Night draped the Flame Sovereign's palace in velvet and ember. Lanterns hung like watchful eyes; patrols slid along the outer walls with the practiced ease of habit.
Inside the inner sanctum, the Sovereign and his council toasted the day's spectacles as if the world were still ordered and polite. They did not notice the small things a slackened rope here, a whisper of displaced incense there the petty misalignments that signaled a skilled shadow had moved through unannounced.
Yue Zihan waited in the shadow of a palace walls , the modest carriage left ten ri away. The fan of smoldering twilight sat across his knees, closed and unassuming. His blindfold glinted faintly beneath starlight; runes along its edge shimmered like distant constellations. He had planned this with the sort of calm only someone who understands both chaos and politeness could manage: a smooth, tidy theft, no spectacle, no unnecessary blood but if shove comes to push. Ooh well that would never happen, he thought.
[System: Time window optimal. Security matrix at the Vault of Embers shows constant rotation every forty-seven minutes. Recommend entry between minute 23 -27 of cycle.]
Zihan said softly "Precise. I like precise."
System: And predictable. Boring. Shall I sing to liven the mood?]
He moved like a shadow ,unseen, silent, inconsequential, a human fold in the night. The palace outer gate was an old friend of certain types of lockpicks; their mechanisms responded to a patient touch. He pushed a sliver of it opened and passed through it silent as the night.
He slid past the guards like a shadow passing behind another shadow. Two sentries near the inner corridor breathed in shallow, even rhythms: asleep on their feet, kindly spaced ropes of sleep talisman woven into the corridor's incense. Zihan's fingers brushed the air, drawing a hairline thread of chaotic qi that uncoiled the sleeping charm without waking the men. They slumped the same, dreams undisturbed.
[System: Quiet efficacy achieved. Guards status incapacitated (non-lethal). Reward: +1 for style.]
The vault doors were nothing like the theater of a highborn drama. They were tidy: layered wards, a ring of flame-script around the lock, and a bitter-sweet scent of containment a dozen countermeasures meant to secure essence-level artifacts from greedy hands. His hands. Zihan let his fan rest against the stone and closed his eyes. The eye of Judgement light pulsed under his blindfold, petals of rune-script unfurling.
He listened to the wards the way someone might listen to a sleeping beast: small, regular breaths, a rhythm. He mirrored them with his own chaotic current, not to force but to converse. Where the wards demanded submission, he offered a question; where they demanded balance, he offered misdirection. The runes answered like a cautious animal deciding that this particular approach was not a threat.
[System: Ward pattern recognized: Layered Primordial Bind > Royal Seal > Echo-Guard. Suggested bypass: Mirror-lattice mimicry; apply fan resonance frequency 0.417 to confuse echo. Also please don't hum.]
Zihan:"No promises."
The fan opened soft as a sigh. He traced the ribs across the flame-script, letting the metallic bones sing. A pattern of wind and small, controlled chaos flowed into the lock. The Echo-Guard quivered, expecting brute force; instead it found nothing but a polite mirror of itself. The royal seal whispered, then stilled. The Primordial Bind drew a thin breath then yielded, politely. So this is how those thief's who brake vaults on earth work, interesting.
The vault door slid opened. Inside, stacks of spirit crystals glittered like baked stars; cabinets held bottled essences that hummed with patience; on a pedestal lay the prize Zihan had come for: a singular shard of ember glass, trapped within a lattice of frozen flame and starlit ice . An Ember heart Shard, rare enough that its name would make a sect master's palms sweat. It would buy a dozen breakthroughs if spent foolishly; if honed correctly, it would sharpen one. This was his key to perfection in his breakthrough.
He reached for it and the air snapped a guardian, not alive but not dead, a pattern of carved spirit bound to deterrence. A soul reminant, left behind to guard the ember heart from sticky like his It rose like a mirror-image monk, arms folded, with eyes that were unblinking reflective surfaces. Zihan smiled.
[System: Guardian-adversarial. Combat recommendation: non-lethal disable via spatial dissonance. Also, consider a polite bow.]
Zihan: "Politeness is an underrated weapon."
His fan moved. Not a flash of destruction; a calligraphy stroke written in chaotic qi. The guardian faltered as if remembering an earlier life, a memory of plum trees, incense, a child's laugh. The stone monk's arms unclasped; it bowed and then stilled like an automaton whose script had been politely rewritten. A sliver of chaotic breath tucked the shard into his sleeve. He closed the fan.
[System: Item secured. Emberheart Shard acquired. Incursion stealth index: exemplary. New entry: Vault breach registered as "mysterious anomaly."]
He looked around the vault again and took what shined the most. He would not leave with only one thing that would be ridiculous.He then left a gift unassuming but lethal. A trail for the sovereign himself to marvel on.
On the way out, the palace did what palaces always do when someone cheats them quietly: it rearranged blame like furniture. Guards on the inner corridor blinked awake as if from a dream; an inner alarm trilled a single, puzzled tone and died.
Somewhere, the Flame Sovereign muttered into his goblet about unreliable wards. Not yet aware of the crisis that had befallen him. No one yet knew who had borrowed from the vault; this was the work of good thieves ghostlike and deeply upsetting to accounting.
Zihan stepped out into the palace grounds with the casual gait of a man who has chosen his slippers for comfort rather than status. He paused long enough to look up at the high dais where the Sovereign's banners still fluttered in drunken moonlight. A message, not for him, but for those who read the small things: the little gap in the seal on the outer gate, the choice of incense brands, the inked ledger where a clerk had scratched his reed wrong. He had left traces as a chess player leaves false openings. Not identity, only pattern: a suggestion that would send the right people down a chaotic path.
[System: Exit clear. Loot value: Ember heart Shard (primary), 3 mid-grade spirit crystals, 2 vials volcanic essence. Immediate reward: +1 Hidden Authority Calibration.]
Zihan softly, amused "Efficient. Clean. No applause required."
[System]: Applause optional. Local guards, however, may stage dramatic renditions later recommend stealthy exit music.]
The ride back was the same modest rattle of wood and cloth. Ruo Jin still on the drivers sit , quite and unassuming.He returned to the Jade Sparrow courtyard before dawn, slipping through the back door with the casual insolence of someone who owns a secret and finds the world's order useless.
Han Qing was there with a face like someone who'd been waiting for a train and missed it relief, worry and irritation mixed. "You actually did it," he said, like a man tasting impossible wine. His eyes and mouth wide.
Zihan placed the shard on the small table and let it hum. The Ember heart flared once, recognizing the presence of chaotic qi, then lay quiet, like coals tamed but still hot.
[System: Item integration possible. Recommend slow infusion via fan-tempered cycles; risk of feedback if rushed.]
Zihan: "Slow. Like good tea."
Han Qing's eyes flicked to the window. "If they trace it back….." he began.
Zihan folded the fan and gave him a look that was not unkind. "Let them trace. They'll find the neatest riddles and waste days arguing over etiquette. Meanwhile, we will refine." He tapped the shard with the fan's rib. A whisper of warmth seeped into his hand.
[System: Primordial Body response: acute. Potential breakthrough trigger: imminent with proper materials and solitude.]
Zihan (softly pleased): "Perfect."
Outside, the city was waking. Lanterns were doused, pigeons shook dew from their wings, and the Flame Sovereign's palace had discovered one more small embarrassment in the morning reports. Courtiers would argue, priests would pray, and the Black Pavilion would scowl as their own plans shifted under the new interference. None of that worried him. He had what he needed, and for the first time in days he permitted himself a small, private pleasure.
[System: Sin points +15. Madness points +4. New directive unlocked: 'Silent Refinement' Use Ember heart Shard with fan to catalyze breakthrough.]
Zihan smiled beneath his blindfold, the corners of his mouth darkly amused. "Then let the palace fuss. We have work to do."
He sat alone, fan across his knees, and for the first time that week allowed the chaotic current to sing without holding the melody back. The shard thrummed in answer, and somewhere inside him, a door cracked open a fraction more.
Outside, the city cycled its rituals timid, sure, day after day. Inside the courtyard, a prince who wore silence like armor folded his hands, and waited for the world to catch up.