I'm the capital's number-one wastrel. It's an act.
For fifteen years, I've made myself at home in gambling dens, Wuli Ferry, and Linhe Tower, charming everyone and letting no one see through me.
Until one night, someone nearly silenced me for good. I jumped into the river to escape and came away with my life, but also with a deadly ledger of riverworks tucked against my chest.
One set of accounts leads to thirteen sections of grain transport, salt permits, and supply routes to the nine frontier garrisons. It leads to a game of power at court that has been in motion for twenty years.
I can't be bothered to leave the marquis's estate, but I've waded through every river under heaven.
Every beauty has her own fire, and every scheme runs deeper than the last.
After fifteen years of pretending to be a wastrel, I finally understood on the night I fell into the river: from the very first move, this game never meant for me to be a spectator.
