"They caught the assassin?!" The words burst out like a firecracker.

Lingcai had just slipped free of the grind of meditation, like a fish wriggling from a net.

At the news, joy surged like a spring flood.

She rushed after Xueyu toward the cells, her three steps melting into two like wings beating.

"Not caught yet; the net snagged a side fish, not the shark."

"The trail will surface sooner or later, like oil on water."

"And she's oddly cooperative, opening like a flower to sun."

As they walked, Xueyu poured out the gathered intel like grain from a sack.

"Good, good, good... Does that mean I don't have to be bait, like meat on a hook?

Can I go home, like a swallow to its eave?"

Lingcai hugged Xueyu's arm like a drowning girl clutching driftwood.

Xueyu shook her off, like flicking rain from a sleeve.

"Have some poise! You're playing the princess; don't splatter mud on her name.

Stand dignified, like a winter pine."

"Yes, yes, you're right," Lingcai said, a smile bubbling like a kettle.

"I've been unlucky so long; the wind should turn.

I didn't expect the tide this quick."

"Enough, stop making a mud puddle of this.

Once we're at the cells, act proper, like a clean blade.

Don't blacken Her Highness's face like soot."

Saying so, Xueyu smacked Lingcai's backside, sharp as a drumbeat, maybe on purpose.

By the cell gates, a young elven warrior in cloth armor and a heart-guard, bow and short sword on her back, offered a honey-sweet smile.

"Welcome, Your Highness; please allow me to lead the way, like a lantern in a night lane."

Lingcai, giddy as a kite in wind, suddenly bellowed, "Fine! Lead!"

Xueyu thumped her skull, a knuckle like a hammer.

"Why jump like a cat? You scared me like a sparrow from a bush!"

The elven warrior watched the gaffe like a storm over tea, but pretended not to see, holding a professional, sugar-slick smile.

Maybe that's palace survival wisdom, like walking on thin ice under moonlight.

They wound down spiral stairs, layer after layer, like a corkscrew into earth.

Torches blazed on all sides, bars bristled like a forest, the air cold as steel.

In the deepest cell, a shadow sat like a stone under water.

"Just ahead, Your Highness—she's the accomplice, a thorn among briars."

The elven warrior said to Lingcai, words neat as stacked tiles.

Lingcai and Xueyu reached the bars, and when they saw who sat inside, they froze like statues pinned to stone.

"Oh, it's you two. Morning," Kelor drawled, her voice lazy as smoke.

Kelor reclined on the plank bed, cheek propped, deep in the cell like a cat in sun.

She yawned wide as a gate, then waved and smiled.

In their heads, only six iron nails remained: I. Assassinated. Myself.

In Lingcai and Xueyu's minds, those six characters clanged like chains.

Seeing Kelor at ease, like a fish in water, nothing like a prisoner, the elven warrior’s temper flared like sparks.

"Even with wings, you won't fly today!"

"Her Highness can see at a glance, sharp as a blade, if you're the assassin's accomplice."

"Silver tongue or not, you can't wriggle out like an eel."

"Your Highness, awaiting your orders—how do we handle her?"

The elven warrior asked Lingcai, careful as stepping through frost.

Lingcai stammered, words scraping like pebbles through teeth, and squeezed out two: "Release her."

"But... we just hauled the net—how can we let her go?

Maybe look again, see if she's truly an accomplice, like judging jade in sunlight..."

The elven warrior jolted, surprise blooming like frost flowers; she never imagined such a verdict.

Xueyu tugged the girl's sleeve, face pale as paper, voice lowered, words squeezed like paste.

"Don't touch this today... Get the key, open the door, and run like a hare.

Don't let her see your face, not for a heartbeat."

"O-okay..." The elven warrior staggered in her thoughts like a drunk, but understood: only obedience lay like a single path.

Once the elven warrior opened the door and faded away like a shadow, Xueyu checked the empty corners, then dropped to her knees with a thud like a drum.

"Dereliction! I failed, like a guard asleep at the gate!

To let Her Highness carry such a false stain is mud on jade.

Xueyu will repay with death, like a blade laid at the throat!"

Seeing Xueyu kneel, Lingcai hadn't found her words, but the moment swept her down like a wind, and she knelt too.

"Uh—though I haven't figured out what to say, I must be at fault too," she blurted, words tumbling like beans.

"Both of you, stand up straight, like bamboo.

Does this sound right? Does it?

What princess and her guard kneel to a prisoner behind bars?"

Kelor hummed lazily like a cat, then flicked her fingernails like droplets.

"But what is going on... how did it become you trying to assassinate yourself?" Lingcai asked, shaking her head like a rattle gourd.

Kelor sat up from the bed, her face shifting from clear sky to gathering clouds.

"I studied from childhood, and at fourteen I began to act as regent, like a lamp lit before dawn.

It's been three years and more.

In these years, winds and rains aligned, people lived at ease, the nation rich and troops like iron.

I can't claim great merit, but there was sweat, like dew on barley."

Kelor paced the cell, steps soft as cat paws, then suddenly turned her blade of speech.

"But today, I can't make sense of it, like fog on the plain.

Even so, bullying and scorn still happen, pressing lives to cliffs.

Day by day, I sit at my desk; the memorials brought to me are full of righteous ink.

Yet out where my eyes can't reach, whose purse fattens from these shadows?"

Smack!

She lifted her arm and slapped the plank, the crack like thunder, startling the two before her.

"What's with her..." Lingcai muttered, voice like a mosquito by the ear.

"I don't know either... stop buzzing; just listen," Xueyu said, nudging Lingcai like a broom flick.

"So this stand-in—do we still do it?" Lingcai asked, careful as a mouse on a beam.

"Today taught me a truth," Kelor said, voice ringing like a bell, sidestepping her question.

"If you stand high too long, you stop seeing the people below, like clouds hiding the valley."

"I agree! I agree!" Lingcai chirped like a sparrow.

Lingcai thought Kelor meant to spare her, and shot both hands up like flags, eager.

"Playing a fake princess for a time, I finally get it.

With a title like Her Highness, wherever you go, people show you only the view you want, like painted screens.

To feel the people's ache, you have to set the title down, sit with them as equals, like sharing rice at the same table.

Then you'll taste their bitterness."

She finished, still smiling like a sunbeam, unaware a problem was already sprouting like weeds.

She didn’t know she had played the clever fool again.

"Well said," Kelor clapped, palms like small drums, then slammed Lingcai's shoulder, heavy as a millstone.

Lingcai's smile turned stiff as lacquer; she edged Kelor's hand away, nerves quivering like strings.

"Don't... what's this for?"

Every time Kelor pats her shoulder, trouble sprouts like thistles.

"I've received your resolve.

Since you carry care for the realm like a lantern, keep playing this fake princess for me."

Kelor smiled, then—deliberately—pounded Lingcai's shoulder a few more times, like a judge stamping seals.

"Wait, no—how did I..." Lingcai panicked on the spot, heart flapping like a trapped pigeon.

"If you don't stay here and handle the palace's knots and weeds, playing the part, how can I, the real princess, truly meet my people in the fields?

Isn't that the greater good?"

Kelor spread her hands to Lingcai like opening a fan, then frowned, turning the blade again.

"Otherwise? You preach pretty truths, then dodge when they touch you?

I warn you—this borders on deceiving your sovereign, a cliff edge.

Do the work earnestly; your share of benefits will come, like rain after drought."

With that, Kelor chuckled, walked out of the cell, hands clasped behind her back, never looking back, like a river leaving the mountain gate.

"What does she mean—does she mean even if we find the assassin, I still have to play the stand-in here, like a candle left in a lantern?"

Lingcai turned to Xueyu, her face bleak as a cold rain.

Xueyu shot her a glare, sharp as an arrow.

"Isn't this your own doing? I told you to hush, yet you poured out like a river!

You really are a great genius..."

"Yes, yes, I'm such a great genius..." Lingcai answered with a wobble in her voice, like rain beads on a string.