By noon the sun had gentled the frost into puddles that remembered being ice. The market loosened its shoulders. Someone mended nets under the eaves; someone else argued softly with a scale. Xueyin's finger wrap held. The right ear's whisper stayed, small enough to carry.
Ash leaned a broom against the bench and practiced not fidgeting. "If trouble comes," he said, "I'll run for the runner."
"If trouble comes," Xueyin said, "you'll stand behind the well and hold your breath until counted nine. Practice that."
He nodded and held it now just to prove he could, cheeks puffing.
The reed-hat woman pushed a bundle of greens across her stall. "Small song after lunch," she called. "The baby sleeps better when the paper over the well breathes with everyone."
"After lunch," Xueyin agreed. She saved her strength, doing work that didn't cost much: two strap fixes and a bowl tuned by sliding a thin line along the rim until it stopped buzzing.
Near the rope that marked the ring, a couple began to argue. Not loud—sharp in that way people get when hunger and pride share a bowl. The yamen runner glanced over, weighed them, and stayed where he was. Not yet a fire.
Ash tugged her sleeve. "Look."
Down the alley, a peddler's awning sagged and then slipped. A bamboo frame creaked where twine had frayed. Beneath it, a little girl stared at a tray of tin whistles like they were stars. Her father was haggling two stalls away, turned just enough to miss the angle. The bamboo groaned.
Xueyin walked without hurry, setting her feet so Ash would not learn to panic. The runner saw where she was going and moved too, slow as a man crossing ice.
She counted nine. On the last beat she set a lane from the swaying joint to the empty post beyond—no wider than a doorway. Heel, toe; on the second beat she slid right so the girl, if she bolted, would run into Xueyin's skirt and not into the lane.
A glass-clean note kissed the twine. The frayed fibers surrendered; the frame swung down slow instead of sudden, missing the tray and the child both. The bamboo tapped the ground like a soft stick and was still.
The father scooped the girl and swore into her hair, thanks and fear scrambled together. The runner's shoulders dropped a finger's width.
"Quiet is the point," the reed-hat woman said.
The peddler flapped his hands. "You broke—"
"I unbroke the girl," the father said, pressing a coin onto the peddler's tray and another into Xueyin's palm without meeting her eyes. "For the quiet."
"It spends," she said, and eased the bamboo flat so no one would trip. The runner propped it against the wall. "We'll chalk the knot," he said. "No more roofs with twine older than their owners."
They drifted back to the square. The argument by the rope had cooled. Xueyin set the guqin near the well and played small: three notes, a breath; three notes, a breath. The lantern paper rose and fell. The baby dozed properly. People didn't clap. They breathed, which was better.
After, Ash brought watered tea like a treasure. "My mother says you can play two more small ones before dinner if you eat a dumpling."
"Your mother is a general," Xueyin said gravely. "I obey generals."
A soft commotion rippled from the mill lane; the kind where people turned to look and then turned back. A man with a wire-wrapped baton walked in as if the square belonged to his feet. Two friends trailed behind him, brave if someone started something first.
"Performance tax," he announced. "New rule."
"Old answer," the runner said from the board. "No."
The man tapped his baton; the wire sang slick and wrong. A cheap sound veil wobbled around it. Not a true cultivator—just enough toy to be trouble.
"No ring cuts," the runner added. "Declare or leave."
"Do I look like I need chalk to speak?" the man asked lightly.
"You look like you need a crowd," Xueyin said.
He smiled with half his mouth and stepped into the room fear had made for him.
Xueyin counted nine and kept her voice level. "Leave."
She set a lane from his baton hand to the post beyond, no wider than a doorway. Heel, toe; she slid left so the lane had nothing in it but problem and wood. She palm-muted and tapped the bridge; the sound ran the well stones and nudged his stance a thumb's width. Crowds always notice the thumb.
"Ring," the runner said. "Witness."
The baton-man felt the faces weren't with him. He flicked the wire once more to show himself he could and turned away. Xueyin let the lane die. Some exits need quiet more than the blow.
The runner came to the bench like friends who don't need to speak loudly. "Next time," he said, "we post a notice on sound toys."
"Write it large enough to shame the sellers," she said, and he almost smiled.
The dumpling arrived, hot and lopsided. "General sent this," Ash reported.
"I obey," Xueyin said and ate while it was almost too hot to hold.
Dusk folded down. She played two small songs near the well. Windows listened without complaint. Enough is a kind of art. When the last echo faded, she circled the square once. Only geese complained. Only the paper breathed.
Under the mill eaves she reckoned the day: bread, tea, one dumpling, three coppers, one awning eased, no blows struck. Her right-ear whisper; split nail; the kind of tired that means you did it right.
She lay with the instrument against her ribs and let her breath mark time—counted nine, and then nine again, and the kind of numbers that turn into sleep. Somewhere between them, the wind changed.