The land shifted before any wall appeared.
Liang Wei felt it first, not through sight but through pressure, the way the road subtly narrowed and then steadied, as though it had decided what kind of travelers it would tolerate. The trees thinned into deliberate spacing. Fields stretched farther, their edges squared and tended, not wild but not barren either. Even the air felt arranged.
"This way," Liang Wei said.
It was the first time she had spoken to direct their path.
Li glanced at her, just briefly. There was no hesitation in Liang Wei's voice, no testing glance at the sky or the road. She turned as if the land had already told her where to go.
Li followed.
The escort noticed as well. His horse fell a half step closer, his attention sharpening in a way that had nothing to do with bandits or terrain.
The route curved east, away from the main trade road, slipping into a shallow pass that cut between two low ridges. The ground here was firmer, packed down by years of passage. Not carts. People. Fast, quiet movement.
Li did not ask how Liang Wei knew this path.
But he watched.
Liang Wei recognized the markers before they fully emerged. A crooked pine that leaned too far over the road, its trunk scarred near the base. A cluster of stones stacked where no one bothered to move them anymore. A bend where the wind always seemed to come from the wrong direction.
She adjusted their course without slowing, as though memory had become instinct.
Liu Xi appeared gradually.
Not as a gate or a wall, but as order.
Houses aligned with intention. Roofs repaired, not ornate but sound. Streets swept clean enough that even the mud stayed where it belonged. People moved without urgency, without fear. They carried baskets, tools, fish wrapped in reed mats. Children ran, not away from soldiers but around them.
This unsettled Liang Wei more than open hostility ever could.
The village smelled of river water and wood smoke. Of life that had learned how to function beneath rules.
Li felt it too, though he could not have named why. He straightened slightly in the saddle, his gaze moving not to faces but to structure. To patrol spacing. To the way banners hung, visible but not dominant.
A notice board stood near the road, positioned so no one could pass without seeing it. Fresh ink. An official seal from Jing De.
Blood Bond Census. Registration required. Dates listed. Consequences implied rather than stated.
Li did not slow.
Neither did Liang Wei.
A girl stood near the roadside selling fish, her hands red from cold water, her posture steady as she lifted and weighed each bundle. As Liang Wei passed, her eyes flicked up.
She did not look at her face.
She watched how she sat her horse. How she turned. How her weight shifted as though the road belonged to her.
A flicker of recognition sparked in her mind, faint and blurry at first but sharp enough to make her pause.
Liang Wei felt it like a blade brushing skin.
She turned her horse just enough to break the line, the movement casual, unremarkable. By the time the girl's brow furrowed, she was already past.
The village did not stop for her.
That was the worst of it.
Liu Xi continued breathing. Continued trading. Continued existing, complete and indifferent. Whatever had been lost here had not left a scar large enough to slow it down.
Li did not look back. But something in Liang Wei's silence changed. Not grief. Not longing. A quiet recalibration, as though a door she had never intended to open had been passed without being touched.
A patrol approached at the far end of the village. Two soldiers, clean armor, movements practiced but not tense. Their eyes lingered, measuring.
The escort leaned forward slightly. "Traveling north," he said smoothly. "Documents cleared."
One of the patrolmen glanced at Liang Wei. Not long enough to accuse. Just long enough to note discipline.
"Carry on," the man said.
They did.
Once beyond the last house, the road lifted gently, drawing them away from the river and toward higher ground. The fields gave way to scrub and stone. The sense of order thinned, not vanished, but loosened, like a breath held just a moment less tightly.
Li finally spoke. "You have been here before."
Liang Wei did not deny it. "Long ago."
Li accepted that answer for what it was. Incomplete. Necessary.
Ahead, the land opened, and with it, the past showed its teeth.
A broken boundary stone lay half sunk into the earth, its carved markings worn and cracked. Imperial script, old enough that no one bothered to repair it. Once a line. Once a declaration.
Now just stone.
Li slowed his horse.
The escort's attention narrowed fully onto Liang Wei, something dangerous sharpening behind his eyes.
Liang Wei looked at the stone as one might look at an old wound. Not just pain. Understanding.
Beyond it, the road continued, straighter and more certain toward the waiting Central Kingdom.
They crossed the stone without ceremony as night approached, leaving Liu Xi untouched behind them.
Ahead, the Empire began.