Ji Lu learned more about Yong'an over one bowl of porridge than he had about half the prefectures of Qi in ten years of reports.
The bowl came from a stall near the south wall, its roof patched with mismatched tiles, its cook missing three fingers on his right hand. Steam curled into the cold like a small, persistent prayer. Ji Lu sat on a bench slick with years of oil, the midwife glowering over him as if checking that he ate enough to be worth her scrutiny.
"You're too thin," she pronounced. "Courts starve men differently. All talk, no rice."
Ji Lu tried the porridge. It was thin, but the grain had been washed twice; no grit. A luxury in a frontier town.
"I am adequately fed," he said.
"Then your ink eats too much," she shot back. "You lot never learned how to chew anything but words."
Ziyan, sitting opposite, hid a smile behind her bowl. Across the alley, Ren the scribe was explaining to a knot of children why they could not use the tablets as backboards for stone-throwing games. One of them was arguing that law should be sturdy enough to withstand pebbles; Ren looked tempted to concede.
"You do not bow to their anger," Ji Lu said quietly, nodding toward the midwife, the cook, the passers-by who stared, half-hostile, half-curious. "Most rulers would."
"I am not a ruler," Ziyan replied. "I am the first person they blame when things go wrong. It keeps the law honest."
"If you refuse the words," he said, "why build something that looks so much like a kingdom?"
She looked at him over the rim of her bowl. "Does it?" she asked. "Your kingdoms have thrones, palaces, armies with colors. We have bad roofs, two dozen riders, and some clay with opinions."
"And men who obey you without question," he said. "Han. Zhao. That ex-captain with the sacks. They stand when you enter. They watch where you put your hands."
"They obey the work we agreed on," she said. "If I start ordering for my own sake, they'll hit me with a ladle."
The midwife grunted agreement. "I will," she said. "Don't test me, girl."
Ji Lu's mouth twitched despite himself.
He had seen cities under occupation. He had seen them under loyal administrations. Yong'an was neither. Its people did not walk with the wary deference he knew from Qi's market towns when soldiers passed. They glanced at the sparrow marks instead, judged how far the Road's law reached, and only then measured their risks.
"You insult Qi every time you speak of law," he said. "Our codes are centuries old. They bind lords and peasants alike."
"On paper," Ziyan said. "In practice, your codes bind unlucky peasants and lords whose cousins have fallen from favor. The rest… pay scribes to find the margins."
"You speak as if you lived in my archives," he said sharply.
"I lived under the ledgers your colleagues balanced," she answered. "Ye Cheng sent its grain. Gaoling bled at the border. Someone in Qi's court decided that was an acceptable equation."
He had no answer to that. He drank his porridge instead. It was getting cold.
A scuffle broke out at the next stall. A carter accused a neighbor of stealing his blanket; the neighbor accused his son of borrowing it; the boy accused the wind of taking it. Voices rose, hands followed.
Wei materialised as if summoned by noise, shrugging someone's grip off his sleeve.
"Not under the eaves," he said. "You want to knock teeth out, you do it where the tablets can see."
The carter swore and stalked toward the square, dragging the others with him. A few faces turned toward Ziyan, already expecting her to follow.
"You see?" she said to Ji Lu. "They bring their foolishness to the stone. It's inconvenient. It wastes my time. It keeps knives in their belts."
Li Qiang rose without a word.
"You will hear a case now?" Ji Lu asked.
"Yes," she said.
"Over a blanket."
"A city that ignores small thefts grows large ones in its marrow," she replied. "Come. You wanted to see how this thing of ours works."
He went.
They arrived at the square to find a small crowd already circling. Ren had his slate ready. The carter raged. The neighbor sulked. The boy stared at his shoes.
"Name," Ziyan said, settling on the low step.
The carter gave it, along with three generations of his ancestors in a breathless rush.
"You accuse him," she said, nodding at the neighbor, "of stealing your blanket."
"He did!" the carter snapped. "My boy says he saw his son wearing it."
The neighbor protested. "My wife mended it for his boy two nights ago! He came shivering to our door like a wet rat. Said his father drank the blanket away at dice."
Laughter rippled. The carter reddened.
"It was one hand," he muttered. "And I lost."
The boy glared at the ground as if it had betrayed him. "I only asked for warmth," he mumbled. "It was cold."
Ren raised his hand. "Law on lending," he prompted.
Ziyan touched the nearest tablet. "If a man lends goods, he names terms in front of witness. If a man gives, he does not take back when it pleases him. If neither is done, both are fools and must share the loss."
More laughter, unfriendly and honest.
"You lent?" Ziyan asked the neighbor.
He shook his head. "I saw a child freezing," he said. "I gave."
The carter sputtered. "It was my blanket!"
"Which you lost," the midwife cut in, voice sharp. "To dice. The boy was right to be ashamed of you. He was right to go where there was warmth."
Ziyan held up a hand. "Enough."
She looked at the boy. "Do you want to keep it?" she asked.
He shrugged, miserable. "It smells like their house now," he said. "Like onions."
The crowd laughed harder. Even Ji Lu felt the corner of his mouth lift.
"Then this is the ruling," Ziyan said. "The blanket stays with the neighbor's family. The carter spends three nights working at the kiln, carrying wood for Madam Wen's daughters. His boy spends the same three nights at the temple kitchen, helping serve porridge to those who forgot to win their dice games."
"She wasn't even here," the carter protested. "Why punish her?"
"Because someone has to learn that warmth given is not easily taken back," Ziyan said. "Today, that lesson visits your son instead of your bones."
The boy risked a glance at Ji Lu. The envoy saw embarrassment there, yes—but also a kind of rough relief. Someone had said aloud what no one in Qi's courts would bother to notice.
He watched as Ren scratched the summary onto the slate; as the midwife smacked the carter's ear with her staff when he muttered; as the neighbor's wife appeared at the edge of the crowd, blanket already draped over the boy's shoulders, hair still wet from the well.
"This is not law," Ji Lu said quietly, half to himself. "Not as we write it. It is… gossip with structure."
"It is people who know one another," Ziyan replied. "All your codes, all your edicts—you write for strangers. We carve for neighbors."
He thought of Ash Hall, of Zhang's smooth words drifting over floors filled with mythic beams and anonymous ash.
"Strangers are easier to rule," he said.
"Perhaps," she said. "But harder to live with."