<div class="floatleft">(https://elliquiy.com/elluiki/images/9/93/Lishin.jpg)</div><strong>Name :</strong>Judge Fu Li Shin<br/><strong>Element :</strong>Fire<br/><strong>Location &amp; Time :</strong>Palace, evening<br/><strong>Tagging :</strong>Open<br/><br/><hr/><br/>It was not her hand there to catch the lord's when he reached from his bedside in a state of confusion. Judge Fu Li Shin was expected to stand watch and leave the comforting to the courtesans. The most important task of all, she had left to a thief. Her eyes sank down again to the black pages freshly handed to her. "Wangliang are boogeymen who do not exist. A scam by mountain bandits to scare away the superstitious. The Black Crane try to frighten us away from pursuit across the river." With no reverence for the gilded pages, she passed them back to her warden. "If the thief has not returned by the time the grounds are searched, send two wardens out to bring her in." Before he could leave, Li Shin grabbed him by the lamellar sleeve. "Six. Make it six wardens."<br/><br/>Eighty-seven paper lanterns glowed in the boughs of the pear trees in a splendor to outshine the stars. The celebration had been abandoned with the first poison dart, but as Li Shin stepped out into the evening to join the search, all she could see was the one lantern that had gone dark. Her hand wielded the polearm which hooked that cold eighty-eighth lantern, and she held it steady for a servant to light.<br/><br/>There was no sign of the lord's disobedient daughter, the elegant Chiang Nam Seon, she was told.<br/><br/>Li Shin carefully replaced the eighty-eighth lantern up in the boughs with her sisters. The reports came to her one by one, from servants, from wardens, from a gossipy concubine. Lord Chiang had been cryptic about her absence from dinner. Nam Seon had been cold toward her father all that day of the festival's eve. And now, her cloak and Emei sword were missing from her chambers. One last time, Li Shin inspected the lanterns to ensure each was guiding Lord Chiang's fighting spirit back to his body.<br/><br/>If Heini had not returned by the time she finished counting, Judge Fu Li Shin resolved to drag the thief back trussed to a polearm.