The afternoon raid had settled into a steady downpour. Lin Fan studied the outside from his stall. The rain had turned the Lower East Quarters into a maze of puddles and rivulets. The rhythmic patter of raindrops created a soothing symphony against the cobblestones and rooftops.

  He used to love rain when he was a child. Now his sister, Xiaolian, loved it. She would be jumping in and out of those mud pits along with her friends by now.

  "I miss those days," Lin Fan muttered, watching the water cascade from the edge of rooftops. He sighed, feeling a pang of nostalgia for simpler times.

  A strange restlessness, in fact.

  "You should close early today," Bai Mei suggested, cradling his second cup of tea. "No one's coming in this weather, anyway."

  "And that's why I hate rain these days." He watched the gloomy skies, shaking his head. "But every copper counts, my friend." The words had become a mantra, repeated so often they had lost their meaning, like a prayer recited without thought or feeling.

  Before Bai Mei could argue, a loud splash from the street interrupted their conversation. A sedan chair, carried by four servants in matching gray livery, had stopped directly in front of the stall. Its ornate wooden frame and embroidered curtains marked it as belonging to someone of considerable wealth.

  Talismans hung from each corner, shimmering faintly with protective enchantments against the elements.

  Lin Fan's stomach clenched like a fist, acid churning as a man stepped out, his black robes immaculate despite the rain. Collector Zhao. The man who held Lin Fan's family's future in his manicured hands.

  "Seems I've found you occupied today, Lin Fan." Zhao's voice was pleasant as poisoned honey, his smile never reaching his eyes. Cold eyes. Dead fish eyes. "Good. I'd hate to think my investment was failing to generate any business at all."

  Bai Mei tensed, his hand moving instinctively to the small knife he kept in his belt. Lin Fan gave him a warning glance. Zhao was not a man to threaten. Not a man at all, perhaps, more like a snake wearing human skin.

  "Master Zhao," Lin Fan bowed slightly, reluctantly. "I wasn't expecting you until the end of the month."

  "Plans change." Zhao stepped under the shelter of the stall, water beading on his oiled paper umbrella like tears that refused to fall. "Interest rates change too. Your thousand silver has grown rather impressively this month. Another fifty silver, by my account."

  Lin Fan's chest tightened until breathing became difficult. Fifty silver. Even if he worked every day without rest or food, he couldn't earn fifty silver in ten years, let alone a month. Impossible. Insane. Was this punishment or simply cruelty?

  "Master Zhao, the agreement with my father—"

  "Was with your father." Zhao's smile remained fixed, a painting of benevolence stretched over malice. "He's been gone a year now, hasn't he? A shame. He was a much better negotiator than you've proven to be."

  Bai Mei's knuckles whitened around his teacup, the ceramic creaking in protest. "The terms shouldn't change just because—"

  "Do you speak for the Lin family now?" Zhao turned his cold gaze on Bai Mei, who immediately fell silent, freezing like prey before a predator. "I thought not."

  Zhao placed a folded paper on the counter, careful to avoid the small puddles forming from the rain. His hands were soft, uncallused, hands that had never known honest work. "New terms. I'll need ten silver by month's end as a show of good faith."

  "Ten silver?" Lin Fan couldn't keep the shock from his voice, the words escaping like startled birds. "That's impossible. I—"

  "Yet 'Seraphic Delicacies' manages to pay their debts on time," Zhao said mildly, referencing the new eatery that had opened two streets over, all gleaming wood and imported glass, staffed by girls in matching silk uniforms. "Perhaps it's a matter of... motivation."

  The threat hung in the air. Lin Fan thought of his mother, bedridden and needing her Light-infused tonics. Her medicine cost two silvers per month, which he barely get by. Of his sister, Xiaolian, trying to hide how hungry she was when he brought home less food than usual.

  "I'll find a way," Lin Fan said, hating the defeat in his voice. Hating himself for his weakness.

  "See that you do." Zhao adjusted his sleeves, jade beads clacking softly against one another at his wrist. "Your mother's condition would certainly worsen if you lost this... charming establishment." He glanced around the simple stall with poorly disguised contempt, as if the mere act of standing there might soil his robes. "And what would your sister do then? Pretty girl like that, coming of age soon... I hear the pleasure houses in the Western Quarter always need fresh faces."

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  Something hot flared in Lin Fan's chest – anger, desperation, perhaps both. No. Something more. For a moment, the sensation felt like more than emotion, almost like a physical heat spreading through his limbs, pooling in his core like molten metal seeking form.

  His vision blurred, edges of the stall suddenly sharper, colors more vivid. The steam from the cooking pot seemed to bend toward his hands, responding to his fury.

  What was this?

  "I said I'll find a way," he repeated, more firmly this time. The strength in his voice surprised even him. His fingers curled against the wooden counter, knuckles whitening.

  "I WILL FIND A WAY," he said those words again so he wouldn't raise the hot pot and smash it on collector Zhao's face. That wouldn't end well.

  "Until the end of the month, then." Zhao turned toward his sedan and left in the rain.

  "Ten silver. He might as well ask for the moon and stars along with it," Bai Mei said, his voice cracking.

  Lin Fan slumped against the counter, the brief surge of strange energy draining away, leaving him hollow and cold. The rain's steady rhythm seemed to mock his predicament now. "I could sell the stall itself and still not make half that. Maybe I should just let him have it."

  The aroma of his simmering broth, usually so comforting, now seemed to carry the bitter scent of defeat.

  "There has to be a way," Bai Mei insisted, striking the counter with his palm. "Your cooking is better than anything at 'Seraphic Delicacies.' Those pampered fools wouldn't know true flavor if it slapped them across their powdered faces. If the right people tasted it—"

  "The right people don't come to the Lower East Quarter," Lin Fan said. "Not unless they're collecting debts or looking for trinkets to amuse themselves with."

  He turned back to his pots, mechanically checking the simmering broth. His father would have known what to do. Lin Daoran had always found a way to keep the family fed, to pay the minimum on their debts, to keep the collectors at bay for one more month.

  How had he done it? How had he managed what seemed impossible now?

  The secret had died with him. Hadn't it?

  As Lin Fan adjusted the flame beneath the pot, his fingers brushed against a small cloth pouch tucked beside the stove, hidden in the shadow of a larger jar. His father's special spice blend – the last one he'd prepared before the coughing sickness had taken him. Rare herbs from the mountains, gathered during his father's younger days. Lin Fan had been saving it, unable to bring himself to use the final connection to his father's cooking.

  The pouch felt warm against his fingertips. Unnaturally warm. As if it had absorbed heat from the nearby flame, yet the stove wasn't close enough for that.

  Once, Lin Fan had watched his father coax a herb to life with just a touch. The leaves unfurled under his fingers, vibrant green and full of life. When Lin Fan had asked about it, his father had simply smiled and declined to explain.

  Was his father a cultivator? But even skilled cultivators couldn't grow a herb with a single touch.

  Or could they?

  "What about that friend of yours? Zhang Wei?" Bai Mei asked suddenly, interrupting Lin Fan's thoughts. "Doesn't he work for some merchant caravan now? Maybe he could loan you something?"

  Lin Fan shook his head. "He's barely getting by himself. Besides, I won't drag others into this mess."

  The rain continued to fall, washing the streets of Luminous Jade City clean while leaving its people as soiled as ever. Lin Fan contemplated the impossible path before him. Six copper today. Eight on a good day. Ten silver by month's end.

  Something would have to change, and soon. Perhaps something already had.

  His gaze settled on his father's spice pouch again, and this time, Lin Fan felt that strange warmth surge through him, not from the stove, but from the silver ring connected to his flesh. A half-remembered technique his father had shown him once, when they were alone in the stall after closing.

  "The true flavor," his father had whispered, his voice carrying a reverence usually reserved for temple prayers, "comes not just from the ingredients, but from here." He had touched his chest, right above his heart, his eyes alight with something Lin Fan couldn't name. A subtle golden glow had seemed to emanate from his father's fingertips. Of course, his father declined the golden glow.

  Lin Fan brushed his fingers against the spice pouch again, feeling it pulse against his skin like a tiny, second heart. Perhaps his father had left him more than just recipes after all. Perhaps the answers were right here, waiting to be awakened.

  His ring struck something inside the pouch. As he pulled it back, a sharp edge sliced into his finger. Blood welled up, dripping onto the ring. The faint carving on the ring pulsed slightly, glowing with a subtle warmth.

  He felt a strange thing about the pouch. About the spice inside. That spice had come from the herb his father grew in the backyard.

  Just like something inside himself seemed to be stirring, reaching toward the surface after years of slumber.

  "I need to try something," Lin Fan said abruptly, stepping away from the counter.

  Bai Mei looked up, startled by the sudden determination in his friend's voice. "What are you thinking?"

  Lin Fan carefully untied the spice pouch, inhaling the complex aroma that escaped, woodsy, slightly sweet, with an undercurrent of something electric that made the tiny hairs on his arms stand on end. "My father's last creation. I've been saving it, but..."

  "For what? The emperor's visit?" Bai Mei scoffed. "If there was ever a time for desperate measures, it's now."

  Lin Fan nodded slowly. "I need ingredients. Something special to pair with these spices. Something worthy of them."

  "The market will be closing soon with this weather," Bai Mei warned, but he was already standing, cinching his rain cloak tighter.

  "Then we'll have to hurry." Lin Fan tied the pouch securely to his belt, feeling its warmth against his hip like a promise. "I'll need to stop at home first and check our garden. There was a Sunpetal herb my father planted before he... before he left us. If it survived the winter..."

  As they stepped out into the rain, Lin Fan felt lighter than he had in months, despite the impossible challenge ahead. The warmth in his chest spread, a curious sensation of anticipation building with each step.

  Tomorrow, he would find a way. Tomorrow, everything would change.

  He just didn't realize how much.