Li Shen waited long enough that the day didn't feel glued to the last one.
Not because time erased attention.
Because time broke rhythm.
After Shen Qiu's receipt warning, he started treating the calendar like a weapon someone else could swing. If he moved on a schedule, someone could predict him. If someone could predict him, the paper became a cage again.
So he let weeks pass.
Forge shifts. Iron Grip drilled in windows that didn't repeat. Grain and powder bought in amounts that looked like maintenance, not appetite. Smoke-Sealing held tight and short, paid for in that dull Qi-thin fatigue whenever the smoke turned mean.
Then, on a day when the corridor was busy and his name hadn't been dragged through Intendance in long enough to look "interesting," he took an exchange errand as if it meant nothing.
Not because he needed oil.
Because he needed Greyhaven without making it look like he needed Greyhaven.
---
The errand list was dull, and dull was safe.
Lamp oil. Binding twine. Cloth strips. A small jar of axle grease.
Servant supplies. Mortal prices. Receipts required.
Half-shift credit still cost him. Half-shift meant half the points he could've earned staying in the forge. But private leave meant none, and none meant he'd be trading health for progress again sooner than later.
He took the stamped slip and folded it twice.
This time he added another layer of discipline: he wrapped the slip inside oiled paper before he slid it into his sleeve.
Shen Qiu had built a trap out of wet ink.
Li Shen wasn't going to offer him the same hook twice.
At the gate, the registry man barely looked at him.
Ink book opened. Brush moved. Li Shen signed out.
The only real rule was daylight, and daylight was enforced the way the bottom enforced everything—through consequence.
If you were outside when the sun lowered, you didn't get a lecture.
You got "missing."
Missing became deductions.
Deductions became questions.
Li Shen stepped out and walked down the stone road with the errand group: loose enough to look normal, tight enough to look owned.
Greyhaven came into view the way it always did—less a city that welcomed you, more a city that tolerated you because you were useful.
And because you were temporary.
---
The outer market strip was already loud—mortals bargaining like desperation could rewrite numbers, carts squeaking under loads that cost more every month, the smell of cooked oil and damp straw and sweat.
Li Shen did the first thing that kept him safe: he bought the listed goods immediately.
No wandering first. Wandering made witnesses. Witnesses made stories. Stories made prices.
Lamp oil from a stall with a clean stamp and a dry pad. Twine from a rope seller who stamped twice, hard enough to leave an imprint you could feel. Cloth strips from a vendor who smiled too cheaply and priced too high. Axle grease from a man who didn't bother smiling at all.
Each receipt went into the oiled paper wrap. Each stamp stayed sharp.
Then he shifted his attention to the only reason he'd come.
The licensed strip.
It wasn't a different street.
It was a change in posture.
A clean gap between stalls. Fewer voices. A guard line that didn't pretend to be decoration. Tables with price boards written in deliberate characters instead of shouted numbers.
And cultivators—enough to make Greyhaven feel like it belonged in a cultivation world instead of squatting beside one.
Qi Condensation cultivators moved through the crowd like stones through water. Not high. Not untouchable. Just… weighted, in a way that changed how people stepped around them.
Li Shen stayed in the seam between mortal and licensed, letting the flow hide him.
He didn't go to Stone Lantern Tea.
He didn't even glance that way.
A smart man didn't touch the same hook twice.
Instead he watched.
A woman in plain robes sold talismans without raising her voice.
A man with ink-black fingernails weighed dried beast sinew and wrote numbers on a slate. The buyer didn't haggle; he only asked what "cleaned" cost, and the answer came back flat as stone.
A boy carried a tray of small glass vials under cloth, eyes darting not for thieves but for the wrong kind of attention.
Then Li Shen found what he'd been looking for—tucked near the back, behind a table that didn't sell anything pretty.
REPAIRS / IDENTITY / CERTIFIED SEALS
METAL FATIGUE — CRACK CHECK — SIMPLE RUNE SCRAPE
LICENSED WORK. PRICE FIXED.
Behind it sat a thin cultivator with tired eyes and a magnifying lens mounted in a wooden frame.
A mender.
Not an alchemist. Not a disciple. Not a hero.
A tradesman with Qi.
Li Shen didn't approach like a man begging.
He approached like a man ordering a service.
He stopped at the edge of the table—close enough to be heard, not close enough to be intrusive.
"Can you certify seal sleeves?" he asked.
The mender's gaze flicked up, then down again—Li Shen's hands, his posture, the cheapness of his cloth.
"You're Pavilion," the mender said, like it was weather and he could smell the wall on him.
"I'm on an exchange errand," Li Shen replied evenly.
The mender's eyes drifted to the sacks by Li Shen's feet. He didn't ask to see the slip. He didn't need to; the way Li Shen stood screamed papered.
"Right," the mender said. "So you're not here to hawk something stolen and cry when I don't buy it."
"No," Li Shen said. "I'm here because I don't want ink to decide my week again."
That earned him a slightly longer look.
Li Shen kept his voice low, businesslike. "I need sleeves that won't smear. Waxed. Certified. Something Intendance won't sneer at."
The mender's mouth twitched—not quite a smile, more like recognition.
"Paper problems," he said.
"Paper costs points," Li Shen answered.
The mender reached under the table and produced a small stack of thin waxed sleeves, each stamped with a tiny licensed mark.
"Two copper a sleeve," he said. "Don't argue. If you argue, you're paying for my time on top."
Li Shen set the copper down without bargaining.
The mender slid the sleeves forward, then said, almost casually, "Your registry clerks like their ink clean."
Li Shen kept his face still. "Everyone likes clean ink."
The mender gave a faint, tired snort. "No. Some people like it dirty because then they get to pretend they're doing work. Dirty ink gives them a reason to talk at you."
Li Shen held the gaze for one heartbeat, then asked the second question—the real one.
"What do you buy here that the Pavilion doesn't sell?" he asked.
The mender's eyes narrowed slightly, measuring intent.
He didn't answer right away. He let the noise of the licensed strip fill the space, as if silence could strip a question down to its bones.
Then he said, "Time."
Li Shen waited.
"Discretion," the mender added. "Fixes without questions. And answers without a record."
His fingers tapped the board.
"The Pavilion sells you controlled upgrades," he went on. "They sell you something they can track. Greyhaven sells you solutions that don't fit in their boxes."
Li Shen didn't ask for philosophy.
He kept it practical. "Smoke," he said. "Forge smoke."
The mender didn't pretend not to understand.
"The cough that doesn't leave?" he asked. "The kind that turns your sleep into a punishment?"
Li Shen didn't nod. He didn't need to.
The mender pointed down the licensed strip toward a small shop front with a faded sign and jars lined in shade.
"River-Jade clinic," he said. "They sell lung tea bricks and a bitter paste. Helps. Doesn't cure. Nothing cures if you keep breathing poison for points."
"How much?" Li Shen asked.
"Copper," the mender said. "And they'll look at you like you're wasting their air. Try not to take it personally."
Li Shen almost smiled, just barely. Being looked down on was cheaper than being watched.
He turned to go, then stopped—because stopping with purpose was business, and drifting was suspicious.
"One more thing," Li Shen said.
The mender's eyelids lowered, patient but not kind. "Make it small."
"Beast salvage," Li Shen said. "If something drops in the street. Who owns it?"
The mender's expression shifted.
Not fear. Not excitement.
Pure calculation.
"Nothing 'drops' in the street," he said. "Not for long."
Li Shen waited.
The mender's voice went quieter, the kind that didn't travel.
"Clans claim it," he said. "Licensed buyers claim it. Guards claim it. If a cultivator kills it, it's theirs. If it threatens the market, then the market decides it was always theirs."
"And servants?" Li Shen asked.
The mender glanced at Li Shen's hands again, as if the answer lived there.
"Servants carry," he said. "Servants drag rope. Servants get paid in points if someone above them feels honest that day."
That line mattered.
Li Shen nodded once, small. "How's it recorded?"
The mender exhaled through his nose, faintly annoyed that Li Shen was smart enough to ask.
"Tickets," he said. "Stamped salvage tickets. Or a clerk writes it under your name and you pray the ink doesn't 'go missing' later."
Li Shen kept his face flat.
Tickets meant something he could plan around. Paper that had a purpose besides trapping him.
As Li Shen stepped back, the mender added, almost like he couldn't stop himself from giving one last warning.
"If you ever touch a carcass in Greyhaven," he said, "don't touch it like it's free. Touch it like it already belongs to someone who'll remember your hands."
Li Shen answered with a single nod.
Not agreement.
Acknowledgment.
---
He walked to the River-Jade clinic with the same posture he used in Intendance corridors—steady, unremarkable, not worth extra attention.
The shop smelled like boiled roots and sharp alcohol. Jars sat in shade with labels too small to read from a distance. A woman behind the counter sorted dried leaves with hands that moved like she'd been doing it longer than Li Shen had been alive.
She looked up, took him in, and her eyes went immediately to the truth of him: servant. Pavilion. Outside.
"What is it," she asked, not rude, just uninterested in wasting syllables. "If you're here to complain about prices, save your breath."
Li Shen didn't. "Lung tea bricks," he said. "And bitter paste."
Her eyebrows lifted—not sympathy, recognition.
"Forge," she said, like she'd already smelled it on him.
Li Shen didn't answer. He didn't need to.
She reached under the counter and set down two items: a small brick wrapped in paper and tied with string, and a tiny jar with dark paste.
"Tea," she said, tapping the brick once. "One cup at night. Don't get clever and double it. Doubling doesn't make you stronger—it makes you sick."
Then she nudged the jar. "Paste. Rub it here." She pointed at her own sternum without embarrassment. "It won't 'fix' you. It'll let you sleep like your chest isn't trying to grind itself open."
Li Shen set copper on the counter.
Her fingers covered it and slid it away with the same clean motion she'd probably used on ten thousand coins.
As she handed the items over, her gaze flicked past Li Shen's shoulder.
A man in outer robes had stepped into the shop.
Disciple posture. Token at his belt. A presence that didn't need to announce itself.
The woman's tone shifted instantly—not warm, not friendly, but careful in the way care meant survival.
"Outer disciple," she said, and dipped her head.
The man didn't return warmth because he didn't have to.
He placed a small wooden chit on the counter. She didn't ask for copper. She didn't ask for receipts. She didn't ask where he'd be at sun-lower.
She simply took the chit and went to a different shelf, one she hadn't offered Li Shen.
Li Shen didn't stare.
He saw it anyway.
Same shop. Same woman. Same air—
and paper meant less because the man could cause more trouble than a clerk's stamp.
Li Shen tucked his purchases inside the cloth strips sack so they wouldn't sit in his hands like a confession.
Then he left.
Not quickly.
Not slowly.
At the pace of someone who understood attention was a tax.
---
On the way back through the seam, a shadow stepped into his path.
Not a guard.
Not a disciple.
A young man in plain clothes with a short blade tucked under his sash and an insignia stitched into the cuff—subtle enough to deny, obvious enough to the right eyes.
Hearthscale.
He didn't block Li Shen like a robber.
He stood like a man who believed this stretch of street included him.
"You're Pavilion," he said lightly, eyes flicking over Li Shen's sacks as if he were reading a menu.
Li Shen kept his voice calm and boring. "Exchange errand. Daylight."
The Hearthscale man smiled as though they were discussing weather.
"Then you're fine," he said. "Mostly."
Li Shen didn't relax. Safety offered by strangers always came with an invoice.
The man's gaze settled on the cloth strips sack, and his smile sharpened.
"That's a bit more than twine and oil," he said. "You've got something tucked in there."
Li Shen didn't reach for the sack. Reaching looked guilty.
"Supplies," he said.
"Extra supplies," the man corrected, still polite, still smiling. "Nothing wrong with that. Just… extra makes people curious."
Li Shen held his ground. He didn't deny. Denial turned it into a game.
He also didn't explain.
He let the Pavilion's shadow do the talking, because even in Greyhaven, the wall's name had weight.
A market guard took two steps closer—not to protect Li Shen, but to watch whether Hearthscale was about to make public trouble. Public trouble attracted attention, and attention attracted consequences.
The Hearthscale man noticed the guard, and his hands lifted a fraction in an innocent gesture.
"Relax," he said, easy. "I'm not shaking him down. I'm doing him a kindness."
Then he leaned in slightly, voice dropping to something meant only for Li Shen.
"Keep your pattern clean," he murmured. "Hearthscale doesn't charge first-timers. We charge people who repeat."
Li Shen didn't answer. Answers created threads.
The Hearthscale man stepped aside as if he'd never blocked the path at all.
Li Shen walked on without changing pace.
His stomach stayed calm.
His mind didn't.
That one sentence confirmed two things:
Hearthscale watched rhythm the same way Shen Qiu watched it.
Outside the Pavilion, the cage was built from eyes instead of ink.
---
He climbed back up the stone road without stopping.
At the gate, the registry man recorded his return. Sign-in. Brush scratch. No conversation.
Li Shen handed over the errand slip and the receipts.
This time he used the waxed sleeve immediately—slid the receipts out clean and dry, stamps crisp enough to make even a bored clerk feel satisfied.
The registry man glanced at the stamps and didn't pause.
No smudge. No hook.
Li Shen took his cleared slip back and walked inside.
Walls closed around him.
Not as a prison.
As insulation.
---
By the time he reached the servant quarters, dusk had drained the light into a dull grey.
Bai Ren sat near the wash basin, rolling his shoulder slowly like he was bargaining with his own body.
He looked up once.
"You went out," he said. Not accusation. Just the fact.
Li Shen set the sacks down.
"I did," he said. Then, after a beat, because Bai Ren wasn't stupid and pretending didn't help: "Licensed strip."
Bai Ren's eyes tightened slightly. "So it's really like they say. Cleaner tables. Meaner prices."
"It's real," Li Shen said. "And it's owned. Just… owned differently."
Bai Ren watched him a moment longer, then asked the only question that mattered.
"Worth it?"
Li Shen didn't answer right away.
He thought of the waxed sleeves—cheap control against Shen Qiu's ink tricks.
He thought of the River-Jade tea brick and bitter paste—small relief against smoke debt.
He thought of the outer disciple paying with a chit while the woman's entire tone changed.
He thought of Hearthscale smiling as it warned him about repetition.
"Yes," Li Shen said at last. "But it isn't free. Nothing out there is."
Bai Ren nodded once, as if that sentence fit the world like a lock fits a key.
Li Shen carried his purchases inside, hid the clinic goods where they wouldn't be noticed, and washed his hands until the water ran cold.
Greyhaven had given him one clean upgrade and one dirty truth:
The Pavilion's paper could be outgrown.
But the habit of being watched—
that followed you upward.