The shed smelled worse at night.
Day warmth never reached the packed straw, so sweat and damp lived together in the dark. Bodies shifted in tight rows. A cough cut through the silence and died. Someone muttered in sleep, words swallowed by wood and exhaustion.
Li Shen lay on his back, eyes open.
Hunger was not pain. Hunger was a voice. It spoke in short, sharp sentences.
You shouldn't have done it.
You paid for someone else.
Now you pay again.
He swallowed. His throat felt scraped raw. The taste of the day—dust, rope fiber, cold air—stayed stubbornly on his tongue.
Beside him, the boy who had taken the space nearest the door turned slightly, careful not to wake the others. He was older—twelve, maybe fourteen—lean in the way boys became when work arrived early and never left. He had a scar on one knuckle that looked like it had been reopened many times.
His eyes were awake in the dark.
"You're the one," he whispered.
Li Shen didn't answer.
"The one from the square," the boy clarified, voice even lower. "The new boy who didn't know his place."
Li Shen turned his head a fraction. "Sleep."
The boy gave a quiet breath that might have been a laugh. "I tried. Then I remembered Han's face."
That was a shared memory now. A few bodies shifted as if the name had weight.
The boy edged closer, not friendly, not hostile—curious the way hungry people were curious about anything that might change the math.
"How did you know how to do it?" he asked.
Li Shen stared at the roof beam above them. "Do what."
"The plank. The cloth. The way you kept it from slipping," the boy said. "That was a soldier's leg. Men die from less. You didn't look lost."
Li Shen was silent long enough that the question could have turned into accusation.
Then he answered with the only truth that mattered.
"My father showed me."
The boy frowned. "Your father's a soldier?"
"No."
"Then how—"
"Villages break," Li Shen said, flat. "Wheels. Trees. People. If you can't stop pain, you stop movement."
The older boy stared, then exhaled, as if something in his head had clicked into place.
"Huh," he murmured. "So it wasn't… mercy."
Li Shen didn't bother to soften it. "It was not letting it get worse."
The boy's gaze narrowed. "That's the same thing."
Li Shen didn't argue. Words didn't fill stomachs.
The boy hesitated, then asked what he really wanted to know.
"Was it worth it?"
Li Shen felt the question bite where it was meant to bite: at the center of the ledger, where costs turned into years.
He didn't lie.
"I don't know," he said.
The boy blinked, surprised by the answer.
Li Shen closed his eyes.
"I know what it cost," he added. "That's all."
The older boy rolled onto his side, the conversation done like a tool put away.
"Shen Yu," he whispered suddenly, as if remembering that names existed. "That's mine."
Li Shen didn't offer his in return. Not yet. Names were for people who stayed.
Shen Yu muttered, almost to himself, "Welcome to Han's fields."
Li Shen didn't reply.
He forced his breathing slow, because there was nothing else to control.
In.
Hold.
Out.
It didn't make hunger disappear.
It made hunger smaller.
Morning came like a punishment that never forgot.
The shed door slammed open, and cold air poured in. Han's voice filled the space with practiced cruelty.
"Up! If I can smell sleep on you, you're already late."
Bodies stumbled into clothes. Someone cursed under his breath. A boy coughed hard enough to gag. Another sat up too fast and swayed, blinking like he'd been struck.
Li Shen stood without rushing. Hunger made him light-headed if he moved too fast. He kept his spine straight anyway, because posture was free and weakness was expensive.
Outside, the yard was already alive.
Reeds. Rope. Sacks. Tools. Motion.
Han's eyes found Li Shen immediately, like a hooked nail finding cloth.
"You," Han snapped. "Water barrels. If the men drink mud, they work like mud."
Li Shen nodded once.
He didn't ask for food. Asking was a weakness Han would charge interest on.
He and another boy lifted the first barrel. The wood bit into his palms. The weight dragged at his shoulders. He carried it anyway, step by step, the way you carried a debt: slowly, carefully, without dropping it.
Shen Yu fell in on the other side of the barrel without being asked. His grip was steady. His face was blank.
"You're lighter today," Shen Yu muttered, eyes forward.
Li Shen kept his voice low. "Hunger weighs less than pride."
Shen Yu let out a short, dry breath. "You talk like an old man."
Li Shen didn't answer.
They set the barrel down near the work line. Men drank fast, as if the day might decide to revoke water later. Someone splashed his face. Someone else poured the last mouthful over his hands like it could wash exhaustion away.
At the storage shed, Han's clerk stood with the ledger tucked under his arm. Thin, older, ink-stained. He watched like a man who believed paper was more real than flesh.
Han paced the yard, assigning tasks with a voice that didn't allow bargaining.
"Reeds to the east stack. Rope to the south hook. You—carry. You—cut. If you fall behind, you work after dark."
The work swallowed the morning.
Li Shen tied bundles until rope fibers cut his skin again. He hauled reeds until his shoulders burned. When his hands shook, he tightened his grip until they stopped.
He didn't endure to prove something.
He endured because the alternative had a price his father would pay.
That was how Han ruled: not through beating, but through accounting. He didn't need to break bones if he could break futures.
By midmorning, the market road outside the yard had grown louder.
Not with celebration.
With bargaining. With arguments. With the thin edge of panic.
Yesterday's unit had taken sacks and called it duty. Today the bourgade paid the second cost: everyone re-evaluating what "safety" was worth.
A man selling dried meat had rewritten his prices in chalk—higher, as if numbers could be blamed. A woman argued that she'd bought at the old price last week. The man shrugged like last week was ancient history.
Fear was a currency too.
Li Shen saw it from the yard and counted it without trying.
Then Han called, "Shen Yu. New boy. Over here."
They approached the storage shed.
Han's clerk opened the ledger to a page already marked with names and fractions of days. The brush lay beside it like a blade that didn't need sharpening.
Han didn't look at the page. He looked at Li Shen.
"You still upright?" Han asked.
"Yes."
"Good," Han said. "Don't mistake upright for safe."
He jerked his chin toward the ledger. "Your half-day is here. Extra hour is here. No meal—already paid."
The clerk dipped his brush and tapped the inkstone once, deliberate. The sound was small. It landed like a weight.
Li Shen watched the brush move.
A name. A mark. A number.
Ink sank into paper like a verdict.
Han's eyes didn't soften. "Today you earn back what you can. Not with bravery. With work."
Li Shen nodded once.
Han tossed a small pouch at Shen Yu. It hit his palm with a sound that was too light.
"Market run," Han said. "Salt. Rope. Rough cloth. And oil, if you can get it without being bled."
Shen Yu glanced into the pouch and scowled. "That's not enough."
"It's enough," Han replied. "If it isn't, you'll learn why."
His gaze cut back to Li Shen. "New boy goes with you. If he stares at stalls like a lost calf, you drag him."
Han's clerk said nothing. He only watched.
Shen Yu grunted. "Fine."
Li Shen didn't speak. He simply took the list when Shen Yu handed it.
Han leaned closer, voice low enough to be private.
"And if you disappear," Han said to Li Shen, "I take it out of your father. The ledger doesn't care where you run. It only cares who pays."
Li Shen held his gaze. "Yes."
Han straightened. "Go."
The market road was louder than the yard.
People talked too much when they were afraid. Prices rose because someone had to lose, and no one wanted to volunteer.
Shen Yu moved through the crowd like someone who'd learned the difference between walking fast and looking rushed. He didn't apologize when shoulders bumped. He didn't explain himself. He simply went where he needed.
Li Shen matched his pace.
They bought salt first. The seller tried to charge double.
Shen Yu didn't argue. He placed the pouch on the counter, let the coins clink, and said, "This is what we have."
The seller squinted. "Then you get less."
"Then we get less," Shen Yu replied, already turning away.
The seller hesitated—calculating whether "less sale" was better than "no sale"—then scooped the salt with a sour face. It wasn't generosity. It was math.
They bought rope next. The rope was worse than yesterday's: coarser, older, but rope was rope.
The cloth stall tried to upsell something cleaner. Shen Yu pointed at the roughest bolt and said, "That."
The stall owner opened his mouth to complain, then noticed the way Shen Yu's hand rested near a cheap knife at his belt, and decided complaining was bad business.
They moved.
Li Shen watched the hands, the eyes, the little shifts in tone.
No one robbed anyone in the open.
They just squeezed.
And the squeezed either learned or broke.
At the oil stall, the jars were half-empty.
"Soldiers took most," the seller said, already defensive. "And what they didn't take, I'm keeping. Winter's coming."
Shen Yu tapped the jar with a knuckle. "Winter's always coming."
The seller's eyes narrowed. "You want oil or you want philosophy?"
Shen Yu turned the pouch upside down and let the coins show—too few, too honest.
The seller hesitated.
Behind the counter, a girl about Li Shen's age stood silently, counting coins into stacks with careful fingers.
She wasn't striking—yet—but there was a quiet symmetry to her face, the kind that would sharpen with time. What stood out more was the way she moved: calm hands, clean knot in her hair, eyes that didn't flinch at raised voices.
She glanced up once, not lingering on Li Shen, not curious—just measuring the crowd the way a shopkeeper measured risk.
Then she went back to counting.
Numbers. Always numbers.
Shen Yu noticed Li Shen's brief glance and gave a short, dismissive breath. "Don't stare," he muttered. "That place isn't for field boys."
Li Shen didn't respond. He turned away and kept walking.
They left with a small jar of oil that felt too light for what it would cost in winter.
On the way back, an argument erupted near the dried meat stall.
A man accused the seller of cheating. The seller accused the man of being poor. Voices rose. Two other men stepped in, not to calm it, but to test whether the conflict could be turned into an advantage.
Shen Yu didn't slow.
Li Shen watched, filed it away.
Violence didn't start from hatred.
It started from scarcity.
They reached Han's yard with the goods.
Han snatched them, checked them, and grunted like a man who hated admitting his workers had done something right.
Then his gaze cut to Li Shen.
"You didn't get lost," Han said.
Li Shen answered, "No."
Han's eyes narrowed. "You look less stupid than yesterday."
It was the closest thing to approval Han would ever offer.
Then Han turned toward the clerk. "Mark the purchases. And mark the sacks."
The clerk opened the ledger, turned pages, and wrote with a practiced scratch.
Li Shen saw the motion, the certainty. A brush didn't shake. It didn't regret. It just recorded.
Sacks taken.
Supplies bought.
Days owed.
Ink for safety.
In the afternoon, work resumed.
Reeds. Rope. Cold air. Hunger that returned on schedule.
Li Shen worked until his shoulders became numb and his hands stopped feeling like hands.
When the yard finally emptied and dusk pressed down, Han pointed at Li Shen without looking directly at him.
"Extra hour," he said. "You earned it yesterday."
Li Shen nodded and stayed.
He bound reeds alone under fading light, his breath fogging in front of him.
Shen Yu passed once on his way to the shed. He paused just long enough to say, quiet, "Don't die over it."
Li Shen didn't answer. He tightened the knot.
An hour later, Han dismissed him with a grunt.
The shed swallowed him again.
Hunger was still there. It always would be.
Li Shen lay down, stared at the beams, and forced his breathing slow.
In.
Hold.
Out.
A thin steadiness answered—faint, stubborn, not comfort but structure.
Not Qi.
Not yet.
Just the beginning of a habit that refused to break.
Outside, somewhere beyond the bourgade, a road waited. And on that road, beasts waited too.
Li Shen didn't need to see them to understand the equation.
If you couldn't buy time back from death, then the world would keep collecting.
And it would not stop.
Not for poor boys.
Not for good intentions.
Not for anyone.