The village didn't feel like a village anymore.
It felt like a staging ground.
Paths that used to carry gossip and water buckets now carried rope, sacks, and arguments. People stood in small clusters with their heads close together, speaking in the tight voices of those who knew a wrong word could cost them a place on a cart—or a place in someone's favor.
The decree had done something simple and violent.
It had given everyone the same dream.
And then it had forced them to compete for it with empty hands.
Li Shen moved through it without getting swallowed.
That was new.
Before, the village could pull you into its moods like mud. It could hold you with noise, with kindness, with obligation. Now the whole place was too tense for softness. Even the well sounded different—buckets hitting stone like someone striking a gong.
He found Li Heng in their yard before the Chief called for them.
His father was tying a knot and retying it, not because the knot was wrong, but because tightening something was easier than tightening the air in his lungs.
"You're early," Li Heng said.
Li Shen shrugged. "The village is loud."
Li Heng's eyes flicked over him. Not the way a father checked a child for bruises, but the way a man checked a partner for readiness.
"You ate."
"Yes."
"You slept."
Li Shen didn't lie. "Enough."
Li Heng nodded once. Then he said the thing that mattered.
"They want a list by sunset."
Li Shen felt it settle in his chest. Not fear. Not excitement. Pressure, with a clear shape.
"A list for our group," Li Shen said.
"For our group," Li Heng confirmed.
They walked together toward the Chief's yard.
No speeches. No vows.
Their decisions had already been made the night the decree was read and the house stayed quiet afterward.
---
The Chief's yard looked smaller when it was full.
The registry table sat in the middle like an altar. The Chief stood behind it with two elders, Old Gao and another man with a sharp nose and a sharper brush. A clay lamp burned even in daylight, as if the village didn't trust the sun anymore.
Wu Shun was there too.
Of course he was.
He stood off to the side, close enough to be "helpful," far enough to pretend he wasn't desperate to control the flow of names.
His eyes found Li Shen the moment Li Shen stepped in.
The smile was polite.
The calculation underneath wasn't.
The Chief raised his hand. "Quiet."
This time it happened faster.
Because the village had learned something overnight: shouting didn't change the decree. Shouting only changed who got heard.
"Second cluster," the Chief said, scanning the yard. "Li Heng. Step forward."
Li Heng did.
Li Shen stood half a step behind him.
Not hiding. Not challenging.
Present.
The sharp-nosed elder dipped his brush. "Names."
Li Heng answered cleanly. "Li Heng. Li Shen."
The brush scratched.
"Any others?" the elder asked.
Li Heng's gaze flicked to Li Shen for a heartbeat—permission, not uncertainty.
Li Shen spoke before Wu Shun could attach himself to the answer.
"Qian Mei," Li Shen said. "If her family agrees."
A murmur ran through the crowd. Not outrage—interest. The village was already learning to track alliances.
Wu Shun's voice drifted in, smooth. "You're building your own little team."
Li Shen didn't look at him.
He addressed the Chief. "Our cart can take one more adult," he said, "and a small child only if the child walks and carries their own blanket. If we pack like fools, we break the axle and die on the road."
The Chief's eyes narrowed. "You're counting already."
"Yes," Li Shen said. "Because if we break an axle halfway, the decree won't send a second cart."
That earned a few nods. Bitter, but real.
The Chief tapped the table with two fingers. "Fine. The Qian family may join your cluster if they accept the road rules."
Wu Shun chuckled softly. "Road rules. Listen to him."
Old Gao's voice cut through like a shovel hitting stone. "Better a child with rules than an adult with schemes."
Wu Shun's smile held. His eyes hardened.
The elder with the brush asked, "Supplies."
Li Heng listed them without decoration.
"Grain for travel. Salt. Dried vegetables. Rope. A blanket each. One cooking pot."
The elder's pen paused. "Medicine?"
Li Heng's face didn't move. "We can't afford real medicine. We have herbs."
The word herbs made a few people glance away. It was the village's oldest lie: that boiled leaves could bargain with Heaven.
Li Shen said nothing. He had learned what that lie cost.
Wu Shun leaned forward slightly. "And coin?"
Li Heng's eyes finally met Wu Shun's.
"No coin," Li Heng said. "We don't owe you an explanation for that."
Wu Shun's lips curved. "You owe the village an explanation for anything that affects the village."
Li Heng's voice stayed level. "Then ask the Chief."
The Chief exhaled through his nose, irritated. "Enough. Wu Shun, you're not running this list."
Wu Shun spread his hands, all innocence. "Of course not. I only worry about fairness."
Li Shen thought: Fairness is what people say when they want to measure you.
The sharp-nosed elder dipped his brush again. "Rules for the road," he said. "The decree gives ten days, but the road doesn't care about decrees."
That was true.
He lifted his eyes. "Water ration. Grain ration. No wandering alone. No fighting inside the cluster unless it's life or death. If bandits appear, you listen to whoever is calmest, not whoever is loudest."
A few men laughed nervously.
Li Shen didn't.
He watched Wu Shun's face.
Wu Shun didn't like rules that didn't come from him.
The elder's gaze landed on Li Shen briefly, as if noticing him for the first time as more than "a child from the Li house."
"What about counting?" the elder asked. "Who tracks shared supplies?"
Li Shen felt the yard's attention tilt.
This was the hook.
If he accepted, he became a target for every hungry mouth.
If he refused, someone like Wu Shun would offer to do it "fairly."
Li Shen chose the least damaging option.
"My father tracks our cart," Li Shen said. "I track shared supplies only if the cluster agrees to one condition."
The elder raised a brow. "Speak."
Li Shen's voice stayed even. "If I write it down, it's real. If someone claims otherwise, we recount together. No shouting. No 'I remember.' We recount."
Silence.
Then Old Gao gave a dry, approving grunt.
The Chief nodded slowly. "Reasonable."
Wu Shun smiled again. "A child playing magistrate."
Li Shen finally looked at him.
"No," Li Shen said. "A child refusing to be cheated."
That landed because everyone in the yard understood cheating wasn't an accident. It was a skill.
Wu Shun's eyes narrowed, almost imperceptibly.
Then he turned away, as if Li Shen had become temporarily uninteresting.
That was worse than anger.
The Chief's brush paused.
"And Luo Yao?" he asked.
A quiet shift ran through the yard. People didn't speak of Luo Yao loudly. Not because she was feared—because her past was thin, and thin pasts made people uneasy.
Years ago, when Luo Yao arrived with a swollen belly and no family behind her, the village had grumbled—then made room anyway. Some kindness wasn't charity. It was a kind of insurance against the world.
Li Heng answered before anyone else could shape the story for her. "She goes. And her boy goes."
"He's not six," someone muttered—half objection, half hope.
Li Heng's eyes stayed level. "He turns six on the selection day."
The sharp-nosed elder frowned. "The city checks bone-age, not gossip. If the mirror says he qualifies, he qualifies."
The Chief nodded once. "Then Luo Yao and her child are provisionally attached to this cluster. One adult. One small child. Light loads. No arguments."
Wu Shun's mouth tightened for a heartbeat, then smoothed again.
A woman and a child were not useful to his kind of "fairness."
---
After the yard, Li Shen and Li Heng found Qian Mei near the well.
Her mother was speaking in a tight, hurried voice to another woman, and her father stood behind her with the posture of someone bracing for a price he hadn't agreed to yet. Qian Mei didn't fidget. She watched everything.
Li Heng approached first.
"Qian," he said—steady. "We registered the second cluster. Li house and your house, if you want it."
Qian Mei's father blinked, caught off guard by the directness. "You're taking her?"
Li Heng nodded once. "If you allow it. And if you understand what it means."
Qian Mei's mother's hands tightened around her basket. "We understand it's a chance."
Li Heng didn't let that word float unchallenged. "It's also a road. Roads take payment."
Silence.
Then Qian Mei's father exhaled slowly. "What payment?"
Li Heng answered without drama. "Discipline. Light loads. Shared rules. No private hoarding that breaks the cart. No shouting over numbers."
Qian Mei's mother looked as if she wanted to argue, then swallowed it. "We don't hoard."
Li Heng's gaze didn't accuse. It measured. "Good. Then it won't be hard to prove."
He turned slightly, angling his body so Li Shen was included without being forced to lead.
Li Shen added only what a child could credibly add—small, sharp, useful.
"Pack light," he said. "Food you can carry. Not food you wish you could carry."
Qian Mei's father frowned. "Light means hungry."
Li Heng took that hit for him. "Light means alive. Hungry can be managed. A broken axle can't."
Qian Mei spoke then—quiet, decisive, not seeking permission. "We'll come."
Her mother's breath caught. "Mei—"
Li Heng raised a hand, not commanding, just stopping the flood. "She's the one who will walk the road. Let her speak."
That landed harder than any speech.
Qian Mei's father looked at his daughter for a long moment, then nodded. The nod wasn't joy. It was acceptance.
Li Heng continued, sealing the agreement like a contract, not a favor.
"Dawn tomorrow, we sort shared supplies," Li Heng said. "If your house brings extra weight, it rides only if the cart holds. If it doesn't, it stays. No resentment. No blaming the road."
Qian Mei's father's jaw worked, then he said, "Fine."
Li Heng nodded once. "Then it's settled."
Only after that did Li Shen look at Qian Mei and give her the smaller promise—his scale.
"Tomorrow," he said.
Qian Mei's eyes met his. "Tomorrow."
---
That night, the village tried to celebrate.
Someone slaughtered a chicken. Someone else brought weak wine. A few people laughed too loudly around a fire as if volume could keep fear away.
Li Shen didn't join.
He sat on the threshold of his house while Li Heng sharpened a tool that didn't really need sharpening.
The sound of stone on metal was steady. Honest.
Li Shen watched sparks jump and die.
"You did well today," Li Heng said finally.
Li Shen didn't take it as praise. He took it as a report.
"We're not trapped under Wu Shun," Li Shen said.
Li Heng's mouth tightened. "Not yet."
The bluntness was comforting.
Li Shen looked at the dark beyond the yard, beyond the houses.
He thought about the road. About Haoyang. About the test the decree promised.
He also thought about something smaller.
A mound of earth behind the village.
He hadn't gone today.
He had wanted to.
But the day had been consumed by lists and men and rules that pretended to be stable.
He felt the guilt flare—brief, sharp.
Li Heng noticed anyway. Li Heng always noticed the things Li Shen didn't say.
"Tomorrow morning," Li Heng said.
Li Shen's throat tightened. "Before we leave."
"Yes."
Li Shen nodded once.
Not because it fixed anything.
Because it was the only way he knew to keep his mother from becoming a memory that only hurt.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Then Li Heng said, quietly, as if speaking to the house itself:
"The road doesn't care who you were."
Li Shen's eyes stayed on the dark.
"I know," he said.
Li Heng's blade paused. "Good. Then remember the second half."
Li Shen looked at him.
Li Heng's voice didn't soften. It didn't need to.
"The road also doesn't care how old you are," Li Heng said. "So you don't get to act like a child when it's convenient."
Li Shen exhaled slowly.
"I won't," he said.
Li Heng nodded, once.
That was approval. That was love. That was everything his father had left to give.
Outside, the village's laughter rose and fell like wind.
Inside, the quiet held.
Not empty.
Ready.
And somewhere beyond the next sunrise, the world waited to see what kind of boy left the Vent Pale—
and what kind of man came back.