Yun Xue expected a rescue to feel warm.
This didn't.
There was no gentle hand on her shoulder. No soft voice telling her she was safe now. No pause to let her breathe through the shaking in her fingers.
Elder Yan's attendant walked at a steady pace, and Yun Xue followed like a shadow with a bundle too heavy for her frame, trying not to fall behind.
The sect looked different on this side.
Not richer—cleaner.
The stones underfoot were flatter. The drainage channels were carved deeper. Even the weeds along the edges had been pulled in a way that suggested someone cared about the shape of disorder.
They passed a low gate marked with an herb sigil. Behind it, the air changed. Less dust. Less smoke. More damp earth. A faint bitterness that lived in leaves.
The attendant stopped at a narrow desk where a clerk sat with a slate and a stamp.
He didn't look surprised to see Yun Xue. He looked like he had been warned she existed and had already decided she was inconvenient.
"Name," he said.
"Yun Xue," she whispered.
The clerk marked her down, then reached for her reassignment order. He checked the seal once, as if verifying that the world still obeyed hierarchy, and stamped a small wooden token.
It wasn't fancy. No jade. No metal.
Just wood, a notch cut into it, and a mark that meant under Elder Yan's yard.
He slid it to her.
"This stays visible," he said. "If you hide it, you lose it."
Yun Xue's fingers tightened around the token like it could evaporate.
"Yes," she whispered.
The clerk's eyes flicked to her bundle. "Put that down."
Yun Xue froze. "I—"
"That," he repeated, and pointed to a shelf behind the desk.
She set the bundle down carefully, then immediately felt exposed without it. Like she had left her skin behind.
The clerk didn't care about her discomfort.
"You will be issued supplies," he said. "You will not bring outside soil into this yard. You will not bring outside water. You will not bring outside pests. If you do, we burn your section and dock whoever trained you."
Yun Xue swallowed.
The attendant beside her didn't react. This was normal here.
The clerk tapped a slate with the edge of his brush. "You have a position. That means you have a standard."
Yun Xue bowed. "Yes."
He looked at her a moment longer, then spoke like someone reading weather.
"Don't make me write your name twice."
---
They walked deeper into the yard.
Rows of benches sat under shade cloth, spaced precisely. Pots were arranged like a formation—each one with a tag, each tag with a color thread that marked category and urgency. Thin irrigation channels ran between beds, and every few paces there was a shallow basin set into stone where tools could be rinsed without spreading soil.
Yun Xue's chest tightened.
It was… beautiful.
Not in a decorative way.
In a controlled way.
Like a place that had decided it didn't want accidents.
Workers moved quietly through the rows. Not many. Fewer than the Hall. But each one moved like their hands mattered.
A woman with grey in her hair glanced at Yun Xue and then looked away, uninterested. A boy older than Yun Xue carried a tray of seedlings with careful speed. He didn't look weak. He didn't look kind. He looked trained.
Yun Xue realized the difference immediately:
In the Hall, people were replaceable.
Here, people were tools.
And tools were kept sharp.
The attendant stopped at the edge of a section marked by white thread.
"Here," he said.
Yun Xue blinked at the tags.
Silvervein Orchid.
Not one pot.
A lot.
Several benches worth, each pot aligned, each leaf turned toward the same filtered light.
Yun Xue's breath caught despite herself.
The orchids looked… stable. Not perfect—but not in crisis. Not curling. Not panicking.
A thin heat rose in her chest that wasn't cultivation. It was something like recognition.
Her hands twitched, wanting to correct tiny things, wanting to turn a pot by a fraction, wanting to wipe dust that didn't exist.
"Elder Yan will inspect," the attendant said flatly. "Not for you. For the lot."
Yun Xue nodded too fast.
"Before you touch anything," he added, "you will learn the rules."
He pointed toward a basin where two small jars sat.
One jar had a pale residue around its rim.
The other didn't.
"Tell me the difference," he said.
Yun Xue leaned closer, cautious. She smelled them lightly.
The first jar smelled clean-sharp.
Her stomach tightened.
"Lime," she whispered.
The attendant's face didn't change. "And the second?"
"Water," she said.
He nodded once. "Good. Lime kills. Water carries. If you confuse them, you don't lose points. You lose plants."
Yun Xue swallowed.
"Here," he continued, "we don't talk about theft. We talk about loss. Loss has causes. We remove causes."
He lifted the lime jar and tilted it slightly so she could see the residue.
"Lime belongs outside," he said. "Sanitation lanes. Rot trenches. Not here."
Yun Xue's fingers clenched at her sides.
A part of her wanted to say, Someone used this on the orchids.
A part of her wanted to stay silent forever.
The attendant didn't wait for her courage.
He pointed to the soil bin near the bench.
"This soil is balanced for orchids," he said. "If you add ash-water, you change it. If you change it too fast, roots seize."
Yun Xue nodded slowly. She understood that.
Not academically.
In her hands.
The attendant's gaze sharpened. "You've handled them before."
Yun Xue hesitated, then whispered, "In the Hall."
His mouth tightened. "Yes. We noticed."
That word—noticed—hit like a slap.
Not kindness. Not admiration.
Attention.
Yun Xue lowered her gaze.
The attendant turned away. "Follow."
---
He took her through a short training circuit, each station designed like a warning.
Tool wash. Soil storage. Pest inspection.
At each one, he asked one question.
Not to teach her.
To measure her.
"What do you do if leaf tips brown overnight?"
Yun Xue answered quietly. "Check the soil. Check the air. Check for shock. Don't add more water first."
"What do you do if the smell changes?"
"Find the source before you touch the plant."
"What do you do if a supervisor tells you to speed up?"
Yun Xue swallowed.
This one mattered.
She glanced at the attendant's face and found nothing there.
"No one tells you to speed up here," he said, as if reading her. "Answer anyway."
Yun Xue forced the words out. "I keep the plant alive. Even if they don't like my pace."
The attendant stared at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded once.
"Good," he said. "Because if you follow bad orders, the plant dies and the blame still finds you."
That was the first thing anyone in this place said that felt like truth without teeth.
Yun Xue's throat tightened unexpectedly.
Not from fear.
From relief.
Because in the Hall, truth was something you weren't allowed to hold.
Here, it was a tool.
---
When they returned to the Silvervein Orchid benches, the attendant finally stepped aside.
"You have one hour," he said. "Do not move pots. Do not change soil. Only stabilize."
Yun Xue nodded.
He handed her a small cloth pouch.
Inside were two things: a sealed water vial, and a thin brush used for cleaning pot rims.
"Use only yard water," he said. "And clean your hands before you touch the lot."
Yun Xue's fingers trembled as she accepted it.
She knelt.
The orchids were quiet. They didn't look like they were begging. They looked like they were waiting.
Yun Xue misted lightly, not to water, just to soften the air.
She didn't pour.
She didn't feed.
She simply reduced stress.
Then she began rim by rim, brush stroke by brush stroke, removing what didn't belong.
She didn't see lime residue.
But she looked anyway.
Because now she knew what it meant when it appeared.
Her hands moved carefully, almost painfully slow.
And for the first time since the Hall, she wasn't being rushed by someone who didn't know what they were touching.
An hour passed without her noticing.
Not because she lost herself.
Because she found a rhythm where her attention could settle without fear.
When she finally sat back, her legs were numb.
Her breath had shortened.
She wiped her forehead with her sleeve and realized her fingers were shaking harder than before.
Her body had always been like this: thin, fragile, quick to tire.
But in the dorm lanes, weakness was something you hid.
Here, weakness was something that made you inefficient.
Yun Xue forced herself to stand.
The world tilted slightly.
Her vision narrowed at the edges.
She tightened her grip on the bench edge until the dizziness passed.
Don't fall, she told herself. If you fall, they'll decide you were a mistake.
A shadow fell across the bench.
Yun Xue stiffened.
Elder Yan stood there as if she had always been there.
No dramatic entrance. No loud aura.
Just presence—heavy enough that the air felt more ordered.
Yan's eyes swept the lot once, then paused on Yun Xue's hands.
"Show me," Yan said.
Yun Xue swallowed. "Elder?"
"Your work," Yan corrected, impatient. "Not your fear."
Yun Xue bowed and reached for the nearest pot with careful fingers.
She didn't move it.
She simply turned the leaf enough for Yan to see the underside, the subtle tension, the cleanliness of the rim, the moisture level.
Yan leaned in and looked.
Her gaze was sharp in a way Yun Xue had never experienced: not judging the appearance, but the condition.
Yan lifted her hand and hovered her fingers above the leaves.
For a heartbeat, Yun Xue felt a pressure in the air—like an invisible current passing through the bench.
Yan's expression didn't change.
"Stable," she said.
Yun Xue's chest tightened.
Yan's eyes shifted to Yun Xue's face.
"You're trembling," Yan observed.
Yun Xue tried to stop. It only made it worse.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
Yan's gaze hardened. "Don't apologize for reality. Fix it."
Yun Xue blinked.
Yan turned slightly and spoke to her attendant. "Tea."
The attendant moved immediately, not surprised.
Yun Xue froze, confused.
Yan didn't look at her.
"You will work in cycles," Yan said. "Twenty minutes, then breathe. Five minutes, then return. If you collapse, you waste time. Time is stock."
Yun Xue's throat tightened again.
Not because she felt cared for.
Because she felt… managed.
And management was safer than neglect.
"Yes," she whispered.
Yan finally looked down at her.
"You don't belong to the Hall," Yan said. "So don't carry their habits here."
Yun Xue didn't know what to do with that sentence.
It wasn't comfort.
It was ownership.
But ownership came with rules, and rules were something Yun Xue could survive.
Yan's eyes drifted back to the orchids.
"Silvervein Orchid is Conclave medicine," she said. "It will be used, publicly. That means it cannot fail quietly."
Yun Xue's heart stumbled. "Conclave…"
Yan's mouth tightened. "You will hear the word until you hate it. Good. Hate keeps you awake."
The attendant returned with a small cup of bitter tea.
Yun Xue accepted it with both hands, sipped, and felt warmth spread into her chest.
It didn't heal her weakness.
It simply steadied it.
Yan watched her drink, then turned away as if the matter was finished.
"Tomorrow," Yan said, "you will handle two lots. One orchid. One common herb. I want to see if your hands improve only pretty plants or living things."
Yun Xue nodded. "Yes, Elder."
Yan paused one last time.
"Do you know why I came to the inspection myself?" she asked.
Yun Xue hesitated, afraid of being wrong. "For… Conclave stock?"
Yan's eyes narrowed slightly.
"For quality," Yan corrected. "And because people lie more when they think no one above them is watching."
Yun Xue swallowed.
Yan's gaze pinned her, sharp as a needle.
"If you smell lime again," Yan said, "you do not rinse first. You do not 'fix it' quietly. You stop. You call my attendant. You let me see the truth before you try to make it pretty."
Yun Xue's fingers tightened around the tea cup.
"Yes," she whispered.
Yan walked away without another word.
No praise.
No reassurance.
No promise.
Just a standard and a route.
Yun Xue stood by the benches until the warmth in her hands stopped shaking.
She looked at the orchids one more time.
They were still thin, still fragile, still unforgiving.
But they were stable.
And for the first time since she arrived at the sect, Yun Xue understood a hard, clean idea:
She hadn't been saved.
She had been placed.
That meant she could be removed.
So she would not beg for warmth.
She would become difficult to waste.
Outside the herb yard gate, the visitor corridor lantern frames caught the late light like pale bones—ready, silent, waiting.
The day after tomorrow, the sect would stop pretending it was calm.
And Yun Xue would have to prove, under Elder Yan's gaze, that her hands were not a fluke.