Bai Ren learned the yard the way other men learned scripture.
Not from books. From repetition.
He knew which boards got updated first. Which runners posted with clean hands, and which posted with ink-stained cuffs because they'd been correcting something they weren't supposed to touch. He knew which men stood too close to the frame when they had nothing to read, and which men pretended to read when they were really watching who arrived.
Tonight, the Beast Yard board drew a crowd that didn't want to admit it was hungry.
The posting was fresh—paper still stiff, wax still glossy where the stamp had bitten.
ROTATION CREDIT — POSTED
PARTS CREDIT: POSTED
CORE CREDIT: POSTED
DISPUTE WINDOW: OPEN (ONE NIGHT ONLY)
Underneath, in smaller brush that looked polite and felt like a knife:
DISPUTE FILED — TEAM THREE
SUBJECT: CORE CLASSIFICATION / CREDIT ALLOCATION
CLAIM: RECORD IRREGULARITY
COUNTER: EAST WINDOW
Bai Ren didn't read it twice. Once was enough.
He found the line he expected to find.
LI SHEN — CREDIT: 15% (TOOL ISSUED) + CORE CREDIT (LOW CLARITY)
Clean numbers made enemies.
He watched the pattern instead of the ink.
Zhao Kun lingered a few paces back, arms crossed like he'd come by accident. He wasn't the type to file disputes himself—too exposed, too easy to remember. But the runner beside him, the one with the too-straight posture, looked like someone who'd been handed a script and a destination.
Bai Ren's eyes drifted toward the east window.
A clerk was already there, setting out forms as if she'd known she would need them.
So the dispute hadn't been filed after the credits posted.
It had been staged before the ink dried.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Of course."
He turned just as Li Shen reached the edge of the crowd—face empty, posture controlled, hands clean in the way people were clean when they'd spent the last hour washing blood off their skin and thinking about paper.
Bai Ren stepped into his path like it was casual.
"It's you," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen didn't look at the board first. He looked at Bai Ren. "What."
Bai Ren jerked his chin toward the posting. "Someone's trying to turn your fifteen percent into a correction."
Li Shen's gaze lifted to the paper and stayed there for one breath longer than necessary.
"Core," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren nodded. "Core and allocation. Greedy and poetic."
Li Shen angled toward the east window.
Bai Ren fell in beside him. "Before you go—Yun Xue is still off the dorm circuit. Elder Yan's corridor. People don't say her name. They say 'that one.'"
Li Shen didn't slow. Only his breathing shifted once—small, controlled. "Noted."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Good. Don't let them fold her into your dispute."
"They'll try," Li Shen said.
"That's why I'm saying it," Bai Ren replied.
---
The east window sat under an awning that didn't keep rain off, but did keep ink out of the sun.
A short line had formed—men with disputes that weren't about cores, women with slips stamped wrong, a boy holding a clinic ticket like it proved he still existed.
The dispute clerk behind the counter looked up as Li Shen approached, not at his face but at the runner's note already sitting beside her elbow.
So it was scheduled.
Scheduled meant rules.
Rules were the only ground a servant could stand on.
Li Shen waited his turn, then stepped forward and set his rotation slip down.
"Team three dispute," he said.
The clerk dragged the slip closer with two fingers. "Name."
"Li Shen."
Her brush paused, then she slid a separate sheet forward.
DISPUTE FORM — CORE / CREDIT CLASSIFICATION
FILING PARTY: (PROXY)
CLAIM: RECORD IRREGULARITY
REQUEST: RECLASSIFICATION / CREDIT ADJUSTMENT
DEPOSIT REQUIRED IF SEAL BROKEN
Li Shen read the last line twice.
Deposit required if seal broken.
That wasn't a detail. That was the gate.
He looked up. "Where is the core."
The clerk's eyes flicked toward sealed crates stacked behind her.
"Transferred," she said. "Sealed. Awaiting channel."
"Then the dispute is on paper," Li Shen said evenly. "Not on substance."
The clerk's expression didn't change. "The dispute is on whatever the filing party claims. If the counter accepts it, credit is held until resolved."
Held.
Held meant men skipped powder. Skipped wraps. Skipped food.
Bai Ren shifted beside Li Shen. "Held means the clinic line gets funnier."
The clerk didn't look at him. "Held means held."
Li Shen kept his tone procedural. "Who filed."
The clerk tapped the line that said PROXY. "Authorized stamp. Name not required."
Bai Ren exhaled. "Cowardice with extra steps."
The clerk's brush hovered like it might decide to write his name down for sport. It didn't.
She pointed at another line. "Witness."
Li Shen's gaze moved through the yard.
Ren Jiao stood not far off, arms folded, face turned away like he wasn't listening. Huang Qi lingered near him, still pale, hands raw from rope.
Li Shen stepped away from the counter and walked to Ren Jiao.
"Your name's on the slip," Li Shen said.
Ren Jiao didn't look at him immediately. When he did, his eyes were tired rather than angry.
"I don't like disputes," Ren Jiao said.
"No one does."
Ren Jiao's mouth twisted. "Disputes are how men get dragged into other men's fights."
Li Shen nodded once. "If credit is held, your sixty is held too."
Ren Jiao stared at him for a long moment, then spat to the side.
"Fine," he said. "We end it tonight."
Li Shen kept it clean. "Witness. And if they start talking about 'field conditions'—"
Ren Jiao cut him off. "Then they talk in front of someone who was in the field."
Huang Qi swallowed, then said quietly, "It was complete. I saw it."
Ren Jiao's eyes flicked to him. "You'll say that if asked."
Huang Qi nodded once. It looked like effort.
Li Shen turned back toward the window with Ren Jiao beside him.
Bai Ren followed, quiet now.
---
The clerk's eyes flicked to Ren Jiao and softened by exactly nothing.
"Witness name."
"Ren Jiao," Ren Jiao said.
The clerk wrote it down.
Then the proxy finally stepped forward.
Not Zhao Kun.
The runner with the too-straight posture.
He set a stamped slip down with a flourish that tried to look casual.
"Filing proxy," he said.
The clerk nodded. "State claim."
The proxy spoke like he'd rehearsed in front of a mirror.
"The core recorded as complete Qi Condensation Stage One is inconsistent with carcass classification and field conditions," he said. "Request reclassification to partial or fragment, and adjustment of core credit allocation."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "He said 'field conditions' like he paid the rope bill."
The proxy ignored him.
Li Shen kept his voice steady. "The core was extracted at the processing table. Sealed and tagged. Recorded in your ledger."
The proxy finally looked at Li Shen. "Complete and low clarity is… unlikely."
Ren Jiao's brows lifted. "Unlikely," he repeated, slow.
Huang Qi shifted his feet. "It was complete," he muttered.
The proxy's gaze flicked to Huang Qi, dismissive. "Hands aren't clerks."
Bai Ren laughed once—short, humorless. "And clerks aren't hands. Somehow we're all still hungry."
The dispute clerk lifted her brush. "Enough. If verification requires breaking seal, deposit is required."
The proxy hesitated.
That hesitation was the entire operation.
They didn't want proof. They wanted pressure. A cheap downgrade that looked administrative.
Li Shen reached inside his shirt and pulled out his journal.
Not dramatically. Like paperwork.
He opened it to a page of tight, boring lines and set it on the counter at an angle that let the clerk read without being forced to acknowledge him.
Ren Jiao leaned in. "What's that."
Li Shen didn't look up. "The tag code."
The clerk's brush paused. "Servants don't record tag codes."
Li Shen's tone stayed neutral. "I do."
He pointed with one finger.
Core extracted — complete — tag code E-17-39 — sealed
The proxy's jaw tightened.
He hadn't come with tag codes.
He'd come with language.
Li Shen looked at the clerk. "Verify the ledger line. If the proxy claims irregularity, have him name the tag code he disputes."
The proxy snapped, "Tag codes can be copied."
Ren Jiao's voice went cold. "Then pay deposit, break seal, and prove it."
The clerk's brush hovered above the deposit line.
The proxy's eyes flicked—fast—to Zhao Kun.
Just a heartbeat.
Bai Ren saw it and smiled without humor.
Li Shen didn't turn toward Zhao Kun. He watched the proxy.
The proxy swallowed. "Deposit is… unnecessary if the record can be corrected administratively."
Li Shen spoke softly, and the softness made it sharper. "You didn't file an administrative request. You filed a dispute."
The clerk reached under the counter and pulled a narrow ledger board from a stack.
Pages flipped fast.
Her finger stopped.
She read aloud, flat.
"Team three. Ashback boar. Qi Condensation Stage One. Weight two hundred and ten jin. Core extracted—complete. Tag code—E-17-39."
Li Shen didn't nod. Nodding looked like relief.
He simply said, "That matches."
The proxy pressed his lips together. "Low clarity still implies—"
The clerk cut him off. "Clarity is grade. Not completeness."
Bai Ren murmured, "He came to argue vocabulary."
Ren Jiao said, "He came to steal dinner."
The clerk's brush moved—deliberate, precise.
She wrote one line on the dispute form and stamped it.
DISPUTE DISMISSED — INSUFFICIENT BASIS
NOTE: RECORD VERIFIED (LEDGER / TAG CODE)
The crowd exhaled—not relief, just the delay of panic.
Held credit avoided was still credit.
The proxy snatched his slip back and stepped away like he'd been burned.
Zhao Kun didn't move. He didn't need to. Proxies existed so principals stayed clean.
Bai Ren logged the shape of it like a debt.
Li Shen took his rotation slip back and folded it carefully.
Then the clerk looked at Ren Jiao.
"Lead hand," she said. "Efficiency note."
Ren Jiao's brows rose. "What."
The clerk tapped the ledger line where the tendon cut had been recorded. "Clean disable reduced processing time. Standard note applies."
She stamped a small mark onto the team slip.
SALVAGE EFFICIENCY — APPLIED
A few points spread across the team.
Not a miracle. Not a promotion.
A measurable gain.
Huang Qi's shoulders loosened like his ribs had remembered how to breathe. "Rope salve," he muttered.
Ren Jiao looked at Li Shen with a different kind of assessment now. "Your fifteen percent just got heavier."
Li Shen kept his face neutral. "It's still fifteen."
Ren Jiao's mouth twisted. "For now."
---
They walked away from the east window into the yard flow.
Bai Ren stayed close, eyes sweeping corners like habit.
"You won," Bai Ren said quietly.
Li Shen didn't answer with pride. "The record won."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Same thing. You're becoming professionally irritating."
Li Shen's gaze stayed on the board frame. "Who does the proxy answer to."
Bai Ren smiled thinly. "That's my job."
Li Shen's voice stayed even. "Quietly."
"Quiet is all I've got," Bai Ren said, then added, "besides opinions."
Li Shen's mouth almost moved. Almost.
Bai Ren bumped his shoulder lightly—contact disguised as accident.
"You should spend," Bai Ren said. "Not on more tricks. On margin."
Li Shen nodded. "Stone. Wrap. A whetstone that's mine."
Bai Ren raised an eyebrow. "Planning to become a full smith."
Li Shen didn't deny it. "A full smith doesn't beg the forge for windows. He builds his own."
Bai Ren's eyes narrowed with real interest. "And then what."
Li Shen looked at the slips, the seals, the boards that ruled hunger.
"Then I stop being counted," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren exhaled softly. "That's the most dangerous sentence you've said all week."
Li Shen didn't argue.
Dangerous didn't mean wrong.
It meant real.