Lau Rhen woke before the morning bells.
The room was steeped in that particular gray of predawn — neither night nor day. A single lamp burned low on his desk, its flame struggling against the damp air. He rose without hurry, as if every movement were weighed and measured.
The tea pot was still warm from last night. He poured himself a cup, unbothered by the faint bitterness of leaves steeped too long.
From outside came a sound — soft, irregular, like something brushing against the wall. Not wind. Not footsteps either.
He didn't move toward the window immediately. Instead, he stood perfectly still, letting the sound repeat. Three strokes. A pause. Two more. A scrape.
Only then did he approach.
The courtyard below was empty. The gravel path had no footprints, the outer gate still latched. But the air felt wrong — heavy, as though it carried something unseen.
A faint ripple ran along the outer ward lines, like a sigh passing through silk.
Weakening, he thought. Not enough to breach… yet.
He turned back inside. The tea was cold now.
The sect's main hall was quiet when he arrived. Only a handful of disciples moved through, speaking in low tones. A few glanced his way, then looked quickly away.
He walked past them without acknowledgment, his mind turning over the strange disturbance.
The head archivist, Elder Han, was already sorting scrolls when Lau Rhen entered the inner library. The old man's hands moved quickly for his age, but his eyes were tired.
"Rhen," Elder Han said without looking up. "You're here early."
"I couldn't sleep," Lau Rhen replied.
"Mm. The weather does that."
Lau Rhen didn't correct him.
He set about sorting through the Off World records — the section most avoided by ordinary disciples. Each bamboo slip recorded incidents: odd fluctuations, unverified sightings, breaches, unexplained disappearances.
The slips smelled faintly of pine resin and something older — like dried blood.
Halfway through the stack, he found one with no date, only a location: Outer East Wall, Third Watch. The report was brief: Ripple detected. No source found. Ward lines steady.
It was almost identical to what he'd just experienced.
He slid the slip into his sleeve.
Later, in the training yard, Chen Yu found him.
"You heard?" Chen Yu asked.
"I hear many things."
"This one matters. East Wall. Someone's talking about shapes moving on the far side. Not bandits."
"Not beasts either," Lau Rhen said.
Chen Yu blinked. "You've seen them?"
"No."
"…But you know."
Lau Rhen didn't answer. He adjusted the leather strap of his training sword and walked away.
Chen Yu watched him go, muttering something under his breath.
By evening, clouds had gathered low over the mountains. The wind smelled of rain and ash.
Lau Rhen sat by the window in his quarters, a single candle throwing shadows across the walls.
The scrape-sound came again.
This time, he didn't rise.
Instead, he closed his eyes, letting his qi stretch outward in a thin, invisible thread. It brushed against the ward lines — and touched something else. Something that yielded, then pulled back, like a creature retreating into deep water.
When he opened his eyes, the candle flame had gone still. Too still.
Somewhere beyond the gate, something was watching.
***
The rain began just after the second watch.
Not a steady downpour, but a slow, deliberate rain — each drop heavy enough to sound against the roof tiles. The kind of rain that felt like it carried weight, as if the clouds were bleeding stone dust into the world.
Lau Rhen walked the eastern corridor of the outer wall with his hands tucked into his sleeves. The guards stationed there gave him shallow nods but did not speak. They knew his habit of silence.
He stopped near the corner tower. Rainwater ran in thin lines down the carved dragons along the parapet, pooling where their stone claws clutched the edge.
It was quiet enough that he could hear the wards breathing. To most, ward lines were invisible, intangible — nothing more than an abstract protection. But to him, they were alive. They had rhythm, like a heartbeat.
Tonight, the rhythm faltered.
"Elder Han said this section was inspected yesterday," came a voice behind him.
He turned slightly. It was Jian Mu, one of the patrol leads. Young, not yet twenty, but competent with a spear.
"Inspected," Lau Rhen said, "is not the same as stable."
Jian Mu frowned. "Meaning?"
"Meaning you're standing on ice you believe is solid because you haven't heard the cracks yet."
The younger man opened his mouth, then closed it again. "You're… not wrong."
Lau Rhen let the silence return. He preferred people to think about his words on their own rather than feed them more.
They continued along the wall. Halfway to the next tower, Jian Mu slowed.
"See that?" he whispered.
Across the ward line, in the rain-swept darkness beyond the mountain's slope, something pale shifted. Too tall for a wolf, too thin for a bear. It did not move toward them.
It simply… adjusted its position, as if angling for a better view.
"Don't look at it directly," Lau Rhen said.
"Why not?"
"You'll invite it."
Jian Mu stiffened. "Invite—?"
But when he risked a glance again, the pale figure was gone.
They reached the next tower without speaking further.
Inside, the warmth of a brazier barely touched the air. An older guard sat near the fire, sharpening a short blade. He looked up when they entered.
"Trouble?" the guard asked.
"Not tonight," Lau Rhen said.
It wasn't a lie. The trouble wasn't tonight. It was coming, but it would not announce itself in the rain.
After Jian Mu left to continue the patrol, Lau Rhen lingered at the tower window. Rainwater streaked the view, distorting the treeline below. Somewhere in that shifting darkness, the watcher had not truly gone — it had only moved deeper, waiting.
He withdrew the undated bamboo slip from his sleeve, running a finger along the engraved characters. The words seemed sharper tonight, as if they had been carved recently instead of decades ago.
The candle beside him guttered. Not from wind — from pressure. The air pressed inward for the briefest moment, as though the world had drawn breath.
When it released, the wards pulsed faintly, like a drumbeat far underground.
Lau Rhen smiled — not from joy, but recognition.
The cracks had started.