News of Lin Xiao‑lan's "stone incident" and "oath tricks" spread through Azure Sky the way rumors always did: faster than qi, slower than thought.
Most outer disciples dismissed her as a curiosity.
"A low‑root archive brat with a weird aura," one said. "Law people collect those like talismans."
Some servants were mildly afraid.
"Don't talk big promises near her," Ruo warned one evening. "Last week Jiang said, 'I'll never oversleep again,' and the next day he fell off his pallet trying to jump up too fast."
"That was because he's clumsy," Xiao‑lan retorted. "I didn't tie that."
But a few listened more closely.
Among them: a quiet girl in gray robes with a blue inner sash—that of a junior Law Hall clerk.
[SCAN: ZHOU YUAN]
Realm: Qi‑Gathering (2nd Layer)
Occupation: Law Hall Scribe
Disposition: Curious / Skeptical.
Ifabola noticed her more than once, watching from a balcony as Xiao‑lan carried scrolls or spoke with Wei.
The System pinged each time.
Potential Observer.
Not Hostile (Yet).
Track?
"Track quietly," she thought. "No nosebleeds."
Outside the sect, under Ayetoro's sky, a different kind of observation took place.
Baba returned.
The road back felt longer.
His feet dragged not from age but from the weight of the red stone fragment at his belt and the knowledge of how much he had not accomplished.
Ogunremi walked beside him in grim silence.
As they approached Ayetoro's outskirts, the air thickened—with cooking smoke, with market shouts, with tension.
People stared.
Some bowed.
Others turned away.
Fear had grown since he left.
The queen‑mother received them in the baobab court.
Her hair had more gray; her back was a little more bent. But her gaze was still iron.
"You come with one cracked tooth and many more lines in your face," she said after formal greetings. "Is that the measure of our success?"
"For now," Baba said. "We split an altar, loosened one jaw. The hunger limps more in Ôkìtì. But it has found new road here.
He described the Devouring Gospel glimpsed through spirit‑signs.
Ajani's hut.
The deaths.
The smell.
The queen‑mother's jaw clenched.
"I had hoped your leaving would drain some blame from your house," she said. "Instead, the crack only found another rock to push through."
"Cracks always do," Baba said quietly. "We are many stones on the same hill."
He hesitated.
"There is…another thing," he added. "My daughter. Ifabola."
Pain flickered across his face like lightning on distant clouds.
"We buried her," the queen‑mother said softly. "I stood by the river. Lin Mei tore her cloth. You were not here."
"I know," he said, voice raw.
He touched the bead at his neck—the twin of the one around Ifabola's.
"For three nights after," he said, "I dreamed of her. Not by our river. Under a different sky. With ink‑lines burning above her head."
Queen‑mother's brows drew together.
"You think…she crossed?" she whispered.
"I think her name did," he said. "The bead has not broken. The thread has not dimmed. The altar scar in my palm itches when she…tugs."
He did not have words for the sense of her Oath‑Tide experiments, the distant flashes of Law that brushed his dreams.
"Can you reach her?" the queen‑mother asked.
"Not yet," he said. "Our rivers do not flow that far alone. But the hunger's cracks do. Perhaps…we can ride them, backwards."
"Dangerous," Ogunremi grunted. "You risk dragging more of it here."
"We are already tangled," Baba said. "I will not sit while my child fights it in some place that has never heard her name."
Queen‑mother's gaze softened.
"You would tear the sky for her," she murmured.
"For her," he said. "For all the children whose names might be eaten next. If we do nothing, he will climb through anyway. I would rather meet him on a road of my choosing."
She nodded slowly.
"Plan it," she said. "Quietly. I will give what aid I can. But do not expect the council to agree. They are already weary of ghosts and gods."
"I never expected council help," he said. "Only your word."
"You have it," she replied.
At Azure Sky, far from Ayetoro's baobab, Law Hall also planned.
In a chamber lined with jade tablets inscribed with names, Elder Shen sat with two other elders: a hawk‑nosed woman with ice‑pale eyes and a bald man whose fat belly belied the sharpness of his qi.
[SCAN (glimpsed): ELDER HUA – LAW HALL / ICE QI; ELDER GUO – PUNISHMENT HALL / EARTH QI]
"The tremor during the Awakening," Elder Hua said, tapping a jade rod against her chair. "Explain again."
Shen did, succinct as always.
"A child with low physical root," he concluded. "But her name touched multiple scripts. Some external. Some…I suspect old Oath‑Path echoes."
Guo snorted.
"Name‑Binders," he said. "Outdated cowards. If they had done their job centuries ago, we wouldn't have had half as many Demonic Cult collapses."
"They did their job," Hua said sharply. "That's why you're still breathing. Respect the dead arts, Guo."
Shen watched them bicker calmly.
"Our question," he said when they paused for breath, "is whether Lin Xiao‑lan represents a threat, an opportunity, or both."
"Both," Hua said instantly.
"Neither," Guo grunted. "She's a child. If her path turns sour, we snuff it early."
Shen's gaze cooled.
"I prefer not to snuff children on suspicion alone," he said. "The Dao marked her 'observe,' not 'erase.'"
"Since when do you treat that script as gospel?" Hua teased softly. "You ignore it half the time when it tells you to let petty thieves go."
"Because the Dao has never had to haggle for soup," Guo muttered.
Shen ignored them both.
"I placed her in Wei's care," he said. "He will teach her Oath‑Paths properly. If Law tremors around her grow too wild, we will know. Until then, we watch. We nudge. We…see which way she knots."
Hua smiled faintly.
"You grow sentimental in your gray years," she said.
"I grow tired of letting only sword brats decide our fate," he replied.