Down the polished steps from the lord's palace, brightly lit by the licking flames of stone lanterns, Judge Fu Li Shin led six of the lord's Wardens. Behind her twisting serpentine sashay, the men followed with polearms high into the unfolding chaos of the market. "In any festival, there will be thieves. Any man who does not find me one is unobservant."<br/><br/>"Finest silk patterns," a merchant cried from a stall curtained by reams upon reams of soft fabric. "Perfect Bamboo River pearls, pride of Pai Sun," cried another, nacre as uncountable as the stars arranged in poorly watched dishes.<br/>"Peerless jade sculpture, relic of Emei people!"<br/>"Magic Wudang stone, wards away tigers!"<br/>Gold flowed like the rippling waters of the high river, jangling heavy into drawers, flying haphazard through the air across market crowds. The fine silk gowns of the village's best dressed ladies did not come with pockets, and everywhere there was a fat, trusting purse, oft stretched at the seams.<br/><br/>"You will split up and patrol the market," Li Shin told the Wardens, "and I will be watching to ensure you stay alert." Her finger darted up under the chin of a taller man, and an adam's apple bobbed. "Because my eyes are twice as sharp." Li Shin's severity as a Judge, it was said, left far deeper marks than the pierce of a spear. The temptation of her was a cruel jest by the gods. "And the lord has seen fit to have me test you men from Jeju."<br/><br/>Li Shin was not the only one watching the Wardens. From her table in the tea house, Scholar Qiguan Lin Sung counted the polearms raised like flags over the crowd. A sip of her sweet tea, a shift of her curves in the unfamiliar tea house seat which was not her own desk, and she peneed clean hanzi into her report how thieves could spot guards from afar, how stiffly they handled those long weapons. But, where had the Judge gone? For a silvery-haired woman, she was surprisingly slippery.