The new yard didn't feel kinder.
It felt measured.
The ground was swept. Lanes were straight. Lantern posts were fixed at set distances like someone had drawn the place with a ruler instead of building it with panic. Even the air tasted different—less rot, more ash and starch, the smell of a machine that had stopped improvising.
Li Shen stood with the rest of the night-transfer batch in a short line beneath a roofed platform.
Not a crowd.
A unit.
A uniformed attendant checked their tags one by one, fingers tracing notches like he was reading a language carved into wood.
He didn't look at faces. Faces lied.
Wrist-tags didn't.
"Probation," the attendant said finally, voice flat, not a warning so much as a category. "You're inside. You're not registered."
He pointed toward a board fixed to a post.
It wasn't a notice. It was a schedule.
Times. Quotas. Penalties.
No poetry.
An older servant—an actual crew leader, shoulders rope-thick, eyes dead calm—walked out from the shed and stood in front of them.
He wore the same plain uniform as the others, but the way the lane moved around him made his rank obvious.
"Listen," he said. "You passed the drowning. Don't celebrate."
No pause for effect.
"This yard is where you learn how to work without costing us."
He held up a small wooden tablet with marks carved into it.
"Points," he said.
The word landed heavier than it should have.
"Work earns points. Mistakes lose points. Missing tools lose points. Missing your lane loses points. Talking when you should move loses points."
He pointed toward the ration station at the far edge of the yard.
"Points buy food," he said. "Not comfort. Not respect. Food."
A few people shifted.
Bai Ren, beside Li Shen, looked like he wanted to say something clever and hateful.
Li Shen didn't even glance at him.
Bai Ren swallowed it.
Good.
The crew leader continued.
"Lose too many points, you drop a tier. Drop a tier too many times, you're gone."
Gone.
Not punished.
Not sentenced.
Just removed from the accounting.
The crew leader's eyes swept them, quick and indifferent.
"Your job is simple," he finished. "Stay on the record. Don't be expensive."
Then he turned and started assigning.
Not by name.
By notch.
"Stone haul—male tags with left notch."
A cluster was pointed toward a lane marked with white stakes.
"Ash pit—right notch."
Another cluster moved.
"Water line—double notch."
A smaller group.
"Kitchen yard—thin cord. South lane."
Women and girls were directed without commentary, the system categorizing bodies by what it could extract without breaking them too fast.
Li Shen looked down at his own tag.
Notch. Left.
Bai Ren checked his and frowned. "Why do I feel like the notch is an insult?"
Li Shen replied, quiet. "It's a decision. Don't argue with it."
Bai Ren made a noise like he wanted to laugh. He didn't.
On the women's lane, Yun Xue stood with her tag held in both hands, eyes down, shoulders tight.
Her cord was thinner. Her notch placement different.
Light duty, like Li Shen had predicted.
A kitchen attendant walked her lane and pointed.
"South. Sorting shed."
Yun Xue flinched, then nodded quickly. "Yes."
She didn't say I can this time.
She just moved.
Li Shen watched her go for half a second—long enough to confirm she was walking steady, not wobbling—and then returned his gaze to his own lane.
Work began immediately.
Stone haul wasn't the chaotic carrying of the buffer belt.
It was organized suffering.
Teams of four. Fixed route. Fixed count.
A foreman stood by the stack with a slate and a short measuring stick, tapping the top stone of each pile and marking points without looking up.
"Six stones per run," he said. "Two runs per bell. Drop it, you repeat. Break it, you pay."
"How do you pay—" someone started.
The foreman looked at him like the question was a stain.
"With points," he said.
That ended the curiosity.
Li Shen took his position at the front of his team.
The stone was rough and cold. It bit into his palms. The weight didn't train him. It threatened to grind him down.
He breathed low.
In. Hold. Out.
Then he lifted.
Bai Ren was on the second stone behind him.
He grunted, then leaned close enough to whisper without breaking stride.
"This is worse," he said. "At least the buffer belt pretended to be chaos. This is… designed."
Li Shen adjusted the stone against his shoulder. "Designed means predictable."
Bai Ren hissed. "Predictably miserable."
"Predictable means survivable," Li Shen corrected.
The lane turned past a tool rack where a cage-keeper watched returns like a hawk watches meat.
Another foreman stood at a water station, marking who drank and how long they stood.
Not to shame them.
To measure delay.
Li Shen swallowed water in three gulps, stepped away before his throat asked for more, and kept moving.
Not because he was strong.
Because he refused to become a problem.
Midday brought a short ration break.
Not a meal.
A transaction.
Li Shen held his tag out at a small counter and watched an attendant scrape a portion into his bowl.
He caught the motion of the attendant's chalk as well: a small mark placed beside his number on a slate.
Not praise.
Accounting.
Bai Ren received his ration and stared at the portion like it had personally betrayed him.
"You could feed a bird with this," he muttered.
Li Shen didn't look at him. "Then don't waste it."
Bai Ren ate anyway.
Because hunger didn't negotiate.
On the far side of the yard, the south lanes were visible through gaps between sheds.
Li Shen didn't have time to wander, but he had time to notice.
The sorting shed was a long low structure with racks and baskets and bins. Women and girls moved there with smaller loads—still work, still constant, but less punishing on joints.
Yun Xue was among them, head down, hands moving carefully as if she was afraid of breaking something that wasn't fragile enough to break.
She didn't stand out.
That was her strength right now.
She blended into function.
Bai Ren followed Li Shen's gaze and squinted. "That tiny one. She's still up."
Li Shen said nothing.
If Yun Xue lasted, it would be because she kept being unremarkable in the right way.
Afternoon work tightened.
Stone haul again.
Route again.
Count again.
Li Shen hit his stop markers twice—tongue drying, hands starting to tremble—and adjusted before the tremor became visible.
He shifted grip. He lowered breath. He shortened stride to keep stability.
Efficiency, not heroism.
Near dusk, the foreman called a pause.
Not for rest.
For inspection.
Tool returns. Stone counts. Tag checks.
A new attendant walked the line, older than the foreman, eyes dull with authority that didn't need to raise its voice.
He checked wrists.
He checked notches.
He checked cord thickness.
When he reached Li Shen, his finger paused at the notch for half a heartbeat longer than necessary.
Not a compliment.
A confirmation.
He moved on.
Bai Ren whispered, "Did he just—"
Li Shen cut him off without looking. "Don't narrate your own death."
Bai Ren's lips pressed together hard enough to whiten.
He shut up.
Night fell.
The probation yard didn't relax when light left the sky.
It changed tasks.
Ash pits glowed in one corner where older servants shoveled and raked like they were tending a furnace that would eat them if they turned away. Water lines ran under lantern light. Tool-cages clicked shut. Points were marked. Mistakes were recorded.
Li Shen walked back to the dorm shed assigned to his batch.
Inside, the beds were closer to orderly than the buffer belt had ever been. The air was still thick, but less desperate. Fewer people moaned in their sleep. Fewer coughed.
The drowning was over.
The accounting had begun.
Bai Ren sat down on his platform and exhaled like he'd been holding himself together with spite.
"So," he whispered, "how long is probation?"
Li Shen slid his ledger out, hands steady despite the ache, and answered honestly.
"Until they decide you're cheaper to keep than to replace."
Bai Ren stared at him, then laughed once—quiet, sharp, almost respectful.
"That is the worst comfort I've ever heard."
Li Shen didn't smile.
He wrote.
Breath: held. low. stable.
Work: stone haul. 12 runs. hands torn.
Points: unknown. ration portion small.
Rule: predictable is survivable. accounting begins.
In the next lane over, a low murmur rose from the women's dorm section—soft voices, the sound of bowls, the scrape of straw.
Yun Xue's voice appeared for a moment—not saying I can, not apologizing.
Just a small, steady question to another girl:
"Which basket goes where?"
A simple sentence.
A living sentence.
Li Shen closed the ledger and lay back, letting the ache settle into something he could carry.
Outside, lanterns kept burning in straight lines.
The probation yard didn't sleep.
It processed.
And Li Shen, for the first time since leaving the village, felt the shape of something that resembled progress:
Not strength.
Not destiny.
A place in the machine.
A place that could, with enough discipline, become leverage.