Li Běichén did not look at her when he assigned the task.
"Correct the burial markers," he said, already turning away. "Names. Ranks. Dates. Make them match the registry."
That was all.
No explanation. No ceremony. No acknowledgement that this was not a courier's duty, nor a test that resembled training. Around them, soldiers lingered in loose knots, sharpening blades, trading complaints, pretending not to listen. Liang Wei inclined her head once and accepted the ledger without comment.
The burial field lay beyond the supply road, where the earth dipped and the wind no longer carried the sounds of the camp. Graves spread unevenly across the slope. Some were marked with boards driven crookedly into the soil. Some bore stones etched too quickly. Others had nothing at all.
She knelt at the first marker and opened the ledger.
The ground was cold through her trousers. Damp. Recently turned. She read the name, checked the rank, compared the regiment number, then reached forward and straightened the board. The motion was small. Necessary.
She moved to the next.
And the next.
Time stretched the way it did when nothing demanded speed. Her knees began to ache. Her fingers smudged with ink and dirt. She wiped them against her sleeve and kept going.
The sword at her side had been quiet all morning. Now it was not quiet, not moving or singing but pressing against her, warmth creeping into her palm through the hilt even after she shifted the scabbard to keep it from brushing the ground, the sensation stubbornly following.
She ignored it and knelt again. At the seventh grave, she stopped.
The marker listed a name she recognized from the ledger, but the rank was wrong. The unit designation did not exist anymore. The armor fragment half buried at the foot of the mound belonged to a different battalion entirely.
She hesitated, then set the ledger aside.
When she placed her hand against the earth, the reaction was immediate. Not sound. Not vision. Pressure. Something dense and unsettled pressed back, like water against a closed door. Her breath caught before she realized it had changed. Her qi stuttered, then surged instinctively, seeking balance.
The sword answered.
A low internal hum ran up her arm, familiar and unwelcome. The mark etched into the blade beneath its wrappings pulsed once, faint but insistent. Her body recognized the moment before her mind did.
Hunger stirred.
Not desire. Not want.
Need.
If she drew the blade, even a little, the ache in her chest would vanish. Her limbs would lighten. The thinness in her qi would fill. The pain she had learned to live with would recede like a tide obeying the moon.
She closed her eyes.
Xu Yuncheng's voice rose unbidden, calm and relentless.
Power taken is never free. It is only borrowed from pain.
She did not draw. Instead, she adjusted the marker. She corrected the rank, rewrote the regiment number, pressed the board deeper into the earth. She shifted the armor fragment and laid it properly at the head of the grave. Then she knelt fully and pressed both palms flat against the ground.
The sword grew heavier.
Her breath shook once before she steadied it. She drew her qi inward, slow and controlled, not to pull, not to take, but to hold. The blade touched the earth lightly at her side, not cutting, not opening.
Sealing.
The pressure eased. The hum faded. Whatever had been restless settled into stillness, not consumed, not bound to her, simply placed where it belonged.
She felt nothing fill the emptiness left behind.
Nothing rushed in to replace what she had held back, only a deep, hollow fatigue that made her legs shake and her vision blur briefly before she steadied herself, gathered the ledger, and moved on without looking back.
By the time the sun dipped low, her hands were raw and her knees numb. She had corrected every marker she could find. She had added three names where there had been none.
The sword had gone cold at her side, silent and unyielding, and when she finished, Li Běichén stood at the edge of the field without asking how long it had taken or checking her work, his gaze passing over her just long enough to register the strain she failed to hide.
Li Běichén's eyes dropped once to the sword at her side, to the unfamiliar crest half hidden beneath its wrappings, and something unreadable tightened in his expression before he looked away.
"You may return," he said.
She inclined her head and left.
As she walked back toward the camp, hunger coiled quietly beneath her ribs, sharp and unanswered. She welcomed the pain. It reminded her that restraint still cost something.
That night, the burial field lay still.
And the names remained.