Ren Jiao didn't recruit the way men recruited in stories.
He didn't need to.
Li Shen had already stood behind his shoulder on rotations that ended with blood in the ash and a clerk's stamp deciding whether the blood counted as "issued" or "your fault." He already knew the shape of Ren Jiao's decisions: narrow, cheap, survivable.
So when Li Shen saw Ren Jiao at the Beast Yard board before dawn, it wasn't a surprise.
It was the next step finally admitting it existed.
The yard belonged to runners at this hour. Chalk lines were fresh. Notices layered over older notices like scabs—some posted for everyone, some posted for people who knew how to read margins instead of words.
Ren Jiao stood with his hands behind his back, reading the board like a debt schedule.
He spoke without looking up.
"You got yourself written down."
Li Shen stopped a pace away. "Eligibility sheet."
Ren Jiao's mouth moved slightly. If he'd been built for humor, it might have become one. "Forge hands usually like heat. You like forms."
"I like exits," Li Shen said.
Ren Jiao turned his head. His eyes weren't hostile. They were precise.
"You made a clerk write last rotation," he said. "And you made Cai Shun stamp something he didn't want to stamp."
Li Shen didn't defend himself. Defending made it personal. "Both needed it."
Ren Jiao held the gaze half a breath longer, then nodded once—approval without warmth.
He tapped a line on the board. "Ravine Spur."
Li Shen followed his finger.
Low-grade spirit beast slot. Standard warnings. The usual polite threat language. Then an extra note in tighter writing, meant to disappear into clutter if you didn't know what to look for.
And beside the route name, someone had added a second chalk mark.
OBSERVED
Ren Jiao saw him see it. "Don't stare. Staring invites a story."
Li Shen looked away immediately, as if the mark hadn't mattered. "Same team?"
"Same rules," Ren Jiao said.
Footsteps approached. Rope dragged. Huang Qi arrived with a coil over his shoulder, palms already mapped with old friction. He didn't greet Li Shen like a friend, but he also didn't treat him like a stranger anymore. His eyes went to Li Shen's hands first, then to the inner pocket where sponsor strips would sit.
"You bringing your own edge again?" Huang Qi asked.
"Deposit says tool-hand," Li Shen replied. "I'm staying inside the line."
Huang Qi snorted once. "The line moves."
Ren Jiao cut in, voice flat. "Mixed-quality issuance. If you find a defect, you document it before we step past the gate. No quiet fixes."
Huang Qi's jaw tightened. He remembered what quiet fixes turned into when a net failed under load.
Bo Wen was already there, leaning against a post with a spear receipt folded tight in his fist—broad shoulders, quiet eyes, the habit of watching gates like they were animals that might bite.
Ren Jiao reached into his sleeve and held out a narrow strip of paper.
Clean stamp. No flourish. No "favor" in the ink.
Li Shen took it with two fingers and slid it into his inner pocket.
Sponsor paper felt light in your hand and heavy everywhere else.
"This isn't charity," Ren Jiao said. "It's a tool decision. You keep processing clean. You keep your notes straight. And you don't improvise unless I tell you to."
Li Shen nodded once. "Understood."
Ren Jiao's gaze stayed on him. "If the route turns wrong, we abort. No pride."
"Abort is cheaper than a hold," Li Shen said.
That earned him a second nod—smaller, sharper.
"Desk," Ren Jiao said. "Now."
---
The Beast Yard desk was already busy.
Not loud. Not chaotic. Just constant—line moving in grudging inches, chained ledgers clacking, guards watching like boredom was a practiced skill.
Ren Jiao stepped to the window like he belonged there. He'd done this before. The clerk's eyes flicked up the moment his stamp touched the plank.
Her gaze landed on Ren Jiao's paper, then slid past him—straight to Li Shen.
Her mouth tightened.
"You again," she said, flat as a ledger line.
Ren Jiao didn't blink. "Route slip. Ravine Spur."
She didn't answer the route first. She answered the pattern. "You collect extra work like it's points."
Ren Jiao said, "Name."
She dipped her brush anyway. "Ren Jiao."
"Team."
"Huang Qi. Bo Wen. Li Shen."
The brush paused at Li Shen's name—brief, precise—then moved again. Not hesitation. Recognition.
"Forge," she said, not as a question.
"Yes," Li Shen replied.
A small mark went down beside his line. Not public. Not ceremonial. The kind of note that didn't appear on boards but made certain questions find you faster.
Ren Jiao pushed deposits forward: rope and net tokens, spear receipts, Li Shen's hatchet deposit last.
The clerk glanced at the hatchet receipt, then back up at Li Shen. "Tool-hand returns tool," she said. "No exceptions."
Li Shen nodded. "Understood."
She slid the route slip across. "Ravine Spur. Processing compliance applies. Mixed-quality clause applies."
Ren Jiao took the slip and handed it to Li Shen without looking at him. "Check issuance."
Huang Qi didn't complain. He went straight to the gear window like a man heading into weather he couldn't control.
---
Issuance wasn't malicious by default.
That was the problem.
It was indifferent.
A runner shoved a net bundle toward Huang Qi. Another runner shoved a spear toward Bo Wen. Ren Jiao received his own spear and checked the shaft grain with the care of a man reading contracts in wood.
Li Shen took the hatchet and ran his thumb along the haft.
Dry wood. Slight lift where sweat had raised grain. No obvious hairline near the head. Wedge tight.
The edge carried the usual lie—sharp enough to cut skin, dull enough to twist on impact.
He didn't fix it here. Fixing it here created stories. He could hone it later on a public stone, where the act looked ordinary.
He turned to Huang Qi's rope coil.
"Uncoil," Li Shen said quietly.
Huang Qi hesitated—then complied without drama. That alone was progress. Two rotations ago he would've argued just to feel like he still owned his spine.
Li Shen ran the rope through his fingers, letting texture tell him what eyes missed.
There.
A section smoother than the rest, like someone had dressed wear with oil until it stopped catching nails. A pretty defect. The kind that failed politely—right when you needed it most.
Huang Qi saw it and swore under his breath. "That's treated."
Ren Jiao came over, took one look, and didn't waste a breath on anger.
"Desk," he said.
---
The clerk lifted her head before they reached the plank, as if she could smell more work approaching.
Her eyes landed on Ren Jiao's stamp, then slid to Li Shen again.
Her mouth tightened the same way it had five minutes ago.
"Back already," she said. Not a question. A diagnosis. "You haven't even cleared the gate."
Ren Jiao set the rope coil on the counter and tapped the smooth section with two fingers. "Issued rope variance. Document it."
The clerk stared at the rope, then at him. "Of course it's variance. Everyone's gear is variance. Most people don't walk it back to my window like it's a petition."
"That's why we're walking it back," Ren Jiao said. "Before it turns into liability."
Her brush hovered. She looked past them at the line, at the guards, at the morning trying to pretend it didn't have edges.
"You're making the morning longer," she said, flat.
Li Shen stayed quiet until her gaze drifted—until the moment she was about to dismiss it as inconvenience—and then slid the treated section forward just enough to catch the light.
The sheen was wrong. Too smooth. Too polite.
The clerk's nostrils flared.
She hated being right.
"You still haven't left," she said, as if that was the only mercy she had.
"That's the point," Ren Jiao replied.
The brush finally moved.
ISSUED VARIANCE — ROPE SURFACE TREATMENT
She stamped it once, hard. The stamp wasn't kindness. It was containment.
Then she looked at Li Shen like he was a habit forming in her ledger.
"If you come back with torn rope and try to wrap my stamp around your choices," she said, "I'll write you into a hold so fast you'll taste ink."
Li Shen met her eyes, steady. "If it fails at the treated section, the stamp matches the failure."
Her mouth pulled tight. She didn't like the logic, and she disliked more that it was correct.
"Go," she said, flicking her fingers as if shooing smoke. "And stop orbiting my window. You're starting to look organized."
They left.
Huang Qi stared at the stamp like it was both a shield and an insult. "I hate that we need this."
Li Shen answered without heat. "I hate what happens when we don't."
Ren Jiao didn't react.
That meant he agreed.
---
Ravine Spur didn't look like danger from the gate.
Dry scrub. Broken stone. A slope that punished lazy feet. The air was cleaner than forge air, and Li Shen noticed it immediately—not as relief, as a change in taxation. His lungs still carried yesterday's ash debt, but today they weren't being charged for every breath.
Ren Jiao led them along a path that avoided obvious cuts. Bo Wen held right with his spear angled down. Huang Qi carried rope and net, breathing controlled. Li Shen stayed in the middle with the hatchet—tool-hand position, where blame could be thrown in either direction.
They reached a shallow basin where blackened stones formed a half-circle, like something had burned there and never fully let go.
Ren Jiao lifted a fist.
Everyone stopped.
Li Shen shifted weight with Grey Step—small, clean, feet staying under him—balance without advertisement.
Ren Jiao crouched, touched the ground, lifted two fingers. Dark grit clung to his skin.
"Ash," he murmured. "Fresh."
Huang Qi swallowed. "Boar."
Ren Jiao didn't answer. He listened.
Li Shen listened too—wind, scrape, the slow drag of weight through grit.
Then it stepped into view.
A boar, but plated—dark ridges along its back like cinder hardened into armor. Its shoulders were thick. Its snout was streaked with ash. When it exhaled, the breath carried a dirty haze that made the air taste like old charcoal.
Bo Wen whispered, "That's not standard."
"Razorback variant," Ren Jiao said. "Rare. Don't get greedy."
The beast turned its head.
For a fraction of a beat, its eyes found stillness—found Li Shen—then it snorted and charged.
Not a long run.
A brutal burst, like a hammer delivered by mass.
Ren Jiao slid off line and drove his spear toward the shoulder seam—not to kill, to turn. Bo Wen mirrored to pressure the flank.
"Huang!" Ren Jiao barked.
Huang Qi threw the net.
It opened clean—
—and screamed when it hit the plates.
The weave caught for one breath. One breath of tension. One breath where you could pretend you were in control.
Then it started to fail.
The rope line jerked in Huang Qi's hands, and Li Shen saw it immediately: the treated section didn't tear. It slid. A polite failure. The kind that pulled a man into an animal's path without ever snapping loud enough to be blamed.
Ren Jiao snapped, "Cut it!"
Huang Qi hesitated—deposit, points, blame—
Li Shen didn't argue. He moved.
Iron Grip pulsed for a heartbeat, locking his wrist just long enough to make the cut clean. The hatchet came down once.
No sawing. No struggle.
The rope snapped free, and the net fell away instead of dragging Huang Qi forward.
Huang Qi stumbled back, palms burning, staring at the severed line like it was betrayal and rescue at the same time.
The boar pivoted toward the nearest movement—toward Huang Qi.
Ren Jiao shoved his spear deeper at the shoulder seam, forcing the beast's weight to shift. Bo Wen stabbed low, trying for belly.
The boar bucked. Ash and haze kicked up, turning the basin into a throat-scrape.
Li Shen ran Smoke-Sealing shallow—just enough to keep grit from becoming coughing while his heart tried to climb out of his chest. Seal. Release. Seal again.
A tusk clipped Bo Wen's spear shaft with a sharp report. Wood cracked. Grain split.
Ren Jiao's eyes flicked to it. "Drop it!"
Bo Wen hesitated half a breath—receipt, deposit, pride—
The boar slammed plated shoulder into him and sent him skidding through ash.
Bo Wen rolled, coughing, alive.
Ren Jiao stabbed again. The tip sparked off a ridge plate and glanced.
Li Shen saw the opening.
Not in hide.
In structure.
The boar had committed forward. Front weight loaded. Hind leg—right side—planted hard in ash.
Tendon.
Li Shen stepped in on a half-angle, not straight at tusks. Grey Step kept him off the line the head wanted. He didn't swing like a man trying to split a log. He swung like a tool-hand executing a pattern: set the edge where the tendon line lived, bite, pull through.
Iron Grip pulsed—short, controlled—so the hatchet didn't twist on impact.
The blade bit.
Resistance.
Then a sudden give.
The boar's hind leg buckled—not a collapse, a betrayal. Its own body withdrew support.
The beast screamed, high and ugly, and tried to turn, but the ruined leg stole its pivot.
Ren Jiao didn't hesitate. Spear into the throat seam, held.
Bo Wen, coughing ash, grabbed his broken shaft and jammed it into the beast's side like a stake. Huang Qi snatched a stone and slammed it into the snout when tusks snapped too close to Ren Jiao's arm.
It wasn't elegant.
It was real.
The boar shuddered, kicked once, then went still.
Ash settled.
Li Shen released Smoke-Sealing and let clean air hit his lungs without letting it show on his face.
Ren Jiao looked at him.
Not gratitude. Assessment.
"You cut clean," Ren Jiao said.
Li Shen nodded. "It was there."
Ren Jiao's gaze flicked to the severed rope, the torn net, the dirty haze still hanging low. "And now we come back with the stamp intact."
---
They didn't celebrate.
They processed.
Ren Jiao unrolled the route slip flat on a stone. "Tag code."
Li Shen pulled out his wax kit and his ugly seal—chipped coin edge, distinct bite pattern—and set it up without announcement. Habit mattered more than speeches.
Ren Jiao opened the belly with controlled motion. The internal smell hit—hot, metallic, thick—and Li Shen kept Smoke-Sealing shallow while he watched for contamination around the core pouch.
Ren Jiao pulled the core free.
Complete.
Not bright. Low clarity. Dense and stubborn.
Bo Wen leaned in, eyes hungry despite pain. "Complete."
Ren Jiao's voice stayed flat. "Rare variant. Of course it's complete."
Li Shen wrote the tag code with a steady hand.
E-19-22
He folded the slip in the same pattern he always used. Initials. Time. Route. Then sealed it with the ugly stamp and pressed the wax hard enough to leave a clear bite.
Ren Jiao watched the seal set. The nod he gave wasn't approval of Li Shen's personality.
It was approval of procedure holding under pressure.
"Plates," Ren Jiao said.
Li Shen looked at the cinder ridges. You didn't carry them whole. You harvested what you could.
He chipped along a seam, careful, taking shavings and small pieces—dark, dense, useful. Under one plate edge he found a smear of heat-slick resin, sealed in gland fat like a dirty secret.
Huang Qi grimaced. "Worth anything?"
Ren Jiao answered without looking away. "Worth more than a story."
They packed what they could and left the basin before blood could invite worse.
---
Back through the gate, yard noise hit them like a wall—lines, stamps, the soft clack of paperwork deciding who ate.
At processing, the clerk took one look at the torn net and the severed rope and made a sound through her nose that wasn't quite a sigh.
Ren Jiao slapped the slip down and pointed at the issuance stamp.
Her eyes narrowed, then settled into annoyed acceptance. "Of course you brought me my own handwriting."
She wrote crisp and tight:
NET FAILURE — ROPE LINE CUT UNDER ACTIVE THREAT
ISSUED VARIANCE APPLIES — NO DEDUCTION (ROPE)
Then her gaze dropped to Bo Wen's broken spear shaft. Her eyebrows lifted. "Clean split."
Ren Jiao didn't give her room to build a narrative. "Impact against plated target. Razorback."
She looked unconvinced until Li Shen slid the cinder shavings forward—not as a bribe, never as a bribe—just evidence with weight.
Her expression shifted by a fraction. Recognition. Accounting.
She wrote again, tighter than she wanted:
ISSUED QUALITY REVIEW — SHAFT GRAIN WEAKNESS (PLATED IMPACT)
Not mercy.
Not a noose.
A wedge.
The core was inspected, stamped: complete, low clarity, accepted. The tag code was copied into the ledger.
E-19-22 now existed in ink that wasn't Li Shen's.
That mattered.
Points posted later. Not freedom. Not fortune. But Li Shen's share was higher than last time, and the difference didn't feel like luck.
It felt like margin.
Ren Jiao handed Li Shen a small wrapped bundle as they stepped away—two plated shavings and the resin smear sealed in wax paper.
"Forge use," Ren Jiao said. "Not market."
Li Shen took it like a tool deposit. "Understood."
Ren Jiao's eyes stayed on him. "Keep it off the board."
"Always."
Ren Jiao gave him the closest thing to praise he used. "You didn't make noise."
Li Shen answered evenly. "Noise is taxed."
Huang Qi walked ahead with his palms wrapped, expression closed. Bo Wen limped and tried to pretend he wasn't.
Li Shen already felt the next problem forming: saving a man was easy. Saving him without creating a debt was where the real price lived.
---
Bai Ren was near the flow like he always was—close enough to see, far enough not to be blamed.
His eyes went to the wraps and the limp first.
Then to Li Shen's face, as if checking whether Li Shen had left any emotion behind in the basin.
"You came back," Bai Ren said, and this time he let a hint of warmth into it. "That's rude. The yard was already preparing your memorial paperwork."
Li Shen's tone stayed level. "It would've been low-effort."
Bai Ren smiled, quick and bright. "Exactly. They hate when you make them do extra work."
His gaze slid to the processing tables. "Someone was counting the line. Not bored counting. Real counting."
Li Shen didn't look around. Looking confirmed you felt hunted.
"How steady," he asked.
"Steady enough it isn't curiosity," Bai Ren said, then added like he was talking about weather instead of knives, "and steady enough to ruin my mood."
Ren Jiao was already moving his team away. He didn't stop. He just threw one sentence back over his shoulder like a tool tossed into a hand.
"Tool-hand—keep your notes. Next rotation changes."
Li Shen's eyes caught a new posting near the forge path as he walked.
PRODUCTION NOTE — ESCORT HARDWARE SHIFT
CHAIN LINKS / CLASPS — NEXT ROTATION
RECHECK PRIORITY: HIGH
Different work. Tighter tolerances. More ways for variance to be "discovered" later, far from the hands that made it.
Bai Ren saw him read it and gave a small, almost cheerful grimace. "So it's not just hooks anymore. Congratulations. You've been promoted to problems that fail later."
Li Shen replied, "Parts that travel."
Bai Ren nodded. "Parts that come back with invoices."
They walked a few steps in careful silence—silence that didn't look conspiratorial.
Then Bai Ren spoke again, light enough to pass as casual, sharp enough to be useful.
"Yan's wing still has traffic," he said. "Private runners. Sealed trays. The kind of movement that pretends it's routine."
Li Shen didn't react. "Any mention of Yun Xue?"
Bai Ren shook his head once. "No names. Just… motion. And the usual sport of watching who watches."
Li Shen nodded. "Understood."
He kept his pace normal.
Normal was armor.
But the bundle in his sleeve felt heavier than its weight—plate shavings and resin, not treasure, not salvation.
A lever.
And if he handled it clean, it was one more step away from being just another pair of hands inside someone else's machine.