The morning after Elder Yan took the orchids, the sect got cleaner.
Not in the way soap made things clean.
In the way fear did.
Buckets moved in disciplined lines. Rags were replaced before they wore thin. Nails that had been "fine" yesterday were suddenly unacceptable. A supervisor walked the sanitation lanes with a slate and a face like stone, stopping twice as often, marking twice as much.
The visitor corridor lanterns stayed unlit in daylight, but they still made the air feel watched.
Li Shen noticed the change the way he noticed weather: not as drama, but as pressure.
He was Tier Two now. That meant he carried messages, ran errands between stations, filled gaps where a shift broke. It meant he saw more corners than most servants did.
It also meant paper crossed his hands more often.
And paper was where the Hall lived.
At first it looked like nothing.
A new compliance slate posted near the wash basins: Cleanliness verified — signature required. A second slate added beside it: Stock handling — responsible party. A third: Incident routing log.
Three slates where there had been one.
Three chances for someone to be wrong.
Li Shen read them without slowing.
He didn't look like he was reading.
That was important.
People who looked like they understood things attracted problems.
He finished his assigned run—two sealed cloth bundles to the outer kitchens, one message to the tool shed supervisor—and returned to the sanitation turn just as a minor supervisor called out names.
"Tier Two," the man barked. "You. Li."
Li Shen stepped forward.
The man shoved a strip of paper into his hand without ceremony.
"Deliver this to Station Twelve. Get the stamp. Bring it back."
Li Shen glanced at the header.
Correction Notice — Conclave Stock Handling
The words were neat. Official. Too neat for something that was supposed to be routine.
He didn't show reaction. He didn't even frown.
He simply looked at the bottom line.
Blank space.
No name filled in.
Just a place where someone would sign and become true.
Li Shen's fingers tightened slightly around the paper.
Behind the supervisor, a Hall courier stood near the wall as if he belonged there. Clean sleeves. Lacquered token. Eyes that didn't look at Li Shen directly, but still tracked him like a ledger tracked loss.
Collateral.
That was what this was.
Elder Yan had taken a piece off the board.
So the board was being rearranged.
Li Shen bowed once. "Yes."
He walked away at a normal pace.
Not fast enough to look nervous.
Not slow enough to look defiant.
---
Station Twelve was a storage junction for oils and cloth—things that mattered more when guests arrived. The air smelled of sealed clay and old rope. Two senior servants sat behind a table with a stamp block and a slate, acting like minor officials because for the next few tendays, that was what the sect needed.
Li Shen placed the correction notice on the table.
"Stamp," he said.
One of the seniors scanned the header and frowned. "Correction?"
Li Shen kept his voice level. "Supervisor said."
The senior turned the paper, eyes moving to the blank signature line.
His frown deepened. "Who is this correction for?"
Li Shen lifted his shoulders a fraction. Not ignorance. Neutrality. "No name given."
The senior clicked his tongue.
He reached for the stamp—then paused.
His hand hovered.
Because stamping a correction without a name was like sealing a knife without knowing which throat it was meant for.
He looked at Li Shen.
"You bring this from where?" he asked.
"Sanitation turn," Li Shen said.
"And who gave it to you?"
Li Shen answered honestly, because lies created records you couldn't control.
"Minor Supervisor Qiu."
The senior's eyes narrowed slightly. He leaned back and called to the second senior.
"Look at this."
The second senior took the paper, scanned it, then glanced toward the door as if expecting someone to be listening.
He lowered his voice. "Hall?"
The first senior's mouth tightened. "Of course it's Hall."
Li Shen waited. He didn't push. People made better choices when they thought the choice was theirs.
The first senior picked up the stamp again.
Li Shen watched his hand.
If the stamp came down, the paper became official. If it became official, someone could later fill in the blank and attach the correction to any name they wanted.
To his.
To Bai Ren's.
To any Tier Two runner who had handled Conclave stock routing.
The senior's hand hovered one more beat.
Then he set the stamp down.
"No," he said flatly.
The word was small.
It felt like a boulder.
Li Shen kept his face calm. "Supervisor ordered."
The senior didn't move. "Then your supervisor can put his own name on it."
He pushed the paper back across the table with two fingers, as if it were dirty.
Li Shen nodded once and took it.
That was step one: refusal without confrontation.
Now step two was making that refusal survive contact with the Hall.
---
On the way back, he didn't go straight.
Not because he was afraid.
Because the direct path was where people waited.
He cut behind the tool shed and through a narrow lane where older servants stored broken boards. He slowed just enough to step past a group of probationers scrubbing stones under a supervisor's eyes. He took the long route to the sanitation turn.
By the time he returned, Minor Supervisor Qiu was still there, slate in hand, face fixed in impatience.
The Hall courier had moved three steps closer to the lane.
Like a man shifting his weight, preparing to pounce.
Li Shen approached and bowed.
"No stamp," he said.
Qiu's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"
"They said no name," Li Shen replied.
Qiu's jaw tightened. "They stamp what I tell them."
"They said you can sign it first," Li Shen said.
A small lie lived inside that sentence.
Not in the content.
In the trap.
Because if Qiu signed it first, his name would anchor the correction. The blank would disappear. The knife would point at him.
And Qiu would not do that.
Qiu's nostrils flared. "You're Tier Two. You don't argue. Go back."
Li Shen kept his posture respectful. "They refused."
Qiu's gaze flicked, just once, toward the Hall courier.
Li Shen saw it.
That glance told him Qiu hadn't authored the paper.
He was delivering it the same way Li Shen was delivering it—except Qiu had authority and therefore responsibility.
The Hall courier stepped forward, voice smooth.
"Small misunderstanding," he said. "The correction is standard. We only need the station stamp to verify receipt."
Li Shen looked at him for the first time.
The courier's eyes were calm. Too calm.
He spoke as if truth was whatever stayed on the paper after the ink dried.
Li Shen bowed to him too, because politeness was armor.
"The station will not stamp blanks," Li Shen said.
The courier smiled slightly, as if amused by the idea of rules.
"Then you fill the responsible party," he said softly. "Write your name. Then stamp."
There it was.
The trap delivered in a courteous voice.
Li Shen lowered his eyes.
If he refused openly, he became difficult.
If he complied, he became recorded.
He chose the third path.
"Tier Two cannot write corrections," he said, tone flat. "Only supervisors can."
He didn't invent that rule.
He didn't need to.
In a sect, you could always hide behind hierarchy, because hierarchy was the one thing even the Hall couldn't argue with in public.
The courier's smile thinned.
Qiu's face twitched. He didn't want to be on the paper. He also didn't want to look weak.
"Fine," Qiu snapped. He snatched the strip from Li Shen's hand and jabbed his brush at the blank line.
Then he froze.
Because the moment his brush touched the paper, he understood what it was.
His throat worked.
He looked up, eyes sharp now.
"This—" he started.
The courier's voice stayed smooth. "It's routine."
Qiu's jaw clenched. He glanced around.
Servants were nearby. Probationers. Two other minor supervisors. Too many eyes.
If he signed, he took the knife.
If he didn't, he refused a "routine" correction in front of witnesses, and the Hall would mark him as uncooperative.
Qiu's pride wrestled with his instinct.
Li Shen waited.
He didn't blink.
He didn't speak.
Because silence forced the decision to happen.
Qiu exhaled harshly and shoved the paper back into Li Shen's hand.
"Take it to Senior Liu," he barked. "If the Hall wants routine, they can talk to a real supervisor."
The courier's eyes tightened by a fraction.
Li Shen bowed. "Yes."
He turned and walked away.
Still not fast.
Still not slow.
But inside, he filed the outcome like a lesson:
The Hall couldn't force a knife into his hand today.
So it had tried to force it into his supervisor's.
Collateral clean.
The sect got cleaner because the Hall had been embarrassed.
And embarrassment, in a place like this, always demanded payment.
---
Senior Liu's office was a small room near the central sanitation stores—close enough to matter, far enough that minor staff didn't wander in without reason. A bell rope hung beside the door. Li Shen didn't pull it.
He knocked once, waited, then knocked again.
A voice inside said, "Enter."
Li Shen stepped in and bowed.
Senior Liu sat behind a table with three slates, a stamp block, and a cup of tea that had gone cold. He looked up with the tired eyes of a man who had been promoted just enough to be responsible for other people's stupidity.
"What," Liu said.
Li Shen placed the correction strip on the table without flourish.
"It was sent for Station Twelve stamp," Li Shen said. "They refused. Hall courier asked me to write my name."
Senior Liu's eyes sharpened immediately.
He read the header, then the blank line, then the routing mark at the bottom.
His mouth tightened.
"Where did this come from," he asked.
"Minor Supervisor Qiu," Li Shen said.
Senior Liu exhaled once, slow.
Then he did something that mattered more than any stamp:
He took his brush and wrote a single line across the blank signature space.
Not a name.
A cancellation mark.
A diagonal slash that made the paper useless.
He stamped it with his own seal.
VOID.
Li Shen watched without expression.
Senior Liu looked up.
"Good," he said. "You didn't sign."
Li Shen bowed. "Yes."
Senior Liu's gaze held Li Shen's for a heartbeat.
Then his voice dropped.
"You're Tier Two," he said. "That means you run where paper runs. It also means paper will try to run you."
Li Shen kept his face neutral. "Yes, Senior."
Senior Liu leaned back.
"Don't get proud," he said. "Pride makes you visible."
Li Shen didn't answer, because he didn't need to.
He wasn't proud.
He was tired.
Senior Liu waved his hand. "Go."
Li Shen bowed again and left.
Outside, the lane air felt colder than it should have.
Lantern frames lined the visitor corridor like ribs.
The sect was polishing its face.
The Hall was sharpening its paper.
And Li Shen understood something with the same clarity as hunger:
Elder Yan's hand on the orchid had opened one door.
But it had also kicked the hornet nest.
The Conclave hadn't even begun.
And the machine was already rearranging who it intended to eat.