The tent never truly slept.
Even when the lanterns outside dimmed and the watch rotations shifted, the interior remained alive in small, unavoidable ways. Ten bodies filled the space...breathing, shifting, muttering in half-formed dreams that never quite reached coherence. Fabric brushed against fabric. Someone turned and the straw matting crackled faintly beneath their weight. A sleeve dragged. A knee knocked softly into someone else's hip before settling again.
Someone coughed...a dry, irritated sound.
Someone else laughed briefly, caught in a fragment of dream, then fell silent again as if embarrassed even in sleep.
The air was thick. Sweat. Herbal medicine crushed into paste. Damp cloth that had never fully dried from the day's humidity. Beneath it all lingered the faint metallic scent of dried blood that no one mentioned anymore.
Jin Yue lay on his side near the entrance, eyes open.
He had stopped pretending he would sleep.
