It was almost exactly a week later when Lian and An finally set about enacting their plan to retrieve the Book of Dragons and, they were agreed, save Yaling from herself if at all possible. Unless, they both also agreed, she had already taken a dose of the potion of eternal youth and beauty. Then they’d agreed to just kill her. For the sake of future generations, they agreed.

An had spent most of the week in the Liangyong sewer system, which was more a labyrinth of former city ruins, natural underground caves, mining sites, graveyards, as well as actual sewers that had been built at the start of the dynasty several hundred years earlier, only to be abandoned as too expensive to maintain compared to the natural flow of excrement and rain through city streets that had serviced for the entirety of the previous Bu dynasty. After a week of dealing with decayed shit, stagnant water, and more (and larger) rodents than she’d ever be able to forget, she had confirmed there was an entrance to Prefect Tai’s estate, specifically that connected to what smelled to An like a torture chamber. Exactly where they had to go if they were to snatch the Book of Dragons in mid-use.

After that week, An was downright gleeful about Lian finally having to fulfill her uncomfortable part of their agreed upon plan.

“You think this is really necessary?” Lian asked pitifully. They stood outside a barber’s shop only a few blocks away from the Screaming Goat Wine House.

“Oh, yes. Definitely.”

Lian was not convinced, but she had agreed to it earlier in the week. She sighed. “…Fine.”

They went in, the male barbers were surprised to see two women walk in, even two dressed as plainly as Lian and An.

“You lost, ladies?” One of the barbers not already stooped over a customer asked them.

“Not at all,” An nudged Lian forward. “My friend here is starting accounting school later today, and she needs the haircut.”

A bout of laughter came from both customers and barbers. The one who had spoken earlier grinned but had a few reservations.

“Isn’t she a bit… well-armed to be an accountant?”

Lian wore her swords, and had worn them all week as she’d completed her own investigations into Prefect Tai. During that week the sword, and more importantly the haircut of a Shuli Go – a single long braid that usually reached just below her shoulder blades – had been rather helpful in her gathering the required information. But now that it was time to implement their plan, it had been decided that Lian’s hair had to go.

“You won’t be needing these for a little while,” An gently foisted Lian’s Shuli Go and Wamaian swords off her shoulders and waist, then nudged her forward again. “Go on, tell them…”

“She’s right,” Lian swallowed something that tasted like a mixture of pride and dignity. “Today, I become an accountant.”

The barber chuckled and wiped off the customer stool, inviting her to sit. Accountants, across the Empire, had a single haircut, regardless of gender or age. Even the balding were forced to try and keep a semblance of the Accounting Guilds’ Glorious Crown: a straight, even bob that hung just above the eyes and past the ears. Lian sat, and as the barber started to take out her braid, she kept reminding herself that the hair would grow back. She had a deeper worry the pride and dignity may not.

“This should have been Yaling’s job,” Lian spat.

“Like she’d ever let anyone touch her hair…” An chuckled, absent-mindedly playing with her own hair – which she also kept short and straight, though with enough layers and contours to at least provide some personality to her face. Lian couldn’t remember a single accountant she’d met in her entire life. Their entire existence seemed composed of overwhelming blandness. Lian had to admit she could not picture Yaling agreeing to let someone decimate her character by shearing her locks into the accountants’ circle of ugly.

“True.”

A few of the unemployed barbers had congregated along the edge of the shop’s wall, where they gawked at Lian and An. At the mention of Yaling’s name though, a chorus of murmurs had started.

“I heard she was performing at the Screaming Goat.”

“I heard it was the Aging Ox.”

“You idiots,” Lian’s barber scoffed. “She never announces where she’s going to perform or the place would get stampeded. But I heard it was Madame Li’s tea house. A ballad set.”

“It was the Screaming Goat,” Lian interjected, happy to have the conversation for distraction as the barber roughly brushed some of the wave out of her braid.

“That so?” The barber asked. “Who do you think we’re talking about?”

“Tan Yaling, the singer.”

The men were almost aghast that she’d seemingly read their mind. It wasn’t sorcery though: Yaling liked to plant rumors of her future performances in multiple venues in order to keep up a mystique of unpredictability. Lian herself had helped spread the promise of the tea house performance. One of the men asked, enthralled. “You saw her?”

“Yeah, the whole show. It was pretty good too. She got a bit too drunk at the end though.”

“Wait, you made it sound like you knew her.”

“Yeah, we’re friends.”

A silence fell on the room, held for a brief moment, before a burst of mania.

After the shouts and constant shaking of their shoulders had abated, Lian spotted an opportunity.

“I’ll tell you what. You give me the haircut for free, and I’ll introduce her to you all.”

After Lian and An had left the barbershop – Lian’s hair shorn to the proper length and Lian feeling appropriately invisible on account of it – An commented. “You shouldn’t have told them that.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just cruel. You’ll never get her there.”

“After what she did to us, assuming she’s alive of course, I will pick her up and carry her over my shoulder if need be. I might even marry her off to one of them.”

An chuckled again, the threat having put on a much more hollow cloak owing to Lian’s now featureless face, enmasked by the haircut of anonymity. “You look the part now at least.”

“I don’t look like anything.”

“Exactly. Urban camouflage. There’s nothing more anonymous than an accountant in a city like this.”

They re-entered Lian’s tiny private room in a boarding house where they’d spent the week planning their entrance into Prefect Tai’s mansion. The sparse nature of the room had gone a long way to convincing An that Lian’s wealth may have been exaggerated after all. Unknown to An, Lian was actually the majority owner of the boarding house, and the deferential approach the manager of the building had shown to Lian over the course of the week had played on the border between excellent customer service and fear of one’s boss to the point that An hadn’t thought to question the relationship. Her ownership of the place was what made Lian comfortable enough to leave her swords and other belongings under a loose floorboard in the room. After she put them away, she changed into a second hand accountant’s robe – wide, billowy, completely formless and androgynous to the extreme – and turned to An.

“How does the part look now?”

An looked her up and down quickly. “Bland.”

“Good. I think I’m ready then.”

“Good. I’ll see you in there.”

“You better.”