By noon, Yao City felt smaller.
Not because walls moved—but because eyes did.
Cen Bai's arch had survived the sweep, but Shen Jin could feel the net tightening. The Court patrols weren't just loud anymore. They were organized. They were learning. And the Guild's bait coin had proved one thing with brutal clarity:
The Guild could put a leash on anyone who accepted a "gift."
"We don't take coin we didn't earn," Luo Xian said, staring at the remaining pouch on the table as if it might bite again.
Gu grunted. "We do take coin. We just check the teeth first."
Shen Jin nodded. He tipped the discs out and examined each one, testing sheen, sound, inner geometry. He separated true from suspect, suspect from dangerous.
Cen Bai watched in silence, arms crossed. The healer looked less like a man who hated danger now and more like a man who hated wasted motion.
"You said you had one day," Cen Bai reminded Shen Jin. "Are you spending it hiding under my arch?"
Shen Jin shook his head. "No," he said. "We're spending it leaving."
"Leaving costs," Cen Bai said. "Food. Bandages. Routes. Bribes."
"And wards," Shen Jin said, meeting his gaze.
Cen Bai exhaled. "I've already given you three stones," he said.
"I need more," Shen Jin replied. "Not for comfort. For the road out. For the first job."
Gu's brows rose. "First job?"
Shen Jin didn't look away. "We can't buy our way to the Nine-Ring Road on fear," he said. "We need a supply chain. We need cash that isn't bait. That means we trade."
Luo Xian's eyes narrowed. "You're talking about running goods while wanted."
"I'm talking about doing what the Guild thinks it owns," Shen Jin said. "Moving."
Cen Bai's assistant—ink-fingered, tired—appeared with a bundle of cloth and a small wooden box. "Ward-stones," he said, swallowing. "Master."
Cen Bai took the box and set it on the table. Inside were six more stones, smaller than the first three, etched with simple ring-lines.
"Two mirror-skins," Cen Bai said. "Two breath-holds. Two salt-calms. They're not permanent. They're not pretty. They're enough."
Shen Jin nodded. "Price?"
Cen Bai didn't answer with coin. He answered with a question.
"Why the Road?" he asked quietly.
Shen Jin felt the Broken Ring Key warm in his sleeve. He thought of his father's letter. Of Luo Jian's whisper about a ring in the sky. Of feathers writing patterns into flesh.
"Because someone's using the Road's rules outside the Road," Shen Jin said. "And if we don't find the source, the city becomes a gate."
Cen Bai's eyes hardened. "That's not a comforting metaphor."
"It's not a metaphor," Shen Jin replied.
For a moment, Cen Bai looked like he wanted to refuse again. Then he looked at Luo Jian, pale but breathing, and his expression tightened into something like decision.
"Bring me," Cen Bai said.
Gu blinked. "What?"
Cen Bai's voice was flat. "If you're leaving in one day," he said, "you'll die in two without someone who can read wards. You'll misplace a stone, hook it wrong, and you'll kill yourself with your own precautions."
Shen Jin didn't smile. He didn't celebrate. He nodded once, the way he nodded at a tool that finally agreed to be useful.
"You're joining," Shen Jin said.
Cen Bai's jaw clenched. "Don't romanticize it," he said. "I'm not joining for you. I'm joining because I don't like what's moving in this city."
Luo Xian's shoulders loosened. "Good," she said. "Because if my brother dies, I'm burning the world down."
Cen Bai didn't flinch. "Then let's keep him alive," he said.
They left the arch an hour later, moving under a new kind of cover: not hiding, but misdirection. Luo Xian took them through dockworker routes—paths used by men who hauled crates and wanted to avoid taxes. Gu walked openly, daring anyone to stop him. Shen Jin stayed in the middle, where hands could cover him if lanterns got too curious.
Cen Bai carried the ward box like a sacred thing, eyes scanning the city for patterns.
"What are we moving?" Gu asked as they crossed a narrow footbridge.
"Salt," Shen Jin said.
Gu blinked. "Salt?"
"Not the table kind," Shen Jin replied. "Salt-fog resin. Dockworkers use it to seal hull cracks. It's legal. It's boring. Which is why it's perfect."
Luo Xian frowned. "Who's paying?"
"A wagon master named Huo Ren," Shen Jin said. "He runs small runs for people who can't afford the Guild. He owes me a favor."
Gu snorted. "Everyone owes you favors."
"They owe my hands," Shen Jin corrected.
They found Huo Ren in a riverside shed, arguing with two men who looked like they'd rather cut a throat than lift a crate. Huo Ren was older, belly heavy, eyes sharp. He saw Shen Jin and went pale.
"Hell," he whispered. "You're bringing the storm to my door."
Shen Jin held up the pass-token tube. "I'm bringing you profit," he said. "Two-day travel authorization."
Huo Ren stared at the tube, then spat. "That's Guild ink," he said. "That's poison."
"It's time," Shen Jin replied. "And I'm selling it cheap."
Huo Ren's eyes flicked to Gu, to Luo Xian, then to Cen Bai's calm hands. "What do you want?" he asked.
"A run," Shen Jin said. "Out of the city. To the Salt-Fog Marsh edge. One wagon. One sealed crate of resin. No Guild flags."
Huo Ren laughed, bitter. "Out of the city while the Court is paying five thousand for your lungs? That's not a run. That's suicide."
"Suicide doesn't come with payment," Shen Jin said. "This does."
He placed ten true Ring Marks on the table—discs he'd tested himself.
Huo Ren stared. "You're paying me?"
"I'm buying independence," Shen Jin said. "If I take Guild coin, I wear their leash again."
Huo Ren swallowed. His eyes moved to the door as a distant horn sounded. The city's noise was getting closer.
"Fine," he said. "But the marsh edge isn't a joke. Fog's thick there. People lose their way."
Cen Bai's voice cut in. "Fog is just air that forgot where it's going," he said. "We'll remind it."
Huo Ren stared at him. "Who—"
"Not important," Shen Jin said. "Do we have a deal?"
Huo Ren nodded once. "Midnight departure," he said. "Dock Gate Four. Bring your own blades. And don't bring the Court."
Shen Jin's mouth twitched. "We'll bring our own problems," he said. "The Court can chase theirs."
Night fell. Fog thickened. The docks became a maze of ropes and lanterns.
At Dock Gate Four, a single wagon waited with two mules and one sealed crate. Huo Ren stood beside it, chewing his lip like it tasted like regret.
"Where's your driver?" Gu asked.
Huo Ren jerked his chin at a thin man with hollow eyes. "That one," he said. "He doesn't ask questions. He just wants to get paid."
Shen Jin nodded. "Then he'll live longer than most."
They loaded quickly. Cen Bai pressed a mirror-skin stone beneath the wagon's axle and whispered a word. The wagon's outline softened against the fog.
Luo Xian climbed onto the roof of a nearby storage shed, crossbow ready, eyes scanning for lantern patterns.
Gu sat on the wagon bench beside the driver, knife hidden, presence loud.
Shen Jin walked alongside, hand on the crate.
"What's in it?" Luo Xian asked from above.
"Resin," Shen Jin said. "And"—he paused—"a message."
Gu frowned. "To who?"
"To anyone watching," Shen Jin replied. "That we're moving without their permission."
The wagon rolled.
They passed the dock gate without trouble. The pass-token did its job—paperwork showed, guards yawned, the city pretended not to see.
But outside the city walls, the fog changed. It grew thicker, colder, and oddly… textured. Shen Jin felt it on his tongue like grit.
"Salt-fog," Huo Ren muttered from the rear, riding a second mule. "Marsh edge is close."
Cen Bai's eyes narrowed. "This fog has ring-patterns," he said softly.
Shen Jin's sleeve warmed.
Ahead, in the distance, a faint ring of light hovered above the reeds—so pale it might've been moonlight caught in mist. But it was too perfect. Too round.
Luo Jian's whisper echoed in Shen Jin's memory: a ring in the sky. Like a door.
Gu's voice went low. "That normal?"
Huo Ren shook his head, face pale. "No," he said. "That's new."
The wagon creaked forward anyway, because stopping in fog was how you died.
And somewhere behind them, far back toward the city, a horn sounded—single, sharp, purposeful.
Not a patrol horn.
A signal.
Cen Bai's hand tightened on the ward box. "We're being followed," he said.
Shen Jin didn't deny it. He watched the faint ring of light ahead.
His life, he realized, had become a chain of gates.
And this—this boring resin run—was the first contract that mattered.
Because it proved something simple and dangerous:
They could move.
(End of Chapter 8)