The board told the truth the way the sect always told truth:
In ink, late, after the decision was already done.
Li Shen arrived early enough that frost still clung to the lower planks and the yard smelled like wet rope and sour ash. The Beast Yard was awake in the half-conscious way of people who didn't sleep so much as pause.
Bai Ren was already there, one step off the crowd like he had an allergy to being counted.
He didn't open with a joke. That alone was a warning.
"Short gear," Bai Ren said, eyes on the posting.
Li Shen didn't ask what it meant. He read.
TEAM THREE — GULLY ROUTE (NORTH CUT) — ONE DAY
ISSUED GEAR: STANDARD
NOTE: SUPPLY TIGHTENING / ROTATION PRIORITY
LEAD HAND: REN JIAO
HAND: HUANG QI
HAND: LI SHEN (TOOL ISSUED)
Next to Li Shen's name sat a small mark that looked harmless to most eyes—just a tidy little stamp line.
To Li Shen it read like a finger on his shoulder.
Bai Ren leaned closer, voice low. "They don't run North Cut unless they want someone to come back with less."
Li Shen kept his gaze on the ink. "Less what."
"Less buffer," Bai Ren said. "Less slack. Less 'that wasn't our fault.' If something goes sideways, the paperwork says it was the team's execution."
Li Shen nodded once. "Issuing window?"
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "That question gets people held."
Li Shen didn't repeat it.
He scanned the lower notices where decisions hid behind polite wording.
ISSUED GEAR MUST BE RETURNED IN FULL
DAMAGED ITEMS: DEDUCTED FROM CREDIT
LOSS: REVIEW
So it was priced both ways. Work the gear hard and you got billed for damage. Work it soft and you got billed in blood.
Bai Ren watched him read like he was watching a knife edge. "Ren Jiao won't like this."
"Ren Jiao doesn't like anything," Li Shen said.
"He likes control," Bai Ren corrected. "This is someone else taking it."
Li Shen's eyes slid toward the gear window at the far side—wooden counter, iron hooks, bored runner, a line of hands waiting to be made responsible.
Bai Ren's voice dropped another notch. "If your spear comes out 'already bent,' don't straighten it under a clerk's eyes. You'll pay for the privilege of fixing their defect."
Li Shen filed it.
"And Yun Xue?" he asked, because even control had limits.
Bai Ren didn't soften. He never did. He gave signal.
"Still off dorm circuit. Private clinic runners are moving more," he said. Then, like he didn't like hearing himself say it: "That corridor's awake."
Li Shen's jaw tightened once. "Noted."
Bai Ren exhaled through his nose. "Go do your job. Don't let them make you perform."
Li Shen didn't answer.
He went to the gear window.
Ren Jiao met them at the gully gate an hour later with the calm of someone who had already spent his anger and decided it wasn't a productive expense.
The issued pile sat on the ground like a dare:
Two coils of rope. One net. Three spear shafts with mismatched heads. One short blade that looked too thin to trust. A bundle of wooden wedges that felt like leftovers.
Ren Jiao stared at it a moment, then said, flat, "Standard."
Huang Qi barked a laugh with no humor. "Standard for funerals."
Ren Jiao crouched and ran two fingers along one spear shaft. His nail caught.
A hairline split, just under the grain—clean enough to hide until stress hit.
He stood and looked at the pile again like it had insulted him personally. "They want us paying for breakage."
Li Shen didn't speak. He picked up the net and checked the knots.
Two were tied wrong—not loose, not sloppy. Wrong in a way that held until it didn't. A failure mode, not an accident.
Ren Jiao's eyes tracked the movement. "You see it."
Li Shen nodded. "Wrong knot. Wrong direction."
Huang Qi muttered, "Or right direction. For them."
Ren Jiao's jaw moved once. "Treat everything as deliberate."
He looked at each of them, then held his gaze a fraction longer on Li Shen.
"New rules," Ren Jiao said. "No solo pulls. No hero cuts. If something looks like it wants to split the team, we don't let it."
Huang Qi's mouth twisted. "Slow gets us killed."
"Fast gets us billed," Ren Jiao said. "Pick your death."
Li Shen lifted the net slightly. "We can re-knot."
Ren Jiao's eyes narrowed. "Not here. Not under the gate. They'll call it damage. They'll write it like we sabotaged the gear."
Huang Qi spat into dirt. "So we use a net that fails."
Ren Jiao didn't blink. "We plan for failure. Rope loops as primary. Net as secondary. Wedges to lock posts. And we stay out of the line when it breaks."
Li Shen pulled his hatchet free, checked the edge with his thumb. Not a sect weapon. Not shiny. Maintained with his own stone, grip re-wrapped until it felt like his and not the yard's.
Ren Jiao's eyes flicked to it. "You're bringing that again."
"It cuts," Li Shen said.
Ren Jiao stared a beat, then nodded once. "Keep it sheathed unless I call you in."
Huang Qi gave the hatchet a look like it offended his pride. "Woodcutter."
"A tool that works," Li Shen said.
"Until it breaks," Huang Qi shot back.
Li Shen didn't argue. He checked rope fiber with two fingers.
Old rope. Not rotten. Tired.
Control cost more when inputs were tired.
Ren Jiao tossed a coil over his shoulder. "Move."
The gully route was a narrow cut between stone ribs where wind couldn't decide which way to go, so it punished everything equally.
Tracks crisscrossed damp ground: ashback prints, smaller claw marks, a drag line that suggested something had been hauled out recently.
Huang Qi sniffed once. "They've been running this route."
Ren Jiao didn't answer. That meant agreement.
Li Shen kept his breathing steady. No Smoke-Sealing. No wasted valve. This was cold air and wet stone, not forge miasma. He needed timing, not filtration.
They set the trap like the sect always set traps: not clever—repeatable.
Rope loops as primary across the choke. Net rigged behind as a "bonus" catch. Posts wedged into cracks. Backup line routed to a stone horn.
Ren Jiao spoke in hand signals and clipped phrases.
"Here."
"Hold."
"Wait."
Huang Qi vibrated with impatience, but he obeyed. Obedience was cheaper than guessing.
When the ashback came, it didn't come straight.
It slid along the wall like it knew where the catch was supposed to be. Not smart in a human way—trained in a territory way. The sect's convenient routes taught beasts as much as they taught servants.
Huang Qi tightened the rope line. Fiber bit. His glove slipped a fraction at the worst moment.
The net dropped late.
The boar clipped the edge—and one wrong knot chose that moment to become honest.
The cord snapped.
The net tore open like cloth.
Huang Qi swore and yanked, trying to recover tension.
The ashback's shoulder punched through the gap.
Ren Jiao shouted one word, sharp, not a curse. "Down!"
Li Shen moved before thought caught up.
Not straight back.
Half a meter off-line, hips turning first—Grey Step without announcing itself. He let the boar's momentum slice past where his body had been.
Close enough that the air moved his sleeve.
Iron Grip pulsed once—not for strength, for structure—locking his wrist so surprise didn't fold him.
As the beast surged past, Li Shen hooked the hatchet under the foreleg and dragged, not to stop it—just to spoil its line. Redirect, not heroics.
Ren Jiao took the angle and drove his spear into the flank, shallow. Bleed and respect. A steering thrust.
The boar screamed and tried to wheel.
Huang Qi's rope snapped tighter, burning through glove into skin. His face went white.
He didn't let go.
Li Shen saw the rope fibers strain and did the math: seconds.
So he made the decision before the rope did it for him.
He slid in low behind the foreleg where tendon lived.
Riving Cut wasn't a style. It was a solution.
One tight burst of Iron Grip to keep alignment.
Then the cut—short, controlled, across exposed tendon seam.
Hide resisted, then gave at the weak line where muscle met cord.
A wet snap.
The ashback's leg buckled like a post sawed halfway through.
Li Shen was already out—angled retreat, no straight line—before tusks could find him.
The rope didn't have to hold much longer.
Ren Jiao didn't hesitate. He finished with a spear thrust to the throat, fast and clinical, no ceremony.
Silence fell like a second impact.
Huang Qi stood there panting, rope in his hands, eyes wide like he hadn't believed survival would happen today.
Ren Jiao looked at the torn net.
He didn't swear.
That was worse.
"That knot," Ren Jiao said finally, voice flat, "was wrong."
Huang Qi swallowed. "I didn't tie it."
"I know," Ren Jiao said.
Li Shen wiped the hatchet edge on grass, slow, methodical. His fingers didn't tremble, but he felt the heaviness behind his navel—the cost of bursts used too close together.
Not pain.
Debt.
Ren Jiao's gaze slid to him. "Clean cut."
Li Shen nodded once. "It had to end."
Huang Qi's voice cracked a little. "If that rope snapped—"
Ren Jiao cut him off. "It didn't."
He crouched, pressed two fingers near the cut line. Not admiring. Auditing. Looking for waste, looking for blame.
He looked up. "No waste."
Li Shen didn't answer.
Ren Jiao stood. "We drag it. Fast. Before someone comes to 'help.'"
Processing took the beast and turned it into entries.
Salvage hands cut, weighed, separated. The clerk wrote like ink was more alive than meat.
Ren Jiao stayed close enough to read every line as it formed.
Li Shen stood closer to the core cup than he would have last month. Not because he'd gotten brave.
Because he'd learned what happened when you weren't close enough.
The salvage hand reached in, found the hardened knot, pulled it free, and dropped it into a ceramic cup lined with cloth.
A runner looped string around the lid and tied a narrow paper tag.
E-18-04.
Wax pressed down. A stamp bit into it. The clerk copied the tag code without looking up.
Ren Jiao's eyes flicked to the tag. "Good."
Huang Qi looked like he wanted to spit on the cup. "They'll dispute again."
"They can try," Ren Jiao said.
Li Shen watched the clerk's brush for hesitation.
There was none.
That mattered.
Then the clerk's eyes went to the gear return crate.
The torn net.
Her gaze narrowed. "Net damaged."
Ren Jiao didn't shift. "Net was issued defective."
The clerk's brush paused. "Issued gear is recorded as standard."
Ren Jiao's voice stayed level. "Standard is a category. Not a condition."
For a moment the whole argument balanced on whether she was allowed to acknowledge what everyone could see.
Huang Qi's fists clenched.
Li Shen didn't move.
Waiting was a weapon when your opponent needed a justification.
The salvage hand snorted, not looking up from his knife. "That knot wasn't tension failure. It was tie failure. Anyone who's ever held rope knows the difference."
The clerk's eyes flicked to him, then away—like she'd been handed cover.
Her brush moved. Small note.
DAMAGE — ISSUED DEFECT (KNOT FAILURE)
Not mercy.
But not theft.
Ren Jiao exhaled once, controlled.
Then the points clerk stamped the rotation slip.
TEAM THREE — CREDIT POSTED
SALVAGE EFFICIENCY — APPLIED
CORE CREDIT — COMPLETE (QC1)
A few points more than last time. Weight heavier. Waste lower. No hold triggered.
Huang Qi stared at the stamp like it might evaporate. "We actually got paid."
Ren Jiao didn't look at him. "We got paid because we didn't die and we didn't give them a handle."
Li Shen pocketed his copy and felt the debt in his body settle into a dull weight.
Qi debt. Tendon debt. Attention debt.
All payable, sooner or later.
Bai Ren waited at the yard edge where runners passed and rumors breathed.
He didn't ask if they lived. He could see it.
His eyes went to the torn-net note, then to Li Shen's sleeves, then to Ren Jiao's face.
"Short gear?" Bai Ren asked softly.
Ren Jiao didn't slow. "Short trust."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "They wanted a break."
"They didn't get one," Ren Jiao said.
Bai Ren's gaze slid to Li Shen. "You cut again."
Li Shen kept it flat. "We finished."
Bai Ren nodded once. "Good. Because the story shifting isn't 'you're lucky.' It's 'you're hard to kill.' That makes different people nervous."
Ren Jiao kept walking.
Huang Qi trailed behind, rubbing his palms like he could still feel rope burn.
Bai Ren fell into step beside Li Shen for a few breaths, then spoke low—fast, practical.
"Hold sheet went up again. Different lane, same pattern. And I heard Zhao Kun's name near the gear window this morning."
Li Shen didn't look at him. "Proxy work."
Bai Ren's mouth tightened. "Conditions work."
Li Shen's fingers brushed the wrapped hatchet handle through cloth.
"They'll try again," Li Shen said.
"Of course," Bai Ren replied. "You came back with a complete core and a note that says the gear was wrong."
Li Shen glanced at him. "And that matters."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched, no humor in it. "It matters because you put a defect on paper that wasn't yours."
Li Shen waited.
Bai Ren finished, quiet and blunt. "You made the system admit something."
Li Shen didn't smile.
He just nodded once and let the yard noise swallow the rest.
Because admissions didn't end problems.
They escalated them.