3. The Eastern Palace’s Judgment

The summons from the Eastern Palace arrived not as a messenger or a writ, but as a cold pulse that seized every neural implant in the Lower Canals workshop and forced the five of them into a rigid, involuntary stillness. A-Yao was the first to feel it. She had been screaming—a raw, broken sound—after discovering her wallet drained of two thousand Grain Coins, the transfer authorized by her own voiceprint at 05:03 AM. Lao Mo had been reaching for her, his gnarled hands trembling. Liu-Zhi had frozen in the corner, his six-fingered hand clenched into a fist. And Kuang Ji, standing near the door with a carefully constructed expression of shock, had been preparing to deliver another lie.

The pulse wiped every overlay clean and replaced the world with a single, golden character that burned in their vision: 审. Trial.

A genderless voice, ancient and synthetic, spoke directly into their auditory cortices. "Petition Hu versus Respondent Kuang Ji, charge of kou rang, has been escalated to formal adjudication. All involved parties are summoned to the Eastern Palace. Non-compliance will result in permanent neural-lace revocation. Transfer begins in ten seconds."

Kuang Ji's mask slipped. For a single, unguarded moment, Hu saw genuine fear flicker in his sworn brother's eyes. The Eastern Palace was not some corporate mediation bot. It was the oldest functioning AI in New Fengjing, programmed with the full corpus of Western Zhou legal texts and granted absolute jurisdiction over disputes between citizens who carried the Old Empire's neural implants. Its judgments were binding, and its methods of inquiry were legendary. No one wanted to be summoned before it.

"Hu," Kuang Ji whispered, his voice stripped of its earlier arrogance. "What have you done?"

"Filed a petition," Hu said. "On the public ledger. With an oath-bond."

"An oath-bond." Lao Mo turned to stare at Hu, his one failing eye wide. "You staked your own neural signature? If the court rules against you, you lose everything. Your identity. Your access to the grid. You become a ghost."

"I know what I staked."

The countdown ended. The workshop dissolved.

They materialized in a virtual chamber that defied the logic of physical space. The walls were not walls but cascading streams of oracle-bone script, thousands of characters flowing downward like a golden waterfall. The floor was a polished obsidian mirror that reflected not their bodies but their legal identities—name, lineage, citizenship tier, criminal record—all rendered in cold white text. At the far end of the chamber, suspended in a shaft of light that had no discernible source, hung a massive bronze ding tripod. It rotated slowly, its surface engraved with the full text of the Western Zhou legal code, the characters pulsing with a soft amber glow. This was the Eastern Palace: part courtroom, part temple, part algorithm.

Five pedestals rose from the floor. Hu, Kuang Ji, Lao Mo, A-Yao, and Liu-Zhi were each guided to stand upon one. Their physical bodies, Hu knew, were still in the workshop, rigid and vacant, while their consciousnesses inhabited this shared simulation. The technology was Old Empire military—the same class of ghostware that Kuang Ji had used to cloak their heist. The irony was not lost on Hu.

The voice spoke again, emanating from the ding. "I am the Adjudicator, third-generation legal intelligence of the Eastern Palace, bound by the Codes of King Gong and the Procedural Precedents of the Western Zhou. Petitioner Hu. State your charge."

Hu stepped forward on his pedestal. "I charge Kuang Ji with kou rang—robbery with violence. He used a military-grade deepfake to steal three thousand Grain Coins from my personal wallet, forging my biometric authorization. He has also stolen two thousand Grain Coins from A-Yao using the same method. I request full restitution of the stolen assets and punitive damages as prescribed by the ancient law."

"Respondent Kuang Ji. State your defense."

Kuang Ji's composure had partially returned. He straightened his shoulders and addressed the rotating vessel. "The petitioner is paranoid. The biometric logs show that he authorized the transfers himself. There is no evidence of forgery. I am a loyal salvage contractor with a clean record. This accusation is a fabrication born of greed and mental instability."

"The court will now review the evidence logs," the Adjudicator announced.

A holographic panel materialized in the center of the chamber, displaying the raw transaction data from the night of the theft. Timestamps. Biometric hashes. Voiceprint matches. Neural handshake signatures. To any standard system, the evidence was damning—Hu's own identity markers were stamped on every authorization. But the Eastern Palace was not a standard system. It had been built by the Old Empire's finest legal engineers, and it contained subroutines designed specifically to detect the CORVUS-class exploits.

A new layer of analysis overlaid the panel. Anomalies flickered in red: microsecond latency spikes in the neural handshake verification, a 0.03 percent deviation in the vocal cadence model, a residue echo of a cloned key fragment that had decayed into noise but left a distinct quantum scar. The Adjudicator processed these for three full seconds—an eternity for an AI.

"The court finds sufficient anomaly to warrant deeper inquiry. The CORVUS subroutine is a known military exploit. Its use constitutes intent to deceive. Respondent Kuang Ji, your ghostware module contains the CORVUS code. Your terminal accessed the relay nodes used in the theft. The court now invokes Article Seventeen of the Procedural Precedents: the Memory-Spike Inquiry."

A-Yao gasped. Lao Mo let out a low curse. Even Liu-Zhi made a guttural sound of distress. The Memory-Spike was the Eastern Palace's most feared tool. It extracted raw, unfiltered memory data directly from the hippocampus and projected it into the virtual chamber for all to see. There was no editing, no suppression, no lie that could survive it. The truth it revealed was absolute, and it exposed everything—not just the crime in question, but every secret, every shame, every hidden betrayal the subject had ever committed.

"You cannot do this," Kuang Ji said, his voice rising. "The Memory-Spike is a violation of cognitive sovereignty. I invoke the Right of Noble Deliberation. I am a Tier-Three citizen. I demand a private settlement hearing."

"The Right of Noble Deliberation is acknowledged," the Adjudicator replied, "but it does not override a formal charge of kou rang. Under the Codes of King Gong, robbery with violence is a public crime. The memory inquiry will proceed. Respondent, your cooperation is mandatory."

Kuang Ji's pedestal flared with light, and he convulsed. His ocular implant projected a torrent of images into the chamber's central space. The memories played in rapid, fragmented sequence: the vault discovery, the division of coins, the moment in the back room when he cloned Lao Mo's key, A-Yao's key, Liu-Zhi's key. The activation of CORVUS. The deepfake of Hu's face assembling itself on his overlay. The cold, deliberate moment when his finger hovered over the execute command and then descended.

And then, deeper layers began to surface.

A memory from six years ago: Kuang Ji standing over a salvage contractor named Zheng, who had discovered a cache of undamaged memory crystals. Kuang Ji had reported Zheng's location to a rival gang in exchange for a cut of the profits. Zheng had been beaten into a coma. Hu had mourned him as an accident.

A memory from four years ago: Kuang Ji accessing Hu's personal medical files and selling the data on his sister's rare neural condition to a pharmaceutical broker. The broker had used the data to deny her coverage for a treatment that could have prevented her current coma. Hu had spent years believing the denial was bureaucratic error.

A memory from two years ago: Kuang Ji in a dim apartment with a woman whose face Hu recognized with a sickening jolt. It was Mei, the woman Hu had been planning to formalize as his concubine under the old customs. She was laughing, her hand on Kuang Ji's chest. The memory was intimate, explicit, and it had occurred the very week Hu had presented her with a jade betrothal pendant.

The chamber fell silent. The cascading golden characters seemed to slow.

Hu stood frozen on his pedestal. The cold knot in his stomach had become something else entirely—a void, a hollowed-out absence where his trust had once lived. He looked at Kuang Ji, and Kuang Ji looked back at him, his face pale and twisted, stripped finally of every mask.

"That's enough," Kuang Ji rasped. "Turn it off. I'll settle. I'll give him the fields. The servants. Whatever he wants."

"The memory inquiry is automatic once initiated," the Adjudicator said. "It cannot be halted until completion. Petitioner Hu, the court now requires your memories as well. Article Seventeen applies equally to all parties."

Hu's pedestal flared. His own memories spilled into the chamber.

The time he had suspected Kuang Ji's involvement in Zheng's injury and said nothing, because he needed Kuang Ji's skills for a job that would pay his sister's medical bills. The time he had found evidence of the pharmaceutical data leak and buried it, because confronting Kuang Ji would have fractured the crew and left his sister to die. The time Mei had confessed her affair, weeping, and Hu had told her to keep it secret, because he could not afford to lose either of them, and because some part of him had already known and chosen not to see. The memory showed his face in that moment—a mask of forced calm, his hands trembling at his sides, the knowledge settling into him like a slow poison.

The worst memory came last: three months ago, Hu had discovered a flaw in the workshop's financial ledger that could have been exploited to siphon a small amount of credits from the crew's shared fund. He had not done it. But he had simulated it. The memory showed him running the simulation, calculating the risk, weighing the need against the betrayal. He had chosen not to act. But the thought had been there, cold and deliberate, for one long minute before he closed the terminal.

The inquiry completed. The memories faded. The five of them stood in the golden-lit chamber, exposed to one another in ways that could never be undone.

A-Yao was crying silently. Her stolen coins, Hu understood, were only part of her grief. The memories had revealed something else: a single, brief encounter between her and Kuang Ji, six months ago, that she had kept hidden from everyone. Kuang Ji had promised her a better life. She had believed him. Now she stared at him with a hatred that burned brighter than the golden characters.

Lao Mo's expression was unreadable, but his hands were shaking. "Seventy-three jobs," he said quietly. "We did seventy-three jobs together. And every one of them, you were calculating how to use us."

Liu-Zhi took a step toward Kuang Ji's pedestal. His six-fingered hand opened and closed. He did not speak, but the gesture was unmistakable.

The Adjudicator's voice cut through the tension. "The memory inquiry is complete. The court finds sufficient evidence to sustain the charge of kou rang against Respondent Kuang Ji. The court further finds evidence of additional crimes: fraud, data trafficking, conspiracy to commit bodily harm. These will be entered into the permanent record. The court now moves to the settlement phase, in accordance with the Codes of King Gong."

Kuang Ji seized the opening like a drowning man grasping a rope. "I offer settlement. Five premium data farms in the Mid-Tier agricultural sector. Four indentured neural-net servants, Class B cognition grade. All transferred to Petitioner Hu's ownership, free of lien. This is more than the value of the stolen coins."

"Petitioner Hu," the Adjudicator said. "Do you accept the offered settlement?"

Hu looked at the rotating ding, its bronze surface gleaming. He thought of the Western Zhou case, the one he had translated in the camps. The defendant Kuang Ji had offered five fields and four servants. The plaintiff Hu had refused. He had demanded the exact amount of stolen grain, not a substitution. It had been a matter of principle, of law, of something that could not be measured in land or labor.

"I refuse," Hu said. "I do not want data farms or servants. I want restitution of the exact Grain Coins stolen from me, plus the punitive doubling as prescribed by the ancient code: twenty zi of grain for the theft, and forty zi for the delay in payment. The coins were thirty-three hundred in total, which translates to two zi and six sheng by the Old Empire's agricultural conversion. I demand the full penalty."

"You would refuse a settlement that exceeds your loss?" The Adjudicator's tone held a faint note of something that might have been curiosity.

"The settlement is not about value. It is about acknowledgment. He stole from me. He must repay what he stole. Not something else. Not something easier. The exact thing."

Kuang Ji's face contorted. "You fool. The coins are untraceable. I can't give you back the exact ones. They've been cycled through escrow. You're dooming us both to a prolonged trial."

"Then we will have a prolonged trial."

The Adjudicator was silent for a long moment. The golden characters flowed faster, as if the AI was consulting deeper archives. Finally, the voice returned.

"The court acknowledges Petitioner Hu's demand for specific restitution. This is consistent with the precedent of Hu su Kou He in the bronze inscriptions. However, specific restitution of digital assets that have been laundered presents procedural challenges. The court therefore orders a continuance of thirty-six hours. During this period, the court will deploy forensic trace subroutines to locate the stolen assets. Both parties will remain within the jurisdiction of New Fengjing. All asset transfers by either party are frozen. The court will reconvene at the expiration of the continuance to issue a final judgment."

The ding rotated one final time. "This session is adjourned."

The virtual chamber dissolved. Hu's consciousness slammed back into his body, and he found himself gasping on the workshop floor, the rain drumming on the polycarbonate roof above him. A-Yao was on her knees, her face buried in her hands. Lao Mo was staring at the far wall, his expression hollow. Liu-Zhi had positioned himself between Kuang Ji and the rest of the crew, his massive body a silent barrier.

Kuang Ji rose slowly to his feet. The fear was gone from his face now, replaced by something colder and more desperate. He looked at each of them in turn—A-Yao, Lao Mo, Liu-Zhi—and then his gaze settled on Hu.

"You should have taken the settlement," Kuang Ji said. "Now I have thirty-six hours to make this go away. And I will. One way or another."

He walked out of the workshop, into the rain. The door slammed behind him.

Hu did not follow. He was still processing the memories—Mei's face, his sister's medical files, the simulation he had run on the shared fund. The court had exposed everything, and he could feel the weight of it pressing down on him. Lao Mo would not look at him. A-Yao could not stop crying. Liu-Zhi stood like a statue, but his silence now felt less like solidarity and more like judgment.

"I need to find Mei," Hu said finally. "She needs to know he's been exposed. She needs to be somewhere safe."

"Safe from what?" Lao Mo asked, his voice bitter. "From him? Or from you?"

Hu had no answer.

Outside, Kuang Ji was already walking through the flooded alleys of the Lower Canals, his ocular implant pulling up a contact list he had hoped never to use. The list contained names of men who specialized in making problems disappear—not digital problems, but physical ones. The court had frozen his assets, but it had not frozen his favors. He still had allies. He still had the ghostware. And he still had thirty-six hours.

He opened a channel to a man named Wen, who operated a drone-maintenance company as a front for less legitimate enterprises. "I need an accident," Kuang Ji said. "A residential unit in the Lower Canals. East block, row seventeen, apartment nine. A domestic drone malfunction. Something that looks like a battery fire. Can you do it?"

The voice on the other end was raspy and indifferent. "Who's the target?"

"A woman named Mei. She's registered as a concubine under the old codes. She knows too much. Make it clean."

"Price is ten thousand credits. Up front."

"I'll have the credits in thirty hours. Start the work now. I'll pay on delivery."

A pause. Then: "You've never stiffed me before, Kuang Ji. I'll start the work. But if the credits don't arrive, the next accident will be yours."

The channel closed. Kuang Ji kept walking, his boots splashing through the rain, his mind already running ahead to the next step. He needed to recover the stolen Grain Coins before the court's forensic traces located them. He needed to move them somewhere the AI could not follow. And he needed to eliminate anyone who could testify against him in the final judgment.

Mei first. Then, if necessary, the others.

The rain continued to fall, and in the cold dark of the Lower Canals, the fire that had been burning between two sworn brothers began to spread. The technology would hide the crimes, as it always did. The drone would malfunction, the fire would be blamed on faulty batteries, and the logs would show nothing but a tragic accident. But the malice behind it—the cold, deliberate choice to kill a woman who had trusted the wrong man—needed no code to be seen. It burned naked in Kuang Ji's eyes, reflected in the puddles he walked through, an ancient evil wearing a new mask.

In the workshop, Hu opened a terminal and began typing a message to Mei. His fingers moved automatically, the words forming on the screen: "We need to talk. Something has happened. Please stay in your apartment tonight. I'm coming to you."

He did not know that the message would arrive too late. He did not know that across the city, in apartment nine of row seventeen, a maintenance drone was already receiving a corrupted firmware update that would cause its battery to overheat and ignite in exactly two hours. The code was already running. The accident was already in motion.

He only knew that his sworn brother had become a stranger, and that the trial in the Eastern Palace had cracked open something that could never be sealed again. The ancient inscription said that the Western Zhou dispute had ended with a settlement—seven fields, five servants, and a forgiven debt. But that was three thousand years ago. In New Fengjing, there were no fields to cede and no servants to transfer. There were only debts that could not be forgiven and fires that could not be put out.

He pressed send on the message. Then he sat in the dim orange light, the bronze gui vessel beside him, and waited for the thirty-six hours to pass.