The bell rang before dawn, a thin and metallic sound that commanded obedience simply by existing.
It cut through the cold air of the outer quarters and left no room for delay. Xu Qian opened his eyes and waited for a single, focused breath to let the dull weight in his limbs settle. He stood up, his joints popping quietly.
Waking early in the sect never earned a man a reward, but waking late was a mistake the stewards always remembered.
The courtyard filled with an uneven rhythm. Some disciples arrived too quickly, their breath coming in white puffs as if they hoped their speed would be noted in a ledger. Others drifted in slower with their shoulders hunched, already resigned to whatever labor the mountain had prepared for them.
Xu Qian took his place, adjusting his pace for neither haste nor delay. The stone beneath his sandals was frozen and rough enough to register through the thin soles, a constant reminder of the harsh ground they occupied.
A boy stood two steps to his right with broad shoulders and a frame built for heavy lifting, but his stance was off. His weight rolled slightly from his heel to his toe as he tried to find comfort on the uneven rock. He noticed Xu Qian's glance and stiffened, forcing a stillness that looked more painful than the wobbling. Xu Qian looked away. Observation in this place was often mistaken for a challenge.
A steward arrived soon after. It was not Han Zhi, but an older man in a plain, faded robe with an expression that was neither strict nor kind. He looked at them as one might look at a pile of dry wood.
"Labor assignment," the steward said, his voice barely carrying over the wind. "Half a day."
He offered no further explanation. Tokens were handed out with mechanical efficiency, and Xu Qian caught his as it was tossed.
The cold metal bore a simple inscription: Outer Array Anchor Maintenance. Eastern slope.
They were divided into small groups and led along the narrow side paths of the sect. These roads moved away from the grand halls and the polished stone of the inner courts, winding instead toward the jagged edges of the mountain where the air was thinner. The walk took long enough for his joints to loosen, but was short enough to offer no real relief from the cold. As they climbed, stone markers began to appear along the slope-half-buried in the scree and spaced with mathematical precision that defied the natural chaos of the mountain.
These were the array anchors.
Xu Qian slowed his pace by half a step to study them as he passed. He recognized nothing beyond the obvious. They were dull stone pillars set into reinforced metal mounts, held steady by heavy brackets. Alignment markings were carved shallowly along the base, looking like scratches against the granite. They were old enough to need constant attention and clearly dangerous enough that no one bothered explaining their true purpose to the laborers.
Tools were distributed from a heavy wooden crate. There were stiff brushes, measuring rods, and simple iron clamps. No one explained what was being aligned or what the array actually did. They were only told what not to do.
"Do not force a correction," the supervisor said, his voice echoing off the cliffside. "Do not guess. If something does not sit, you stop immediately."
One disciple, younger than the rest, asked what would happen if the stone did not sit.
The supervisor looked at him with a flat, empty gaze before looking back at his slate. "You stop," he repeated. The quiet that followed was louder than an explanation.
Work began under the sun. At first, it felt easy-simple scrubbing of dirt from grooves and clearing debris from the metal mounts. The sound of brushes against stone carried through the quiet air, a rhythmic scratching that was almost peaceful.
Then the strain crept in.
Crouching for too long on the steep slope pulled at the muscles of the lower back. Holding a measuring rod perfectly steady while another disciple adjusted the mount began to numb the arms. The fine movements demanded more control than Xu Qian had expected. A small tremor in the hand, which would be meaningless when lifting a crate, became a disaster when trying to align a marking thinner than a fingernail.
Xu Qian felt the lag in his body early-a delay in his nerves rather than a lack of strength. His fingers responded a fraction slower than they should have when he went to tighten a clamp. He adjusted his grip and slowed his breathing, trying to find a rhythm that the poison could not disrupt.
The lag persisted, but he kept it contained in the slow circle of his movements.
Beside him, the broad-shouldered boy was rushing. He corrected one anchor quickly-too quickly-and moved to the next check the markings a second time. His hands were steady, but his pace was reckless. He was treating the array as if it were a pile of bricks to be moved.
Xu Qian noticed but said nothing. Advice was rarely welcomed by the desperate. On the next anchor, Xu Qian adjusted his own process. He braced his forearm firmly against the stone before making a fine adjustment, letting the anchor itself take some of the strain from his tired muscles. It was steadier, though not faster.
The boy glanced sideways, watched the technique for a moment, and then copied the posture. His movements slowed down. The clamp seated properly this time with a soft, clean click. They did not speak, but the tension in the boy's shoulders eased slightly.
Further up the slope, a sharp, metallic sound cut through the quiet. A bracket had snapped back into place too hard, and the anchor gave a faint, wrong vibration-a sound like a crack in a frozen lake.
The supervisor looked up instantly. He walked over, checked the alignment once with a silver rod, and then marked something on his slate.
The disciple responsible for the error was told to step aside.
"Can I redo it? I just slipped," the disciple asked, his voice tight with rising panic.
"No," the supervisor said.
Two attendants appeared from further down the slope as if they had been waiting for the failure. They guided the disciple away toward the lower paths. No one watched him go for long because there were still anchors waiting to be cleaned.
The sun climbed higher, and the heat began to bake the scent of old dust and sweat into their robes. Xu Qian's fingers began to ache from holding tension instead of weight-the kind of ache that punished the impatient. He misjudged a movement once, and a clamp slipped slightly as he went to tighten it. It was not enough to cause a vibration, but the marking shifted off true by a hair's breadth.
Xu Qian froze. He did not try to force it back. He took a long breath, loosened the clamp entirely, and reset his grip. He aligned it again, even slower this time, until the marking slid back into place.
Beside him, the broad-shouldered boy exhaled a long breath he had been holding. He adjusted his own clamp with renewed, almost fearful care.
Midway through the afternoon, another disciple's hands began to shake too badly to continue. The measuring rod dipped, scraped against the stone, and then slipped from his fingers to clatter against the mount.
The supervisor waited for three long breaths, watching the boy try to steady his hands.
"Stop," the supervisor said.
The disciple opened his mouth to plead, closed it again, and stepped back. He was led away, offering no resistance. He looked smaller as he walked down the path.
Xu Qian's shoulders burned. The lag in his body was worsening, becoming a persistent hum of inefficiency. Every fine movement now demanded a long period of stillness beforehand. He had to be more careful than the others because he could not trust his reflexes to catch a slip. He slowed down further, letting the minutes pass.
When the bell finally rang again, it sounded exactly as it had in the morning-cold and indifferent.
The supervisor closed his slate and dismissed them in silence.
Someone further down the line finally broke the quiet.
"Steward," he called out, voice careful. "Does this count for merit?"
The supervisor did not stop walking. "All assigned labor is recorded."
"Then how much-"
"If you want to know what it's worth," the supervisor said flatly, "go to the Task Hall and read the postings." He glanced back once. "If you can't understand them, you're not eligible yet."
They walked back down the slope in a heavier quiet than the one they had started with. There were fewer footsteps on the stone now. Near the base of the mountain, the broad-shouldered boy finally spoke.
"You don't rush," he said-an observation rather than a question.
Xu Qian looked at his own hands. The skin along his knuckles was raw from the grit, but there was no bleeding.
"I stop before I slip," he replied.
The boy nodded once. "Zhao Wen."
"Xu Qian."
They did not become friends. They simply acknowledged that they had survived the same test. Another member of their group walked ahead of them alone. He had a leaner build and an even pace that suggested he had not struggled at all. At the fork in the road, he glanced back briefly, his eyes meeting Xu Qian's for a second before he moved on.
Near the task hall, Sun Liang was leaning against a wall, reading a list of new postings. He looked up as they approached.
"Two removed," Sun Liang said conversationally. "One before the sun was even high."
Xu Qian did not answer. Sun Liang's gaze flicked to Zhao Wen, then back to Xu Qian's hands. "Array work is different. It's a test of how much you can endure before you twitch, not how strong you are."
"It was quiet," Xu Qian said.
"They won't explain why they send unranked disciples up there," Sun Liang continued. "If they did, people would start choosing differently."
Xu Qian understood the implication immediately. "The task is a filter, just as the training grounds are."
"Merit accumulates," Sun Liang added casually. "That does not mean you can use it."
"When can we?" Xu Qian asked.
Sun Liang smiled faintly. "When the sect decides you're worth spending on. Until then, it's just a number in a book."
He tapped the wall beside the task hall. "You'll understand when you see it."
He shifted his weight, pointing toward the task hall. "If you plan to take more work, stay away from the center board. Those tasks are meant to be seen-for the ones who want to prove something to the instructors."
"And the others?"
"The side listings are dull," Sun Liang said. "They are measured. There are fewer witnesses and less noise. It's easier to go unnoticed when you aren't standing in a spotlight."
"Why tell me this?" Xu Qian asked, his eyes narrowing.
Sun Liang did not answer immediately. He looked at the mountain peaks, then back at Xu Qian. "Because it is inefficient to lose people who are smart enough to stay still. The sect has enough corpses."
He stepped away before Xu Qian could say anything else. Zhao Wen exhaled slowly. "He was not exactly helping us, was he?"
Xu Qian looked at the task board, seeing the new gaps where names had been erased.
"No," he said. "He was investing."
That night, the courtyard felt larger-the spaces between the people felt wider. Xu Qian lay down with his hands still faintly trembling from the strain of the day. The lag in his body refused to settle.
There had been no progress and no reward, only the certainty that tomorrow, fewer people would answer the bell.
And as always, the mountain would not explain why.