The first sign the sect was tightening wasn't a guard.
It was a shortcut that stopped being a shortcut.
Li Shen learned it on a morning that looked like every other—grey light, damp stone, the smell of rice steam and slaked lime drifting from sanitation like an old argument.
He took a sealed slip from the courier counter, checked the stamp, and moved.
Stores first. Then Protocol. Then Waterline.
He chose the narrow service lane behind the ration pavilion because it saved time, and time mattered more now that receipts had to be returned within half a watch.
The lane was usually empty.
Today, a rope blocked it.
Not tied like a construction warning.
Tied like a decision.
Two servants stood beside it—boots cleaner than they should've been, belts heavy with tokens that didn't match their work tags.
They weren't guards.
They were worse.
They were people who belonged.
One of them looked at Li Shen's runner token and smiled without warmth.
"Lane's closed," he said.
Li Shen didn't stop walking until he had to. He kept his posture neutral, eyes low—respectful enough to be safe, not submissive enough to smell like prey.
"Why," he asked, voice flat.
The other man leaned against the wall as if he owned it.
"Guest corridor routing," he said lazily. "New priority. You'll go around."
Li Shen glanced at the rope.
No seal. No official tag. No slate.
Not procedure.
Possession.
He could have argued.
He could have asked for a supervisor.
He could have made the kind of noise that forced the machine to look at him.
And then the machine would remember his face.
He turned without comment and took the longer lane.
He still made his receipt window.
Barely.
When he returned to the courier counter, the clerk stamped his receipt and didn't look up.
Li Shen didn't complain.
Complaints were words.
Words became evidence.
But that night, he wrote one line in his ledger that wasn't a metric.
New: lanes can be "owned."
He didn't name the men.
Names would make it personal.
This wasn't personal.
It was structural.
---
By the end of the week, Li Shen could see the shape of it.
Not one group.
Two, maybe three, pulling against each other in ways servants weren't supposed to notice—because noticing turned you into a witness, and witnesses became liabilities.
The rope lane wasn't the only change.
A different corridor that used to be "restricted" suddenly opened for half a day, then closed again.
A sanitation allotment doubled for one crew and got cut for another.
A stores clerk who used to be a wall started granting exceptions—quiet, selective, always to the same tags.
It wasn't random.
It was pressure applied through paperwork.
The hosting year made everything visible.
So factions fought to decide what the sect would look like when outsiders arrived.
Bai Ren noticed first, because Bai Ren noticed the world with his muscles.
"They're not on the list," he muttered one evening, gesturing with his chin toward three men walking past the dorm sheds. "But they act like they are."
Li Shen didn't look directly. "They are. Just not on our list."
Bai Ren's face twisted. "Clan?"
Li Shen didn't answer with certainty. He answered with pattern.
"Protection," he said. "And ambition."
Bai Ren spat, controlled. "By who."
Li Shen's charcoal scratched softly across paper in the dim oil light.
He didn't write names. He wrote a test.
If they block a lane, they're backed. If a clerk looks away, they're backed.
If another clerk opens a different lane at the same hour, that's not mercy. That's opposition.
Bai Ren watched him write and shook his head.
"You're going to get yourself killed," he muttered. "You look at things too hard."
Li Shen closed the ledger.
"I'm not looking," he said. "I'm counting."
---
The pressure turned the worst kind of people bold.
On the second day of the new restrictions, a sealed slip went missing.
Not from Li Shen.
From another runner.
It wasn't dramatic. No shouting. No chase.
Just a delay in a lane that shouldn't delay.
Then another.
Then the courier clerk started checking stamps twice, jaw tight.
Half-watch windows became traps.
When you forced speed, you created mistakes.
When you created mistakes, you created leverage.
By midweek, the courier counter clerk called Li Shen closer than usual.
Not with friendliness.
With a decision.
"You," the clerk said, tapping a slate. "Stores run. Counter Nine. Now."
Li Shen took the slip.
As he turned, the clerk added quietly, "No shortcuts."
Li Shen paused for a fraction, then nodded.
He understood the warning.
Someone was watching which routes runners used.
Not the sect.
The people who had started treating lanes like property.
He left, took the long route deliberately, and still made the window.
At Stores, the clerk checked the seal, handed him a narrow bundle, and leaned closer.
"You're clean," the clerk said, voice low.
It wasn't praise.
It was an evaluation.
Li Shen didn't pretend modesty. "I return receipts."
The clerk's mouth tightened.
"That's not what I meant," he said.
Li Shen didn't ask.
The clerk glanced toward the back room, then back to Li Shen.
"Hosting year makes everyone hungry," he said. "Some people are using it to fatten themselves. They're squeezing lanes. Selling 'access.'"
Li Shen's eyes stayed down. "Who."
The clerk's expression hardened.
"You want to be reassigned to waste line?" he asked.
Li Shen understood.
Not naming was also procedure.
He nodded once.
The clerk exhaled like he'd said too much already, then added one line that mattered more than names.
"They'll try to make you miss," he said. "A clean runner makes them look dirty."
Li Shen took the bundle and left.
He didn't feel fear.
He felt clarity.
A system under stress always revealed its parasites.
---
That afternoon, he saw one of the fights step out of paper and into flesh.
Not a brawl.
A requisition.
A group of outer disciples walked through the service lanes with the casual authority of people who had never had to carry their own water.
Their robes were plain compared to inner disciples, but the way servants shifted out of their path made the difference obvious.
A young man at the front—sharp-eyed, impatient—held a slate and spoke to an attendant without slowing.
"Protocol lanes need more hands," he said. "I'm taking eight from maintenance and four runners for temporary attachment."
The attendant's mouth tightened.
"Temporary attachments require countersign," he said.
The young man didn't smile.
"Then get it," he said. "Or explain delays when the visitors arrive."
He turned his gaze briefly toward the servant line like he was selecting tools.
Li Shen kept his eyes down and his face empty.
The gaze passed over him and moved on.
Not because Li Shen was invisible.
Because Li Shen was already assigned, already tracked, already annoying to steal cleanly.
Bai Ren wasn't.
Bai Ren stood in a maintenance group with clay under his nails and strength in his shoulders.
The young man's eyes paused on him.
"Four from there," he said.
Bai Ren's head snapped up, reflexive anger flaring.
Li Shen saw it—saw the moment Bai Ren wanted to argue like a mortal.
Then Bai Ren's jaw clenched.
He looked away.
He swallowed it.
Because a disciple's slate could erase you with more efficiency than a fist ever could.
The attendant marked names and tags.
A detachment made official.
Not a promotion.
A capture.
As the group moved off, Bai Ren muttered through his teeth, "So that's what they do."
Li Shen didn't answer out loud.
Out loud was risky.
But he understood the new layer:
Factions didn't only block lanes.
They recruited bodies.
And outer disciples were the hands that grabbed.
---
He saw Yun Xue again three days later.
Not because he looked for her.
Because the courier lane passed near the herb yard more often now—more volume, more orders, more need for clean output.
She stood by Rack Line Twelve with the two girls beside her. The wooden tags were tucked into her sleeve like a secret she didn't deserve.
The older girl spoke fast and sharp, trying to win by volume.
"We can't finish by second bell," she complained. "It's too much."
Yun Xue blinked, as if the idea of not finishing hadn't occurred to her.
"Um… we can," she said softly. "If we start now."
"That's not an answer," the girl snapped.
Yun Xue's cheeks reddened. She looked briefly toward the attendant's slate table, then back to the racks.
"I'm sorry," she said, sincere enough that it made the older girl angrier. "It's… if we don't, they dock points. Then we can't buy oil. Then we can't dry the damp stems at night."
The younger girl's eyes widened. "Oil is for drying?"
Yun Xue nodded quickly, relieved someone was listening.
"Just a little," she said. "Not for fire. For… warmth near the racks."
The older girl rolled her eyes. "You talk like you're a supervisor."
Yun Xue flinched, then shook her head.
"No," she said. "I'm not. I'm just… responsible."
The word came out like a confession.
The older girl snorted. "Responsible gets punished first."
Yun Xue hesitated, then answered with naive honesty.
"Then we do it right," she said. "So they don't have a reason."
It wasn't wisdom.
It was her way of holding the world: if you did the right thing, the world would respond correctly.
Li Shen didn't believe that.
But he respected the discipline it created.
As he passed, Yun Xue noticed him and dipped her head too quickly.
Li Shen gave a small nod back and kept moving.
He didn't want to be associated with her publicly.
Association created targets.
---
Targets came anyway.
Two nights later, Li Shen returned to the dorm shed with his shoulders tight and his hands still smelling faintly of seal paste.
The oil flame was low.
Bai Ren was already there, sitting up, eyes sharp.
"They blocked the lane again," Bai Ren said. "The rope. I saw it."
Li Shen nodded once.
Bai Ren leaned in. "And today, a clerk docked my points. Said my crew was 'late' on a rail job even though we weren't."
Li Shen's jaw tightened.
That was how it worked.
If they couldn't hit you directly, they hit your lane.
Bai Ren's voice dropped.
"They're pushing," he said. "They want someone to snap."
Li Shen took out his ledger.
Not to count breaths.
To anchor his mind.
He wrote without flourish.
Pattern: lane ownership → delays → blame shifts → points docked.
New layer: temporary attachments used as capture.
Goal: make clean people miss windows. create "evidence."
Response: no shortcuts. redundant routes. keep receipts clean.
Rule: don't fight faction pressure with fists.
Bai Ren watched him write and swallowed.
"You really think it's factions," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen capped the oil bottle.
"I think it's power," he said. "Clan, elder's household, outer disciple circles. Doesn't matter."
Bai Ren's hands curled into fists.
"It matters to me," he muttered. "I want to hit something."
Li Shen looked at him, eyes calm.
"If you hit, you lose," he said. "They can afford bruises. We can't afford records."
Bai Ren's breathing was heavy.
Then it slowed.
Not because he was convinced by philosophy.
Because he trusted Li Shen's survival instincts more than his own temper.
Outside, a late bell rang.
Another shift.
Another quota.
Hosting year didn't just tighten the sect's grip.
It gave parasites and climbers the same excuse: efficiency.
Li Shen lay back and listened to the shed's breathing.
Not as numbers this time.
As people.
A month ago, he had thought being registered meant safety.
Now he understood the next layer:
Being registered meant you were inside the machine.
And inside the machine, the real fights weren't with swords.
They were with lanes, attachments, receipts, and the quiet power of a rope tied across your path.