Mornings on Rust Street had no real sunlight—only scraps of light that leaked down from above.
Skycast City was stacked layer upon layer over the abyssal mist-sea. By the time daylight squeezed through the gilded domes of the temple district, the glass of noble towers, and the chimneys of the mid-tier workshops, what finally drifted down here was nothing but a smear of white scuffed thin by smoke. It fell onto tin roofs, bounced off rust and rain stains, and turned into a muddy orange haze.
When the boy pushed open the sheet-iron door, the hinges let out a familiar, miserable creak.
Slanting across the door in faded paint were the words:
[CONTRACT REPAIRS · FAIR PRICES]
Underneath, in smaller letters: "No refunds."
"You're two chimes late," someone inside said without looking up.
The speaker was a man in his thirties with a crude mechanical prosthetic for a left arm. Metal knuckles tapped the tabletop—tak, tak, tak. His stubble was badly shaved, but his eyes still had the sharpness of an old officer.
The boy shut the door, dropped the bolt, and shut out the street noise.
"Too many clauses last night. Took them apart past midnight." He tossed a grease-stained paper bag onto the table. "Brought you fried iron spuds."
Only then did the man lift his gaze.
Everyone on Rust Street called the boy the "little contract tinkerer." Some of the older regulars remembered when he'd first been brought here, still unable to walk. Now he was past one seventy, slim-shouldered but wiry. His black hair was a perpetual mess, like he never had time to fix it. His eyes, though, were unnaturally clear—not a healthy brightness, but the kind that came from living in the dark too long, so that any light at all stabbed.
"Qi Luo," the man used his real name. "Don't dawdle today. Black fog's going to start sucking up from the Pit this afternoon. City Office already posted a notice—the Night Bell may ring early."
"Got it, Garth." Qi Luo snatched the spuds back, took two for himself, and stuffed the rest into Garth's hands. "You eat them while they're hot, or you'll just say I'm greedy again."
Garth swore under his breath, but the corner of his mouth twitched. He shoved the paper bag into a drawer.
The room was small. In the center stood a long table soaked through with ink, piled high with contract scrolls of all kinds: church forms, black-market deals, private IOUs, and a few "expired clause scraps" salvaged from the trash. A well-worn quill lay beside a bottle of over-diluted ink and several battered copper plates covered in draft phrases.
The truly dazzling things in the room were not the ink and paper.
They were the things only Qi Luo could see—
A countless number of fine lines stretching out from the street, the roofs, from people's bodies, weaving through the air like an invisible web. Some were pale gold, some grey-white, some darkened toward black. They varied in thickness and texture: silken strands, rigid chains, dried-out veins.
All of them were extensions of Covenant Chains.
Each strand represented a clause, a constraint, a rule branded onto a "Name." They braided and tangled, running from Rust Street up into the unseen heights—where the massive, world-scale chains hung from the temple dome. From afar they looked like the cold roots of a metal tree, suspending Skycast City over the Abyss.
Qi Luo blinked and gently pushed the lines in his vision a little farther away, enough that he could just about see the papers on the table.
The first contract he picked up had been brought in by an old woman, cradled in both hands.
"Qi kid, take another look for me." Her back was bent nearly double, but she clutched the scroll like it was her lifeline. "Last time you changed my interest from 'floating' to 'fixed', those damned Dili Order priests didn't dare hike it at will. Now they say they want to add a 'principal protection clause', say it's for my own good."
"'Protection', huh?" Qi Luo took the scroll, the corner of his mouth quirking. "Protect whose principal?"
The moment he unrolled it, a thin gold thread leapt from the paper and wrapped around the old woman's wrist—that was her debt-chain. At a glance it looked warm and delicate, like a bracelet woven for her protection. In truth, every loop hid tiny barbs. Each time it tightened, it would slice flesh a little deeper.
Qi Luo followed the thread up.
Soon he saw where it linked into a thicker chain. A symbol glimmered faintly there, like the maw of some beast, with a blurred god-name carved by it—[Dili].
He touched the quill tip very lightly to the paper, like any ordinary tinkerer making a note. But in his sight, the tip was brushing one of the gold thread's knots.
"The 'principal protection' clause is written like this," he read aloud for her. "During the loan term, in the event of market fluctuation, in order to protect the creditor's interests, the debtor agrees to adjust collateral and labor supply as needed, to ensure the principal remains intact."
The old woman's eyes went blank. "Sounds… fine to me?"
Qi Luo sighed softly.
"The problem's in the bit after 'labor supply'—'standards of reference as interpreted by Dili Order parish priests.'" He rapped his knuckles against those few words. "If you owed a person, 'interpretation' might still leave some wiggle room. But you owe a little god hanging on a church wall. How do you think it is going to interpret it?"
The color drained from her face.
Qi Luo glanced up and saw the debt-chain give a tiny twitch at the word "interpretation", as if a sore spot had been poked.
"I can tweak it for you," he said. "But it'll be a bit of a risk."
The old woman stared at him. Fear clouded her gaze, along with a gambler's kind of desperation. "Tell me."
Qi Luo tapped the paper again, his fingers brushing along the fine line. In the air, a node in the debt-chain loosened for a heartbeat.
By the proper rules, what mortals wrote on paper was only a "proposed clause." What actually got uploaded to the Covenant Chains was the god's "confirmation" at the moment of signing. If the god didn't acknowledge it, the prettiest script meant nothing.
But Qi Luo could see—and at the moment of confirmation, he could act.
"Don't sign yet." He rolled the scroll back up and handed it to her. "Go home and memorize the wording, especially that sentence. Tomorrow after the Morning Prayer Bell, the Dili Order junior priest will come down here to collect. Give it to him then and sign where he tells you. When you feel your wrist tighten and get that ringing in your ear, like a needle— that's the Chains beginning to record."
She listened, tense, nodding over and over.
"When that happens, say the line I'm about to teach you—just add one word." Qi Luo's tone was casual. "'Standards of reference as jointly interpreted by Dili Order parish priests'—add 'jointly'."
She blinked. "A single extra word… makes a difference?"
"Try it." Qi Luo smiled. "One extra word, one extra line."
What he didn't say was that that one "jointly" would crack open a tiny fork in the chain: turning a unilateral divine interpretation into a "joint-burden clause" that had to hook onto two different chain-heads—one, the labor the old woman willingly took on; and the other, the protection that little god would now be obliged to actually provide.
"Go home and practice it, or you'll choke when it matters." Qi Luo waved her off. "Next."
The old woman thanked him again and again, already murmuring "jointly interpreted" under her breath as she left, careful with each step.
The door opened and closed. Fog hissed in a little, grinding the light inside down a shade duller.
Leaning against the back wall, Garth watched Qi Luo deftly move on to the next customer, his expression unreadable.
"You stuffed something into that clause again," he said.
"Only one more line." Qi Luo bent his head over the papers. "Didn't you tell me yourself? Mortals are too light. We don't weigh enough to bend the world in the gods' eyes."
"You're tugging on Covenant Chains." Garth's gaze dropped to his hands. "One line for one life."
Qi Luo snorted. "Then I'll trade for a few more."
Garth looked like he wanted to say more, but in the end he only reached out to press down a draft sheet at the corner of the table, keeping it from being flipped by the wind.
"Black fog this afternoon," he repeated. "Wrap up early."
"Mm," Qi Luo replied, without much promise in it.
He knew today wasn't going to end early.
Because from that morning on, he'd noticed a strange line hovering at the very edge of his vision—unlike ordinary Covenant Chains. It was a shade paler than gold, almost transparent, yet it had a piercing sharpness. It hung high over Rust Street, never coming down, like a hawk circling, waiting for a place to strike.
It wasn't a line for ordinary believers, nor for some minor chapel.
It felt more like… an assessment chain.
Qi Luo carefully pushed it to the edge of his sight and pretended not to see it—for now.
By midday, traffic in the black market thickened.
Skycast City's rhythm had always been set by the bells: work after the Morning Prayer Bell; trading between the midday chimes; frantic last-minute deals before the Night Bell when clauses would close for the day. People on Rust Street didn't dare go to proper contract offices—that meant being officially written into supplemental clauses attached to the Basic Covenant. Nobody wanted to pawn twenty years of future labor to some petty god just to borrow an extra bag of flour.
So they came instead to tiny places like this, to unlicensed "contract tinkers" like him.
"Qi Luo, need a favor."
His third customer that afternoon was a tall man with black tattoos and a ring of rusty keys at his waist, fresh cuts at the corner of his eye. Folks around here called him "Red Stake". He was an enforcer for one of the underground casinos.
"Lost again?" Qi Luo frowned.
"No, I won too much." Red Stake grinned, showing two half-broken front teeth. "Those bastards don't dare touch me, so they went after my ma."
He tossed a crumpled piece of paper onto the table.
The moment Qi Luo unfolded it, the stink of mildew mixed with incense hit his face. Oil stains soaked the paper. The sigils were crooked and ugly, but disturbingly complete.
This was a back-alley church's work.
"'Drip-God of the Pipes'?" Qi Luo read from the top.
In his sight, a short, thick grey-gold chain leapt from the page, lashing around Red Stake's wrist and stretching off into the air. It wasn't smooth like a formal church chain; it was blotched all over with rust, each rust-spot like a toothy little eye staring him down.
"The busted bronze figure under the casino." Red Stake spat. "Says it's the 'Drip-God' that keeps our pipes from flooding us to death. Who knows what the hell it really is."
Qi Luo followed the chain's direction.
On a damp wall not far from the black market was a tiny bronze statue, so small it almost vanished among prayer plaques and ashtrays. Time had rubbed its shape to a blur; all you could tell was that it was supposed to be a droplet hitting a pipe. The offerings-chain wrapped around it was very thin, very stubborn, like it was hoarding strength from the crumbs of incense and fear of poor people.
"What's the clause?" Qi Luo asked.
"Says my ma has to dedicate the 'right to safety' of our crappy house to this Drip-God. As long as the roof doesn't cave and nobody drowns, that's divine grace. In return—"
He hesitated, a little embarrassed. "—I tithe whatever I win at the tables."
Qi Luo flipped through the text.
Of course it wasn't that simple.
[Should the borrower's household suffer major losses due to gambling debt (as determined by the Drip-God), to prevent the spread of tragedy, the Drip-God has the right to reclaim the aforementioned right to safety, along with ten years of the head of household's freedom of movement, as recovery of divine grace.]
"In plain terms," Qi Luo looked up at him, "the next time you lose big—or someone smashes up your place—that roof of yours comes down, your ma's house is forfeit, and you become the god's property."
Red Stake's hand clenched, veins rising on the back. "That's the bit they want. They'll say I 'caused major losses', then send someone to stir up trouble. The Drip-God claws the clause back, and my ma's life sits in its hand."
Qi Luo said nothing.
He could see the rough grey-gold chain quiver with clear anticipation at the words "reclaim."
In that instant, Qi Luo confirmed a fact—
This little god was listening very carefully.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked.
"Change it so—no matter what it reclaims, it doesn't get to touch my ma." Red Stake sucked in a breath.
"You think I'm the Covenant Council?" Qi Luo shook his head. "I'm just a tinkerer."
"Everyone on Rust Street says you can nudge clauses right when someone signs." Red Stake's jaw tightened.
Qi Luo's fingertips tapped lightly on the table.
He knew just how dangerous that rumor was. Gods couldn't be bothered if mortals only fiddled with one another's contracts. Mortals laying hands on Covenant Chains, though—that was a different story.
"This clause…" Qi Luo raised his eyes to the little bronze idol on the wall.
In his vision, the Drip-God's outline sharpened for a heartbeat.
The blurred lump of copper became a half-transparent figure: vaguely human, vaguely a monster born from a droplet of water. It had no face, only countless tiny holes from which water seeped. The drops never hit the ground; they vanished midair, turning into motes of grey-gold light that rejoined its body.
Incense and fear, congealed into "rights."
Qi Luo counted in his head—thirty-nine chains. Thirty-nine prayer clauses. Each thin, each old, made up of pleas like "please don't flood me" and "please don't let the roof crush us."
The little god wasn't strong. But it guarded those ragged chains fiercely.
"Did you know?" Qi Luo said to Red Stake. "This Drip-God actually has it rough. If that section of pipe really collapses, the pipe-patron gods above will punish it first. If its incense-chains snap, it might lose its right to exist."
Red Stake stared. "Then why the hell would it—"
"It's afraid of too much collapse, not of your single shack." Qi Luo's tone stayed flat. "One wreck is enough to show the bosses. Whether it's your roof or someone else's doesn't matter to it at all."
The color in Red Stake's face darkened, like someone was forcing his head into rust water.
"I can try to change it," Qi Luo said at last. "But you're going to do exactly what I tell you."
Red Stake nodded hard, his belt chain clanking. "Just say it."
"In a bit, go to the chapel and recite the clause again the way they want it. While you're at it, get your ma into the middle of the room and have her answer along with you." Qi Luo said, "The more the god feels you care about this 'right to safety', the brighter the clause burns on its side."
He raised his hand, sketching with the quill in midair.
In his sight, the rough grey-gold chain around Red Stake gleamed a shade brighter.
"And then?" Red Stake asked.
"Then," Qi Luo took a deeper breath, his gaze fixing on the shade of the little god, "the moment you sign—I'll have a talk with it."
He didn't say "deal" out loud.
Because almost the moment that word formed in his mind, the Drip-God's shadow turned its "face" toward him.
Those countless pinprick holes aimed straight at him.
They weren't eyes, yet Qi Luo felt watched—felt as if a wet hand had stroked him from forehead to heart. The cold went straight through skin and muscle and pressed onto the bone where his forbidden sigils lay.
Heat pulsed there, faintly.
Qi Luo's fingers curled in spite of himself.
"Interesting child," a rasping voice sounded at his ear.
No one in the room had spoken. Garth was in the back cleaning a knife; Red Stake was staring at Qi Luo in tight-jawed anxiety, clearly having heard nothing.
"You can see," the voice dripped on, like leaks from a hundred pipes merging into one. "You see much clearer than those idiots in silver armor mumbling long prayers."
Qi Luo lifted his head, casually letting his gaze brush the copper idol.
"You can listen, too," he answered in his thoughts. "That's good luck for me."
"Oh? You know who you're talking to?" The Drip-God made a trembling sound that might have been laughter. "A shabby little street god like me, catching your eye—that's my luck."
Qi Luo didn't bother circling.
"I want to alter one subclause of yours," he said silently. "'The right to reclaim the aforementioned right to safety, along with ten years of the head of household's freedom of movement'—that's too heavy."
"Too heavy for you people. For me, it's just something to hold on to." The Drip-God's voice became a steady drip. "You human Names are too slippery. Hard to grip."
"Change what you hold." Qi Luo stared at the idol. "You keep Red Stake's roof up. No collapse. No drownings. In exchange—"
He paused. His pupils shrank a fraction.
His chest sigils were burning, as if they knew he was about to "stick a pin" into a chain again and were warning him in advance.
"In exchange," Qi Luo went on, "I help you add another clause."
"Add?" The Drip-God's voice rose. "You want me to do more?"
"No. I want to add a clause that protects you," Qi Luo said. "Right now all thirty-nine say 'if it collapses, please don't let it all collapse.' Not a single one protects you."
The Drip-God said nothing.
It clearly hadn't expected some Rust Street tinkerer to make a proposal like that.
"You have me tweak clauses." Qi Luo's voice was very soft. "It can go both ways—I can tweak yours."
"What do you want to do to me?" The Drip-God's tone cooled. "Get a few extra drips? A couple of bonus floods? Your idea of 'divine favor' never changes."
"I'll define your disaster liability," Qi Luo said. "From now on, if you didn't open the floodgates yourself, if pipes burst and walls give way, it doesn't count as your fault. You only answer for what you actually control."
He quietly wrote a few lines on the paper.
Under the surface, the rough grey-gold chain gave a visible shudder at one point, as though a new branch were crowding in.
"You'll plead my case to the pipe-patron above?" The Drip-God's voice held a thin sneer. "Who do you think you are?"
"I'm not." Qi Luo was frank. "But those gods up there still have to speak in clauses."
He glanced up at that faint, transparent line hanging above Rust Street.
It had only been circling before. Now, at his look, it stirred fractionally, like something startled.
"I can see." Qi Luo spoke slowly. "If you're willing to write 'within the scope of what is reasonably bearable' into your clause… at the moment of signing, I can hook it onto a much bigger chain than yours."
He knew exactly what he was doing.
He was trying to win a "liability waiver" for a little god.
The Drip-God fell silent for a long time.
Out in the room, Red Stake's palms were slick with sweat. To him, Qi Luo was just staring at a beat-up copper figurine, lost in a trance. It made his skin crawl. "Hey, can you really do this? That thing's not gonna bite you back, right?"
From the back, Garth shot Qi Luo a piercing look.
Qi Luo didn't answer Red Stake.
He was waiting for the god.
"Why help me?" the Drip-God finally asked.
"Because you're helping me," Qi Luo said. "You keep Red Stake's roof over his ma. I give you a layer of protection. Fair trade."
"You're not afraid of angering the gods above?" The Drip-God laughed softly. "You want to 'hook' a line to their Chains when the clause is signed—you think they won't know who did it?"
Qi Luo's throat felt dry. He swallowed.
"They'll think you found a loophole," he said. "A little street god that suddenly learned to use clauses to protect itself… doesn't that sound exactly like your style?"
The Drip-God stopped laughing.
It watched him, as though peering through his eyes into something deeper—into the forbidden sigils burned over his heart, warming in answer to a deeper call.
"You're not an ordinary human," it said low. "Ordinary ones can't see. Ordinary ones wouldn't dare stick their hands into that Chain."
"Now you know." Qi Luo lowered his lashes.
"And so what?" the Drip-God snapped. "You think a little god clinging to Rust Street incense has the time or strength to run upstairs and file complaints?"
It hesitated.
"Deal," it said. "On one condition."
"Name it."
"If one day you can't hold out—" the Drip-God's voice dripped straight into his ear, "if that Chain ever really drags you up to tear you apart, you'll leave me a drop before you shatter."
Qi Luo froze.
"Shards of a god are a rare tonic for something like me," the Drip-God went on lazily. "And you smell like something big."
Qi Luo was quiet for a moment.
He thought of hazy dreams: bells, fire, chains snapping; a bottomless mist-sea; hands reaching up in countless numbers—sometimes folded in prayer, sometimes clawing for souls.
"All right," he said at last. "If that day comes."
As soon as the words left his mouth, the sigils on his chest flared hotly, as if logging the promise.
"Then that's that." The Drip-God shook its chains in satisfaction. "Go, little tinkerer. I'll wait for your pin."
By dusk, the clock tower on Rust Street had chimed a short sequence. There was still some time before the Night Bell.
The Dili Order and the Drip-God's back-alley chapel were in different districts, but clause collection often converged—junior priests liked to hit Rust Street at the same time. The area had a high "accidental death rate"; picking up a few extra confession clauses on the side was good for their performance.
The alley outside Red Stake's house was packed with neighbors come to watch.
The shack's roof was propped up with mismatched planks and sheets of tin. One section had already caved in and was held up with rope, dangling. Inside, a grey-haired woman leaned against the wall, face pale, clutching a string of prayer beads long since faded.
"Ma," Red Stake stood in front of her. "When the priest starts, just follow along. Don't be scared."
She nodded, lips trembling. "We're not moving, right?"
"No." He gritted his teeth. "As long as the roof doesn't crush us, we're not budging."
Qi Luo stood in the shadow of a corner, tucked behind a ragged curtain.
He held the contract in his hand. The words crawled on the page in the twilight like insects. His heart was hammering. The sigils on his chest had heated into a steady burn, as if they already knew they were about to be tugged.
Distant hymns drifted closer.
A junior priest in grey-white robes picked his way through rust and puddles, two boys behind him carrying the god's statue. The Drip-God's bronze image rested on a makeshift wooden frame, yellowed cloth beneath it, encrusted with wax drippings and burnt paper ash.
In Qi Luo's sight, the god's shadow poked a little way out of the bronze, stretching its "head" toward him.
"This the place?" The priest lifted the curtain and wrinkled his nose. "Smells foul."
Red Stake stiffened and bowed. "Yes, Father."
The ceremony was long and dull. The prayer text dragged on and on, as if designed to lull listeners into a compliant stupor. Red Stake's mother knelt with her son's help before the statue, cupping the contract in both hands.
"To ward off future calamity," the priest chanted, "the Drip-God willingly watches over the safety of this dwelling, under the conditions laid out herein. In the event of breach…"
Qi Luo held his breath.
He watched as, guided by the priest's voice, the rough grey-gold chain coiled around the roof beams, then twisted around the wrists of mother and son. The rust spots along it yawned open, revealing tiny teeth snapping in the air.
"Recite the clause," the priest said, passing the paper back to Red Stake. "Then your mother will repeat it."
Red Stake's hand shook as he took the paper.
Qi Luo, hidden in shadow, made the smallest of gestures.
—Now.
Red Stake drew a long breath and began to read.
His voice wasn't pretty, but it was steady. Each key phrase set the chain flashing in Qi Luo's sight—loan, loss, reclaim, freedom of movement.
Then came the line Qi Luo had helped him revise:
"To prevent the spread of tragedy, the Drip-God has the right to reclaim the aforementioned right to safety, along with ten years of the head of household's freedom of movement, as recovery of divine grace, and will within the scope of what it can bear do its utmost to guard…"
His tongue nearly tripped over those words, but he got them out exactly as written.
"Good." The priest nodded, satisfied. "Madam, your turn."
Red Stake's mother took the paper, voice shaking as she repeated each word.
Qi Luo's heart was pounding in his throat.
He knew the real hinge was coming—signing.
The priest took a tube of oil-ink from his sleeve and handed it over. "Mix your blood in and write your Name."
Red Stake bit his finger, stirred blood into ink, and bent to sign.
For one instant, the world went very still.
In Qi Luo's sight, the rough grey-gold chain whipped taut like a snake ready to coil.
At the same time, from above, a thicker, brighter chain dropped down—that was the City Works Bureau's "disaster clause mainline," embodying "oversight of Rust Street's pipe stability."
The two chains were about to meet in midair.
Qi Luo moved.
He stepped out of the shadows, and the tip of his quill pricked the air.
To everyone else, he just lifted his hand, as if flicking away a gnat.
To him, the quill stabbed straight into the node where the two chains would cross.
"Joint," Qi Luo murmured silently, focusing on the character.
At the same moment, Red Stake's mother read the revised final line the way Qi Luo had taught her, just before signing—
"…to prevent the spread of tragedy, the Drip-God has the right to reclaim the aforementioned right to safety, along with ten years of the head of household's freedom of movement, as recovery of divine grace, and within the scope of what it can bear will do its utmost to guard, under joint interpretation…"
For a heartbeat, both chains seemed to hesitate.
The rough grey-gold chain had just won itself a new branch—"within the scope of what it can bear, do its utmost to guard"—on the condition that the interpretation of its "right to reclaim" be tied to a second, far thicker chain: the City Works Bureau's disaster liability line. From now on, any major pipe failure on Rust Street would force the gods above to shoulder a share.
A tiny, almost negligible "joint responsibility clause."
But it existed.
"You—" the Drip-God's voice trembled in his ear. "You actually—"
"I keep my word," Qi Luo watched the chains twist around his quill tip, forced into a tiny knot. "From now on, so long as you don't open the floodgates yourself, it'll be very hard for them to dump everything on you."
He felt a brutal yank on the quill.
That wasn't the Drip-God. It was the heavy chain above, resisting on instinct.
Who?! A thunderous voice cracked overhead.
The sound slammed like a bell against bone. Even Qi Luo's eardrums ached. Normal people heard nothing—only a brief dizziness.
Qi Luo clenched his teeth and held the quill steady on the furnace-heat of his forbidden sigils.
"I told you, you'd have to take a little yourself," he told the Drip-God inwardly.
"I will." The Drip-God gave a sudden, sharp laugh. "They'll just think I got clever."
The grey-gold chain snapped tight, locking that tiny "joint clause knot" around itself like a self-clasping shackle.
The heavy oversight chain faltered, clearly not expecting a Rust Street petty god to volunteer for a lock.
"Fine," the voice up high said coldly. "Since you asked for it, don't expect to throw everything at the humans below when things go wrong again."
The presence vanished.
The chains went still. Only that tiny knot remained: a speck of dust in a vast mechanism, but one that had changed how the two lines connected.
Qi Luo let out a long breath.
He'd just started to pull his quill back when a harsh laugh exploded in his ear.
"Bold."
This was no lofty thunder, but the Drip-God suddenly cinching the fine line it held to his mind.
"You think I didn't see it?" Its voice turned icy. "While you were locking me in, you slipped something else in there."
Qi Luo's fingers tensed.
Yes. In that instant, he hadn't only tied a joint liability knot. He'd also slid in a needle-fine clause—
[Should this clause be arbitrarily altered by a higher-ranking deity, the Drip-God of the Pipes reserves the right to refuse performance and return liability to the party that made the alteration.]
He'd added that on his own.
"You dare stick that into my clause?" The Drip-God's tone was glacial. "Do you know what that means?"
"It means," Qi Luo lifted his gaze and met the shadow straight on for the first time, "if they ever rewrite your contract and order you to drown all of Rust Street, you'll have a reason to refuse."
Silence.
Inside the shack, Red Stake's mother had just finished the last word. The chains on her wrist tightened sharply, then eased, as if completing a breath. Some color crept back into her cheeks. The crushing weight on her chest seemed to lift, just a little.
"The rite is complete." The priest rolled the contract back up. His eyes flicked briefly over the text. Seeing nothing amiss, he shivered. "Rust Street is always so cold."
"Thank you, Father." Red Stake bowed repeatedly.
Qi Luo backed into the shadows. The sigils over his heart still burned, but the heat had dulled from a sear to a heavy ache, like a fist had thumped him in the chest.
"You're insane," the Drip-God said at last. "You're using my clause to bait the gods above. You realize you're on that chain now too?"
Qi Luo lowered his head.
In his vision, a line finer than hair extended from the "joint clause" knot, looped around the grey-gold chain, circled once in the air, and dropped into his own chest.
It sank into his sigils, feather-light.
"I know," Qi Luo said. "So from now on, as long as Rust Street's pipes don't all collapse, you and I both have to hold them up."
The Drip-God made a strange hissing noise.
"You're forcing yourself onto this Chain," it said. "Tinkerer, are you truly mad, or are you more afraid of those above than I am?"
Qi Luo didn't answer.
He knew that what he'd done today was no longer just "sticking pins" for mortals. He'd tied himself and a little god together to a much greater line—which meant that any time someone tried to abuse a disaster clause, he'd feel it in his chest.
A self-inflicted tether.
"From today on," the Drip-God said slowly, "you have a 'joint burden clause' with me. If you die, I get a share. If I'm dismantled, you'll hurt."
Qi Luo let out a short, wry laugh. "Then I guess… we're accomplices now."
The Drip-God did not deny it.
The chains gradually quieted. Hymns faded away. Half the crowd drifted off. Red Stake and his mother were busy thanking divine grace. Nobody spared a glance for the thin boy in the corner, head tipped back, staring at empty air with a peculiar smile.
Not quite nobody.
A little further down Rust Street, behind a stall selling broken clocks and bent clock-hands, a man in a worn brown cloak leaned against the wall, watching with amusement.
A round glass lens sat over his left eye, its rim etched with delicate sigils. As his gaze shifted, faint light flickered on the glass—that was an "observation lens" for contract chains, turned down to its lowest setting.
He had seen it clearly when Red Stake signed: an unfamiliar line, reaching from somewhere else, stabbing between two ordinary contract chains.
"Interesting," the man murmured.
He watched the boy called Qi Luo lean half out of the shadows to nod at nothing and mutter a few words.
To everyone else, that was just some Rust Street punk daydreaming and talking to himself. Through the lens, though, there was a distinct haze of grey-gold in front of the boy, and one incredibly thin, transparent line.
That was—direct communication between god and mortal.
"Rust Street has a child who can see Chains." The man adjusted the lens with a fingertip.
He pulled a worn badge from his breast and stroked it.
On the badge was the emblem of Star-Signet Academy.
"The Covenant Department would love you," he said, smiling in real pleasure, as if he'd found a gem tossed into mud. "Or the Covenant Council might get to you first."
He bent his head and wrote a name on the inside of his sleeve—Qi Luo—then drew a tiny lock beside it.
"Let's see what other tricks you can pull," he murmured, tucking the badge away and melting back into the flow of Rust Street.
Over by the shack, Qi Luo shivered.
He lifted his head and stared into the thicker part of the crowd.
At the edge of his vision, the transparent line that had been circling Rust Street all day finally dipped, brushed lightly over his head, and vanished into the distance.
"…Who's watching me?" he muttered.
No one answered.
Only the slow ache of his chest sigils reminded him that what he'd just done wasn't merely a minor tweak for a neighbor's clause, but the moment an unseen hand had begun, from far above, to turn over the pages of his Name.