"Forward."
Shen's voice cut the morning. The drumbeat faded. Feet started moving.
Lin Yue fell in beside Jian Zhi. Mei Ling slid behind them, humming like she meant to annoy worry into leaving. Han Feng and his two shadows took the line in front. Hai and Da Ren walked close together, nets over their shoulders.
At the gate, Instructor Mei peeled the ward strip from the lintel herself, folded it neat, and tucked it into her satchel. "Door open," she said under her breath. "Don't make me regret it."
They stepped onto the road. Cool air spilled down from the ridge with a thin taste of metal. Red festival ribbons on the posts brushed, then went still.
"Pairs," Shen called. "Single file. Keep spacing. If I say stop, you stop."
No one argued. They filed out, boots thudding on packed earth. The first turn sat at the big oak. Its roots pushed up like the backs of sleeping cattle. Birds chattered in the hedges. The sound helped.
"Count your steps to the oak," Jian Zhi said low.
"Counting," Lin Yue said. He liked numbers. They made nerves behave.
They reached the oak together. Shen didn't pause. "Forward."
Fields stretched out—barley bowing under heavy heads, scarecrows with button eyes that saw nothing. A cart clattered toward the village from the ridge side, oxen blowing white in the cool. The driver, a woman with a red headscarf, slowed.
"Quiet up there," she said. "But it sits wrong."
"Thank you," Shen said. "Go safe."
She moved on. The wheels clicked, faded.
"Wrong how?" Mei Ling whispered.
"Like a closed room that smells like rain," Jian Zhi said.
"That's very poetic," Lin Yue said. "I prefer doors that actually open."
"Then don't tell the ridge," Mei Ling said. "It likes secrets."
The road lifted by degrees. Trees thickened on the south side. The land fell away to the north, toward the stream and lower fields. Mist thinned. The ridge showed its bite—long spine, deep notch.
Han Feng glanced back. "Don't lag."
"We aren't," Lin Yue said.
"I was talking to myself," Han Feng said fast, which made his ears go pink. He faced forward.
"Progress," Da Ren whispered. Hai elbowed him, smiling anyway.
The road bent. Gravel crisped under Lin Yue's boot. He stopped, crouched, brushed aside grit. An old ward strip lay there, brittle, ink ghost-gray. The strokes were clean, but tired.
Jian Zhi crouched beside him. "Wind didn't drop this."
"No," Lin Yue said.
Shen came up. He didn't touch the strip. He read it with his eyes. "Mark it," he told Mei.
She chalked a small crane on a trunk. "Found here."
They climbed. Birdsong thinned. Only boots and staff tips and the slide of nets.
A low gust came down the road. The small travel bell on Shen's pack clicked once, then again. No other bells answered. The clicks sat in the air, sharp as pins.
"Hold the line," Shen said. "Same pace."
They held it. Lin Yue watched the gaps. Gaps told you where a mistake would fall. Two gulls glided low from the ridge, circled once, and flapped toward the stream without a sound.
"Don't like that," Hai murmured.
"They owe us nothing," Jian Zhi said.
"Don't say it like you admire them," Mei Ling told him.
"If I admired them," Jian Zhi said, "I would borrow their silence."
Lin Yue snorted. "Please don't. Someone has to talk while we wait to be brave."
The path narrowed where rock pressed close. Ferns and thin pines climbed the slope on one side; the other side dropped just far enough to make ankles pay attention.
"Formation," Shen called. "Mei—marks."
Mei knelt and dabbed staggered dots with chalk: six places like a circle that had forgotten how to close.
"You know this," Shen said. "Breathe together. Don't rush the turn."
First set: Han Feng at point. Lin Yue and Jian Zhi on the next two. Mei Ling and the Huang boy behind. Mill girl at the back. They walked the dots: step, breath, step. At the second pass, the road tugged sideways, like a shelf settling. The mill girl's heel slipped. Jian Zhi steadied her without looking, then let go.
"Thanks," she breathed.
"Again," Shen said.
They went again. Third pass smoother. Fourth pass—
The tug hit harder, like the ridge sighed and the air agreed. Ward strips on a scrub pine flittered, forgot themselves, and lay flat. Dust lifted and set back down in one long breath.
Yao Ren stepped off the line as if the road needed his idea. "If there's treasure—"
"Stop," Mei said.
He didn't. His foot rolled. His ankle folded. Han Feng caught his collar and yanked him upright.
"Stay in line," Han Feng said, voice low. "You'll trip someone else."
Yao Ren's mouth opened, shut. "Fine," he muttered, watching his own feet like they had betrayed him.
They finished the pattern. Shen nodded once. "Good. Remember the feel. We don't need clever. We need the same."
The path widened. Pairs reformed. Lin Yue's shoulders eased. He didn't notice he'd been holding them until they dropped a finger's width.
A shelf of cleared stones came next—old rockfall moved aside by stubborn hands. A strip of red cloth tied to a scrub branch snapped once in still air, then lay quiet.
Lin Yue's tongue tasted that thin metal again. Familiar now. He didn't like that.
"Water," Shen called. "Short break. Don't wander. Don't sit on the pile. Keep the high side clear."
They drank from skins. Lin Yue passed his to Jian Zhi without asking. Jian Zhi drank, wiped the lip, returned it. Small routines had weight.
Han Feng drifted over, trying to look like he hadn't planned to. "Spar?"
Mei Ling groaned. "Boys."
"Short," Han Feng said to Lin Yue. "First clean touch."
"Fine," Lin Yue said. He set his skin on a flat stone, took his short stick, stepped to clear ground. Jian Zhi moved aside, arms folded, face neutral, eyes bright.
They circled. Ground leaned a hair. Lin Yue set his weight low. Han Feng struck straight. Lin Yue slid it aside. Tap to Han Feng's wrist. Clean.
"Again," Han Feng said, tight, not angry.
They reset. Han Feng feinted with his shoulder this time. Better. Lin Yue let him commit, then stepped in and crowded space. Han Feng adapted quick, angled his stick, pushed. Tap to Lin Yue's ribs. Clean.
"Good," Lin Yue said. It stung. He liked honest sting.
They prepared for a third touch. The shelf tugged again. Pebbles rolled with a soft tick. Shen said, "Back in line," already counting heads.
They were. The tug eased. The pebbles settled.
"Enough," Shen said. "We go on."
Han Feng gave Lin Yue a short nod that meant, Later. Lin Yue returned it. Mei Ling bumped Lin Yue's shoulder. "Both less bad," she said. "I approve."
They walked. Pines thinned. The notch yawned ahead like the mouth of a bowl. The ground turned to fine grit that made boots whisper. Something—not sound—ran along Lin Yue's molars. He opened his mouth and closed it again.
"Look," Jian Zhi said quietly.
Lin Yue followed his gaze. Three pale points hung in the notch in a shallow curve. Not bright. Not moving. Gone in a blink.
"You saw?" Lin Yue asked.
"Yes," Jian Zhi said.
"Anyone else?" Lin Yue called, polite and low.
"I see rock," Mei Ling said.
Han Feng said nothing. His jaw was set.
Shen didn't turn his head. "Keep your eyes on your feet," he said calmly. "If the ridge wants to be watched, it will say."
That felt like an answer to a question Lin Yue hadn't asked out loud.
They came to a pinch of stone, two shoulders leaning in. Shen lifted a hand. "Stop. Listen."
They did. Wind thinned until it felt like someone forgetting to breathe. Far below, water rushed over rock: steady, honest. A dry clack—like bamboo on bamboo—ticked once and stopped.
"Forward," Shen said, and led them through the pinch in pairs.
The world opened into a shallow basin ringed by broken pine and grey boulders. In the center, a flat patch of old stone lay scraped clean by weather. Three short marker posts stood there, lichen-capped and stubborn.
Mei stepped to the edge and pressed her palm to the stone. "No heat. No bite."
Shen walked the ring slow, counting under his breath, eyes on dust, boots, shadows.
Lin Yue eased closer, crouched at the rim. He didn't touch. Thin hairline cracks crossed the stone—natural, mostly. But under them, if he looked out of the corner of his eye, a curve crossed a curve like breath on glass.
"See it?" Jian Zhi murmured at his shoulder.
"Only when I don't," Lin Yue said.
"That," Jian Zhi said. His shoulder brushed Lin Yue's. Anchor-light.
A low hum slid through the air. Lin Yue felt it in his teeth. Not danger yet. Attention. He let his breath even out. He didn't reach for the feeling. He didn't hide.
A branch snapped in the pines.
The sound was wrong. Too clean. Too close.
"Form up," Shen said, already moving—one step forward, one step to the right, opening space.
A shape burst from the scrub—low, fast, grey-black. An Ironhide Boar, but leaner, meaner, with plates along its shoulders and a tusk chipped to a knife. Its breath steamed. Its eyes were yellow and wrong, like it had slept badly for a year.
Mei Ling swore. Da Ren flinched and lifted his net like it could catch an ox.
"Stay back!" Shen's voice snapped through the basin. He stepped into the boar's path. His foot dug. His palm rose. A thin light-film slid across his forearm and hand, no color, just the way heat makes air shimmer.
The boar charged.
Shen didn't dodge. He shifted—half a foot, half a breath—and caught the tusk on the meat of his palm and wrist with that film. The clash cracked like split bamboo. The boar's weight shoved him back a heel-length. Dust skidded. Shen didn't fall.
"Foundation," Han Feng breathed, awe stealing the rest.
Shen turned the tusk sideways with both hands, let the boar pass a hair, then struck with his elbow—short, honest, no flourish—into the soft point under the jaw. The boar screamed. It shook its head. The tusk scraped Shen's arm guard and sparked. He slid his left foot, pivoted, and raked the boar's shoulder plate with two fingers. The light-film at his fingertips bit like a small blade. A groove appeared, shallow but real.
The boar wheeled. It went for the weak spot in the line—where Mei Ling and the mill girl stood.
"Back!" Shen said, cutting it off with a low sweep of his forearm. He didn't reach for the snout or the eye. He hit the knee joint. The boar stumbled, muscles stuttering.
"Stones!" Lin Yue shouted without thinking.
Mei kicked a fist-sized rock at the boar's foreleg. Jian Zhi snapped a fallen branch into two at a knot—how did he— and flung one piece low, hard. It struck the boar's ankle with a thock. Han Feng was already moving; he planted his stick and vaulted that last half-step, slicing a clean smack across the boar's nose. It jerked back, furious and confused.
Good. Confused is slow.
"Hold your places!" Shen barked, voice sharp enough to cut the boar's focus. He took the charge again, this time stepping into the path at the last instant. The tusk slid along that shimmering film at his forearm with a squeal like glass on slate. Shen's right hand flashed—two fingers, then a palm—landing three fast strikes under the jaw, along the throat, behind the ear. Not flashy. Precise. The boar's head snapped sideways. Its hind legs slid.
It regrouped. It wasn't dumb. It turned—not on Shen—but toward the notch, like something behind them had whistled.
"Where are you going?" Mei Ling yelled at the boar, as if it would answer.
"From, not to," Jian Zhi said, low.
Lin Yue swallowed. His mouth tasted metal. He wanted to look at the flat stone. He didn't.
The boar scraped its hoof. It would go again. Shen breathed once, deep, and the light-film over his forearms thickened—barely visible now, like clear lacquer on steel.
"Down," Shen told the boar, as if speaking to a stubborn tool. He drove his heel into the ground, pushed forward in a straight line, and struck—palm to snout, elbow to neck, knee to shoulder, three-beat rhythm, each hit landing where plates met meat. The last strike sank. The boar crumpled to one side with a shudder that shook grit loose from the rock.
Silence held a heartbeat too long.
Then sound returned in a rush: everyone's breath, Mei Ling's whispered "holy—," Hai's quiet sob turning straight into a laugh, Da Ren saying "we're fine, we're fine" as if he could make it true by repetition.
Shen stood still for two breaths, shoulders square, hands lowered. The light-film faded from his arms like steam.
He did not grin. He did not boast. He looked at the boar's tusk, bent at a wrong angle, and at the shallow grove he'd made in the shoulder plate. He nodded once, as if agreeing with math.
Han Feng stared like a boy meeting a god at the well. "Foundation," he said again, this time under his breath, like he finally believed in gravity.
"Don't say stages on the road," Mei warned, eyes never leaving the treeline. "Words listen."
"Yes, Instructor," Han Feng said fast, then turned the color of a plum, realizing she hadn't meant him.
Lin Yue looked at Shen's hands. No blood. A thin scrape across the guard. He wanted to touch the light-film to see if it was warm. It was gone.
Jian Zhi's arm brushed Lin Yue's. "Breathe," he said softly.
"I am," Lin Yue said, and then did it for real.
Shen crouched to check the boar's eye with two fingers. It was out but breathing. He pressed the point under the ear once more. The beast slumped fully.
"Not a hunt," Shen said. "A warning."
Han Feng frowned. "From what?"
Shen looked toward the notch. He didn't answer. He didn't need to. A low roll, not thunder, moved through the basin like a hand running under cloth. The three marker posts clicked—one, two, three—faint as teacups touching.
Mei's voice came tight. "We leave. Same order. No chatter."
Yao Ren, chalk white, opened his mouth. Nothing came out. He closed it and nodded too many times.
They formed quickly. Mei Ling slid nearer the mill girl without making a show of it. Hai and Da Ren shifted to stay behind Lin Yue and Jian Zhi, like they had decided the safest place was inside the space the two of them took up.
Shen didn't say "Forward." He took one step and the line moved, feet finding the old rhythm. The basin watched them go.
On the narrow stretch where the chalk dots had been, the air tugged again—but softer now, almost polite, like the ridge was scenting them. The travel bell on Shen's pack did not click. The gulls were gone. The wind smelled like wet stone and old pine.
They reached the shelf of cleared stones. Aunt stood there with a basket like she had never left, which was ridiculous because she had no reason to be there and also of course she did.
"You look pale," she said to the whole group. "Soup at the square. No falling down. You'll scuff my patience."
No one asked how she'd gotten here. They went past like she was a checkpoint run by love.
Inside the gate, Mei pasted a fresh ward strip onto the lintel in one clean motion. It settled nice and straight. People breathed easier just because something had been done right.
Shen faced the group. "We go again at dawn. Good order today. You held." He glanced toward the ridge. "Bring me any ward strips that crackle tonight. Paste fresh before dark. Two lanterns only if you have a sick elder. If your lantern smokes, trim the wick. Don't be clever. Be early."
That should have been the end. People started to break, the way people do when fear stands down and hunger steps in.
Lin Yue lagged a breath. The corner of his eye had caught something at the gate. He turned his head slow so he wouldn't spook it.
The fresh ward strip on the lintel—straight as a ruler—quivered. Once. Twice. A tiny ripple ran down the ink strokes like a fish under silk. Then still.
No wind. No touch. No one else looking.
Jian Zhi leaned close, low voice. "You saw?"
"I did," Lin Yue said, keeping his face plain. "Don't point."
"I won't," Jian Zhi said. His eyes stayed forward. His hand brushed Lin Yue's wrist, casual to anyone watching, deliberate to the skin. "Tonight we double-check our gate."
"We do," Lin Yue said.
Mei Ling popped up between them like a bad idea. "We nearly died and your faces are boring," she complained, then squinted. "What are we pretending not to see?"
"Soup," Jian Zhi said smoothly. "Aunt will hunt us if we're late."
"True," Mei Ling said, instantly convinced. "And I want two bowls."
They walked under the lintel. The strip didn't move again. Aunt put bowls in their hands like she had timed every step of their day and found this moment waiting.
"You went out and came back," she said. "Good. Do it twice more."
"We plan to," Lin Yue said.
"Stop planning," Aunt said. "Start chewing."
They ate under the willow. The soup tasted like chicken and a warning not to ask questions. Han Feng passed, nodded once at Lin Yue, and kept going like he didn't want to admit to having feelings in public. Hai and Da Ren set their nets by the step and sat on the ground like that was a kind of prayer.
The square settled. The sun pushed higher. People talked louder, as if talk could push the ridge back a finger.
Lin Yue lifted his eyes once. The notch sat where it always sat. If there were lights, they didn't show themselves in daytime. The flat stone in the basin lived in his mind like a door painted shut.
He put his bowl down and wiped the rim with a thumb, more habit than need.
"We should check the gate again at dusk," Jian Zhi said, quiet.
"We will," Lin Yue said.
"And sleep early," Jian Zhi added.
"We'll try," Lin Yue said.
The willow rustled once, though the air was still. The ward strip on the gate lay flat and innocent.
Far beyond the ridge, too far to be sound, something throbbed in the bones of the day—a slow, patient beat, as if counting down.
Lin Yue didn't look up again. He didn't need to.
Tomorrow, they would go back.
And whatever had chased the boar out of the trees would be closer.