The Pavilion didn't punish you with violence when it could punish you with procedure.
Violence left bruises that invited questions. Procedure left numbers that didn't.
The new notice went up at the exchange registry window after noon bell, pinned under the iron bars where servants had to lean close to read it.
APPROVED VENDORS — EXCHANGE ERRANDS
UNLISTED STAMPS MAY VOID CREDIT
REPEAT IRREGULARITY: REVIEW
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
Clean ink. Intendance stamp. No room for interpretation.
Servants crowded the window like paper might soften under enough breath. Li Shen arrived from the forge lane with soot still in the lines of his palms and stopped behind the mass without pushing. He read the notice once, then read the smaller line beneath it—the part most men skipped because it required thinking:
APPROVED LIST AVAILABLE — COUNTER REQUEST
Meaning: the list existed, but you had to ask for it.
Asking created a record.
Li Shen waited until the first wave of grumbling turned into questions the clerks ignored, then stepped forward when the line thinned and the clerk's brush had a gap.
He slid his exchange slip under the bar.
"Approved list," he said.
The clerk didn't look up. "Name."
"Li Shen."
The brush scratched.
"Role."
"Servant. Forge assignment."
The brush scratched again.
The clerk finally pulled a thin sheet from under the counter—stiffer paper, stamped at the top, columns of vendor names written in characters too tight for comfort.
Li Shen didn't reach for it like a greedy man. He waited until the clerk pushed it toward him.
The list wasn't short.
It wasn't generous either.
It named the obvious places in Greyhaven: Pavilion-linked quarter merchants, the licensed-strip stalls whose prices all moved together, the twine-and-oil sellers who had deals with the gate.
It did not include the seam booths that survived on flexible margins.
It did not include the mender's corner table that sold wax sleeves cheaper when it rained.
And it certainly didn't include any stall that didn't pay someone to be remembered.
Li Shen scanned the names once, then again, and forced his face to stay blank while his mind did the accounting.
Approved vendors meant clean credit.
Unapproved vendors meant you could still buy—no one was forbidding purchases—but your half-shift credit could be voided, and "voided" was the kind of word that grew teeth if you wore it twice.
The clerk watched him in that brief, flat way clerks watched anyone who might become effort.
Li Shen folded the list carefully and slid it into his sash without asking questions.
He didn't thank the clerk.
Thanking clerks didn't buy favors. It only bought familiarity.
He stepped back and let the next man press forward with louder frustration.
That evening, the dormitory was louder than usual.
Not arguments. Calculations spoken too close to anger.
Men compared names on the approved list and learned the same lesson: the Pavilion had narrowed the outside world into funnels. You could still go to Greyhaven. You could still walk the market. But if you wanted the Pavilion to recognize your day as legitimate, you had to buy legitimacy from specific hands.
Bai Ren sat beside the wash basin, wringing out a cloth with slow force.
"It's a squeeze," he said.
"Yes," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren glanced at him. "They do this because of you?"
Li Shen didn't pretend the world revolved around his cough and his receipts. That was the kind of thinking that turned survival into theater.
"They do it because it works," he said. "Someone lost credit. Someone argued. Shen Qiu hates arguments."
Bai Ren nodded, accepting the logic. Then he asked the only useful question.
"What do you do now?"
Li Shen let the question sit, because the answer wasn't a sentence. It was a route.
"Two routes," he said.
Bai Ren's eyes stayed on him.
"One: buy from approved vendors when the errand needs credit. Keep the stamps clean. Pay the markup. Let it be boring."
Bai Ren made a quiet sound of disgust. "And two?"
"Two: use Greyhaven only when credit doesn't matter. Small pickups. Once in a while. No pattern."
Bai Ren frowned. "Credit always matters."
"For servants," Li Shen agreed. "Not always equally."
Bai Ren understood slowly. "Half-shift credit."
"Yes," Li Shen said.
Lose it too often and you became expensive.
Lose it with "review" attached and you became interesting.
Interesting got you moved.
Moved got you broken.
"We don't fight the rule," Li Shen added. "We route around it."
Bai Ren asked the practical question. "How?"
Li Shen answered with the only clean solution at their level.
"Use the Pavilion's funnels when we need their accounting," he said. "Use our own channel when we can hide inside normal movement."
Bai Ren's gaze sharpened. "Qian Mei."
Li Shen didn't say her name out loud.
He nodded once.
Bai Ren's face stayed flat. "She can't come in."
"She doesn't need to," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren paused, then said, "You'll get seen."
Li Shen didn't dismiss it. He didn't dramatize it.
"I'll be seen anyway," he said. "The question is what they think they're seeing."
Bai Ren stared at him for a moment, then looked away like he didn't like the answer but couldn't afford to argue with the math.
"You're doing that thing again," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen didn't play dumb. "What thing?"
"Choosing the story," Bai Ren replied. "The one people can believe."
Li Shen said, "It's cheaper."
Bai Ren exhaled through his nose. Disgust, resignation, understanding—all blended into one sound.
The push came sooner than Li Shen expected.
Two days after the vendor rule went up, a clerk arrived at the forge lane near end of shift and nailed another notice beside the tool racks.
This one wasn't for Greyhaven.
This one was for inside.
FORGE ERRAND QUOTA — WEEKLY
REQUIRED: OIL / TWINE / QUENCH SAND
ASSIGNED RUNNERS — ROTATION
MISSED RUNS: DEDUCTION
A rotation list hung beneath it.
Names in a column.
Li Shen's name was third.
He read it once and felt something tighten behind his ribs—not fear.
A constraint.
Forge runners weren't prestigious. They were convenient. They were also visible: you left the lane, you crossed sections, you dealt with clerks, you showed your hands to more eyes.
And now the Pavilion was tying outside purchasing to inside quotas.
It wasn't a trap aimed at one person.
It was a net designed to catch anyone who tried to move sideways.
Bai Ren appeared behind him, having come to check yard postings.
"You're on it," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen nodded.
Bai Ren's voice dropped. "That's bad."
"It's work," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren shook his head once. "No. It's attention."
Li Shen didn't argue. He just looked at the rotation list again, then at the small line at the bottom that mattered most:
RUNNERS MUST PRESENT APPROVED STAMPS FOR CREDIT
There it was.
Vendor rule tied to quota. Quota tied to deductions. Deductions tied to pain.
A clean chain.
Li Shen felt the cold settle into place, the way it did when a plan met a wall and needed a new shape.
Bai Ren waited, reading his face with the blunt patience of a man who lived entirely in consequences.
Li Shen finally spoke.
"Good," he said.
Bai Ren blinked. "Good?"
"Yes," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren looked at him like smoke had finally cooked his brain.
Li Shen kept his voice level. "If I'm forced to run, my movement becomes normal. Normal movement is easier to hide inside."
Bai Ren's brow tightened. "Hide what?"
Li Shen didn't name Qian Mei. He didn't name consignment. He didn't name stone shards.
He said the operational truth.
"Maintenance," he replied. "And time."
Bai Ren stared at him, then gave a short, reluctant exhale.
"You're going to use their funnel as cover," Bai Ren said.
"Yes," Li Shen answered.
Bai Ren muttered, half to himself, "You're insane."
Li Shen didn't defend himself.
"Insane is missing runs and paying deductions," he said. "This is just math."
That night, Li Shen didn't cultivate late.
He cultivated early, before most men finished their last cough and turned over.
A shorter session. A steady loop. Enough to keep the thread-to-cord change from slipping backward under fatigue.
He stopped before the wet-sand exhaustion rose behind his navel.
Then he lay still, staring into darkness, and mapped the next week in his head.
Forge runner day meant Greyhaven under procedure.
Approved vendors, clean stamps, clean credit.
It also meant one quiet moment at the seam if the route allowed it—one pickup that looked like twine, one purchase that didn't change weight, one movement that remained boring.
He didn't treat it like a heist.
He treated it like supply.
Because supply kept his lungs working.
And if his lungs kept working, his cultivation kept moving.
And if his cultivation kept moving, then one day the Pavilion's paper would stop being able to hold him in place with a few lines of ink.
Not today.
But later.
Later was built out of weeks like this.
Vendor rules. Quotas. Rotations.
And the discipline to turn a net into a route.