was hurried, functional. It listed items, quantities, and serial numbers. His eyes scanned the entries, his enhanced memory searing them into his mind.
*Item: Earth-Anchor Crystal, High-Purity (Lot #7-Xiang)*
Quantity: 50 units
*Serial Range: AA-7743-AA-7792*
Disposition: Transferred. WK-L. For Project: Foundation Reinforcement.
Item: Spirit-Conducting Geode Shards (Grade B)
Quantity: 200
*Serial Range: SG-4550-SG-4749*
Disposition: Transferred. M. Feng. Final Dest: "Silk Road Caravan."
The serial numbers. They matched the missing stabilization crystals from the imperial vaults. This was the secret ledger tracking the theft.
But it was the disposition column that stopped his breath.
WK-L. Warehouse Keeper Luo. A man whose daughter was married to Elder Liu's chief steward.
M. Feng. Merchant Feng. A name Li Fan recognized from his gossip network. A trader who operated the route to the Lower Realm, and who was rumored to have exclusive dealings with the "Stoneheart Sect," an Earth-attribute power that had long eyed the Amber Dynasty's territories with thinly-veiled ambition.
The pieces slammed together with the force of a falling mountain.
This wasn't just corruption. This wasn't just internal political sabotage.
This was treason.
Elder Liu wasn't just bleeding the dynasty to control it. He was selling its lifeblood—the very crystals needed to heal it—to a foreign power, likely in exchange for support, for promises, for a future role as their puppet governor. He was hollowing out the kingdom to pay for its own conquest.
A fierce, blazing triumph surged through Li Fan. Got you. I have you now.
It lasted for three glorious seconds.
Then, reality cooled the heat in his veins. He looked at the page. It was torn raggedly from a larger book. The entries were incomplete. There was no official seal, no signature. It was an anonymous scrap. In a court of law, it was nothing. In a court of power, it was a death sentence—for the scribe who stole it, and for Li Fan if he presented it without ironclad backing.
Liu would simply deny it. He'd call it a forgery, a desperate fabrication by a doomed mortal. He'd ask, reasonably, Where is the rest of the ledger? Who is your witness? And then he would have the scribe executed for theft and Li Fan for slandering an elder.
The triumph curdled into a hard, cold knot in his stomach. He had the "what." The crime was clear. But he didn't have the "where"—the full, physical ledger. And he didn't have the "who"—a credible witness who could survive long enough to point a finger.
The scribe, Gao, had risked everything to get him this page. It was a message as much as evidence. This exists. I can get no more. The rest is on you.
Li Fan carefully refolded the page. It was the most valuable and most dangerous thing he owned. It was a map to the dragon's hoard, and a signed warrant for his own execution.
He hid it not under a loose stone, but sewed it into the lining of his robe, against his skin. It crackled faintly with every movement, a constant, whispered reminder.
He had the smoking gun. But the gun was disassembled, and he was standing in a room full of the culprit's armed friends. Pulling the trigger now would only get him shot.
He needed the rest of the weapon. And for that, he needed to go to the one place his network had identified: the old stone bell tower, where the bats woke at dusk, and where unmarked boxes were taken. He needed to find the ledger itself.