The pilgrim road before dawn was a different kind of beast.
Lanterns swung low, their light weak against the gray breath of winter. Incense smoke clung to cloaks and hair, sweet and stale at once. Vendors dragged carts into place, some already shouting about millet cakes, others whispering prayers as if the day might not let them pass without the right words.
Yan Luo walked through it as though it all parted for him.
And it did.
The crowd didn't know why their shoulders shifted aside, why their eyes slid to the ground, but fear recognized its own kind.
Gaoyu was at his back, jaw tight, eyes cutting over the pilgrims who had begun to cluster at the gate. His men had already moved into position—dozens of them, too many to be coincidence, not enough to look like an army. They were gamblers, lantern-carriers, a woman with a bundle of herbs.
All threads in a net no one could see until it closed.
