Two weeks didn't pass like time.
They passed like paperwork—fast, quiet, and binding.
After the return-counter clash, the yard didn't calm down. It just stopped offering you corners where a man could argue without being turned into an example. The gear window ran smoother. Lines moved faster. Stamps landed harder. The whole place had the clean, efficient feel of a machine that had learned which noises attracted witnesses.
A small notice appeared under the Beast Yard grid, written tight and polite—the way the sect wrote things that weren't polite at all:
Replacement stock pending. Issuance may vary. Returns enforced. Disputes through desk only.
Mixed quality wasn't an apology.
It was permission.
If something failed, it would fail in your hands first.
Bai Ren drifted into place beside the board like it was accidental. It never was.
"They're smoothing it," he said.
"They don't like scenes," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "They like outcomes. Scenes are for people who can afford to be dramatic."
Li Shen didn't linger. Lingering turned reading into a tell. He turned toward the forge path, and Bai Ren stopped at the invisible line where "allowed" ended.
"Keep your face off the board," Bai Ren called softly. "You're being remembered."
Li Shen didn't look back. "Then I'll be remembered for passing."
Bai Ren's voice followed him, dry and exact. "Passing doesn't protect you. It just upgrades what they try next."
---
Inside the forge, nothing was announced. It didn't need to be.
Cai Shun shortened windows by margins small enough to sound harmless until you tried to fit your body inside them. Twenty-five breaths where you used to get thirty. Tray tags handed to you like a favor you hadn't requested.
Greyfang terms stayed the same in public: two defects per hundred, random pulls, one destructive snap that could turn "fine" into "failed" without warning.
The real change was quieter: the air itself felt tighter, because everyone had heard about holds being used elsewhere. When men believe holds are trending, they start rushing even when nobody tells them to.
Li Shen didn't chase speed. Speed was how defects happened, and defects were how other people got to own you.
He built for acceptance.
Smoke-Sealing in short cycles—seal long enough to keep ash from clawing his throat, release before dryness turned into a cough. Iron Grip only where alignment mattered: the final curve, the bite-point, the exact moments where "almost" became a fracture line.
Qi Condensation Stage 2 didn't make him strong.
It made him repeatable.
The tremor that used to hang around after a heavy burst faded faster if he respected the release. The heaviness behind his navel still arrived—but later, like a bill that stopped showing up early.
On the fourth day, someone tried to hand him a problem.
A tray of half-finished hooks appeared at his lane boundary with no tag. No stamp. No name. Warm metal placed like it belonged.
Li Shen didn't touch it.
Meng saw it, and also didn't touch it, which was how Li Shen knew Meng had learned to fear paper more than heat.
"That's bait," Meng said.
"No tag," Li Shen replied.
Meng's mouth tightened. "Someone wants you to 'help' and then own the failure."
Li Shen kept shaping his billet. "Call it."
The lane runner arrived annoyed before he was even close, like the situation had already wasted his day.
Li Shen didn't accuse. He pointed at what wasn't there.
"Unassigned tray," he said. "No tag."
The runner glanced once, then tried to look away. "Not my issue."
"It becomes your issue when the Seal Circle asks where it came from," Li Shen said.
That landed. Not as threat—just as physics.
The runner slapped on a cheap strip, stamped it, and dragged the tray away like it had teeth.
Meng watched him go. "You're boring."
Li Shen's hammer fell in steady rhythm. "Boring survives."
Two days later, Batch 10 cleared the Seal Circle. Random pull. One destructive snap. Clean grain. Acceptance.
The board pretended that meant peace.
Li Shen knew better. A passed batch didn't erase attention. It converted it.
---
The cost didn't show in his lane.
It showed in the ration line.
On the sixth day, a hold notice went up under the same frame as the ration schedule. That placement wasn't an accident. It reminded everyone that policy owned your stomach.
Bai Ren was there first, shoulder against a post, face neutral in the way a man's face becomes when jokes get expensive.
"Different lane," he said.
Li Shen read enough to understand the shape: held batch, review pending, credits frozen—and then the quiet punishments that followed it like shadow: ration trimming, clinic priority restricted. Pressure that didn't bruise you, just made you weaker slowly and publicly.
A man shoved past them, clinic ticket crushed in his fist, breathing hard like even anger cost oxygen now.
Bai Ren watched him go. "They don't punish the lane that failed," he murmured. "They punish the rotation. Everyone pays. Everyone gets angry. Then everyone wants a face."
Li Shen stared at the line. "Who."
"Wen's old crew," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen's eyes sharpened. "Wen."
Bai Ren hesitated—half a beat—and that half-beat was the answer.
"Not on the board," he said flatly.
Li Shen didn't press. Pressing turned curiosity into attachment, and attachment was a handle.
Bai Ren leaned closer, lower. "If you get held, you don't just lose points. You lose air."
Li Shen looked at the board frame—old wood pretending to be permanent, nails sunk deep.
"I won't be held," he said.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched, but there was no joke behind it. "That's not a promise. That's a plan."
Then he added the thing he didn't like saying out loud:
"Yan's corridor is still awake."
Li Shen's breathing shifted once. "Anything specific."
Bai Ren didn't give a story. He gave direction.
"Private clinic runners. More medicine pulled. Quiet movement," he said. "And people watching who watches."
Li Shen didn't look toward the inner paths. Looking was how rumors learned their route.
"Noted," he said.
"Good," Bai Ren replied. "Keep it that way."
---
Week two opened tighter.
Officially, nothing changed. In practice, Cai Shun started rationing windows like he was rationing oxygen.
Li Shen built around the squeeze. He pre-heated billets in a sequence that matched his sanctioned breaths. He staged tasks so the window was spent only on high-value motion. He worked with his own tools whenever possible—borrowed tools created borrowed blame. He ran his whetstone over micro-burrs that could become fractures under destructive snap.
Midweek, Greyfang terms gained a new spine. Not longer. Harder.
A rolling review note. Holds counted even when the defect counter reset. Rework marks treated as risk until cleared.
The board was telling the truth in polite language:
You can pass this week and still be condemned next month.
That night, Li Shen soaked his hands, worked tendon powder into his wrists, and opened his ledger.
He didn't write a list. He wrote one line he could execute.
Windows shorter. Bursts shorter. Don't cough. Don't borrow. A clean batch doesn't clean your file.
He closed it and let the sentence sit like weight.
---
On the tenth day, he went to the points window.
Not to feel better.
To become harder to sabotage.
"Forge tools," he said. "Quality."
The clerk didn't look up. "Servant tier?"
Li Shen nodded.
She slid three stamped items across the counter—small, legal, unglamorous. The kind of things that turned "almost" into visible error before it became accusation: a simple gauge, a timing strip, a thin primer that taught heat by color and sound instead of pride.
Li Shen paid in points and felt the cost leave his ledger cleanly.
He added tendon powder, a coil of decent rope, and breath paste without corridor stamps.
He didn't buy a weapon.
Weapons were politics.
Tools were logistics.
Tools made you harder to ruin without turning you into a story.
As he stepped away, he noticed a runner at the side counter—wax marked with the private clinic stamp. Head down. Medicine carried like contraband.
Li Shen didn't ask who it was for.
But he saw the stamp shape once and stored it.
---
He trained Grey Step behind the dorm line where nobody wanted to be seen improving.
The booklet was already worn—creased spine, softened corners, pages that didn't lie flat. Used, not displayed.
Half-step off the line. Weight shift. Heel down. Toe pivot. Exit without crossing his feet.
Grey Step wasn't speed.
It was clean angles.
It was how you avoided paying tendon and Qi for bad position.
He repeated the first sequence until his calves burned. Then repeated until the burn became familiar. Then stopped—not satisfied, just disciplined enough to respect the heaviness behind his navel when it rose.
Stage 2 gave him more room.
It didn't make room infinite.
He sat against cold stone and breathed until the heaviness softened. Not because it was poetic. Because if he didn't, it would cost him tomorrow.
---
On the fourteenth day, the board posted two changes that snapped the last two weeks into a single ugly shape.
Mixed quality issuance expanded to routes that mattered.
And Greyfang increased the number of random pulls—more chances for "average" to become leverage.
Bai Ren read it beside him and didn't pretend it was normal.
"They didn't like you winning the return counter," he said.
Li Shen didn't argue. "So they widen the field."
"They widen it until you can't see the edges," Bai Ren replied.
Li Shen's eyes landed on the route name: Gully North Cut.
He could still feel the net tearing. Rope strain. Hatchet bite. The way paper tried to turn survival into a deduction.
Now the board was telling him—politely—that the next time would be worse.
He touched the Grey Step booklet under his shirt—worn edges, real weight—and let the decision settle without dramatics.
He turned away from the board.
Not toward Yan's corridor.
Not toward the forge.
Toward the Beast Yard desk—the place where sorties were logged and official reasons to be gone were granted.
Bai Ren saw the line of his movement and understood immediately.
"You're going to ask for sortie requirements," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen nodded once. "Official. Normal. On record."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched, a joke trying to return and failing. "You're trying to outrun rumor with paperwork."
Li Shen's voice stayed even. "I'm trying to make them pay more to reach me."
Bai Ren stared at him for a beat, then nodded once.
"That's the correct move," he said. "Which means someone will hate it."
Li Shen didn't smile.
He walked toward the desk anyway.
Because in the sect, you didn't wait for conditions to improve.
You moved before they decided where to squeeze you next.