Li Shen didn't need permission to leave the Pavilion.
He needed a reason the system would recognize.
Servants came and went in daylight all the time—hauling, buying, delivering—because the Pavilion consumed the outside world the way a furnace consumed fuel. The gate didn't care about freedom. It cared about counts.
What kept most servants inside wasn't a lock.
It was arithmetic.
Inside: a bed, ration tokens that meant something, walls that kept bandits out, and points that became leverage.
Outside: copper that vanished into fees, mouths that asked for "protection," and eyes that measured whether you looked easy.
So when Li Shen reread Qian Mei's letter under weak lamplight, he didn't think about meeting her.
He thought about how to make the trip look like duty.
The next morning, he went to the Intendance board before forge bell.
Not the technique board. Not the mission board.
The small one nobody admired—the one that smelled like lamp oil and wet paper.
EXCHANGE ERRANDS (DAYLIGHT)
MORTAL SUPPLIES — RECEIPT REQUIRED
POINTS: STANDARD (HALF SHIFT)
RETURN BY SUN-LOWER — DEDUCTIONS APPLY
Below it, a list of items written in plain ink:
Salt. Lamp oil. Cloth strips. Nails.
Nothing that mattered to cultivators. Everything that kept servants from falling apart.
A clerk sat at a side table with a stack of slips and a stamp box. He didn't look rushed. He looked like a man paid to prevent confusion from becoming theft.
Li Shen stepped up.
The clerk didn't glance at his face—only at the space in front of him, like faces were clutter.
"Name," he said, and his brush was already hovering.
"Li Shen."
The brush scratched once. "Post?"
"Forge."
That made the clerk pause just a fraction, the tiniest hitch in the rhythm. Then the brush resumed.
"You know what this costs," the clerk said, voice dry. "Private leave? You lose the whole shift. People cry about it later like the ink lied."
"I'm not taking private leave," Li Shen replied. "I'm taking an exchange errand."
Now the clerk did look up—briefly, not with interest, with sorting.
"Mm. Better," he said, like "better" meant "less trouble for me." He pulled a slip from the stack, stamped it once, then slid it across the table. "Greyhaven outer market. Buy what's listed. Bring receipts that match the stamp. Don't come back with stories."
Li Shen took it.
"Half shift points," the clerk added, almost as an afterthought, the way a man reminded you where the knife edge was. "You're paying either way."
Li Shen folded the slip once and tucked it into his sleeve.
"I know," he said.
That was the difference between a choice and a mistake.
The servant gate was open.
Not wide. Not generous. Open in the way a ledger opened to a blank line.
A wooden table sat just inside the arch. A guard leaned against the wall with a spear. A skinny registry man sat with an ink book and a bored expression that had been sharpened by too many liars.
People walked out in ones and twos. People walked in with sacks and tired faces.
No drama.
Just a system breathing.
Li Shen stepped up, sleeve slip ready.
The registry man didn't ask why he wanted to leave.
He asked what he could be blamed for.
"Name."
"Li Shen."
The brush scratched, steady, indifferent.
"Daylight out," the registry man said. "Back before sun-lower. If you come back after, I don't care what the sky looked like where you were."
Li Shen showed the errand slip.
The registry man's eyes moved to the stamp, not to the writing. Stamp meant accountability. Writing meant excuses.
He nodded once and set the brush down long enough to push the book forward.
"Sign here," he said. "Clear. No marks. If you can't write straight, don't leave."
Li Shen signed.
The registry man tapped the page with the back of his brush.
"And you sign in when you return," he said, tone almost conversational in a way that made it worse. "If you don't sign in, you're missing. If you're missing, deductions start. And after deductions, somebody decides to start asking questions. Nobody likes that part."
Li Shen nodded once and walked through.
No cords. No escort.
Just ink.
That was how the Pavilion controlled without looking like it was controlling.
Greyhaven sat at the foot of the sect road like a growth the Pavilion tolerated because it was useful.
A market-town. A buffer. A place where copper changed hands fast and nothing stayed clean for long.
The road into it was busy.
Mortals pushing carts. Boys carrying bundles bigger than their torsos. A few hired blades with mismatched armor and the confidence of men who hadn't met real cultivation yet.
And cultivators—enough to make the city feel correct.
Not high. Not glorious. But present.
Qi Condensation bodies moving through crowds like stones in a stream. Straighter posture. Cleaner belts. A pressure you felt more than saw.
The market itself was layered, even if no sign named the layers.
Closest to the road: mortal stalls. Loud voices, cheap goods, desperate bargaining.
Farther in: the licensed strip. Cleaner tables, fewer smiles, guards who didn't pretend to be friendly.
Between them: the seam—where neither side fully owned the ground, and everyone pretended that made it neutral.
The tea stall sat in that seam.
Low tables. A kettle that never stopped steaming. Cups washed until their glaze went dull.
A sign swung gently in the wind:
STONE LANTERN TEA
Li Shen didn't scan for Qian Mei like a boy looking for a friend.
He walked the seam once, eyes on goods, posture bored—exactly the way a servant looked when he was doing an errand he'd done a hundred times.
Then he saw her.
Back table. Half-hidden by a hanging cloth. Plain hood. Still posture.
She didn't wave.
She lifted her cup once—nothing a stranger would notice.
Li Shen stepped in and sat across from her without greeting.
In Greyhaven, greetings were hooks.
Qian Mei's eyes went to his sleeve first.
The folded slip. The stamp.
She let out a quiet breath, the kind that meant approval without warmth.
"You brought paperwork," she said softly. "Good. That means you're not improvising."
"Half shift," Li Shen replied.
Qian Mei's mouth tightened—satisfaction, sharp and controlled.
"Good," she said. "The Pavilion doesn't respect intention. It respects numbers that match."
She set a small bundle under the saucer—cloth-wrapped, tied twice.
"Salve," she said. "Proper salve. Not the watered paste they hand out like an insult."
Li Shen didn't reach for it.
"What's it cost?" he asked.
Qian Mei didn't play coy. She never had.
"Copper," she said. "Now. And later—information, when you have anything worth trading. Not gossip. Useful things."
Li Shen slid two copper coins onto the table, palm covering them until they stopped moving. He kept them still, the way you kept your face still.
Qian Mei's sleeve drifted over the coins and they vanished as if the table had swallowed them.
Efficient. Clean.
Then she leaned in slightly, voice dropping until it blended with the kettle hiss and the market's noise.
"Greyhaven has three prices," she said. "You're going to hear people pretend it's one. Don't believe them."
Li Shen said nothing. Silence was agreement without commitment.
"Mortal price," Qian Mei continued, ticking them off like she was teaching someone how not to get skinned. "Licensed price. And night price—when the same thing costs twice as much because it's dangerous and nobody wants their name on it."
Li Shen's eyes stayed on her hands, not her face.
"What changed since the Conclave?" he asked.
Qian Mei didn't smile. Her eyes did the work instead—quick, scanning.
"The licensed strip is buying beast parts this week," she said. "Not everything. Specific parts. Teeth, glands, leather. Winter caravans are stocking like they're expecting a bad season."
Li Shen filed it away. Demand signal. Predictable.
"Hearthscale is working the east stalls," she added. "They're not doing knife work. Not publicly. They're doing 'fees.' Quiet ones. The kind you pay because you don't want to learn what happens if you don't."
"Hearthscale," Li Shen repeated once, just to pin the name in place.
Qian Mei nodded. "They charge you for being visible. If you're in their sight too long, you owe them for the privilege."
"And the road?" Li Shen asked.
Her expression shifted—less business, more certainty.
"Worse," she said. "Bandits aren't hunting bodies right now. Bodies bring heat. They're hunting tools, rope, charcoal sacks—things that turn labor into speed. Same pattern as you'd see before a winter squeeze."
Li Shen's jaw tightened once, barely.
"How do you want this to work?" he asked. "This—meeting."
Qian Mei's gaze held him, steady, not sentimental.
"Not on a rhythm," she said. "Don't make it predictable. Predictable becomes a schedule, and schedules become a price tag someone else can collect."
She tapped the saucer once, very lightly.
"You buy your list," she said. "You get your receipts. That's your cover. If you need something outside the list, you don't buy it where the loud people buy it… and you don't carry it where hands can see it."
Li Shen finally took the salve bundle and slid it under the errand slip in his sleeve.
No gratitude. Gratitude created rhythm.
"How long until sun-lower?" he asked.
Qian Mei glanced once toward the sun angle between rooftops, then back to him.
"Long enough to do your list," she said, "and short enough that you shouldn't wander. If someone starts recognizing you, you leave."
Li Shen stood.
Qian Mei stayed seated, lifting her cup as if he had simply finished tea and nothing in the world had changed.
Li Shen stepped back into the market seam and moved with the errand flow again.
He bought exactly what the list demanded.
Salt. Oil. Cloth strips. Nails.
He paid mortal prices, took stamped receipts, kept the sacks clean, and didn't linger long enough for idle eyes to file him away as "repeat business."
Greyhaven pressed around him—too many mouths, too many hands, too many ways to lose copper without being robbed.
A servant outside the walls wasn't a free man.
He was a walking resource.
And resources got claimed.
That was why the dorm bed inside the Pavilion mattered. That was why ration tokens mattered. That was why points mattered.
They weren't comfort.
They were insulation.
When the sun lowered and shadows stretched long, Li Shen turned back up the road.
He didn't hurry. Hurry looked guilty.
He didn't slow. Slow risked missing the ledger.
At the gate, the registry man barely glanced up.
"Name."
"Li Shen."
The brush scratched, almost lazy.
Li Shen handed over the errand slip and the receipts.
The registry man checked stamps, not goods.
Stamps were what the Pavilion trusted.
He flicked through the receipts, counted them, made a small noise like a man satisfied he wouldn't have to argue later.
"Half shift credited," he said. Then, like an afterthought, "Next time, don't crease the slip like that. Makes it look handled."
Li Shen took it back without comment.
Ink behind him. Walls around him.
For a moment, the air inside tasted almost clean.