They left the square like water tipping from a cup.
On the roof behind them, the thin light did not fade.
It held, a small stubborn shine.
The town watched without eyes.
[Notice]
[You are marked]
[Signature unknown]
[Minor Tracking resistance, light]
[Recommendation: wash, confuse, then place the token]
"Water," Mu Qing said, voice low. "Not in the middle. Somewhere people forget to look."
They slipped through a lane where laundry brushed their shoulders.
A stair dropped into a sunken court.
A hand pump stood over a stone trough.
A bucket waited beside it.
The water smelled of iron and clay.
Wen Yao tilted his head. "No close watchers," he said. "Two at the eaves, bored."
Bai Shen set the bucket under the pump and worked the handle.
Cold water climbed and spilled.
Ye Tian dipped his sleeve and let the cloth drink.
No one could see the mark with plain eyes.
The Origin could.
[Mark present]
[Wash effect, partial]
[Add Concealment, light, on the breath]
He let the cool quiet of Concealment settle over his skin.
He washed the sleeve again, then the other, then the backs of his hands and the small places where skin remembers touch more than eyes do.
The mark loosened.
It did not leave.
Mu Qing knelt and scrubbed a dark patch on the stone as if stains mattered.
"They want you in the open," she said. "We will not give them that."
Bai Shen rolled his shoulders. "Then we place the token from the shade."
"Footsteps," Wen Yao said.
Three men entered the court from the far stair.
Plain robes, careful steps.
The one in front carried a round shield of lacquered wood, smooth as still water.
His stance said he knew how to set a wall between others and trouble.
[Target: unknown aspirant]
[System: Quick Guard]
[Function: sharp reflex to raise a guard at first contact, brief burst]
[Integrity: 61 percent]
[Seizure chance: moderate during first true block]
The shield man bowed a little.
"Good morning," he said.
"Good," Ye Tian said.
He glanced over their faces, then back to Ye Tian.
"We want the pump," he said. "We will not trouble you."
"You will," a voice called from the stair.
Two watchers leaned on the rail above.
A third set brush to paper and smiled at the thought of ink.
The shield man sighed, as if he had expected an audience.
He set his feet.
Ye Tian looked at Bai Shen.
Bai Shen nodded and stepped forward, as if the ground had asked him to show how it could be used.
Mu Qing stayed where she was.
Wen Yao lowered his pulse until the air felt even.
Ye Tian turned half a step so the wet sleeve lived in the trough's shadow.
The shield rose.
The front foot drew a small curve on stone.
The two men behind spread out, not too far, not too close.
"Ten exchanges," a watcher said, amused. "We will mark control."
Bai Shen smiled a little. "Then I will be careful."
They touched.
Bai Shen did not smash the shield.
He pressed, then let go, then pressed again in another place, like a carpenter learning a board's grain.
The shield answered with clean angles.
The man behind it met each push and never gave the center.
The third press became a real strike.
The shield climbed in a blink.
The arm behind it hummed with a small burst of borrowed speed.
Ye Tian moved inside that breath.
The right fan did not open.
It kissed the rim where fingers curl, then went away.
His left hand brushed the guard's wrist, a touch like steadying a friend.
There was no light.
Only the feeling of water choosing another path.
[Seizure complete]
[Acquired: Quick Guard]
[Integration available, light]
[Effect: one breath of sharp reflex on first contact]
[Do not display]
Bai Shen flowed through the opening the block had made.
He did not strike the face.
He turned the shield with the flat of his palm, set it aside, then set two fingers on a shoulder and took the man's balance the way a door is taken off a hinge.
Wood kissed stone and stayed there.
The watchers murmured.
"Clean," one said.
"No bruise," another said.
"Write that," the scribe said, not looking up.
Ye Tian washed his hands once more.
The thin shine at his sleeve flickered, then went out.
[Mark weakened]
[Concealment layered]
[Minor Tracking resistance increased for two breaths only]
The shield man began to smile, then did not.
He bowed. "Thank you," he said. "The pump is yours."
"It is everyone's," Bai Shen said.
They left quiet, not humiliated, simply adjusted.
[Devotion +6]
[Public reaction favorable]
[Note: credit placed on Bai Shen, desired]
One watcher stayed, chin in his hand, eyes on Ye Tian's sleeve.
Mu Qing watched him watching.
"Enough," she said. "We go to the square, place the token, leave before anyone writes a story for us."
They took the thin lane where linen hid the sky.
White powder circled the post like a shy ring.
No one stood in the middle now.
People had learned.
Zhou Ren was not on the roof.
Sun Ruo was a line in a side street, then gone.
The balcony where an elder had stood was empty.
A new scribe moved his brush faster than the last.
Wen Yao drifted to the side.
Bai Shen set his feet where the panel would hold.
Mu Qing counted the squares with her eyes.
Ye Tian held the token in his palm without showing it.
[Mark status, faint]
[Safe to place token in next two breaths]
[Do not linger after ring]
He stepped in, not hurried, not slow.
He set the token, turned it the width of a nail.
A bell rang somewhere above wood and rules.
The scribe lifted his head, smiled despite himself, and wrote.
[Devotion +5]
[Visibility rise, local]
[Note: watchers expect a response]
They left the circle.
No shine returned to his sleeve.
The mark had chosen another place to try its work.
Mu Qing's mouth turned a little. "Good," she said. "We do not repeat this lesson. We learn another."
A child drew two circles on a step and a line between.
White dust coated his fingers.
He smiled as if chalk could be a prize.
"Next flag," Ye Tian said.
The bell house that had given them the first roll was bare now.
The lane that had smelled of old water now smelled of sesame cakes from a stall that might not have been there this morning.
The town shifted in small ways and pretended it had not moved.
They passed a yard where thin poles held small banners that meant practice, not pride.
They crossed a bridge that did not trust its nails.
They entered a narrow throat of a lane where two could not walk side by side.
A man stepped in from the far end.
Short robe, spear that did not shine.
Two more followed.
No smiles.
No announcement.
Wen Yao's breath stayed even.
Bai Shen rolled his shoulders.
Mu Qing's eyes measured the roofline.
The spear came clean, a line drawn for a heart.
Ye Tian lifted the fan.
He did not open it.
He set the closed ribs against the shaft and turned it just enough to make a straight line crooked.
The first man learned the wrong distance.
Bai Shen's palm landed and reminded him where the ground was.
He folded without breaking.
The second tried to step through.
Wen Yao did nothing a person could name, and the step did not find its rhythm.
The third hesitated.
Hesitation became a mistake.
Silence after.
The spear looked at the sky through a slit of alley.
Whispers curled along a roof.
A brush scratched.
One laugh, neither kind nor cruel, touched the air and went away.
[Devotion +4]
[Note: no display of new utilities, acceptable]
"Why here," Bai Shen asked as they walked. "So many watching for a lane with no flag."
"Because the flag is not the lesson," Mu Qing said. "Today the lesson is lines."
They reached a small square with a well and a shrine that still smelled of wet paint.
On the well wall lay a folded strip of red cloth.
No token.
Only cloth, and a chalk line pointing into a slit of alley where even careful feet do not want to go.
Ye Tian lifted the cloth and smelled dust and oil and a little metal.
"Not a flag," he said.
"Not yet," Mu Qing said.
The chalk led them under a low beam.
It opened on a courtyard where a tree grew from a crack and kept polite.
A pole waited at the far side, a small socket at the top.
Too empty.
The sort of empty people make when they hope you will teach yourself the wrong thing.
He did not step out.
A quiet tap inside, like a finger on a table.
[Presence, above]
[Two bodies, still]
[Utility, unknown]
[Advisory: do not look up]
Bai Shen understood.
He walked into the open alone and set his feet as if the floor might move.
Wen Yao drifted left and smoothed the air.
Mu Qing looked toward a window that held no glass.
"Do you want me to place it," Bai Shen asked.
"No," Ye Tian said. "I want them to see you try."
The air did not change.
The roof did not groan.
The tree kept its manners.
Bai Shen lifted the cloth and set it against the pole, as if it were the token.
He paused.
A small body dropped from the roof with a rope in hand, quick as a cat, quiet as dust.
Feet found the pole and slid.
A hand reached for the socket.
Ye Tian stepped once.
The fan clicked.
The rope hooked his metal and stayed there.
The boy blinked, then grinned without fear and let go.
He landed, rolled, came up with a knife that was more tool than weapon.
On the roof, the watchers finally spoke.
"Now," someone whispered. "Now."
[Notice]
[You are being marked again]
[Signature, similar]
[Resistance low if you stand still]
The chalk at the well had not pointed to a flag at all.
It had pointed to this moment.
He did not stand still.
He walked through the boy's cut as if it were a curtain, set two fingers on the small wrist.
The knife chose the ground.
The rope chose the fan.
The boy laughed again in spite of himself.
"Run," Ye Tian said, without heat.
The boy ran.
The mark missed.
It did not fall away.
It turned.
[Mark diverted]
[Signature relocated, unknown target]
[Warning: the one who marks is close]
A shadow moved behind the window with no glass.
Not Sun Ruo.
Not Zhou Ren.
Someone who did not announce himself and did not need to.
"Do not place it here," Mu Qing said softly. "We leave."
Ye Tian nodded.
Walking away did not taste like loss.
It tasted like choosing when a lesson would be given.
They walked.
The town breathed.
Chalk lines appeared where people would not notice them until later.
A bell rang far off.
Someone cheered and made it small.
"Zhou Ren," Wen Yao said.
"Twice," Bai Shen said.
"Good," Ye Tian said. "Let him ring. We will count a different number."
A market square opened ahead, built around a broken fountain.
A few people had chosen to watch rather than move.
A scribe stood on a stool and squinted at a board.
Ye Tian did not care about the numbers yet.
He watched how the shadows fell.
The mark tried again, a faint brush of cold along his sleeve.
He turned his wrist and gave it nothing to hold.
[Signature persistent]
[Origin note: this is not a boy with chalk]
[Recommendation: pull them into the open]
"How," Bai Shen asked.
"Cup," Mu Qing said.
Wen Yao smiled a little. "Bring your own."
Ye Tian set his fan across the fountain's lip.
He laid the red cloth beside it and opened it so the color spoke.
He faced the gray light and waited.
He did not wait long.
A man in a plain robe stepped from a shop that did not sell anything today.
Clean hands, neat hair, simple string.
Eyes that were careful without looking sharp.
He looked at the cloth, the fan, then at Ye Tian.
"I have been trying to find you," he said mildly.
"I know," Ye Tian said.
"Walk with me," the man said. "There is a door we should stand beside."
Watchers above went still again.
The scribe stopped pretending not to listen.
Ye Tian left the cloth and the fan where they lay.
Bai Shen took his right.
Wen Yao took his left.
Mu Qing did not move and still blocked three lines of sight.
They followed the man to the edge of the square.
He gestured to a narrow door with a clean lintel, too clean for this place.
"After you," he said.
The Origin raised its voice, calm and cold.
[Warning]
[Utility inside]
[Marking signature strongest beyond threshold]
[Do not step first]
Ye Tian smiled without showing teeth.
"You first," he said.
And the chapter ended with a hand on a clean lintel, a marked door, and a watcher who had finally decided to stop watching and speak.