It began with music.
Soft zither strings, echoing from the Eastern Courtyard. A royal birthday banquet — Princess Linhua's sixteenth — filled the palace with light, wine, and laughter.
Even Shen was ordered to attend, assigned as a background attendant. Just another gray shadow holding wine jugs and fruit trays.
But in truth, he had already found two concealed daggers hidden beneath the tablecloths, both soaked in Black Lotus venom — a rare toxin that attacked the meridians before the heart.
He'd destroyed them quietly.
"Whoever planned this," he thought, "isn't just aiming to kill. They want it to look like chaos."
The Emperor arrived last.
Regal in midnight robes, he raised a cup to his daughter. "A full moon rises for your sixteenth. May no shadow fall upon it."
Too late.
It already had.
Shen saw the assassin the moment the lanterns flickered.
Just a ripple.
One palace musician blinked twice — then moved wrong. He pressed a note half a beat late.
That was all Shen needed.
"Not a mistake. A signal."
The blade came not from the front……but from the roof tiles above the banquet — a single dart, black, silent, tipped with soul poison.
It didn't aim for the Emperor.
Not the Empress.
Not even the Crown Prince.
It was flying straight for General Li — the Iron General.
The blade neared its mark — a whisper away from the general's exposed neck.
But a chopstick spun through the air and struck it mid-flight.
The dart fell harmlessly.
The crowd didn't notice.
But the Emperor did.
So did the general.
Their eyes met briefly.
And then Shen was gone — already scaling the outer pillar.
The assassin was fast. Skilled. Wearing the clothes of a minor eunuch.
But Shen caught him mid-leap — tackling him into the side garden before he could vanish over the roof.
The fight was brief but vicious.
Two shadow walkers, exchanging deadly strikes in silence. Shen blocked a poisoned needle with his sleeve and sent a palm strike into the assassin's ribs.
Crack.
The assassin spat blood. Still smiling.
"You're not a servant," he hissed.
"No," Shen replied. "I'm what comes after you fail."
The man tried to bite down — suicide poison.
Shen punched his jaw sideways, breaking it.
Then knocked him out cold.
Ten minutes later, Shen returned to the banquet… holding the man's body by the collar.
Gasps rippled through the nobles.
The Emperor stood.
Guards surrounded the scene — but none moved.
Not until Shen dropped the assassin's body at the foot of the throne and said clearly:
"He came for General Li. Not the Crown Prince. The question is… why?"
Silence.
And then the Emperor gave a single nod.
"…Take him."
As guards rushed to obey, Shen bowed — then vanished back into the crowd.
Just a servant.
A shadow.
But everyone had seen.
And the Empress… she was shaking.
That night, Shen found a scroll hidden under his blanket.
No name. No signature.
Just five words:
"You are not safe here."