The Bureau scribe's smile was a thin, dry cut in the lamplight.
Wei Shen saw it from across the hall—the man's ink-stained fingers, the way he stood too still amidst the shifting crowd. A hunter who didn't need to chase. The prey came to him.
Xu Qinglan followed his gaze. Her breath hitched, just once. "Bureau scribe. Third rank. He'll have memory-crystals."
"Can he recognize me?"
"He doesn't need to. He'll sketch your spiritual signature. Upload it to the network tonight."
The auctioneer's bell chimed. The crowd hushed.
Wei Shen forced his attention forward. The scribe was a problem. The auction was an opportunity. He had thirty spirit coins and a ten-day deadline ticking in his skull like a deathwatch beetle.
The first lots were trivial: spirit herbs, low-grade beast cores, a flawed formation plate. Wei Shen watched the bids, but more than that, he watched the people.
The young lord from the front row—robes too fine, posture too lazy. His cultivation aura was a controlled simmer. Dangerous.
The silk booth where the Azure Cloud token would go. Curtains drawn. Someone important hiding.
The scribe, now leaning against a pillar, making notes in a small ledger of his own.
"Lot seven," the auctioneer announced. "Azure Cloud Copper Gate Token. Verified. Transferable. Reserve: two hundred spirit coins."
The case opened. The token glowed with a soft, persistent light—copper etched with cloud patterns that seemed to drift. Wei Shen's stomach clenched. Two hundred coins. He had thirty.
Bids flew.
"Two ten."
"Two thirty."
"Two fifty."
The young lord raised his plaque without looking. "Three hundred."
Silence. Then a voice from the silk booth: "Three twenty."
Wei Shen leaned toward Qinglan. "Can you read his aura? The young lord."
She narrowed her eyes. "Irregular. There's… a binding. Not a cultivation technique. A contract."
The Ledger in Wei Shen's mind pulsed. AUDIT: AURA ANALYSIS glowed as an option. Cost: 0.3 ink. He had 0.8 left.
Stupid. Reckless.
He did it anyway.
AUDIT: AURA ANALYSIS. COST: 0.3 INK.
The world sharpened. Colors bled into spiritual gradients. The young lord's aura became visible—a core of blue flame tangled with crimson chains. The chains pulsed, digging into his spiritual veins. A binding contract. Enforced compliance.
And at its center, a seal Wei Shen recognized: the Imperial Spirit Law Bureau's insignia.
The young lord was bound to the Bureau. Or by it.
The ink cost hit. Wei Shen's vision swam. A sharp pain stabbed behind his eyes. Blood dripped from his nose again, thicker this time.
Qinglan grabbed his arm. "You used it. Here?"
"He's Bureau-bound," Wei Shen gritted out. "A contract enforcer or prisoner."
The token sold for four hundred thirty coins to the silk booth. Applause scattered, hollow.
The auctioneer announced the next lot. "Sword-intent remnant slate. Recovered from the Storm-Riven Gorge. Reserve: one hundred fifty."
Qinglan's grip tightened on Wei Shen's arm. This was her target.
The slate was brought out—a black stone the length of a forearm, with a single, clean groove cut diagonally across it. Even from a distance, the air around it vibrated with sharpness.
Bidding started high.
Qinglan entered at one-eighty.
The young lord countered at two hundred.
A merchant bid two-ten.
Qinglan: two-twenty.
The young lord smiled, lazy and cruel. "Two fifty."
Wei Shen saw the calculation in Qinglan's eyes. She had reserves, but not endless. She was here for more than the slate—she needed coins for the private auction tomorrow too.
"Two sixty," she said, voice flat.
"Three hundred," the young lord countered immediately.
Qinglan's knuckles whitened. She lowered her plaque.
The slate went to the young lord. He accepted it with a nod, his eyes meeting Qinglan's across the hall. A challenge acknowledged.
Then his gaze shifted to Wei Shen. And he frowned. Not in anger—in recognition.
He sees the Ledger's trace, Wei Shen realized. The blue vein on his hand, the spiritual bleed from using Audit.
The auction ended. Crowds began shuffling toward exits.
The scribe pushed off the pillar, heading straight for them.
"Time to go," Qinglan said.
They moved with the crowd, but the scribe was cutting through, polite but persistent. "Honored guests! A moment for a routine registry check—"
Wei Shen didn't hesitate. He grabbed Qinglan's hand and yanked her sideways into a service corridor.
"Hey! You can't—" an attendant began.
Wei Shen shoved his last five spirit coins into the man's hand. "Fire in the main hall."
The attendant blinked, confused. They sprinted past.
The corridor twisted, damp and poorly lit. Behind them, footsteps echoed—more than one set.
"They're not even pretending this is polite anymore," Qinglan noted, voice grim.
The corridor dead-ended at a reinforced door. Locked.
Wei Shen slammed his shoulder against it. It didn't budge.
Qinglan shoved him aside. Her hands flashed through seals. A pulse of concentrated force, silent and brutal, hit the lock. Metal screamed. The door blew inward.
They spilled into a back alley reeking of garbage and stagnant water. Mist hung thick.
"This way," Qinglan said, turning left.
"No." Wei Shen pulled her right. "They'll expect us to run toward the canals. Too many bridges, too many choke points."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Lead."
They ran. Cobblestones slick underfoot. Lanterns blurred past. Wei Shen's lungs burned. The aftereffects of the ink expenditure were worse now—a deep, cold ache in his bones.
Shouts behind them. Three figures in dark robes—not auction security. Bureau field agents. They moved with trained efficiency, spreading out to flank.
Trapped.
The alley opened into a small courtyard. Three exits, all narrow. Wei Shen pushed Qinglan behind a rain barrel as the first agent rounded the corner.
The man didn't shout. He threw a needle.
Wei Shen saw it late—a sliver of silver in the mist. He twisted. The needle grazed his ribs, burning like ice.
Poison. Spiritual toxin.
His left side went numb. He staggered.
Qinglan moved.
She didn't use fancy techniques. She closed the distance in three steps and broke the agent's wrist with a sharp, precise strike. The man gasped, but his other hand came up, a shock-stone glowing.
Wei Shen, through the numbness, kicked the rain barrel. Water and garbage flooded the agent's feet, disrupting his stance. Qinglan snatched the shock-stone and slammed it into the man's temple. He dropped.
Two more agents entered the courtyard.
"We can't fight them both," Qinglan said.
Wei Shen's mind raced. The Ledger pulsed. CONTRACT DRAFT: BASIC was still locked. But RECORD was available. Cost: 0.1 ink.
Record what?
He looked at the agents. Their movements. Their formation.
RECORD: COMBAT PATTERNS. COST: 0.1 INK.
The Ledger drank the ink. His vision superimposed glowing lines over the agents—predictive arcs of movement, favored stances, weak points. It wasn't perfect. It was a guess based on scant data.
But it was enough.
"Left agent favors his right leg," Wei Shen gasped. "Knee injury. Right agent's formation pouch is on his hip. Cut it."
Qinglan didn't question. She moved left, feinted high, swept the agent's bad leg. He went down with a cry.
The second agent charged Wei Shen, hand glowing with capture-seals.
Wei Shen couldn't dodge properly, his side numb. He did the only thing he could—he threw his remaining spirit coins.
Twenty-five coins, heavy and sharp, scattered across the stones.
The agent instinctively glanced down. A cultivator's trained response to potential formation triggers.
Qinglan's dagger flashed. Sliced through the formation pouch at his hip. Talismans and powder spilled, their energy dissipating harmlessly.
The agent snarled, abandoning technique, and lunged bare-handed.
Wei Shen met him with a stone he'd grabbed from the ground. It wasn't elegant. It was brutal. The crack of bone against rock echoed in the courtyard.
Silence, except for their ragged breathing.
Qinglan knelt by the first agent, checking his pulse. "Alive. They'll wake angry."
Wei Shen slumped against the wall. The poison was spreading. His vision blurred at the edges.
Qinglan moved to him, tore open his robe at the ribs. The needle wound was black, veins of darkness spidering outward. "Nightshade venom. Spiritual variant. It'll paralyze your core in minutes."
"Do you have an antidote?"
"No." Her hands were steady, but her eyes were afraid. "The Ledger. Can it…?"
Wei Shen reached for the interface. AUDIT: TOXIN ANALYSIS glowed. Cost: 0.2 ink. He had 0.4 left.
He spent it.
The analysis flashed: NIGHTSHADE (SPIRITUAL). ANTIDOTE: PURIFIED MIST-ROOT + DAWN LIGHT BREATH TECHNIQUE. ALTERNATIVE: BLOOD PURIFICATION CONTRACT. COST: 0.5 INK + 1 DAY OF USER'S LIFESPAN.
Lifespan.
The Ledger wasn't just asking for ink. It was asking for his life.
"Well?" Qinglan's voice was tight.
"It can," Wei Shen said. "For a price."
"What price?"
"A day of my life."
Her face went still. Then she shook her head. "No. There's another way. My master's notes—I have a safe house. Antidote ingredients."
"How far?"
"Twenty minutes. You don't have ten."
Wei Shen coughed. Black spots danced in his vision. The numbness was climbing toward his heart.
Qinglan made a decision. She bit her own thumb, drew a quick, bloody sigil on Wei Shen's chest—a crude stabilizing seal. "This will slow it. Not stop it."
She hauled him up, his arm over her shoulders. They staggered out of the courtyard, leaving the unconscious agents behind.
The streets blurred. Wei Shen focused on putting one foot in front of the other. Qinglan's breath was warm against his neck, her grip iron-strong.
"Why?" he slurred. "You could leave me. Cleaner."
"I need you," she said, honest to the point of brutality. "You can read contracts. I can't. My master's killer used a contract. A trap clause. I need someone who sees the ink, not just the words."
"So I'm a tool."
"We both are." She adjusted her grip, her voice dropping. "And you didn't run when the agents came. You fought. That's… rare."
The safe house was a cellar beneath a closed pottery shop. Qinglan kicked open a hidden panel, half-dragged him down the stairs.
The room was sparse: a bedroll, a small altar with a faded portrait of an old man, shelves of herbs and reagents.
She worked fast, crushing mist-root, mixing it with distilled water, chanting a low purification mantra. The air grew cold.
"Drink." She held the cup to his lips.
The liquid burned like liquid sunlight. He choked, but she forced it down.
Then she placed her hands on his chest, over the bloody sigil. "Dawn Light Breath. Don't resist."
Warmth flooded him. Gentle at first, then intensifying, scouring through his meridians. The black veins receded, slowly, painfully. It felt like being boiled from the inside.
When it was done, Wei Shen lay drenched in sweat, shivering. Alive.
Qinglan slumped against the wall, pale from the expenditure. "You'll live. Weak for a day. The poison's gone."
Wei Shen looked at her. Really looked. The fine tremble in her hands she was trying to hide. The dark circles under her eyes. She'd spent significant qi to save him.
"Thank you," he said, the words inadequate.
She nodded, not meeting his eyes. Then: "The scribe got your signature. They'll have a sketch by morning. River-Fog won't be safe."
"The private auction. Back-Reed Teahouse."
"It's a risk. They might be watching."
"They're watching everywhere." Wei Shen pushed himself up, wincing. The Ledger pulsed, updating:
SOUL INK: 0.4/1.0 (CRITICAL RESERVE)
TOXIN: PURGED. MERIDIAN MINOR DAMAGE.
TRACE ACCUMULATION: MODERATE. BUREAU DETECTION PROBABILITY: 40%
NEW CONTRACT SEED DETECTED: "CLEANSE THE RECORD"
CONDITION: Destroy or corrupt the Bureau's spiritual sketch of user within 48 hours.
REWARD: Soul Ink +0.3, Trace Reduction.
FAILURE: Bureau-wide alert issued.
Forty percent chance they'd be found. And a new deadline: two days.
He told Qinglan.
She absorbed it, then stood. "Then we go to Back-Reed. Not for the auction. For the scribe. He'll be there—they always monitor private auctions for contraband."
"You want to confront him?"
"I want to erase you," she said simply. "And to do that, I need you to read his contracts. Find what he fears. What he's bound by."
Wei Shen understood. They weren't just running anymore. They were turning to fight a shadow.
"The young lord," he said. "He saw the Ledger's trace. He's Bureau-bound. He might be an enemy. Or…"
"Or a prisoner like us," Qinglan finished. "We find out tomorrow."
She tossed him a blanket. "Sleep. I'll keep watch."
"You need rest too."
"I'll rest when you can stand without wobbling." She settled by the door, dagger across her knees. "And Wei Shen?"
"Yes?"
"Next time you use that Ledger in public? Warn me first. I'd prefer not to carry your corpse across town."
A faint, tired smile touched his lips. "Noted."
He lay back, the pain still throbbing, but receding. The Ledger was quiet now, a cold weight in his mind. It had saved him. It had cost him. It would demand more.
And outside, in the misty dark, River-Fog Town hunted. With ink and poison and smiling scribes.
But for tonight, in a hidden cellar with a dangerous woman guarding his sleep, Wei Shen allowed himself one thought:
I'm still alive. And I'm fighting back.