The yard didn't shift because anyone felt calmer.
It shifted because the board got rewritten.
The Monday grid went up in its usual spot—high enough to force necks back, low enough for a tall man to "accidentally" block half the names with his shoulders. Fresh ink. Crisp stamps. A crowd that pretended it was just passing through.
Li Shen stayed one step off the crush and watched the structure, not the shouting.
Rotation wasn't random. It never had been. Names clustered the way money clustered: predictably, with intent. The same hands kept landing in the same kind of work, on the same days, with the same "notes" that followed them like scent.
Bai Ren drifted into place on Li Shen's left, exactly where he was safest—yard air, board light, a buffer of bodies between him and anything that tasted like smoke.
"Your name keeps popping up," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen didn't turn his head. "Popping up where."
"Not rank. Don't get excited." Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Pattern. Three postings in a row. That's not rotation. That's someone watching how you behave."
Li Shen found the line without hunting for it.
TEAM THREE — RAVINE ROUTE — 2 DAYS / WEEK
HAND: LI SHEN (TOOL ISSUED)
NOTE: SALVAGE EFFICIENCY APPLIED
A small stamp. Still a stamp.
"Efficiency note," Li Shen said.
"Yeah," Bai Ren replied. "They've stamped you as useful. Useful gets squeezed first. It's how the system tests how much it can take without breaking the tool."
Li Shen let it settle, then looked lower, where a second sheet had been pinned half-under the grid—tighter writing, meant for people who read carefully.
GREYFANG CONTRACT — WEEKLY BATCH CYCLE
DEFECT THRESHOLD: 2 / 100
RESET: AFTER FINAL SEAL ACCEPTANCE
HOLD: ANY DISPUTE / ANY REWORK FLAG
So the reset existed, but it wasn't automatic. It lived behind acceptance. If anything got held, the count stayed alive.
Bai Ren leaned in, close enough to look like he was reading because he was bored.
"See it?" he said quietly. "Reset is real. It's just locked behind approval."
Li Shen nodded once. "So the real risk is holds."
"And people who love holds," Bai Ren said, eyes flicking toward the dispute awning before he forced them back to neutral.
Li Shen didn't follow the glance. Making it personal was how you got dragged into stories.
He asked the only question that didn't belong to paper. "Anything on Yun Xue?"
Bai Ren didn't soften. He didn't perform concern. He delivered information like a report.
"Still under Yan. No dorm. No yard." He hesitated half a beat. "And her name's getting used."
Li Shen's jaw tightened by a fraction. "Used how."
"As a warning." Bai Ren's voice stayed dry. "People say: 'Don't get noticed, or you get cleaned out like her.' They're turning her into an example without letting her exist."
Li Shen exhaled—controlled, quiet. "So they're keeping her silent."
Bai Ren shrugged. "Or keeping everyone else loud."
Over the next four weeks, Li Shen learned what margin looked like in real units.
Not feelings.
Seconds. Breath. Points.
Two rotation days a week meant two days without forge smoke chewing his lungs. Two days where rope burn and blood replaced ash and heat. The other five days stayed Greyfang: weekly batches, weekly seals, weekly math.
The first rotation after the dispute ended ran clean.
Ren Jiao led like an accountant with a spear—minimal words, no romance, everything reduced to variables.
"Rope first," he said. "Net second. Don't chase a finish that isn't there."
Huang Qi complained less and breathed more. The rope salve he'd bought showed in his hands: less shake when tension hit, less panic when the boar moved wrong.
Li Shen's slip didn't change.
Tool issued. Fifteen percent.
But Ren Jiao's placement did.
He put Li Shen where the finish would happen if the finish happened—close enough to matter, close enough to die, far enough to avoid making him the first impact.
Not kindness.
Efficiency.
On the second day, the ravine gave them another ashback on the same worked path. Same rope line. Same net. Same moment where the world narrowed to an exposed joint that existed for half a breath.
Li Shen moved.
Not faster.
Cleaner.
Iron Grip lit for a heartbeat—just long enough to lock alignment—and then dropped. Riving Cut did the work: short, controlled, across tendon seam. Open. Withdraw. No lingering.
The beast buckled.
Ren Jiao finished it. Huang Qi didn't get dragged. No one bled beyond scrapes and rope-bites.
At processing, the salvage hand glanced at the cut and didn't bother hiding the approval in his tone.
"Same hand," he said. "Clean again."
The clerk stamped.
SALVAGE EFFICIENCY — APPLIED
A few points. Not life-changing. Lung-saving.
On the walk back, Huang Qi finally spoke to Li Shen without dressing it as contempt.
"That cut," he said. "You didn't learn that dodging mud."
Li Shen kept his eyes on the path. "Points window."
Huang Qi huffed. "Good. Better than buying luck."
Ren Jiao didn't turn, but his voice carried anyway. "Keep it clean, I keep you on my line."
It wasn't praise.
It was an arrangement.
Li Shen nodded. "Understood."
Bai Ren met them at the wash lane, where steam and drains made men honest.
He looked at the blood line on Li Shen's cuff, at the steadiness of his fingers.
"You're not shaking," Bai Ren said.
Li Shen rinsed his hands and watched red spiral away. "It's easier now."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Qi Two is a nice upgrade. Doesn't come with privacy."
Li Shen didn't argue. He already knew.
Back in the forge, the weekly batch cycle felt like its own hunt.
Greyfang hooks were small, which meant mistakes multiplied. It also meant "help" could be slipped into your work without anyone needing to shove you. A swapped tag. A misfiled slip. A tray edge "accidentally" nudged.
Cai Shun didn't need threats. He controlled windows.
Week one after the rotation grid, Cai Shun handed Li Shen a tray tag without looking up.
"Lane three," he said. "After noon. Thirty breaths."
Li Shen read the tag.
GREYFANG — HOOKS — BATCH 7
SEAL TEST: RANDOM 10 / 100
HOLD TRIGGERS: ANY REWORK MARK
Thirty breaths wasn't time. It was permission.
Li Shen used it like a professional.
Smoke-Sealing stayed a valve—seal, work, release. He didn't hold until his chest turned dry and stupid. He treated his lungs like assets with depreciation schedules.
Iron Grip stayed a tool, not a habit—short bursts on the bend, the eye, the extraction. On. Off. Never stacked.
He didn't make hooks "beautiful."
He made them consistent.
Consistency was what kept clerks from writing extra lines.
A broad-shouldered man two stations over—Meng—watched for a long time before speaking.
"You're not pushing speed," Meng said.
Li Shen didn't glance up. "Speed buys defects."
Meng's mouth tightened, almost approving. "Greyfang likes speed."
"Greyfang likes acceptance," Li Shen replied.
On the third day, Zhao Kun drifted near the lane boundary with the kind of loitering that pretended to be coincidence.
"Heard you're getting rotation points now," Zhao Kun said, like they were discussing weather.
Li Shen kept shaping metal. "Everyone gets rotation points."
Zhao Kun's eyes flicked to the tray tag. "Not everyone gets efficiency stamps."
Li Shen let the words pass. "They stamp paper. Not people."
Zhao Kun smiled. "Paper decides who eats."
Li Shen finally looked at him—just enough, not full front. "Do you need something."
"Just surprised you're still breathing," Zhao Kun said, and made it sound like a joke.
A runner passed behind them with a stack of tags, voice flat.
"Boundary clear," he said. "No loitering."
Zhao Kun's smile didn't move. "I'm talking."
"Talk on your own time," the runner replied without stopping.
Meng turned then, broad shoulders shifting into the gap like a wall choosing a side.
"If you've got breath for gossip," Meng said, "you've got breath for bellows. Move."
Zhao Kun held Meng's stare for a beat too long, then stepped back with the same easy smile, as if leaving had been his choice.
He disappeared into bodies like he'd never existed.
Li Shen went back to the tray and didn't pretend his skin hadn't noticed.
By the end of week two, Li Shen's numbers looked like survivable math.
Greyfang contract bonus: steady.
Rotation credit: variable, repeatable.
Efficiency stamp: small, dependable.
Most important:
No holds. No rework flags. No carried defect count.
He didn't celebrate it. Celebration was a resource leak.
He converted it.
A whetstone of his own—small, legal, stamped. Not luxury. Control.
Tendon wrap powder—because wrists didn't warn you before they failed.
Breath paste from the public clinic grade—not because it was best, but because corridor-stamped allowances drew attention he didn't want tied to his name too often.
Bai Ren watched him exchange points for supplies.
"You're buying boring," Bai Ren said.
"I'm buying independence," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Big word for a whetstone."
"A full smith doesn't beg for windows," Li Shen said, slipping the stone away like it mattered. "He owns his tools."
Bai Ren's eyes narrowed. "And his customer."
Li Shen didn't deny it. "And a channel."
Bai Ren scratched behind his ear—casual gesture, non-casual tone. "Greyhaven channel is a future mess. Current mess is: you're being measured."
Li Shen tied his pouch. "Then I'll keep meeting the metric."
Bai Ren snorted. "Metrics change when you start meeting them."
Li Shen didn't flinch. "Then I change faster."
Bai Ren bumped his shoulder lightly—contact disguised as accident. "Right answer. Still dangerous."
Week three proved him right and Bai Ren right at the same time.
A new notice appeared under Greyfang terms. Same stamp, different teeth.
ADDED REQUIREMENT: RANDOM DESTRUCTIVE TEST — 1 / 50
FAILURE IMPACT: HOLD + REVIEW
Acceptance got harder. Holds got cheaper.
Cai Shun didn't "announce" it. He just handed out tags with shorter windows and less patience.
When Li Shen took his new tag, Cai Shun's eyes flicked up for the first time in days—quick, measuring.
"Lane three again," Cai Shun said. "Noon. Twenty breaths."
Twenty breaths was a squeeze.
Li Shen didn't argue. Arguments were holds with a different label.
He adapted.
He did less per window, not more. He queued tasks. Prepped heat. Turned the window into high-value motion only.
Meng watched him and muttered, "You're slower."
"I'm reducing variance," Li Shen said.
Meng's mouth tightened. "Variance gets punished."
"That's why I'm reducing it," Li Shen replied.
When the Seal Circle pulled the destructive test, the lane went quiet in the way it went quiet when someone might vanish.
One hook. One bracket. Controlled force.
The clerk bent it like he wanted it to fail.
Li Shen didn't use Smoke-Sealing. This wasn't smoke. This was outcome.
The hook held.
Stamp hit paper.
No hold. No review.
Defect count reset behind acceptance like a door that closed without noise.
Li Shen didn't smile. He didn't breathe out loud.
He just went back to work.
Later, where speech was cheaper, Bai Ren caught him at the wash lane.
"I heard they pulled destructive," Bai Ren said.
"They did," Li Shen answered.
"And you passed."
"The batch passed," Li Shen corrected.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "Keep saying it like that. If you say 'I passed,' someone will feel invited."
Li Shen rinsed his hands. "I'm not inviting anything."
Bai Ren nodded once. "Good. Fights are free here. They just invoice you later."
Li Shen dried his hands. "Zhao Kun came near my boundary."
Bai Ren's eyes sharpened. "Close."
"Close enough to talk," Li Shen said. "Not close enough to do more."
Bai Ren exhaled. "He's testing your reflexes. Next time it won't be talk. It'll be conditions."
Li Shen didn't argue. He'd already read the notice.
Week four brought the cost nobody wanted to say out loud:
Someone else failed.
Not Li Shen.
A different lane. A different tray. A different boy.
The hold sheet went up at dusk—one name in the middle, ink like a bruise.
HOLD — BATCH 9
REVIEW PENDING
CREDIT HELD
The crowd didn't react with outrage.
They reacted with arithmetic.
How long would it freeze? Who would get squeezed next? Who would be blamed so everyone else could breathe?
Bai Ren stood beside Li Shen and watched the boy's friends cluster like they could physically block the ink from becoming real.
"That's how they do it when they can't nail you clean," Bai Ren said quietly. "They tighten the lane until someone cracks, then they say the system 'caught something.'"
Li Shen's eyes stayed on the hold line.
"So I need to stop being a lane hand," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren lifted an eyebrow. "Meaning what."
"A smith," Li Shen said. "If windows get revoked, I need a way to work without them. Even if it's small. Even if it's slow."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "You're talking exits again."
"Contingencies," Li Shen corrected.
Bai Ren exhaled once. "Same itch. Better word."
Li Shen's hand brushed the pouch where the whetstone sat—small weight, real control.
He had gained points these weeks. He had gained process. He had gained stability.
But the turning point wasn't acceptance.
It was the hold sheet.
It was proof the system didn't need to kill you to hurt you.
It only needed to delay you.
Bai Ren kept his gaze on the crowd. "Ren Jiao's team rotates again in two days."
Li Shen nodded. "I'll be there."
Bai Ren hesitated, then leaned closer.
"I'm hearing something else," he said.
Li Shen didn't prompt. Prompts made Bai Ren perform.
Bai Ren spoke low. "There's a beast route coming up with 'short gear' again."
Li Shen's fingers tightened—no technique, just bone. "Not shortage. Selection."
Bai Ren nodded once. "Yeah. And your name's on the grid."
Li Shen looked back at the hold sheet, then at Greyfang terms, then at the rotation grid.
He didn't feel panic.
He felt planning.
"Then we don't meet them on their terms," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "There it is. That sentence again."
Li Shen didn't argue.
Dangerous didn't mean wrong.
It meant the next hunt wouldn't be clean.