Dawn came thin and clear, the sort of light that makes roofs look higher and stone look honest.
The second bell rolled across the sect like a slow wave. Birds tried a few notes and stopped, as if the air did not yet belong to song.
Ye Tian washed his face in water that tasted of clay and cold.
He bound his hair tighter.
He took the iron fans and let the hinges breathe once, a soft click that said be ready.
Outside, the corridors under the eaves held a quiet that listened.
Footsteps went and came.
The smell of cedar lifted from wet boards that had seen too many mornings to be impressed by one more.
Mu Qing waited at the turn where the cloister met the outer court.
She held no book, no brush. Only a look that counted the space between breaths.
"You did not sleep long," she said.
"Long enough," he said.
Her eyes touched the fans. "Do not let them make you perform," she said. "They will ask for a show. They do not deserve one."
"I will give them a lesson," he said.
She nodded once. "The elder will want to see limits. Do not show him the real ones."
They walked the last stretch together.
North court opened like a clean page, wide boards bright under the pale sun.
The floor held old chalk marks that had been washed a hundred times and would not quite go.
At the far side, elders stood at the rail as if they had grown there.
The gentle frown elder looked as if he had slept in concern and brought it with him.
The neat handed elder stood with his sleeves just so, his chin turned a small degree, his mouth straight with interest.
Outer and inner disciples lined the edge.
Zhou Ren leaned against a pillar as if it had asked him to use it.
Sun Ruo stood still as a drawn line at the end of the platform.
Wen Yao held a tray with a clay cup and did not blink.
The neat handed elder made a tiny motion with two fingers.
The room knew to be still.
"Chen Mu," he said, as if the name were a note on a stringed instrument. "You came."
"I was told to," Ye Tian said.
"A good reason," the elder said. "We will do three things. First, form. Second, control. Third, restraint. If you cannot do the first, the second does not matter. If you cannot do the second, the third is only luck. Begin."
Ye Tian stepped to the chalk line.
He opened the right fan a thumb's width, then fully.
The left stayed closed.
He did not give them art.
He gave them a line of breathing.
Open, close, step, turn, place, receive.
The fans traced small arcs and smaller stops, the sort of movement that looks empty to the impatient and shows everything to those who know how to look.
The metal ribs caught light and gave it back without trying to be pretty.
The Origin measured without comment.
[Form acceptable]
[Tempo even]
[Note: crowd attention steady, Devotion slow gain]
He ended with the fans closed and his breath where it should be.
No flourish.
No bow.
The neat handed elder let the silence count to three.
"Control," he said. "Sun Ruo."
Sun Ruo stepped onto the boards and stopped two paces from Ye Tian.
His hood was gone. His eyes were the sort that watch doors more than faces.
The elder lifted a hand the width of a nail.
"Ten exchanges," he said. "No bruises. No strikes that leave a mark. Disarm if you can. If you cannot, no one will be surprised."
He did not smile when he said it.
He did not need to.
Sun Ruo breathed in, then out.
His shoulders dropped a fraction.
Presence thinned.
[Target: Sun Ruo]
[System: none, utility removed]
[Note: habits remain, slip step intact]
[Recommendation: do not seize, elders watching]
Ye Tian stepped in and let the fans become hands.
The left fan touched and went, not a strike, an edit.
The right fan guided a wrist where it wanted to be anyway.
Sun Ruo tried to vanish inside the step that makes eyes forget.
The closed fan tapped the outside of an elbow and made a small fence.
One exchange.
Two.
Three.
No sound but breath and the quiet click of metal.
Sun Ruo flowed like someone who had been told not to win and had decided not to lose instead.
Ye Tian gave ground when it taught the right lesson, took ground when it said I understand.
He did not show speed that did not need to be shown.
He did not show force that would become a number in someone's report.
Nine.
Ten.
They ended with Sun Ruo empty handed and no one bruised.
The needle that might have appeared did not.
[Control, acceptable]
[Devotion +3]
[Observation: elders satisfied, curiosity rising]
The neat handed elder moved one finger, then two.
"Restraint," he said. "Wen Yao."
Wen Yao set the tray aside and stepped onto the boards.
His eyes were calm.
His pulse was slow.
[Target: Wen Yao]
[System: Steady Breath]
[Function: keeps pulse even, slows fear, improves recovery]
[Integrity: 52 percent]
[Seizure chance: moderate with wrist contact]
[Advisory: do not seize here]
The elder pointed to a wooden post set near the corner of the platform.
A white strip of cloth had been tied around its middle.
A shallow bowl of purple dye rested on a low stand beside it, a brush laid across the rim.
"Paint the cloth," the elder said to Wen Yao. "Stand here and hold the post. Do not let it sway."
Wen Yao dipped the brush and drew a thin band of color on the cloth, steady as a river that knows its bed.
He gripped the post with both hands and waited.
The elder turned back to Ye Tian.
"Strike the cloth ten times," he said. "Do not touch the hands. Leave the band unbroken."
The yard murmured and then remembered itself and went quiet again.
Ye Tian opened the right fan.
The left stayed closed.
He stepped in and let the fan move in the space that belongs to breath, not bone.
The first tap found the edge of the purple.
The post did not sway.
Wen Yao's hands eased, then tightened to the same place, then eased again.
Two.
Three.
Four.
The line held.
The fan spoke metal in a voice no louder than a page turning.
The Origin hummed.
[Hand clearance consistent]
[Angle correct]
[Note: Steady Breath influence detected, post stability enhanced]
Five.
Six.
A small breeze ran across the boards and went away.
Seven.
Eight.
Wen Yao's eyelids did not flutter.
His pulse did not climb.
Nine.
Ye Tian closed the fan.
Ten was the closed edge, a single kiss that left no new color and no new noise.
He stepped back.
The purple band was unbroken.
The post had not moved.
Wen Yao's hands were where he had put them.
The neat handed elder let out a breath that might have been approval and might have been nothing at all.
"Enough," he said.
Wen Yao released the post, wiped the brush clean with a neatness that had nothing to do with fear, and stepped away.
Sun Ruo had already become another plank on the floor.
The elder lowered his chin a fraction.
His eyes were not warm.
They were not cold.
They were interested.
"You can count," he said. "And you can count other people. This will make you friends. This will make you enemies."
"I will count anyway," Ye Tian said.
"Good," the elder said. "Then count with this."
He lifted his hand.
A disciple at the end of the rail lifted a small gong and struck it once.
The sound went out across the court and came back as a wall.
"Three days from now," the elder said, "the sect will hold an inner trial. Teams of three. The ground will be unfamiliar. The rules will be clear. The judging will not be. The purpose is to find who can move when the floor changes."
A ripple of whispers ran along the edge and died when his eyes turned.
"Outer disciples may volunteer," he said. "Few do. Those who do are either fools or useful."
His gaze did not move to Ye Tian.
It did not have to.
"Today," he said, "you will demonstrate again at the noon bell. Then you will choose whether to stand in the line for fools, or the line for useful men."
He turned away a finger's width.
The session was over.
[Event registered]
[Inner trial, three days]
[Recommendation: team formation, utilities that counter heavy defense preferred]
[Note: Minor Qi Shield synergy valuable, Concealment valuable, Weapon Mastery valuable]
Zhou Ren slid off his pillar and smiled the way he always did.
It held.
It always held.
"Teams," he said. "How charming. A festival of lines."
"We will count them," Ye Tian said.
"Of course," Zhou Ren said. "Perhaps we will count together."
He drifted toward the rail like a leaf that has chosen a river.
Mu Qing appeared at Ye Tian's side with the quiet of ink soaking a page.
"They will watch the noon ring," she said. "They will hope for carelessness. Do not give it to them."
"Do you have names," he asked.
"I have three lists," she said. "One is for people who will make noise, one is for people who will make problems, and one is for people who will make a difference."
"Which list am I on," he asked.
"All of them," she said.
He almost smiled.
Sun Ruo passed behind them without sound.
He did not look left or right.
Wen Yao carried the tray as if it were part of the floor.
Ye Tian walked with Mu Qing under the eaves until the boards grew darker with shade.
"What will you want in a team," she asked.
"Breath that does not break when the floor moves," he said. "Eyes that see corners. Hands that do not ask a weapon to be something it is not."
She nodded once.
"I can find you one and a half of those," she said. "The last you will have to make yourself."
The bell in the far hall struck the hour.
Younger disciples scattered like birds rising and settling again.
[Devotion +4]
[Visibility rising]
[Interest in your selection high]
Ye Tian sat on the edge of the platform and watched the sun lift itself an inch.
He did not talk.
He did not move more than the small movements that keep a body from forgetting it is a body.
The neat handed elder stood with the gentle frown elder and did not speak for a long time.
When he did, it was a line cut small enough that only the man beside him heard it.
"Put him where the floor is not finished," he said.
The gentle frown elder nodded as if he had known that answer before the morning began.
By the time the noon bell sounded, the edge of the court had thickened with bodies again.
The fans felt alive in Ye Tian's hands, not eager, not calm, simply present.
He stepped to the ring and breathed.
The world breathed back.
The elder raised his fingers.
"Again," he said.
Ye Tian opened the fan.
He did not perform.
He did not show.
He taught the ring to count.
Three sequences, then four, then five.
A simple disarm that used a wrist as a hinge, no more.
A gentle break of timing that made a spear forget the distance between two hearts.
The crowd did not cheer.
They watched the way people watch a knife being sharpened by someone who does not talk while working.
[Devotion +5]
[Note: public expectation set]
When he finished, the neat handed elder pointed to the board where notices lived.
"Teams will register at dusk," he said. "After that, no changes. Bring your own cup."
He said it without looking at Ye Tian.
The words still found him.
The yard emptied in waves.
Half of the eyes that left were already turned toward dusk.
Mu Qing walked up with a folded slip in her hand, rough paper, dark ink.
"Three names," she said. "One suggestion."
He took the slip.
He did not open it yet.
"You will choose," she said. "But this time, choose before they choose you."
He looked at the boards, at the chalk lines that would not go away, at the post with the purple band that had not dripped.
"What is your suggestion," he asked.
"That you take one person no one will understand," she said, "and one person everyone underestimates."
"And the third," he said.
"You," she said.
He opened the slip.
It held three names.
One he knew.
One he had seen but not counted.
One he had not heard until this breath.
The wind moved across the court and carried the smell of cedar to the far rail, and back again.
[Team formation pending]
[Projected synergy favorable with two of three]
[Warning: contest ground unfamiliar]
The sun went higher.
The shadow of the rail lay a thin dark ribbon across the boards.
Ye Tian closed the fans.
"I will count," he said.
And the chapter ended with the bell still hours away, and a list in his sleeve that would decide which floor he learned to walk next.
---