The drums stopped. The square dissolved into plans.
On the walk home, three different people reminded Jian Zhi of the time for lessons as if he'd forget on purpose. He thanked each one with the same mild "En." Lin Yue didn't say much; he was measuring the day the way carpenters measure beams.
Back in the courtyard, they made quiet work of readiness. Jian Zhi rolled their brushes in a cloth, slid paper into a sling bag, added a spare twine loop and a stub of charcoal. Lin Yue oiled the hinge that still thought about complaining and knotted his token to an inner sleeve with two neat loops that wouldn't slip.
"Eat before we go," Jian Zhi said, setting out a plate—cold noodles dressed with sesame and the last of the scallion.
Lin Yue tasted, nodded. "Approved by the Academy of Good Sense."
Jian Zhi's mouth did that small thing that wasn't quite a smile but had aspirations. "High praise."
They left a little early. Lin Yue liked being early. People who arrive first get to choose their corner.
The old schoolhouse sat at the square's far edge, a long room with a chalk-scarred board and windows that opened onto willow and lane. Inside, benches waited with the patience of furniture that had survived a hundred bored elbows. A few villagers had arrived already: the farmer's girl from yesterday, two boys who looked like brothers, a seamstress's apprentice, and—of course—the trio of swagger from the banquet, trying to look like they hadn't raced here.
The Azure Crane instructors were there too. The woman with the cinnabar dot at her brow stood by the board with a piece of chalk tucked behind one ear. The mild-eyed man sat on the edge of the front table, hands folded, taking in the room without making the room feel taken. The young disciple stacked thin wooden slats in a corner and tried not to drop them.
"Welcome," the woman said when the room had mostly found its seats. "I am Instructor Mei. This is Instructor Shen. For seven days, you will learn how not to be fools."
A few nervous laughs. She didn't smile. "We say this with love."
Shen's eyes warmed, the way tea warms a cup. "The Academy has rules because too many people have already learned lessons with their bodies. We prefer ink whenever possible."
Mei tapped the board. "Today is simple: tools and breath for the craft track, lines and listening for arrays. If you are here only for curiosity, you will still leave able to fix a crooked door and draw a protective mark that won't embarrass your ancestors."
The swaggering trio snickered under their breaths. Mei did not look at them. She drew four symbols on the board—clean, confident strokes. Even from the back, the line weight made sense.
"Arrays live or die by stroke order, angle, and the breath you carry into the brush," she said. "Wrong order, and the character is just a shape. Wrong angle, and the meaning leaks out like water through bad clay. Breath too tight, and you carve; too loose, and you smear."
She sketched a small square and placed the first symbol in the center. "We begin with set-and-hold. Watch."
Mei lifted the brush, inhaled once, exhaled, and the first stroke landed—firm, unhurried. The room seemed to match her lungs on instinct. Lin Yue watched her hand, not the brush: the way her wrist floated, the way the fingers relaxed on the downstroke. Jian Zhi's gaze didn't leave the ink; his own breathing adjusted, quieter.
"Pairs," Mei said, stepping back. "Copy. Slowly."
Wood creaked as benches shifted. The young disciple set out shallow dishes of thin ink. Paper whispered. Lin Yue and Jian Zhi took a table by the window. Jian Zhi ground the brush dry and wet again; Lin Yue placed the paper straight and weighted the edge with a flat pebble so wind wouldn't play small tricks.
Jian Zhi's first line was almost too careful—good bones, nerves crowded in the joints. The second line loosened. By the third, the brush stayed true.
"Better to draw slow right lines than fast wrong ones," Lin Yue murmured without looking over.
"Is that a proverb?" Jian Zhi asked quietly.
"It can be," Lin Yue said.
He tried a set himself, following the rhythm of his own breath. His strokes were clean, a fraction heavier than Mei's—practical hands used to instruments rather than long calligraphy. The symbol held.
Mei passed behind them, neither encouraging nor discouraging with her face. She set a fingertip lightly on Jian Zhi's wrist.
"Drop the shoulder," she said. "Imagine the table rising to meet you."
Jian Zhi adjusted. The next set caught. Mei's eyes flicked—approval so small you'd miss it if you wanted praise spelled out. Jian Zhi's exhale opened something in the air.
Across the room, the tallest swagger boy did his best to impress his friends by going faster. His symbol looked like a drunk spider. Instructor Shen appeared behind him quietly and turned the paper around. "This is a lovely wind when we asked for hold," he said, mild as weather. "Try again."
The craft track came next. Shen took over, laying out files, small hammers, copper wire, and a squat iron cylinder with a vent. "Breath is part of craft," he said, "because heat is a kind of breath. You match it or you fight it. Fighting loses."
He demonstrated how to steady the cylinder with three stones, feed a tight handful of chips, and coax a small blue flame that stayed disciplined instead of enthusiastic. The swagger boys leaned forward; fire remembered their names and licked hopefully.
"Practice breath on the vent," Shen said, gesturing them in. "Steady in, steady out. We're not boiling stew."
He moved through the room like someone stepping into puddles without getting wet. When he reached Lin Yue and Jian Zhi, he set two thin copper rods on their table.
"Warm one," he said, "while your partner keeps the flame constant. Then switch. No blisters today."
Lin Yue took the vent first. Breath in, breath out. Find the point where the flame stood like a person deciding whether to bow. Jian Zhi held the rod with tongs and rotated it with a patience that made time settle. When they switched, the flame hesitated until Jian Zhi's lungs found the rhythm; then it held, pleased to be understood.
Shen watched for all of four heartbeats and nodded as if he'd been there an hour. "Good," he said, and left them to it.
By the lesson's middle, chalk dust hung in the room like thin mist. Lin Yue's fingers remembered other rooms—sterile white, humming equipment—and then let those memories pass without argument. This was not that. This was simpler: wood, ink, breath, copper, heat. He liked simplicity when it was honest.
Mei clapped once, sharp. "Puzzle break."
Groans, small cheers, the sound of benches betraying weak joints. Mei wiped the board and drew a square divided into four smaller squares. In each, she placed a simple character: hold, turn, listen, bind.
"Door ward," she said. "Very basic, barely more than a polite suggestion to unfriendly weather. Most of you will draw each character once and stack them. It will work. It will also be ugly and weak. The better way uses flows."
She drew a thin guide line connecting the squares—hold to bind, bind to turn, turn to listen, listen back to hold—making a loop.
"You will place your strokes so that when you lift the brush, the energy falls into the next character without bumping its head. If you don't understand, draw it the ugly way first so you can tell the difference."
Assignments went out—small wooden doors taken from somewhere, probably a shed sacrificed to teaching. Pairs carried them to tables. The swagger trio had already started, laughing at their speed. The farmer's girl bit her lip, copying the loop carefully. Jian Zhi looked at the board a long moment, not moving yet; Lin Yue watched his eyes map the path.
"Want the ugly way first?" Lin Yue offered.
Jian Zhi shook his head once. "I think I can see it."
"Then I'll keep the door steady."
Ink. Breath. First stroke: hold, top-left, anchor straight. Jian Zhi placed it true. Second: bind, bottom-left, a connecting hook that sat like a knot coming tight but not choking. Third: turn, bottom-right—angle just so, so that the loop did not stumble at the corner. Last: listen, top-right—lighter on the entry, heavier on the downstroke, finishing with a tiny lift that felt like opening a window.
Lin Yue didn't move the entire time. He didn't need to. The lines told him when to breathe.
When Jian Zhi lifted the brush, the four squares looked like they had been drawn by the same thought in four voices. They didn't glow. They didn't hum. But the door felt heavier in a pleasant way, like it knew what to do with itself.
Mei came by. She didn't praise. She set their door gently aside and said, "Again," which was praise with a coat on.
At the swagger table, the tall boy snorted. He'd drawn the characters with confidence and no respect, stacked neatly. It would keep out polite breezes. He leaned on his door and smirked at Jian Zhi across the aisle.
"Don't take all day, fragile phoenix," he said. "The door won't elope."
Jian Zhi ignored it. Lin Yue didn't. He turned the swagger boy's door sideways, tested it with his knuckles. The wood thudded, echo shallow.
"Ugly way," Lin Yue said, not unkind. "It will work—until the first proper storm."
The boy scoffed. "What would you know—"
Shen appeared, smiling like a lamp. "Would you mind swapping?" he asked the boy, voice very polite. "Let's test."
The boy, suddenly eager to be right, agreed. Shen set the swagger door in the frame by the schoolhouse entrance and nudged it with two fingers. The ward slowed the swing, then yielded. He set Jian Zhi's door on the same frame and nudged. The door moved and… stopped. Not in a locked way. In a way that said, We're closed now.
A quiet little ooo went around the room. The swagger boy's ears turned color.
Mei tapped the board with her chalk. "Flows," she said. "Or keep stacking and pray your neighbors don't mind bailing you out every rain."
Class ran on. They copied, erased, tried again. Lin Yue's wrists stayed loose; Jian Zhi's shoulders learned to drop. When Shen spoke to the craft students about heat memory in metal, Lin Yue's mouth tilted. He understood heat memory. He understood a lot of things he hadn't expected to understand here.
Near the end, Mei set a small slip of paper on each table—a personal task. On Lin Yue and Jian Zhi's: Draw the ward again on thinner wood; test with breeze; correct your weakest stroke. On the swagger table: Fix your bind. Stop bullying the paper.
"Questions?" Mei asked, tucking her chalk back behind her ear.
The farmer's girl raised a hand. "What if my hand shakes?"
Mei nodded. "Practice when you are not tired. Eat properly. And if your hand shakes, make your lines shorter and cleaner; don't try to be brave by making them long and ugly."
Laughter, this time friendly.
"Dismissed," Shen said. "Do not practice talismans on your livestock."
"Or your brothers," Mei added without looking, which caused two brothers to stare at the floor with interest.
They filed out. Afternoon light pooled in the lanes. People's voices had new notes in them—the sound of I might be able to do this.
Aunt waited outside with arms crossed, inventing reasons not to be proud. "Well?" she demanded.
"We learned how to keep doors from misbehaving," Lin Yue said. "An important social skill."
Aunt sniffed to cover a smile that had almost escaped. "Zhi?"
"It was good," Jian Zhi said simply. "We'll go back."
Aunt harrumphed at the sky like it had disappointed her personally and stomped off in the direction of her opinions. Lin Yue watched her go with a look that could have been affection if you were generous.
They took the long way home. The lane smelled like dust and green. Jian Zhi walked with his hands behind his back, gaze lowered in that way of his that wasn't shyness so much as economy. When he spoke, it was almost to the path.
"Thank you," he said.
"For what?"
"For not letting them write me," he said, then amended, softer, "us."
Lin Yue didn't answer right away. The willow ahead of them lifted its sleeves to catch a breeze. "We'll write ourselves," he said at last. "It's slower, but it lasts."
Back at the courtyard, they tested their thin-wood ward as assigned. This time, Lin Yue held the brush and Jian Zhi kept the board level. Lin Yue's lines were practical, less elegant than Jian Zhi's, but solid. The ward caught the evening draft and quieted it. Jian Zhi touched the final stroke with a fingertip and smiled, small, private.
They made soup and ate it with the comfort of people who had done tangible tasks and been rewarded by the lack of disaster. After, Jian Zhi practiced short strokes on scrap, stopping when his hand told the truth about being tired. Lin Yue cleaned the brush carefully, combing the bristles straight with two fingers as if persuading them rather than ordering.
He didn't enter his pocket world that night. He stood at the threshold and felt it—water steady, soil calm—then stepped back. Some doors can wait; the real one was tomorrow, at noon, with chalk dust and honest mistakes.
They banked the lamp. The courtyard breathed. Somewhere, a night bird practiced a measure and decided it liked it.
Just before sleep, a knuckle rapped softly at their gate.
Both men sat up. Lin Yue slid to the door, all quiet angles. Jian Zhi stood behind him, steady.
"Who?" Lin Yue asked.
A voice—older, cautious. "Old Wei," it said. "My granary door sulks in the rain. The aunt said you fix things. I'll pay in grain."
Lin Yue looked at Jian Zhi. Jian Zhi's eyes answered before his mouth did. "We'll come in the morning."
Old Wei exhaled gratitude through wood. "Good. Before the storm."
"Storm?" Jian Zhi repeated.
"From the hills," Old Wei said. "Smells like a hard one."
Footsteps retreated. Silence settled again.
Lin Yue leaned his forehead briefly against the cool wood of the door and grinned, unseen. "Perfect timing."
Jian Zhi tilted his head. "Because…?"
"Because tomorrow," Lin Yue said, "we'll see if our door ward likes real weather."
Jian Zhi's laugh was quiet and bright. "Then we should sleep."
They did, and the night kept its end of the bargain.
Far off, over the hills, lightning tested a line in the clouds, then tucked it away for later.