The order didn't arrive with shouting.
It arrived with a new line on a slate.
A stamped directive posted beside the sanitation lane, ink still dark, as if freshness made it more legitimate.
SANITATION PUSH — PRIORITY
Visitor stations: completion accelerated.
Slaked lime allotment increased.
Runners: delivery windows tightened.
Failure → points docked. Repeat failure → reassignment.
No explanation.
No ceremony.
Just a timeline that didn't care what bodies could handle.
Bai Ren read it once, then again, like the words might change if he stared hard enough.
"They want it done yesterday," he muttered.
Li Shen didn't answer with comfort.
"They want it done before someone else notices it isn't," he said.
That was the difference between work and hosting work.
Normal months forgave ugly.
Hosting months punished visible.
---
The push hit the lanes like a fever.
Every barrel of water became three barrels.
Every drain that used to "work enough" became unacceptable.
Every station that was planned for next month became a deadline for this week.
Sanitation crews doubled.
Waterline crews tripled.
Maintenance crews lost men to temporary attachments and still got blamed for being short.
And runners—clean runners—became the nervous system they squeezed until it twitched.
Li Shen's first run of the day was slaked lime.
Stores to sanitation.
Sealed sack, stamped slip, receipt window less than half a watch.
He took the long route on purpose—no shortcuts, no lane ropes, no unmarked corridors—and still arrived with his breath tight in his throat.
The sanitation supervisor didn't greet him.
He took the sack like it was oxygen, slapped a seal on the receipt, and shoved it back.
"More," he said. "Before second bell."
Li Shen pivoted without delay.
On the way back, he passed the rope lane again.
The rope was still there.
But the men beside it weren't.
Instead, an attendant stood with a slate and a face that looked like he'd stopped sleeping.
Official presence.
Which meant someone had complained loudly enough that the machine had been forced to look.
Li Shen didn't feel relief.
He felt a shift.
If the rope lane had been a faction's hand, the attendant was the sect's glove put over it.
Same grip.
Cleaner appearance.
He kept moving.
The second run was water barrels—sealed lids, stamped slips, a new requirement: double receipt seals.
The courier clerk had set a second slate beside the first again.
Temporary redline.
The kind that made the whole place feel like it was holding its breath.
Bai Ren's crew was at the drainage cut when Li Shen passed by midday.
The trench was deeper now. The slope more precise. Clay lining pressed into place.
It looked like work that had been planned carefully.
It was work being forced to sprint.
Bai Ren stood in the trench, mud to his calves, shovel in hand, jaw clenched so hard it made his face look older.
A figure stood above him at the edge—an outer disciple in plain robes, slate tucked under one arm like a weapon.
Not shouting.
Not helping.
Just watching.
"Faster," the disciple said, voice calm. "Visitors won't wait for your fatigue."
Bai Ren's shoulders twitched.
Li Shen saw the moment the fist wanted to exist.
Then Bai Ren forced his hands back onto the shovel.
Because records were sharper than knuckles.
Li Shen didn't stop.
Stopping would turn his sealed slip into a delay.
But he filed the name of the mechanism:
Temporary attachments weren't support.
They were control.
---
By late afternoon, the push started to rot where all pushes rot: at the edges.
Not in the center where everyone watched.
In the corners where people got tired.
A sanitation station near the lower dorm sheds started to smell wrong.
Not like latrines.
Like stagnant water.
The kind of smell that meant something had stopped moving.
Servants complained quietly at first, then stopped—because complaining didn't fix a drain and it did fix your reputation.
Li Shen smelled it on a run and adjusted his route by two paces, instinctive.
Bai Ren smelled it later and cursed loud enough to be heard.
"That's a slope failure," he snapped, climbing out of a trench and wiping mud off his hands. "They didn't line it."
An attendant standing near the station stiffened.
"We followed the plan," he said.
Bai Ren's eyes flared. "What plan? A plan doesn't stink."
The attendant's face tightened, then he did something Bai Ren didn't expect.
He pointed.
Not at Bai Ren.
At a sanitation crew on the far side.
"Ask them," he said. "They signed off."
Bai Ren's gaze swung. His jaw worked.
Li Shen arrived at the edge of the station with a sealed slip in hand, saw the accusation forming, and understood instantly:
This wasn't just failure.
It was blame moving.
A slope failed because someone rushed.
A rush happened because pressure was applied.
Pressure was applied by factions and disciples and hosting directives.
But none of those could be blamed safely.
So blame needed a body.
Bodies were plentiful.
Li Shen stepped in—not dramatic, not heroic—just positioned.
He held up his sealed slip to the attendant.
"Where is this receipt sealed," he asked, voice flat.
The attendant blinked, thrown off. "What?"
Li Shen didn't raise his tone. "My window is closing. Which counter."
The attendant's eyes flicked to the seal, to the stamps, to the runner token.
He pointed automatically. "Sanitation desk. Now."
Li Shen moved.
He didn't fix the drain.
He did something more valuable in a system like this:
He prevented a fight from turning into a record.
Because if Bai Ren hit someone here, it wouldn't be "just a punch."
It would be "disrupting hosting prep."
A phrase that could move you to waste line without anyone needing to hate you personally.
At the sanitation desk, the supervisor slammed a double seal onto Li Shen's receipt and shoved it back.
Then he leaned close, voice low, eyes sharp.
"They want to pin it," he said.
Li Shen didn't pretend ignorance. "On who."
The supervisor's mouth tightened.
"On someone who can't answer," he said. "Or on someone they already don't like."
Li Shen understood.
Not just incompetence.
Politics.
The supervisor's eyes flicked toward the lower station.
"We got new slaked lime sacks," he muttered. "But no new lining clay. Someone approved a shortcut."
Li Shen filed the phrase approved a shortcut like it was a knife.
In a redline week, shortcuts weren't mistakes.
They were choices.
And choices had owners.
---
That night, the dorm shed felt hotter than usual, packed with bodies that smelled of mud and white powder.
Bai Ren sat up, elbows on knees, hands shaking with restrained violence.
"They tried to blame us," he said. "Maintenance. Like we did it on purpose."
Li Shen set his ledger on his lap but didn't open it yet.
"Did you sign anything," he asked.
Bai Ren's eyes narrowed. "No."
"Good," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren's laugh was short and ugly.
"They had an outer disciple there," he said. "Watching. Like I'm a dog."
Li Shen nodded once.
"Because you're attached," he said. "And attachment makes you property."
Bai Ren's jaw tightened again.
"So what do we do?"
Li Shen opened the ledger, but this time he didn't write breath counts.
He wrote structure.
Sanitation push = redline.
Failure points: water stagnation + unlined slope.
Blame path: sanitation → maintenance → attached crews.
Likely cause: approved shortcut due to missing clay allotment.
Risk: signatures. fights. delays.
Counter: keep receipts. avoid signing unknown slates. document routes.
Bai Ren watched, breathing slowing despite himself.
"You write like you can stop it," he muttered.
Li Shen capped the oil bottle.
"I write so it can't stop me," he said.
Across the shed, Yun Xue's corner was quiet.
She was still awake, sitting with her back against a post, hands resting on her knees like she was pretending to be calm.
Two younger girls beside her whispered about racks and turning schedules.
Yun Xue answered softly, too polite, too earnest.
"No, um… don't stack the damp ones. Please. It… it gets angry later."
One girl giggled. "It gets angry?"
Yun Xue flushed. "Mold. Mold gets angry."
It was a small sound, almost a laugh.
Not joy.
Relief.
Even in redline, small humanity leaked through.
Li Shen watched for a moment longer than he should have.
Then he looked away.
Because the sect didn't punish feelings.
It punished visible failures.
And tomorrow, they would push again.
Harder.
Because the smell had been noticed.
And in a hosting year, being noticed was the first step toward being blamed.