The Vermilion Teahouse stood at the heart of Lantern Alley, its balconies draped in crimson silk that fluttered like tongues in the wind. Each knot in the fabric told a story, if you knew how to read them.

White Lotus elders taught us medicine and restraint, not trade codes. But even I could see it: the knots weren’t decoration. They were messages.

From the herb shed the night before, I had glimpsed them swaying. Tonight, I went closer.

Moonlight turned the boards of the canal bridge silver as I walked, my robes plain, and my hair hidden beneath a travel hood. My hand traced the rhythm of Lotus breathing, slowing my pulse to match the ripples of the water. Quiet, invisible, unnoticed.

Until I saw her.

Kang Ya Zhen leaned against the pavilion rail, vermilion robes glowing like fire against the dark. A fan rested in her hand, but her eyes were fixed on the knots—counting, studying, adjusting one tassel with deliberate care.

When she spoke, her voice carried across the canal, soft as silk but edged in steel.

“You’re watching me, White Lotus.”

I froze. She hadn’t turned, yet she knew.

“Your hand trembled when you shifted your sleeve,” she continued. “No merchant would notice. No assassin would care. Only a healer, trained to read the smallest details.”

I stepped forward, lowering my hood. “Then you know who I am.”

Finally, she turned. Her smile was polite, perfect, and empty. “You are the girl who distracts Ge Ji Ming from his duty.”

The words landed like darts, sharp and precise.

But before I could answer, she flicked her fan toward the silk knots. “Do you know what they say?”

I shook my head.

Her eyes gleamed. “Smuggling routes. Ledgers of jade and spirit herbs hidden in lantern code. The marriage pact is not just a bond of clans, it is a mask for trade that fattens the court and bleeds the sects.”

I blinked. She had just handed me a knife sharp enough to cut both our throats. “Why tell me this?”

“Because,” she said, closing her fan with a snap, “the Red Courier doesn’t serve me. Nor Ji Ming. Nor even our clans. They serve someone else, hidden deeper. If the Courier hunts you, then perhaps you are closer to the truth than I thought.”

The fan snapped open again, hiding her expression. Only her eyes were visible: dark, calculating, unreadable.

“You think I am your enemy. Perhaps I am. But remember this, Lotus girl… in this game, no one is innocent. Not even me.”

The silk knots swayed in the wind. For an instant, I saw them not as patterns of trade, but as threads of fate tangling around us all.

Ya Zhen’s gaze lingered on me a moment longer, then she turned and vanished into the teahouse, leaving only lantern light and the smell of incense.

I stood alone on the bridge, the hairpin at my crown burning hot as if urging me to choose: Unravel the knots… or become another strand in them.