Dawn in River-Fog Town smelled of wet stone and dying magic.
Wei Shen stood at the canal's edge, watching mist curl off black water like escaping spirits. His ribs still ached where the poison needle had struck, a deep bruise that throbbed in time with his heartbeat. The antidote had purged the venom, but something lingered—a cold thread in his meridians, a reminder that death had kissed him and left its mark.
Xu Qinglan emerged from the fog beside him. She'd changed robes again—still gray, but darker, the fabric matte and soundless. Her hair was bound tight, no loose strands. A fighter's preparation.
"You look like hell," she said, her voice low.
"Feel worse." Wei Shen flexed his right hand. The blue tracer from the Ledger glowed faintly beneath his skin, brighter after last night's expenditures. "Your scribe. Tell me what to expect."
"Third-rank Bureau scribe, name's Luo. Specializes in spiritual signatures and contract forgery. He'll have at least two guards—not field agents, but containment specialists. They use binding chains that suppress cultivation."
"And the teahouse itself?"
"Back-Reed is neutral ground. Usually. But if the Bureau has bought the owner…" She shook her head. "We assume every wall has ears. Every cup might be poisoned."
Wei Shen nodded. The Ledger hummed in his mind, its interface cold and clear:
SOUL INK: 0.4/1.0 — CRITICAL RESERVE
TRACE LEVEL: MODERATE — BUREAU DETECTION PROBABILITY: 40%
ACTIVE CONTRACTS:
1. ENTER AZURE CLOUD GATE (9 DAYS REMAINING)
2. CLEANSE THE RECORD (44 HOURS REMAINING)
Failure penalties hung over both like executioner's blades.
"We're not here for the auction," Wei Shen said. It wasn't a question.
"We're here to burn your sketch from Luo's memory-crystal. And if we can't burn it…" Qinglan met his eyes. "We burn him."
The words hung in the damp air. Casual. Brutal.
Wei Shen understood. This wasn't the clean, honorable world of sect legends. This was the mud and blood of survival.
They crossed the narrow footbridge to Back-Reed Teahouse. The building leaned away from the street as if ashamed, its wood stained nearly black. A single reed stalk—painted crimson—hung above the door.
Qinglan knocked: two sharp, one soft, three sharp.
The door slid open.
The woman who stood there was ancient, her face a map of wrinkles, but her eyes were young and sharp. She held a teacup in hands that didn't tremble.
"Invitation," she said, voice like dry leaves.
Qinglan produced the black bamboo strip. The woman examined it, then looked at Wei Shen. Her nostrils flared.
"You carry Bureau scent," she said.
"I walked past their outpost," Wei Shen replied, repeating the lie from his first encounter with her. But this time, the woman smiled—a thin, knowing crack in her leathery face.
"You carry more than scent, boy. You carry a death warrant." She stepped aside. "Luo is in the west viewing room. He's expecting you."
The trap was acknowledged.
Qinglan's hand drifted to her sleeve. "Auntie Wen—"
"Don't 'Auntie' me, girl. I liked your master. I don't like what's hunting you. But a debt is a debt." The old woman's eyes softened a fraction. "West room. The formation under the third floorboard is weak. Use it or don't. Now get out of my doorway."
They entered a hallway so narrow their shoulders brushed the walls. Spirit-lamps flickered at intervals, casting jumpy shadows. The air smelled of ozone and something else—ozone, and the sweet-rot scent of decaying formation cores.
At the hall's end, two men stood guard outside a sliding door. They wore plain robes, but their hands were wrapped in black cloth, and faint geometric patterns glowed on their knuckles. Containment specialists.
Qinglan stopped ten paces away. "We're here for the auction."
The guard on the left smiled humorlessly. "Auction's been moved. Private viewing first. For select guests." His eyes locked on Wei Shen. "You're selected."
Wei Shen felt the Ledger pulse—a warning. AUDIT: THREAT ASSESSMENT glowed. Cost: 0.2 ink. He couldn't afford it. But he could feel the pressure in the air—formation barriers already active, subtle, like spiderwebs waiting for a fly.
"We decline," Qinglan said, taking a step back.
The guards moved.
Fast. Too fast for ordinary cultivators. Their hands shot out, black chains unspooling from their sleeves—not metal, but solidified shadow, hissing through the air.
Qinglan shoved Wei Shen sideways. The chains missed by inches, striking the wall where they left smoking scars.
Wei Shen rolled, came up in a crouch. The numbness in his side flared, a spike of pain. He ignored it.
Qinglan had drawn two short blades—slim, dark, unreflective. She parried a chain-strike, the impact ringing with a sound like breaking glass. The vibration visibly shook her.
"The chains disrupt qi!" she shouted. "Don't let them touch you!"
The second guard aimed for Wei Shen. The chain snaked through the air, curving unnaturally. Wei Shen dove, felt it whip past his back, tearing his robe. The cold of it seeped through the fabric, a numb void.
He scrambled backward, mind racing. They were trapped in a narrow hall. No room for maneuvering. No environmental advantages.
Then he remembered Auntie Wen's words: The formation under the third floorboard is weak.
He dropped to his knees, ignoring the chain that whistled over his head, and slammed his palm against the floorboards. The third from the door. It gave slightly—rotten.
"Qinglan! Down!"
She didn't hesitate. She dropped flat as Wei Shen channeled the last dregs of his unrefined qi into his palm and struck.
The board shattered.
Beneath was not subfloor, but darkness—and the sharp, shocking cold of canal water.
The Back-Reed Teahouse was built over the water. Of course it was.
Wei Shen grabbed Qinglan's wrist and pulled her into the hole as the chains struck where they'd been. They fell three feet into icy black water.
The shock stole his breath. The current pulled immediately—strong, relentless. They were under the teahouse, in the narrow space between pilings.
Above, shouts. Then the glow of a spirit-lamp probing the water.
Wei Shen pointed downstream. Qinglan nodded, and they let the current take them, swimming silently between moss-slick pillars.
Thirty seconds later, they surfaced in a half-collapsed boathouse downstream, gasping.
"They'll search the canals," Qinglan panted, pulling herself onto a rotting dock.
"Then we don't stay." Wei Shen hauled himself up beside her. His side burned, his lungs ached, but adrenaline sang in his veins. "Luo knows we're here. He'll flee or fortify."
"He'll fortify. Bureau scribes are cowards. He'll have activated every defensive formation in that room." She wrung water from her hair, her expression grim. "We need another way in."
A voice spoke from the shadows of the boathouse.
"I might have one."
Wei Shen spun, reaching for a weapon he didn't have.
The young lord from the auction stepped into the dim light. He'd changed from his fine robes into practical dark garments, his hair tied back simply. In his hand, he held not a weapon, but the sword-intent slate he'd bought the night before.
"You," Qinglan said, blades rising.
"Me." He set the slate down carefully on a barrel. "I'm not here to fight. I'm here to make a proposal."
Wei Shen's senses screamed trap. But the Ledger remained silent—no warning, no assessment. As if this man posed no immediate threat. Or as if the threat was too subtle to detect.
"What proposal?" Wei Shen asked, keeping distance between them.
"My name is Yan Zihao. Third son of Marquis Yan Ruzhen." He said it plainly, watching their reactions. "My father is the head of the Bureau's artifact suppression division. He's hunting you, Wei Shen. Or more specifically, he's hunting what you carry."
Wei Shen's blood went cold. "How do you know my name?"
"I saw your family seal on the jade slip last night. The Wei clan's phoenix-and-thunder pattern. It wasn't hard to trace, once I knew what to look for." Yan Zihao's gaze dropped to Wei Shen's right hand. "The Heaven-Inscribed Ledger. My father has destroyed three of them. He believes they're corruptions of the natural order. I believe… they're simply tools. Dangerous, but not evil."
Qinglan hadn't lowered her blades. "Why help us?"
"Because I want something from Luo, too." Yan Zihao's calm mask slipped for a moment, revealing raw desperation beneath. "He holds a contract my father made me sign when I was twelve. A soul-binding. It gives my father control over my cultivation progress. He uses it to keep me compliant."
Wei Shen remembered the crimson chains he'd seen in Yan Zihao's aura. A binding contract. Enforced compliance.
"You want us to steal your contract from Luo," Wei Shen said.
"I want you to help me destroy it. In return, I'll get you into Luo's room. And I'll give you this." He nudged the sword-intent slate with his foot. "A genuine remnant from a Nascent Soul sword cultivator. It's worth more than any Azure Cloud token."
Qinglan's eyes locked on the slate. Hunger there, but controlled. "Why not do it yourself? You're a Yan. You have resources."
Yan Zihao laughed bitterly. "I'm a Yan. Which means every move I make is watched. Every ally I might have is bought or threatened. You two… you're already enemies. You have nothing left to lose."
The truth of it hung in the damp air.
Wei Shen looked at Qinglan. She gave a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
"How do we get in?" Wei Shen asked.
Yan Zihao smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Through the front door. As my guests."
---
The trap was elegant in its simplicity.
Yan Zihao walked back into Back-Reed Teahouse openly, Wei Shen and Qinglan following as his "servants"—hooded, heads bowed. The guards at the door stiffened but didn't stop a Yan.
Auntie Wen watched from behind her counter, her expression unreadable. She said nothing.
They reached the west room. The guards outside looked at Yan Zihao, then at his companions, and stepped aside without a word. Bureau hierarchy was absolute.
The room inside was not what Wei Shen expected.
It was a library. Scrolls lined the walls. Memory-crystals glowed softly on shelves. At the center, scribe Luo sat at a polished desk, a crystal the size of a fist pulsing before him. Within it, Wei Shen could see a slowly rotating image—a sketch of his own face, rendered in lines of spiritual light. His signature.
Luo looked up. He was younger than Wei Shen expected, with intelligent eyes and ink-stained fingers. He wore the Bureau's silver-ringed robe, but it was unbuttoned at the collar, casual.
"Young Master Yan," Luo said, not sounding surprised. "And guests." His eyes settled on Wei Shen. "The Heaven-Inscribed bearer. I've been refining your sketch. The details are quite precise."
"Give me the crystal, Luo," Yan Zihao said, his voice flat.
"Or?"
"Or I tell my father you've been forging settlement contracts for the River-Fog gambling dens. Skimming from Bureau coffers."
Luo's smile didn't falter. "And I'll tell him you're here with two fugitives, attempting to destroy evidence. Which do you think he'll believe?"
The standoff stretched.
Wei Shen felt the Ledger pulse. AUDIT: FORMATION LAYOUT glowed. Cost: 0.3 ink. He had 0.4 left.
He spent it.
The room lit up in his vision. Threads of power everywhere—defensive formations in the walls, floor, ceiling. A containment field around Luo's desk. And beneath the crystal… a tripwire formation linked to an alarm.
"The crystal is booby-trapped," Wei Shen said aloud. "Touch it, and it sends an alert directly to Bureau headquarters."
Luo's smile finally slipped. "You can see that?"
"I can see more." The Audit function was showing him connections—threads of power not just in the room, but in Luo himself. Binding contracts. Dozens of them. One, pulsing crimson, connected him to Yan Zihao. Another, black and sickly, connected him to something deeper in the earth.
"You're bound, too," Wei Shen realized. "Not just to the Bureau. To something else."
Luo stood, his calm shattering. "Enough. Guards!"
The door burst open. Four containment specialists this time, chains already whirling.
Qinglan moved first. Her blades flashed, not at the guards, but at the walls—severing the threads of the defensive formations. Spirit-lamps flickered and died. The room plunged into semi-darkness, lit only by the glow of the memory-crystal.
Chaos.
Wei Shen dove for the desk as chains snaked toward him. He rolled under one, felt another graze his leg—the cold numbness spread instantly. His left foot went dead.
Yan Zihao was fighting too, his style elegant and brutal. He shattered a guard's knee with a precise kick, snatched the man's chain, and used it to entangle another.
But they were outnumbered. And the room was too small.
Wei Shen reached the desk. The crystal glowed before him, his own face staring back. The tripwire formation was complex—a interwoven net of spiritual energy.
The Ledger offered a solution: CONTRACT BREACH: MINOR. Cost: 0.4 ink. All he had left.
It would leave him empty. Defenseless.
But it would break the formation.
He reached out, not with his hand, but with his will—touching the Ledger's function.
CONTRACT BREACH: MINOR. TARGET: ALARM TRIPWIRE FORMATION. COST: 0.4 INK.
The ink drained. The tearing sensation in his chest was worse this time—a ripping, hollowing pain. He tasted blood.
But the formation around the crystal shattered like glass.
He grabbed the crystal. It was cold, humming with captured spiritual energy.
Luo screamed—a raw, furious sound. "You don't know what you're holding! That's not just his sketch! It's a key!"
Wei Shen didn't have time to ask what he meant. A chain wrapped around his throat from behind, yanking him backward.
He couldn't breathe. The numbness spread from the chain contact, crawling up his neck. His vision tunneled.
He saw Qinglan, fighting two guards, her movements slowing as chains grazed her.
He saw Yan Zihao, holding his own but unable to reach him.
He saw Luo, pulling a dagger from his desk, coming toward him.
No.
The word was fire in his mind.
The Ledger had no ink left. But it had something else—a final, desperate function that glowed now in bloody characters:
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: BLOOD FORGING.
WARNING: EXPENDS USER'S LIFEFORCE DIRECTLY.
ESTIMATED COST: 3 DAYS OF LIFESPAN.
AVAILABLE: CONTRACT DRAFT: BASIC (SINGLE USE).
Three days of his life.
For one contract.
Wei Shen didn't hesitate.
He bit his own tongue hard, filling his mouth with blood, and spat it onto the crystal in his hand.
BLOOD FORGING ACTIVATED.
LIFESPAN DEDUCTED: 3 DAYS.
CONTRACT DRAFT: BASIC — UNLOCKED.
The world went red.
Power surged through him—not his, not the Ledger's, but something borrowed from his own future. He felt those three days tear away, a phantom pain of years he would never live.
With his will, he forged a contract. Simple. Brutal.
CONTRACT: CESSATION OF HOSTILITIES.
PARTIES: ALL PRESENT IN WEST ROOM.
TERM: 60 SECONDS.
PENALTY FOR BREACH: SPIRITUAL COMBUSTION.
He couldn't speak the terms aloud. His throat was crushed.
But the contract formed in the air anyway—visible to all, written in lines of burning crimson light that dripped like blood.
Everyone froze.
The chains around his throat loosened slightly.
Luo stared at the hovering contract, his face pale. "Impossible… That's… Soul Script…"
The contract pulsed. The penalty glowed brighter.
For sixty seconds, no one moved.
Wei Shen used the moment. He slammed the memory-crystal against the edge of the desk.
It shattered.
His spiritual sketch dissolved into motes of light, then nothing.
The contract flickered, its energy spent.
The guards recovered first, but their hesitation had cost them. Qinglan moved like vengeance, disabling two before they could raise their chains. Yan Zihao took down another.
The last guard backed toward the door, then fled.
Luo didn't run. He looked at the shattered crystal, then at Wei Shen, and smiled strangely. "You broke it. Good. Now he's free."
"What?" Yan Zihao demanded.
But Luo wasn't looking at him. He was looking at the black contract thread that connected him to the earth. It was pulsing, writhing.
"The binding… is broken…" Luo whispered. Then he convulsed, black veins erupting across his skin. He collapsed, twitching, as something—a shadow, a presence—detached from him and vanished through the floorboards.
Silence, broken only by their ragged breathing.
Yan Zihao rushed to a scroll case on the shelf, tore it open, and pulled out a contract written on spirit-parchment. His binding. He stared at it, then at Luo's twitching form.
"He's dead."
Wei Shen knelt, checked Luo's pulse. Nothing. The black veins were receding, leaving pale skin behind. Whatever had been bound to him had taken his life when released.
Qinglan grabbed Wei Shen's arm. "We have to go. The alarm might still have triggered."
Yan Zihao looked at them, the contract in his hand. "I… thank you."
"Don't," Wei Shen said, standing with difficulty. His left leg was still numb. He felt hollowed out, older. "We did this for us, not you."
"Even so." Yan Zihao picked up the sword-intent slate and handed it to Qinglan. "Your master's remnant. It belongs with you."
She took it, her fingers trembling slightly. "Why?"
"Because my father killed him." Yan Zihao's voice was quiet. "And I am tired of being my father's son."
He turned to leave, then paused. "Azure Cloud Sect is holding trials at the Misty Peaks in three days. The token isn't the only way in. Survive the trial ground, and they'll take you. It's how I was going to escape."
He vanished into the hall.
Wei Shen looked at Qinglan. She clutched the slate to her chest, her eyes too bright.
"We need to go," she said again, but didn't move.
Wei Shen reached out, touched her shoulder. "Later. We'll grieve later."
She nodded, once, sharp. Then she was moving, helping him limp from the room.
As they passed Auntie Wen's counter, the old woman tossed them a small pouch. "Healing pills. And a warning: the thing that was bound to Luo? It wasn't a demon. It was a Bureau experiment. And now it's loose."
Wei Shen caught the pouch. "What kind of experiment?"
"The kind that makes Heaven-Inscribed artifacts look like children's toys." Her eyes were grave. "Run, children. And don't look back."
They ran.
Into the misty morning, the slate heavy in Qinglan's arms, Wei Shen's body screaming with pain and exhaustion, his soul lighter by three days of life.
The Ledger updated as they crossed the bridge:
SOUL INK: 0.0/1.0 — DEPLETED
TRACE LEVEL: LOW — BUREAU DETECTION PROBABILITY: 20%
SKETCH DESTROYED. CONTRACT "CLEANSE THE RECORD": COMPLETE.
REWARD: SOUL INK +0.3 (PENDING REGENERATION).
NEW THREAT DETECTED: UNKNOWN BUREAU ENTITY (STATUS: UNBOUND).
WARNING: LIFESPAN REDUCTION PERMANENT. CURRENT ESTIMATE: -3 DAYS.
They didn't stop running until River-Fog Town was a smear of mist behind them. Then, in the shelter of a bamboo grove, Qinglan finally let herself shake.
Wei Shen watched her, this fierce, wounded woman holding the remnant of her dead master, and knew they were bound now not by convenience, but by something deeper.
Blood. Loss. And a shared enemy that was growing larger and darker by the hour.
He looked east, toward the Misty Peaks.
Three days until the trials.
Two broken people with one sword-intent slate between them.
And a hunger for survival that was starting to feel like vengeance.