The communication talisman hummed before dawn.
Shen Qing was alone in the eastern house. His team was scattered through the village. The square was dark. The well was a shadow among shadows.
He picked up the talisman. The message carried a senior formation analyst's seal. Priority classification.
Updated assessment from formation archives. The energy signature beneath the well matches sealed-entity profiles consistent with cultivation-era imprisonment formations. Something alive is sealed below. The formation's power source has been identified: conscious emotional bonds. The formation draws sustaining energy from the emotional connections of people in its vicinity. The village is the power source.
Revised priority: the formation is degrading. Degradation has accelerated within the last century. If the seal breaks before we can study it, the entity will emerge uncontrolled.
You are authorized to perform immediate excavation to assess the seal's structural integrity and the nature of the entity. The integrity of the civilian population is secondary to the integrity of the seal assessment. Civilian casualties are acceptable if necessary.
Senior team ETA reduced to two days. Act with discretion.
Shen Qing read the message. He read it again.
He put the talisman down and walked to the window.
The sky was turning grey at the edges. Grandmother Liu's chimney would start smoking soon. Desheng would be at the boulder by first light.
The formation drew power from emotional bonds. Excavation meant disruption. Disruption meant the bonds would be stressed. Stressed bonds meant the villagers would feel it.
He knew what the orders meant. He had been a sect operative for twenty years. He understood the language. *Civilian casualties are acceptable if necessary* was not a warning. It was permission.
He gathered his team at the eastern house before the village woke.
...
Nine faces. Jiang He stood by the door. Shu Yan sat on the floor with her talisman workboard across her knees. Yun Xiao was the last to arrive. She was out of breath. She had been with the children past midnight, watching stars.
She stopped smiling when she saw Shen Qing's face.
He read them the orders. He read the critical line aloud. He watched their hands.
Jiang He's jaw went tight. Shu Yan looked at the floor. Deng Liang stared at her own fingers.
Yun Xiao said, "There must be another way."
"There isn't."
"We could evacuate them. Move them far enough from the well that the formation can't draw on them."
"The formation doesn't draw on proximity. It draws on bonds. You can carry a person a hundred miles from here and the bond still holds. The only way to disrupt the fuel source is to disrupt the bonds themselves. Excavation does that. What happens to the people when we do it is what the orders are about."
Nobody spoke.
"I am offering one hour for evacuation," Shen Qing said. "Anyone who leaves the area will not be harmed directly. After one hour, we proceed."
"You know they won't leave," Yun Xiao said.
"Yes."
"Grandmother Liu—"
"Won't leave. I know."
"The children—"
"I know, Yun Xiao."
His voice was level. Twenty years of service had built that voice. At his level, the people who followed orders survived. The ones who didn't were reassigned. Reassignment in the Azure Wind Sect meant things that made following orders look like mercy.
"We move in one hour," he said.
...
Grandmother Liu did not leave.
She stood in the village square with the well behind her and the cultivators in front of her. She was wearing the same clothes she had worn every day Shen Qing had known her. Her hands were at her sides. Her back was straight.
"This village has been here longer than your sect," she said. "Longer than any sect. My grandmother was born here, and her grandmother before her. The well was warm when they were girls. It will be warm when I'm gone."
Around her, the village fractured. Some families took the warning. They packed bags, herded children toward the road, moved fast and frightened. Others refused. Uncle Bao stood beside Grandmother Liu with his arms crossed. His hands were still. No fidgeting. No gestures. Still hands.
Tao was trying to get Mingzhu to leave. She was refusing. They argued in low, desperate voices. His hand on her arm. Her hand pushing his away. His hand back again.
"Go," he said. "Take the road south. I'll find you."
"No."
"The baby—"
"No."
Old Wei stood near the northern terrace path. He had not packed. He had not moved. He stood with his hands at his sides, looking at the terraces he had farmed for forty years.
The hour ended.
Shen Qing stood in front of Grandmother Liu. His team was behind him in ready position.
She looked at him with the same sharp eyes she had used when he first arrived.
"I am sorry," he said.
She looked at his face for a long time. Then she turned around and sat on the well's rim with her back to him. She folded her hands in her lap.
She did not give him her eyes for what came next.
Shen Qing nodded to Shu Yan.
Shu Yan knelt beside the well and began the extraction sequence.