Zemin's speech was cut short by a sudden and sharp yawn, which was quickly followed by another from Shuren. Lian had forgotten that of course they'd marched all day and they needed rest more than she. Before she took her leave though, she still had one question that all the theoretical talk hadn't answered.

"I'll take my leave, young gentlemen," both of whom shook their heads in embarrassment – yawning in front of an older stranger was considered bad form among the genteel class to which they belonged. "But first I have one simple question: what will you ask, if you kneel in front of the Empress?"

The two men shared a quick glance, indicating that they had not expected the question at all.

"What do you mean?" Zemin queried back.

"Well alongside the highest ranking member of the aristocracy involved in a petition, three individuals are chosen at random to receive an audience with the Empress. If it's you who gets chosen, what will you say? What will you ask for?"

Usually peasants involved in a petition would receive strict indoctrination about what to say should they be chosen to plead their case to the Celestial Throne. By tradition it took the form of three questions each, for a total of nine requests that the petitioners could ask, along with a tenth posed by the aristocrat. Zemin and Shuren's long stare at each other gave Lian some indication: this was not a usual petition, and there was no consensus about what specific requests the petitioners would ask when they arrived.

"Everyone marching has agreed that they are free to present whatever they believe best reflects their understanding of our present troubles," Zemin confirmed.

"Ok. And I'm asking what you'll say, if it's you who is chosen?" She stared at them both, but they avoided her look. "Surely you've thought about it. You've been on the road for weeks already, right? You're laying there, prostrate, fifty paces away from the Celestial Throne and the Empress herself. What do you ask?"

Zemin and Shuren looked at each other one final time, before they both turned their eyes on Lian. Shuren, his eyes somewhere about Lian's chest, spoke first. "We have talked about it. Almost every night."

"And even we can't agree completely," Zemin added with a slight chuckle. "Shuren wants to focus on moral rehabilitation. Closing brothels, reforming the family laws, that sort of thing. I think banditry and taxes are more of a priority. But there is one thing we both agree on. Which almost everyone here agrees on."

"And what's that?"

"We all agree that we need to return to the strict rules of the Ten Tiers of Society."

"I... see." Lian said. But she did not see. The Ten Tiers of Society were a strict hierarchy of roles and responsibilities, with the number of individuals available to serve each role increasing by a factor of ten as you descended the tiers. The Empress sat at the top. Then the ten Kings and Queens. Then the 100 Dukes, and so on and so forth down to the laborers who supposedly numbered 100 million.

Technically the Ten Tiers of Society still existed and everyone was supposed to operate within them. But the firm boundaries between the different levels had faded away as the Apologists lost influence. Now the Ten Tiers were more indicators of social standing: criminals at the bottom, laborers above them, merchants and tradespeople above them, and so on and so forth. Lian knew many people who had started in the lowest rungs of the Tiers and worked all the way into the Imperial court itself. It was an old way of looking at the world, and Wong Xieren had indeed been given credit for its creation, so it didn't surprise Lian to hear them speaking its praises. But like Wong Xieren himself, it did surprise her that they were seriously considering it a solution to the problems of the Central Empire.

"You think it's impractical, don't you?" Zemin asked, his voice sympathetic, lacking any of Shuren's condescension. "You think it's never really been used, even in antiquity."

Lian considered her words carefully. Everything up to this point had been an intellectual exercise, more or less. Even her banter towards Shuren and questioning of Wong Xieren had been mostly theoretical. But instituting the Ten Tiers of Society onto the population of the Central Empire, as they were asking, would be a monumentally real action. A potentially terrifying action. Because the punishment for breaking outside of one's tier had also been set out by Wong Xieren: death. Always death.

"Well," she began, ensuring she spoke slowly, so she wouldn't hurry into a word she didn't mean. "I think it may be a challenge. There are only spots for...what? 112 million people in the Ten Tiers? And how many were in the last census? Over 150 million, right? That seems like an awful lot of convicts and prostitutes. And when Wong Xieren was writing there were only... 20 million? 30 maybe? I can't remember. But it's definitely not the same country anymore."

"The Ten Tiers aren't really about hard numbers," Zemin responded, "they're about clarity. Everyone is born with a role, which they can fulfill to the best of their abilities. Nobody would be left wandering without a direction or sense of purpose. Whether there are 100 million laborers or 120 million wouldn't matter. Every one of them would have their duties clearly spelled out, and everyone would benefit."

"Not that we don't think some numbers from antiquity aren't useful," Shuren interjected. "Did you know there are almost 9,000 courtiers in Nianjang now? 9,000. Nine times what the Ten Tiers indicated was necessary. Half those people have no real role to speak of. They just stand about, playing politics and creating intrigue in the court. There's not an Empire in the heavens that needs more than 1,000 Ministers, Deputy Ministers, ambassadors, and aristocrats advising the Emperor. It's a mockery of the good governance that our nation was built on."

"Alright," Lian pretended to admit Shuren's point before immediately refuting it. "Where do you draw the line then? Do you think 10,000 bureaucrats are enough to manage a population that's eight times as large as it was in Wong Xieren's day? That's barely enough for every prefecture and Governorship. What about the criminal inspectors? The tax collectors? The Shei Chaste? And what about the army? The Ten Tiers says 100,000 soldiers. That's as many as the Empire posts on the eastern border alone. If we had only that many, the country would be invaded in no time at all."

"The old Empire never feared invasion, and we won't either," Zemin shook his head, almost as much to convince Lian as reassure himself. "Should war ever be declared, we would raise an army of laborers, the same as our forefathers did."

Lian couldn't hold back at that – she scoffed aloud and shook her head, smiling. "Only someone who's never fought in a battle would think a professional standing army and a bunch of peasants given spears are the same thing. I've fought both, and one well-trained soldier can easily kill five, even ten times her number in poorly trained rabble. And that's during the fighting. Most of the killing in a battle doesn't happen when everyone's fighting. It happens when one side tries to run away. And peasants will always run away first."

Shuren responded at once. "The army is one of the most corrupt parts of the Central Empire! How many bandits are former soldiers? How many tariffs never reach the Imperial treasury? How often does the army demand more money for more forts, more arms, even when we've been at peace for generations? If there's one institution that needs reforming the most, it's the army!"

"I'm not arguing against that. I'm arguing for an army that could save the lives of thousands, maybe millions. Lives that would be thrown away in a war."

It was Zemin's turn to shake his head and smile. "That may be true Madam Zhao, but the point still stands. The Ten Tiers of Society were brought into place for a reason: they bring balance to the running of a great Empire. There are of course details that would need to be...worked out, before they could be brought back in force. But when the legalists like Wong Xieren crafted the Ten Tiers, they designed them for the most complicated government the world had ever seen. There's no reason it can't be reshaped to fit the even more complicated government we need. Putting them in place ensures no station grows outside its bounds. No internal force will spawn corruption, or build a challenge to the Empire itself. It's the only long-proven way we have of balancing the needs of the Empire with the needs of our citizens to have a positive place to direct their energies."

"She doesn't care," Shuren stepped in again, also shaking his head. "That's not why she's upset." He finally connected directly with Lian's eyes again, and his voice had returned to its natural state of condescension. "She's worried about her own skin."

Lian stared back at him, but said nothing. She let him continue.

"Don't worry, Madam Shuli Go. On this at least both of us agree. The Shuli Go served an important purpose for too long to ignore. There are those among the petition who would revert entirely to Wong Xieren's time. No Shuli Go. No Shei Chaste. Zemin and I think you have a role to play still though. A diminished role, maybe. But if the Empress hears the truth of our petition, we will keep you safe."

Shuren's smile returned too, as if her fate was already in his hands. She knew he'd played it out in his head dozens of times since they started travelling: the impassioned, brilliant, overwhelming piece of rhetoric he would deliver should he be the one chosen. He'd practiced every word before he fell asleep, tweaking and adding to it until each night it was more perfect than the last. Then he dreamt of delivering it, of impressing the Empress with his intelligence, the purity of his wit and the deception of his charm. More than anything he thought of the riches that would be bestowed on him when he had achieved this great triumph. The mistresses he could afford, the homes he would buy, the servants and the invitations from prestigious academies across the Empire. He would finally be in his right space as the academic royalty he so aspired to.

It was a fine dream. And Lian had no hatred of men with dreams. Gods knew she still had a few herself at that point. But it was a childish dream, all pleasure without any sense of scale. As if the Empress did not have the brightest stars of academia at her beck and call already. As if she had not heard these arguments a thousand times already – whispered in her ear in various forms by advisors, traitors, and honest philosophers alike. It was not the fact of the fantasy that she objected to. It was her role in it – a tiny footnote, to be trampled on as he liked, as befitted the whims of his future station. That, she took objection to.

"Well," she grinned, "you're a little bit right. I am worried. But it's not me I'm worried about. I've been a Shuli Go without a Go for long enough, I don't need it anymore. It's everyone else I'm worried about. All the people who don't belong to any hard category. The ones who already live outside the Ten Tiers and are happy about it. I'm worried about all of them, and what they'll do when you try and force them onto a rung they don't want to be hung on. And I'm thinking of all the people who have made fortunes moving from one Tier to the next. And just how unhappy they'll be when you tell them they have to move back to the rung they were born on. And mostly I think of all the people like you who won't care about any of their points of view, because you've figured it all out already. I'm not worried about me, Ding Shuren. I'm worried about you and what they'll do to you if they ever find out you're one of the people who came up with this idea."

Lian had issued threats before, but never to a young man so ill-prepared to receive them. His head dropped and he shut up, and he did not say anything again. Zemin was almost as flabbergasted, but wanted desperately to hang on to the role of arbitrator between his friend and Lian. His mouth hung open and he searched for a reply, but nothing came. Lian decided her work there was done. She swallowed the last of her tea and stood.

"I should be going. I thank you both very much for the hospitality. I will remember your names and your kindness." She bowed formally and Zemin shot up to his feet, still searching for something to reply. Before he could though, Lian turned to go. She opened the flap of the boys' tent, then paused in the archway. She turned back to face them one final time and smiled. "I'll also remember your ideas. I don't agree with...well, any of them, really. But you make them well. And even a barely-educated Shuli Go can see you have the intelligence and determination to see them become reality. The Empress would do well to have either of you pose your questions."

She left, but only got a few feet before Zemin came out of the tent and called her name. She turned.

"Madam Zhao, I..."

She bowed quickly again. "I do appreciate the meal, and the conversation. I'm sorry I got a little testy just then. I just know men like your friend, and they often don't treat people below them with any respect or dignity. So the idea of putting a great number of people below him based on who his parents were...bothers me."

"He, he means..." Zemin stammered.

"I know," Lian smiled. "He means well. So do I. In their own ways, most people mean well. That's why the law doesn't care about intentions. And you have to remember, I was raised to serve the law. That's why I don't care about his intentions."

She left, and Zemin said nothing, just retreated into his tent. She returned to her small campsite to find her fire had died out. The night was still warm and pleasant though, and she had a full stomach to keep her company. A full stomach and the words of the young men, that swam back and forth across her mind, keeping her up most of the night. Shuren's cockiness infuriated her, Zemin's meekness ingratiated her. They were an interesting pair, and the push and pull of her feelings for each of them kept the words coming, building up speed and direction, helping to focus her own thoughts, her own ideas and conceptions.

The way she saw it – in the few hazy moments just before she finally drifted to sleep, the torches of the petition in the distance dying to the early sunlight – where one was born and to whom and what they did to live were important parts of how they should be treated. But most of a person's value – how far up a hierarchy they should be set – depended on how they treated the people beside them. It was the only way to account for the rise and fall of Empires. The Shan dynasty itself had been founded by a peasant farmer. His descendant sat on the throne 300 years later and would soon hear a petition from a set of scholars and thinkers and poets from all corners of the Empire and all levels of society. And Lian couldn't imagine a better way of sorting the valuable from the useless.