The Witch in the Woods: The Transmigration of Hazel-Anne Davis-Chapter 369: Names In A Book

"She was not the one I was talking about," replied the Jackal, his mouth twisting in a sneer. "You should have picked the other one."

Longzi chuckled under his breath. Deming didn’t, but his mouth tilted at one corner, which in Deming’s language counted as laughter.

"You know nothing if that is what you truly think," chuckled Yizhen, shaking his head.

The Jackal worked the cuffs again, quiet, precise.

The iron gave him nothing. He tipped his head against the wall as if testing stone for secrets. "Yuyan wanted a message," he offered, casual as spare change. "A bone for your courtiers. That you bleed. That she could choose who wipes the floor after."

Yizhen’s eyes lit with interest unconnected to mercy. "Tell me about Yuyan’s messengers," he invited.

"Tell me about yours," the Jackal lobbed back.

"Mine live till payday," Yizhen replied, tone sunny. "Yours don’t know how to swim."

The door sighed again, quieter this time, which meant the outer corridor had shifted its own locks for them.

Yaozu’s chin lifted just slightly. "Underworld reports," he murmured. "North gate closed. West gate under watch. Three Northern Winds caches already opened to air."

"Burned," Longzi improved.

"Confiscated first," Yizhen corrected. "Then burned."

The Jackal’s eyes narrowed at that. He had always disliked losing inventory more than losing men.

"Your lieutenant at the lime kilns?" Deming prompted, conversational as rain.

"Throat," Yaozu returned, minimal.

"The clerk at the spice quay?" Longzi asked, almost curious.

"Missing fingers," Yizhen purred. "He remembers my name better now."

"You think cutting tentacles kills a squid," the Jackal sneered. "You’ll find the head in another sea."

Mingyu placed his palm flat on the table and looked down at the ledger until the room remembered to breathe. "You hired the wrong ocean," he concluded.

The Jackal smiled again because it cost nothing and bought him a minimum of dignity. "You won tonight, but I have built winters that will outlast your temper."

"You mistake temper for policy," Deming observed.

"You mistake winter for a season we haven’t purchased," Yizhen added.

Mingyu lifted the knife from the ledger and balanced it between his fingers, testing weight, testing patience. "Names," he repeated.

"Bite me," the Jackal invited.

Yaozu moved without drama.

The chain at the ankle pulled tight, drag biting the skin atop the foot. He pressed his thumb into the tendon that made men rethink their position on honesty.

The Jackal rode the pain long enough to prove something to himself and then exhaled.

"Frost Gate," he ground out. "Warehouse at the kiln road. I keep coin there."

"You kept," Yizhen corrected, already flipping a silent token toward the door. Somewhere beyond the wall a runner caught it and became a message. "You need to remember your past tenses."

"Next," Deming prompted.

"Caravan master named He Qing. He flies two flags."

"Not anymore," Longzi murmured.

"Street mother by the west shrine. She touches letters with her teeth—"

"She lost her teeth last week," Yizhen interrupted, almost apologetic. "Try a fresh picture."

A drop of sweat found the Jackal’s jaw. He ignored it. "The invoice scribe at the cobalt yard. Left-handed. Son coughs when weather turns."

Yaozu didn’t change expression. "Useful," he acknowledged.

"Matron at the north bathhouse. She launders more than linen."

"Already laundering," Yizhen chirped. "For us."

The Jackal blinked at that, laughter snagging in his chest. "You run numbers like a priest."

"I run futures," Yizhen corrected. "They pay better."

"Enough," Mingyu clipped. "Personnel bores me."

Yaozu eased off his pressure a fraction. Deming straightened. Longzi rolled his shoulders like a man preparing for the next set of holds.

"Wider," Mingyu pressed. "The snowline. Who buys your road. Who told you where the palace sleeps."

The Jackal watched the knife turning in the emperor’s hand, perfectly balanced, perfectly pointless until it wasn’t.

"A pilot," he offered after a beat. "He follows the coast at night and counts lights in harbors. He changes names when the tide does."

"Name," Deming demanded.

"Li An."

"Fake," Yizhen replied instantly, nostrils flaring. "No one chooses a name that dull unless he’s hiding three better ones."

"Then find the better ones," Mingyu ordered.

Yizhen smiled like a boy promised a festival. "Gladly."

A fist tapped twice on the door from the outside, a code that belonged to no official corridor.

Yaozu answered with a sound barely audible and slipped the bolt. A runner with soot on his cheek slid through and handed over two folded slips. Yaozu skimmed, handed one to Yizhen, kept one.

"Kiln road cleared," Yaozu reported. "Coin seized. A ledger with numbers that do not like daylight."

"Spice quay clerk already missing more than fingers," Yizhen added, eyes happy. "He gifted us keys in exchange for a future. I promised him one with fewer bones."

The Jackal closed his eyes and opened them again. "You think you can shovel snow faster than the sky drops it."

"We control the sky," Longzi countered.

"You control a bed," the Jackal threw at Mingyu, a last hook.

"Correct," Mingyu answered, wholly untroubled. "And I control which bodies reach it."

A silence settled, not heavy, not light—useful. Deming reached for the chain to tighten a link another quarter-turn. The iron disagreed and then learned manners.

"You’re going to end me before dawn," the Jackal murmured, watching the lamp.

"Yes," Mingyu returned.

"You should keep me. I do work no one else can do."

"You did," Yizhen corrected. "Past tense. Tonight belongs to grammar."

Shadow shifted his weight and exhaled, the quiet canine version of a verdict. The Jackal looked at the beast and smirked once more, too stubborn not to die as he had lived.

"Last offers," Mingyu prompted, not because he expected value but because he preferred ending lists clean.

"Yuyan," the Jackal tried. "She has friends in places you haven’t drawn on your maps."

"We drew them while you wasted pellets," Yizhen countered.

"Baiguang loyalists," the Jackal pushed. "Men who will die for a name and make you bleed for the ink."

"They will die," Deming agreed. "We won’t bleed."

The lamp guttered, caught, leveled. Yaozu’s eyes tracked the flame as if reading the time. "We have other doors to close before dawn," he reminded softly.

Mingyu set the knife down and looked at the man on the floor as if measuring a weight before moving it. "You tried three times. You reached her room tonight and taught me nothing new. You will teach me nothing I cannot buy from your ledgers."

"Pretty line," the Jackal quipped, breath thin. "Keep it for my tomb."

"You don’t get one," Longzi returned.

Yizhen tucked the slip into his sleeve and rolled his neck, ready for the next turn. "Do we end this here," he inquired, "or carry him somewhere no stone remembers?"

"Somewhere stones don’t keep gossip," Mingyu decided.

Deming and Yaozu moved in tandem. Chains lifted. The Jackal flinched at the wrong moment and earned a wrist twist that stalled thought without breaking anything useful. Longzi took the lamplight and turned it away from the door so no glow leaked into the corridor when it opened.

Yizhen went first, steps quick, voice already low in a code that would set three more closures in motion. Shadow trotted after him, ears pricked.

Mingyu gathered the knife and the ledger slip with the spice quay keys. He paused at the threshold only long enough to listen to the palace breathing through its stone and wood, counting how many heartbeats belonged to his people and how many to problems.

"Move," he ordered.

They moved, chains whispering, boots brief against the floor, the vault door settling behind them with a hush that promised it would forget.

The corridor beyond forked—left to the stairwell that tasted of cold air and iron hinges, right to the passage no map admitted. Longzi angled toward the right without needing instruction. Deming adjusted his grip. Yaozu matched the cadence.

The Jackal rolled his shoulders again, hunting that one mistake none of them made.

Mingyu touched the knife to his palm once, spare as punctuation, then followed them into the dark as the palace turned a page.