The first time the soldiers came through, the bourgade had been startled.
The second time, it was ready—if only in the way animals were ready for a snare they had already tasted: quieter, tighter, eyes lowered before any command was spoken.
By then, the yard had changed.
Not dramatically. Not in the way stories changed.
Just in the small, brutal ways that proved time had passed.
The mud in Han's yard had hardened into rutted ridges where carts had rolled too many times. Rope fibers lay everywhere like shed skin. The reeds stacked along the east wall were darker now, water-stained from weeks of rain and sleet. Li Shen's hands were a map of healed cracks and reopened splits, each line a reminder that skin wasn't meant to do the same thing every day for months.
Morning was colder. Not winter yet—not the deep, clean cold that made sound sharp—but the mean cold that soaked into clothes and stayed.
Li Shen stood at the water barrels with Shen Yu, shoulders braced, breath visible.
"You're counting again," Shen Yu muttered.
Li Shen didn't deny it. The habit had become physical. He counted trips. He counted sacks. He counted how long it took a worker to recover after a stumble. He counted rations like they were hours.
Counting didn't make you safe.
It made you harder to surprise.
A shout from the market road cut through the yard.
Not the usual bargaining shout.
A warning shout.
Han appeared at the storage shed door like the noise had pulled him by the spine. His eyes swept the road once, then snapped to his clerk.
"Ledger," Han barked.
The clerk was already moving, book under his arm, brush secured, as if a storm had a schedule.
Shen Yu's jaw tightened. "Again."
Li Shen watched the road.
Hoofbeats came first—more of them than before. Then boots, uneven, heavier, as if the ground itself had become harder to cross.
The column entered the bourgade from the same direction as before, but it was not the same shape.
Men limped.
A cart rattled behind them, its boards dark-stained. There were bodies on it—alive, but barely. A man's arm hung wrong. Another's face was wrapped in cloth already soaked through. The banner was still there, but it looked torn now, and the symbol on it had been scraped by something that didn't care about fabric or pride.
The officer rode at the front again, posture stiff with anger or fatigue. His eyes were red-rimmed, not from tears, but from sleeplessness.
And beside his horse walked the cultivator.
Still plain. Still quiet. Still the kind of power that didn't announce itself with light—only with the way people stepped out of his path.
Qi Condensation at the very bottom, Li Shen guessed—one, maybe two at most. Not enough to make miracles.
Enough to make the air feel heavier around him.
Enough to make the bourgade behave.
The column halted near the central square. The officer didn't waste time on formal words.
"Beasts pushed down from the river bends," he said, voice rough. "Two nights in a row. We're falling back to establish a line."
A low murmur rippled through the crowd like wind through dry stalks.
A man near the stalls whispered, "Spiritual beasts? Here?"
Another answered, tight, "They don't stop to ask where 'here' is."
The officer lifted his hand sharply. Silence fell.
"We require supplies," he continued. "Grain. Oil. Salt. And transport. Two carts. Four able bodies. Immediately."
That last part hit harder than sacks.
Supplies were hunger. Transport was people.
Han stepped forward again. Not because he wanted to. Because if he didn't, someone else would offer him up.
"Officer," Han said, voice flat. "You already took half a month's storage."
"And half a month of your lives stayed intact," the officer snapped back. "Do you want to argue with what's coming down from the river?"
He gestured toward the wounded cart. "Look at them."
The bourgade looked.
Even those who tried not to.
Li Shen's eyes landed on the cart, then flicked away. He didn't need to stare to understand. Blood made its own argument.
Han's mouth tightened. "Two carts means—"
"Two carts," the officer repeated, cutting him off. "If you want fewer, offer something else."
Han didn't ask what "something else" meant. He already knew.
The cultivator shifted his weight slightly beside the horse. Not threatening. Not dramatic.
But the air seemed to press down all the same, and the bourgade's murmurs died as if swallowed.
Han swallowed once. Then nodded.
"Fine," he said. "You'll have grain and oil. Salt if the market hasn't been stripped clean. Carts—"
His eyes scanned the yard behind him, calculating bodies like tools.
Li Shen felt his stomach tighten.
Not fear.
Anticipation of cost.
Han's gaze snagged on Shen Yu, then slid to Li Shen.
Shen Yu's posture stiffened. His hands tightened unconsciously.
Han's eyes didn't soften. "You. Yu. And you—new boy."
Shen Yu's jaw clenched. "Han—"
Han cut him off with a look. "You want to volunteer someone who collapses after ten steps?"
Shen Yu shut his mouth.
Han's gaze returned to Li Shen. "You're steady. You don't panic. And if you die on the road, it's only half a season lost."
It was a brutal assessment delivered like weather.
Li Shen didn't argue. Arguing was a privilege.
"Yes," he said.
Han turned to the officer. "Two carts from my yard. Four bodies. You'll get them."
The officer nodded once, already moving on in his mind.
"By sundown," he said. "We move before the next wave."
He glanced over Han's shoulder. "And keep your people inside tonight. If something breaks through, you won't be able to buy safety with sacks."
Then the officer swung down from his horse and began barking orders, directing his men to a place near the well.
The bourgade dispersed in controlled panic—stall owners gathering goods, families pulling children close, faces pale under the wind.
Han didn't dismiss his workers.
He tightened them.
"Work," he snapped. "Faster. If you think beasts care that you're tired, you're already dead."
The yard moved like a machine kicked harder.
By midday, the market had changed again.
Not just higher prices—something worse: scarcity turning into hiding.
Oil jars were gone. Salt was rationed by grudging handfuls. Rope sellers had "suddenly" sold out. Men who had laughed at fear last week now spoke in whispers and looked toward the river road like they expected teeth to appear out of dust.
Han sent Shen Yu and Li Shen with a pouch that was heavier than the last one, but not heavy enough for what safety demanded.
"Don't get cheated," Han said. "And don't get stabbed over oil. If you die, I still collect."
Shen Yu spat into the mud. "Heaven's a merchant."
Han's eyes narrowed. "Heaven doesn't care about you. Merchants do. Move."
They moved.
The market road was crowded with bodies and empty shelves. A man tried to sell "beast-repellent powder" that looked like ground ash and smelled like lies. Another was offering iron nails at triple price "for boarding doors."
Shen Yu ignored them all.
He headed straight for a back stall where an old woman sold rough salt and cheap dried herbs.
The woman eyed the pouch, then eyed Shen Yu. "You want salt? You pay."
Shen Yu set the pouch down, opened it, and let the coins show. "This is what we have."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "That buys half of what it bought last week."
"Then we take half," Shen Yu said, voice flat.
The woman sniffed. "You'll come back tomorrow begging for the other half."
"Tomorrow we might be dead," Shen Yu replied.
The woman stared at him for a long moment, then scooped the salt with a sour face. Not kindness. Math.
Li Shen watched her hands.
He watched the way her eyes flicked toward the wounded soldiers near the well, then back to her wares.
Fear didn't make people moral.
It made them efficient.
They secured salt. They secured a small jar of oil at a price that made Shen Yu's mouth twitch. They secured rope that was thinner than it should have been, and Shen Yu tested it with a hard pull before paying.
On the way back, they passed the cloth stall again.
The same girl stood behind the counter, coins arranged in neat stacks. Her calm looked different now—not indifference, but the practiced stillness of someone who understood that panic was expensive.
Shen Yu didn't slow. He muttered, "Shop people will live. They always do."
Li Shen didn't respond.
He didn't know if that was true.
He only knew that calm had a cost too, and someone always paid it.
Back at the yard, Han's clerk waited with the ledger open.
He didn't ask questions. He recorded.
Han checked the supplies like a man checking the seams on a roof before a storm.
"Good," Han grunted. "Now load."
They loaded sacks onto carts until the cart springs groaned.
Li Shen lifted. Carried. Stacked.
His shoulders burned.
He kept moving.
Shen Yu leaned close once, voice low. "If we're leaving, you tell me now. I don't want surprises on the road."
Li Shen answered just as quietly. "We're not leaving the bourgade's shadow. It's transport to their line, then back."
Shen Yu's eyes narrowed. "You sound sure."
Li Shen wasn't sure.
He sounded controlled.
In the late afternoon, as they tightened ropes on the carts, a commotion broke out near the shed.
The bigger boy from the ration incident—older, heavier, eyes always hungry—had backed the smaller boy into a corner. He was speaking softly, which was worse than shouting.
Li Shen saw the smaller boy's hands shake as he clutched his bowl.
Shen Yu's head turned. His jaw tightened. He didn't move.
He was calculating.
If he intervened, he risked Han's punishment. If he didn't, he taught the shed what kind of place it was allowed to become.
Li Shen made the decision before he could think too long.
He walked over.
Not fast. Not angry.
Just present.
The bigger boy's eyes lifted and narrowed. "You again."
Li Shen didn't look at the bowl. He looked at the boy's face. "We're leaving at sundown," Li Shen said. "If the shed turns into teeth while we're gone, Han loses workers."
The bigger boy sneered. "Han doesn't care."
"He cares about output," Li Shen replied. "If you want to hunt, hunt somewhere that doesn't damage the yard."
The bigger boy stepped closer, testing. "And who are you to—"
Shen Yu moved then. Not to stand in front of Li Shen, but to stand beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder.
No words. Just weight.
The bigger boy's eyes flicked between them. His lips curled.
He spat on the ground and backed off, not because he was afraid, but because the math had changed.
He didn't lose. He delayed.
That was how conflict worked when everyone was starving: it didn't end.
It waited.
When the bigger boy was gone, the smaller boy let out a breath like he'd been holding it for an hour.
Li Shen didn't comfort him. Comfort was heavy.
He simply said, "Eat."
Then he returned to the cart.
Shen Yu followed, expression tight.
"That was stupid," Shen Yu muttered.
Li Shen tightened the rope until it bit into his palm. "It was necessary."
Shen Yu stared at him. "For who."
Li Shen didn't answer immediately.
Because the answer wasn't pretty.
Then he said, flat, "For the shed. For the yard. For my father."
That last part was the truth that always returned.
If Li Shen died, Han would collect.
If Han collected, Li Heng would pay with his back.
Li Shen could not allow that.
Not for a fight that didn't matter.
Not for a fear that wouldn't save anyone.
Sundown came.
The carts stood ready, sacks strapped down, oil jars secured, salt bundled.
The officer approached with two soldiers and the cultivator beside him.
Close up, the cultivator looked even more ordinary—skin rough, eyes tired, coat patched at the elbow.
Power didn't always look like legends.
Sometimes it looked like a man who had stopped expecting fairness.
The officer pointed at Shen Yu and Li Shen. "You two. You'll drive. Keep up. If you fall behind, you die alone."
Han stepped forward. His eyes flicked over the boys one last time.
Not concern.
Calculation.
"Bring the carts back intact," Han said. "If you don't, I'll take it out of your skin."
Shen Yu's mouth tightened. "Yes."
Li Shen nodded once. "Yes."
As the soldiers moved to lead them out, the cultivator's eyes landed on Li Shen for a heartbeat.
Not recognition.
Not prophecy.
A simple, evaluating glance.
Then the cultivator spoke to the officer in a low voice Li Shen couldn't fully hear—only a fragment:
"…steady…"
The officer grunted, impatient, and waved them forward.
They left the yard, carts creaking, wheels biting into ruts.
The bourgade watched them go the way people watched a door close when wolves were outside—silently, with hope that the hinge held.
The road out didn't stretch into wilderness. It ran toward the river bend line the unit had mentioned, where the air smelled damp and cold and the horizon looked too wide.
Li Shen gripped the cart handle until his knuckles whitened.
He touched the cloth sachet through his shirt with his thumb, a motion so small it barely existed.
Li Mei's uneven stitches pressed against his skin.
A reminder.
Not of comfort.
Of obligation.
When fear rose, he pushed it down into something useful: attention, breath, posture.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Beside him, Shen Yu muttered, "If a beast shows up, I'm leaving you."
Li Shen didn't look at him. "If a beast shows up," he said, "we do what keeps the cart moving."
Shen Yu gave a humorless breath. "That's the same thing."
The line of soldiers ahead didn't slow.
The sky dimmed further.
And somewhere beyond the river bends, something had forced men with spears to bleed.
Li Shen didn't need to see it yet.
He only needed to survive long enough to return.
Because the ledger was waiting.
Because his father was waiting.
And because one day, he intended to have the kind of power that didn't just buy time—
It made time, for the people who would otherwise be collected.