They left at sundown because fear liked the dark and the officer refused to let it choose the hour.
Two carts, stripped to essentials, groaned as they rolled out of the bourgade. The sacks were bound tight, the oil wrapped in straw, the salt tucked under a layer of rough cloth as if it could be hidden from hunger by a piece of fabric. Soldiers walked ahead in a broken line—spears angled, shoulders hunched, breath white in the cold. No one sang. No one joked. Even the horses kept their heads low, ears twitching at sounds only they could sort.
Li Shen's hands burned on the wooden handlebar.
The task was simple: push, steer, keep the cart from biting into the ditch when the road dipped. Simple didn't mean easy. The mud had frozen into ridges. Every ridge jarred the wheels, shifted the load, and punished the wrists. The cold wasn't clean winter yet; it was the wet, mean kind that soaked into cloth and stayed there, turning small aches into stubborn pain.
Shen Yu walked beside him, one hand on the cart frame, the other free at his side like he wanted it ready.
"If we run," Shen Yu muttered, eyes forward, "we run back toward the bourgade."
Li Shen didn't answer. Running was a luxury. You needed space to run. You needed breath to run. You needed the kind of luck that didn't exist in ledgers.
Up ahead, the officer rode a horse that looked as tired as he did. He didn't waste words.
"Keep up," he called back. "If your wheels sink, you lift them. If your spine breaks, you crawl. If you stop, you don't restart."
That was how authority sounded here: not theatrical cruelty, not a villain's pleasure—just a system that didn't include your comfort in its calculations.
Beside the officer walked the cultivator.
Plain coat. Patched elbow. Hands tucked into sleeves. The kind of man who could vanish into a crowd if the crowd weren't already moving away from him without being told.
He didn't glow. He didn't radiate light. He didn't declare himself.
But the air pressed differently around him.
Li Shen didn't have a concept for it. He only had his body's report: breath tightening when the cultivator drew near, shoulders wanting to hunch, the instinct to lower his eyes. It was not worship. It was not respect. It was the reflex animals had around storms.
Qi, Li Shen thought, the word tasting like a rumor in his mind.
It didn't matter if the man was only at the bottom. In a place like this, the bottom of the sky was still above the earth.
They walked until the last light of the bourgade fell behind them and the world became black shapes and cold air.
The river bends were not far in distance, but they were far in feeling. The road narrowed. Brush grew thicker. The smell changed—wet stone, decaying leaves, and something sharp beneath it, like iron left too long in rain.
A soldier at the front raised a fist.
The line halted.
Li Shen stopped with the cart, heart thudding once, then settling into something steadier. He adjusted his footing, braced his legs, and forced his breath into a controlled rhythm.
In.
Hold.
Out.
From the reeds to their left came a low sound.
Not a howl. Not a roar.
A scrape. Slow and deliberate, like something dragging itself through wet grass.
A soldier swallowed loudly.
The officer didn't shout orders. He didn't need to. Men tightened their grips on spears and stepped into a rough semicircle between the brush and the carts. Torches were lifted, their light shaking in the wind.
The cultivator stepped forward half a pace.
That was all.
The air thickened.
Not with heat. Not with light. With pressure—an invisible hand set against the ribs.
Li Shen's skin prickled. His stomach went tight. The urge to step back was immediate and humiliating.
The scraping stopped.
Silence held for two heartbeats. Three.
Then something moved again—further away this time. Retreat, not approach.
A soldier let out a breath he'd been strangling inside his chest.
Shen Yu leaned close, voice low. "That was it?"
Li Shen kept his eyes on the reeds. "That was enough."
The officer's voice cut through. "Move. Faster."
No celebration. No relief. Just motion, because motion was the only argument that kept you alive long enough to matter.
They reached the line near midnight.
It wasn't a fort. It wasn't even a camp the way Li Shen had imagined camps from stories. It was a boundary thrown together by people with no time: carts tipped on their sides, felled trees dragged into place, shallow trenches, a handful of torches pinned against the wind, and men too exhausted to pretend their fear was noble.
A quartermaster near a fire was directing traffic with clipped impatience.
"Oil left," he said. "Salt under cover. Grain near the trench."
Two soldiers hauled the first sack off Li Shen's cart. Their hands shook—not from cold, but from the residue of close calls.
The quartermaster's eyes flicked over Li Shen and Shen Yu. "Yard boys?"
Han's name didn't need to be spoken. It traveled in the way people spoke about tools they used.
"Yes," Shen Yu answered.
The quartermaster grunted. "You move like you've been threatened properly. Good. Don't stand in the open."
Li Shen's gaze followed the man's glance.
Near the river's dark ribbon, something lay on the ground.
At first he mistook it for a fallen log.
Then the torchlight shifted and showed a ribcage too large for any deer, wet fur matted black, and a head that was more mouth than face. Ugly. Real. Dead.
A beast.
Not a legend. Not a dragon.
Just something that had been alive and hungry not long ago, and had pushed men with spears into the mud to prove it.
Li Shen's throat tightened.
He looked away before the image could lodge too deep.
Shen Yu didn't. Shen Yu stared until his face turned pale in the torchlight, then spat into the mud like he could expel the sight.
"This is what they meant," Shen Yu whispered.
Li Shen nodded once. Words were cheap here. And often useless.
A clerk approached with a small board and charcoal. Not Han's ledger. A different record. The kind that decided whether you existed on paper.
"Two carts delivered," the clerk said, writing as he spoke. "Signed by the officer. You return with empty carts. If you don't return, you weren't here."
Shen Yu's brows drew together. "Who keeps this?"
The clerk's eyes stayed flat. "Everyone who wants to live long enough to collect."
Li Shen felt something cold settle in his chest.
This was the tax of safety.
Not coins. Not grain.
Proof. Paper. Names on a line.
You didn't just pay to be protected. You paid to be counted among the protected.
The cultivator stood near the officer while the charcoal moved. When his gaze passed over Li Shen, it didn't linger.
Li Shen was relieved.
Then ashamed of being relieved.
He tightened his grip on the cart handle until his palms ached, as if pain could scrub away feelings that didn't belong.
They were told to sleep.
That was a joke.
The men by the fire ate quickly, as if chewing too slowly would invite something from the dark. Sleet hissed when it hit the torches. Someone coughed hard, trying to swallow the sound. Another man whispered a prayer that sounded less like faith and more like an apology offered to a world that didn't bargain.
Li Shen and Shen Yu were directed to a space behind a tipped cart, half sheltered from the wind. Shen Yu dropped to the ground without ceremony and pulled his knees up.
"You've got a blanket?" Shen Yu asked.
Li Shen hesitated.
He did. It wasn't clean anymore. Nothing stayed clean. He unrolled it and split it without comment.
Shen Yu made a sound that wasn't gratitude and wasn't disbelief, then turned his head away as if acknowledging kindness created debt.
Li Shen lay staring into the black, listening.
Wind.
Sleet.
The creak of wood.
A distant splash from the river.
And under it all, the quiet tension of men waiting for something with teeth.
A soldier stumbled past them, cursing under his breath. His right arm was wrapped in cloth that had gone dark in patches. The bandage was loosening at the elbow, slipping with every step.
Li Shen watched him, then forced his eyes away.
Not your business, he told himself. You are ten. You are a yard boy. You are here to return carts, not to play at being useful.
The soldier's boot caught on a root. He lurched, caught himself on the tipped cart, and hissed in pain. The loosened cloth slipped further. Fresh red spread along the edge.
The soldier looked down, jaw tight, and swore again—quietly this time, like he was ashamed to make noise.
Li Shen's body moved before his thoughts could complete.
He sat up.
Shen Yu's head snapped toward him. "Don't."
Li Shen paused. The cold bit his cheeks. His heart hammered once, hard.
He saw Li Mei's hands in his mind—gentle, practical, always doing the small thing that kept a small problem from becoming a grave one. No magic. No miracles. Just refusal.
He stood anyway.
Not with confidence. With a kind of stubborn, shaky resolve that was more honest.
He didn't reach for the soldier. He didn't touch the wound. He didn't pretend he knew what to do.
He did the only thing a child could do without lying.
He ran.
To the fire. To the men. To someone older.
"His bandage," Li Shen said, breathless, pointing. "It's slipping. He's bleeding."
Two soldiers turned. One barked a laugh that held no humor. "And?"
The quartermaster, sitting near the fire with a bowl in his hands, lifted his eyes slowly. His face was tired in the way that came from fighting something that didn't negotiate.
He followed Li Shen's pointing finger, then set his bowl down.
"Rong," he called, voice low.
An older soldier—scarred, compact, eyes sharp—stood without complaint. He grabbed a strip of clean cloth from a bundle by the fire and a small oil lamp.
"Take this," he said to Li Shen, thrusting the lamp into his hands. "Hold it steady. Don't shake."
Li Shen swallowed and nodded. His hands trembled at first from adrenaline more than cold, but he forced them still.
He led the older soldier back toward the wounded man.
The wounded soldier had slumped onto the log now, panting, expression clenched tight with a kind of quiet embarrassment. He didn't ask for help. Pride didn't stop bleeding, but it often stopped mouths.
Rong crouched and yanked the loose wrap away with professional impatience.
"Idiot," Rong muttered, not cruelly, not kindly. Just stating the obvious. "You tie it wrong, it slides. You let it slide, you bleed. You bleed, you get weak. You get weak, you die."
The wounded man didn't argue. He just held his jaw tight while Rong worked.
Rong tightened the cloth with quick, practiced motions—firm pressure, clean wrap, a knot that wouldn't slip. He pressed two fingers against the skin a moment, checking.
"Still feel your hand?" Rong asked.
The wounded man flexed his fingers with a hiss. "Yes."
"Good," Rong said. "If it goes numb, loosen it by a finger width. Not more."
Rong stood and looked at Li Shen as if noticing him properly for the first time.
"How old are you?"
Li Shen's throat tightened. "Ten."
Rong snorted once. "Ten and you ran for help instead of fainting. Keep that."
Then he turned and walked away without another word.
Li Shen stood there holding the lamp, feeling the weight of what had happened settle into something sharp and bitter.
He hadn't saved the man.
He hadn't stopped the blood.
All he had done was call someone who could.
And even that had been a risk—standing up, moving across a camp full of tired men and sharper dangers.
He lowered the lamp slightly and met the wounded man's eyes.
The man looked at him for a long heartbeat, then gave a small, stiff nod. Not gratitude. Not debt. Recognition that a child had acted when many adults would have pretended not to see.
Li Shen nodded back and turned away.
When he returned to the blanket, Shen Yu was staring at him like he was measuring whether Li Shen had gotten smarter or just more dangerous.
"That was stupid," Shen Yu muttered.
Li Shen lay down again, the cold biting through cloth. "It was small."
Shen Yu's eyes narrowed. "Small gets you killed."
Li Shen stared up at the dark. "Small also keeps you alive."
Shen Yu didn't answer. The wind answered for him.
Before dawn, the camp shuddered awake.
Not to an attack.
To a sound.
A long, distant cry across the river that raised the hairs on Li Shen's neck and made men sit up like puppets pulled by a string.
The officer rose in one motion. "Positions."
Torches were lifted. Spears came up. The boundary stiffened.
The cultivator stepped forward, eyes narrowed at the dark.
Li Shen didn't see light. He didn't see flames.
He saw something subtler: a shift in space, as if the air around the cultivator became less willing to be touched.
The cry faded.
Not gone. Just further away, like something had decided there were easier meals elsewhere.
The officer spat once. "We move now. Empty carts. No delays."
Clerks signed the last lines. Proof of delivery. Proof of existence.
Li Shen and Shen Yu pushed the empty carts onto the road.
Empty carts should have been easy.
They weren't.
Empty meant light, and light meant the wheels slid more easily on sleet-slick mud. Twice Li Shen had to throw his weight into the frame to keep the cart from skimming into the ditch. His palms screamed. His shoulders burned.
He didn't stop.
Because stopping meant restarting.
And restarting meant proving you had the strength to exist.
As the road widened and the bourgade's outline returned, the tension in the soldiers loosened by a fraction—not relief, just the fragile permission to breathe without choking.
At the bourgade gate, a small crowd had gathered, faces pale, hands clenched in sleeves. People didn't cheer. They didn't rush forward.
They just watched the carts.
Watched whether the line returned the way it had left.
Watched whether the world had eaten them overnight.
Han stood there, of course. With his clerk beside him, ledger tucked under his arm like a weapon that never dulled.
Han's eyes went first to the carts.
Then to the boys.
Both intact.
Good enough.
"Back," Han said, as if the word itself was a verdict.
"Yes," Shen Yu answered.
Han's gaze landed on Li Shen. Not warm. Not impressed.
Assessing.
"You didn't break the cart," Han said.
Li Shen nodded.
Han grunted. "Then you're still useful."
That was the closest thing to praise the yard offered.
The clerk opened the ledger.
Li Shen's stomach tightened on instinct.
Han tapped the page with a finger. "Two days. You were gone. That's not a gift. That's a mark. You work it back."
Shen Yu's mouth tightened. He didn't argue.
Li Shen didn't either.
Debt didn't care where you'd gone.
Debt only cared that you came back alive enough to keep paying.
They pushed the carts into the yard. The cold daylight felt thin, almost insulting after the night.
Near the market road, Li Shen caught fragments of conversation—women talking in low, sharp tones that carried the way gossip always carried when people were afraid.
"…the Lin shop sent someone to the city…"
"…not the girl—her father went—paper trouble…"
"…someone's coughing blood, they say…"
"…if they lose their supplier, they're finished…"
No official words. No grand reasons.
Just mortals trying to stay inside the narrow circle where life didn't get taken for free.
Li Shen heard it, filed it away, and returned to work.
Because in Han's yard, the day didn't care what you'd seen at the river bends.
It only asked the same question it always asked:
How much of yourself can you spend today and still stand tomorrow?
Li Shen lowered his shoulders, tightened his grip, and pushed.
In.
Hold.
Out.
Not power.
Not yet.
But the refusal to go back to being blind.