The next three months were the busiest of either life.

  Little Abacus's technique sales built their economic foundation. Revenue climbed. Resources accumulated.

  They moved from the Falling Leaf to a rented compound. Enough space for Wu Zheng's kitchen, Su Yiran's database, Little Abacus's demonstration arena, and a buffer zone around Chen Xi's

  quarters that was no longer strictly necessary but which he maintained out of what Su Yiran recognised as anxiety.

  Li Wei mapped the political terrain. Verdant Basin and Iron Crown were preparing for war.

  Not openly. But the signs were there.

  Troop movements disguised as training exercises. Resource stockpiling masked as procurement. And a series of provocative border incidents that Li Wei identified as deliberate escalation.

  One incident in particular: a confrontation in the river market between Verdant Basin and Iron Crown merchants that nearly turned violent.

  Wu Zheng happened to be buying ginger. He stepped between the two groups, offered both parties samples of his soup, and talked them into sitting down.

  The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

  By the time they'd finished the soup, they'd forgotten what they were fighting about.

  "You defused a sectarian confrontation with ginger broth," Chen Xi said later.

  "I defused a confrontation between two men who were hungry, tired, and afraid. The ginger broth was incidental. Though it was exceptional ginger broth."

  Su Yiran found something else.

  In her audit of the city's infrastructure, she'd identified an irregularity in the bridge's formation maintenance records. The scheduled inspections had been filed and signed.

  But the energy readings attached to those inspections were copied — identical numbers, entry after entry, for the past eight months.

  Someone was falsifying the bridge's structural reports.

  She reported this to the city council. They thanked her for her diligence.

  They did nothing.

  Merchant Luo visited the compound twice that month.

  Both times, he brought gifts. Both times, he asked questions about the bridge.

  The second visit, he asked whether Chen Xi's analysis of the Qi river's flow patterns had identified any seasonal anomalies that might stress the bridge's foundations.

  "You're very interested in that bridge," Su Yiran said.

  "I'm a merchant. Bridges are vital infrastructure. If the bridge fails, commerce fails. Commerce failing is bad for people like me."

  His smile was as warm as ever. His concern was perfectly reasonable.

  Little Abacus's notebook now contained seven pages of Merchant Luo's questions. Still filed under "River Market Data."

  But the boy had added a note in the margin: Why does he always ask about the bridge?