The notice stayed up for three days before Li Shen put his name on it.
Not because he was waiting for courage.
Because the Pavilion worked on timing, and timing was easiest to judge from the outside.
By the fourth morning, the crowd around the service board had thinned into smaller clusters—men who wanted the bonus, men who wanted the story, men who wanted to see who else was willing to touch the rope.
Li Shen stepped in, took the brush, and wrote clean characters on the salvage sheet.
No extra strokes. No hesitation.
Bai Ren signed below him with a heavier hand.
They were assigned to Detail Three.
A clerk pressed a strip of paper into Li Shen's palm without looking up.
SALVAGE — DETAIL THREE
DAYLIGHT ONLY
RETURN BY SUN-LOWER
SUPERVISION: GUARD UNIT
No promise of a ticket. No guarantee of extra points. Just a route for accountability.
---
They gathered at the servant gate after first bell.
Nine servants total. Two cultivating servants besides Li Shen—both Stage 2 by the way they held their breath without coughing in the cold air. The rest were mortals with rope scars and careful eyes.
A guard cultivator waited beside a cart with thick wheels and a reinforced frame.
He wasn't an outer disciple. He wasn't anyone whose name mattered beyond a shift report.
He had a short spear across his back and a token on his belt that made clerks move faster.
Qi Condensation Stage 3, Li Shen guessed—not from mysticism, but from the man's steady posture in the wind and the lack of strain in his movement.
The guard looked them over like inventory.
"You haul," he said, voice flat, like he was reading from a board. "You don't hunt. If you start pretending you're brave, I'll be the one writing the report."
No one argued.
He pointed at two mortals. "You two—rope. If you drop it, you pick it up. I don't care if your palms bleed."
Two more. "Poles. Keep them under the ribs, not under your pride."
His eyes flicked to Li Shen.
"You're registered," he said. It wasn't a question, but he still waited for the confirmation. "Qi?"
Li Shen nodded once. "Stage one."
"Fine." The guard's tone said not impressive, still useful. "You stay near the tag. If the blood stings, you step back. If you start coughing like you're dying, you step back. If you collapse, you get dragged. Don't make me choose between the beast and your body."
"Understood," Li Shen said.
The guard's gaze moved to Bai Ren last.
He didn't stare at Bai Ren's shoulder. He just saw it, the way professionals saw damage.
"And you," he said. "You pace yourself. Don't try to 'prove' you're fine. I've seen men prove things right into a grave."
Bai Ren's face didn't change. "I'm not here to impress anyone. I'm here to get paid."
That earned a grunt that was almost approval.
"Good," the guard said. "Keep that attitude. It keeps people alive."
They signed out at the gate registry. Ink scratch. Names recorded. A clerk stamped the salvage slip, as if stamping made danger manageable.
Then they rolled out.
---
The road beyond the Pavilion was never empty.
It was just empty of protection.
Greyhaven sat down-slope in the distance, softened by morning haze. Somewhere past it, mortal farms and hamlets spread thin, and between them ran cart paths that bandits loved and beasts ignored.
They didn't go far before the smell reached them.
Not rot.
Iron and sour earth.
Wet fur burned too close to a fire.
The guard raised a hand, and the cart stopped.
Ahead, in a shallow ditch beside the road, lay something too large to be a wolf.
A boar—thick as a barrel, hide plated in uneven ridges, tusks curved like dull blades. One horn had been snapped and driven back into its own face.
Spirit-tainted, at least. Close enough.
Up close, the air felt wrong in a way Li Shen understood from the forge: a bite that didn't belong to clean smoke.
Two other cultivators stood nearby.
Not disciples. Patrol guards, same kind of working class as their supervisor.
One held a short blade stained dark. The other had a strip of cloth tied around his forearm where blood had soaked through.
The boar's throat bore the clean line of a finishing strike. Fast. Efficient.
Their supervisor climbed down and spoke briefly with the patrol cultivator, voice too low for Li Shen to catch.
Then he turned back to the detail.
"Spirit-tainted boar," he said. "Caravan got clipped. Two mortals hurt. No one dead."
A few servants let out the breath they'd been holding.
"No dead" wasn't safety. It was just… a better bill.
The supervisor nodded toward the carcass.
"This is what you're here for," he said. "We move it. We don't argue with it."
A mortal swallowed, voice small but stubborn. "Is it… safe? I mean—safe enough?"
The supervisor looked at him like he'd asked whether the road was kind.
"It's dead," he said. "That's the part you rely on."
Then, as if he knew the question was really fear wearing words, he added, sharper: "You don't open it. You don't cut it. You don't get curious. We tag first, then haul it whole. Beast Yard does the rest. If I catch anyone 'checking' it, you'll be cleaning latrines until your hands forget what rope feels like."
That line mattered.
Not because it was strict.
Because it mapped the chain: value moved through rules, and rules protected whoever owned the next link.
---
The supervisor pulled a small packet from his sleeve.
Inside was a talisman tag the size of two fingers—paper backed by thin wood, stamped with an Intendance seal and marked with a single red character:
CLAIM.
He crouched near the boar's neck and pressed the tag onto the hide.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the paper stiffened, settling flush as if it had become part of the skin.
A faint shimmer ran across the stamp and vanished.
The supervisor stood and dusted his hands like he'd just finished paperwork.
"Now it's counted," he said. "Which means it's owned. Which means nobody gets to be creative."
He pointed again.
"Rope team—under the front legs. Poles under the ribs. Keep your hands out of its mouth. I don't care if it's dead; those tusks will still ruin you."
The tusks looked like they could bite even dead.
They moved in.
The first problem wasn't the weight. It was the residue.
Up close, the hide tingled against the air. The mortals flinched as if they'd brushed nettles.
One muttered, "Feels wrong."
Bai Ren glanced at him without sympathy, just truth. "Because it is."
Li Shen didn't add comfort. Comfort got people sloppy.
He took a breath and used Smoke-Sealing the same way he used it in the forge: short, controlled, just enough to keep his throat from turning raw while he leaned in to loop rope under the limb.
One breath. Rope set. Release.
His Qi thinned slightly, but his lungs didn't drink the sour sting hanging close to the carcass.
Bai Ren threaded rope under the rear leg with practiced efficiency.
He used cloth as a barrier. He kept his bad shoulder out of the work. He shifted his stance instead of forcing a bad angle.
When they pulled, the boar didn't budge.
It was heavier than it looked—dense, stubborn, built like a piece of earth that refused to move.
Mortals strained. The cart creaked. Rope burned palms.
One of the mortals hissed, "It's not moving."
The supervisor didn't look impressed. "Then you're not pulling right. Again. Together."
Li Shen set his wrist and sank his shoulder.
Iron Grip.
He pulled Qi into his forearm and held it for a single breath. The rope stopped biting as hard. The line steadied. Force went into structure instead of panic.
Release.
Again. One breath. Release.
The carcass shifted. An inch. Then two.
Poles slid under the ribs. The team levered. The boar rolled with a wet sound, and a thin spray of dark blood splattered the ditch wall.
A mortal gagged and recoiled.
The supervisor didn't comfort him.
"If you breathe through your mouth near it," he said, "you'll regret it. Turn your face away. Work. You can panic when the cart's moving."
The servant obeyed, ashamed but functional.
They hauled the boar up the ditch slope by degrees.
It took time. It took sweat. It took rope that hissed against hide.
More than once someone's grip slipped and they stopped—not because anyone cared about comfort, but because the fastest way to get hurt was to rush weight.
When the boar finally reached the road, it lay half on gravel, half on packed dirt, like a toppled wall.
The cart waited.
Loading it was the real problem.
The supervisor glanced at the carcass and made a decision.
"Two in front," he said. "Poles under the chest. Rope up and over the beam. We roll it onto the cart."
One mortal stared at the cart's height and said, "That's—"
"That's the job," the supervisor cut in. "Unless you've got a better idea you can also guarantee won't snap anyone's spine."
No one offered an alternative.
They anchored rope to the cart frame, ran it over a crossbeam, and used leverage instead of muscle.
As the carcass rose, the air got worse—heavy in a way that made eyes water and throats itch.
Li Shen used Smoke-Sealing in brief pulses when he had to lean close. Not continuous. Just enough to keep control.
Bai Ren's rope burned his palms even through cloth.
He didn't complain. He adjusted.
The boar rolled onto the cart with a brutal thud that made the wheels dip.
The cart groaned, then steadied.
The supervisor pressed a second tag onto the first and it sealed with a quiet snap.
"Cover it," he ordered. "Tight. Like you want your points to exist."
They threw canvas over the carcass and tied it down.
Not for privacy. For control.
Covered things stayed counted. Uncovered things attracted eyes.
---
They reached the Pavilion before sun-lower.
At the side yard, two servants with stained aprons and a clerk with a seal box waited.
Beast Yard.
The clerk approached the cart without stepping too close, checked the tags, and nodded once.
"Claim's registered," he said, like he was confirming a delivery of nails.
He turned to the supervisor. "Assessment?"
"Road clearance," the supervisor replied. "Haul only. No cuts. No losses. No missing rope."
The clerk took out a small stack of chits—thin wood squares stamped with the same seal.
He handed one to the supervisor first.
Then, one by one, he handed smaller chits to the detail.
Not equal. Not generous.
But real.
Li Shen received a chit stamped SALVAGE — MINOR and a number carved on the back.
+6 points.
Bai Ren received +4 points.
Others received +3 or +2, depending on what the clerk's eyes had recorded while they worked.
A mortal servant frowned at his +2 and started to open his mouth.
The clerk didn't even look at him. "If you want more, work cleaner next time. Next."
The servant shut up.
Li Shen understood the benefit immediately:
This wasn't paper meant to trap him.
It was paper meant to settle accounts cleanly.
That alone made it valuable.
The Beast Yard servants began untying canvas.
The moment the carcass was exposed, the air turned sharper—more nauseating, more alive in the wrong way.
The Beast Yard men didn't flinch. They moved like professionals.
One pointed at the tusks and said, "Talisman team'll take those. Don't nick them."
Another slapped the hide and said, "Tanner'll pay for plates. Cut clean."
A third grabbed a bucket and muttered, "Fat for paste. Don't spill it, you idiots."
Nothing was wasted.
Nothing was treated like it belonged to whoever happened to be standing closest.
Value was reduced into parts as fast as possible, by people who had done it too many times to be sentimental.
Li Shen didn't watch long.
He took his chit, folded it into his sleeve, and signed back in at the gate registry.
Ink scratch. Name recorded. Daylight accounted for.
---
Back in the dormitory, rope work sat in his joints differently than forge work.
Not heat strain.
Leverage strain.
Bai Ren sat on his mat and unwrapped his palms.
The skin was red and raw in lines.
He looked at it for a moment, then shrugged, as if pain was one more thing to carry.
Li Shen checked his own hands.
No burns. No blisters. Just soreness.
Iron Grip had done what it promised: it turned effort into structure.
Bai Ren noticed anyway.
"You didn't get torn up," he said, and there was a hint of suspicion there—not jealousy, just the sharpness of a man who counts costs.
Li Shen kept his tone plain. "Technique helped. And I didn't fight the rope. I let it sit right."
Bai Ren turned his chit over again like he expected it to disappear.
"Four points," he said, like he was tasting the number. "Not nothing."
Li Shen showed his own. "Six."
Bai Ren's eyes flicked to it, then away, as if looking too long would make it a debt.
"That adds up," Bai Ren said quietly. "Not fast. But real."
"Yes," Li Shen replied. "Real is the point."
They sat in silence while the dormitory breathed around them.
Then Bai Ren said, more to the ceiling than to Li Shen, "If they're paying for salvage, the road's going to get worse."
Li Shen didn't disagree.
The Pavilion didn't offer bonus points for nothing.
It offered them because danger had become part of the budget.
Li Shen slid the chit back into his sleeve and lay down.
His body was tired. His Qi felt thin. His lungs felt lightly scratched from the miasma even with careful breathing.
Debt, but manageable.
And now there was also something else, simple and practical:
A mechanism that turned risk into verified gain—without Greyhaven, without favors, without a stamp that could smear at the wrong moment.
It wasn't free.
Nothing was.
But it was real.
And real was enough.