Emperor’s Canal Chessboard

Li Zhen wakes in a body everyone ignores, and that becomes her first weapon. She slips through a sect store room, temple paths after rain, and boat decks packed with summer cargo, using being overlooked to hide what she is really doing. The problem is simple and ugly. She did something real in the past, and a good person paid for it. Now the same cracked sect token keeps turning up in her hands, a stranger's throwing daggers are wrapped inside her robe, and a third tier furnace from a dead mentor keeps dragging her back toward work she cannot fake. Every stop on the Grand Canal asks for a different kind of answer. A dockhand needs help. A guard needs a lie refused. Her own fear keeps trying ...