The study is still, except for the brass tally’s pulse and the faint gleam of gold-script on the discarded ward paper. Kareem stands over the unconscious figure as the light catches the robe seal again.
The seal twists under the tally’s glow, its clean imperial lines peeling back like wet lacquer. What looked official now resolves into a hidden mark, sharp and private, a sign no lawful office wears.
The Gate Scribe
That is not Magistrate Wei’s seal. It is older, and unauthorized.
Magistrate Wei
A rogue bureau. In my own records. In my own study.
The mark finishes changing, revealing a factional stamp buried beneath the false authority, proof that the trap was built from inside the bureaucracy, not outside it.
The Gate Scribe
Someone in the ledger chain has been shielding this hand. The petition, the tether, the bait, all of it points inward.
Wei straightens, stunned into silence, while the tally keeps thudding like a verdict in Kareem’s grasp.
Expose the rogue bureau behind the ledger chain
Interrogate the captured watcher