Zhang Qu hated stillness.
It was the kind that made sound louder—cups on wood, breath in the chest, the scratch of ink against paper. He preferred motion: carts arriving, coins changing hands, voices rising and falling like waves he could ride.
Stillness meant someone else was deciding.
He sat in his back room, ledger open, but his eyes kept drifting to the same column.
Sheep — Lin Yan.
The numbers there no longer moved the way they should.
"They've brought in cattle," Zhang Qu said.
The man standing opposite him—thin, sharp-eyed—nodded.
"Two oxen," the man said. "Old, but steady."
Zhang Qu's fingers tightened around his brush.
"Old oxen don't threaten markets," he said.
"No," the man agreed. "But they change habits."
That was the problem.
Zhang Qu did not control habits.
He controlled flows.
"Have the officials lean," Zhang Qu said.
"They already looked."
"Look again."
The man hesitated. "There's nothing irregular."
Zhang Qu's gaze snapped up.
"There is always something irregular," he said. "You just haven't decided what it is yet."
Lin Yan felt it before it showed.
Not in the pasture.
In the village.
A supplier delayed delivery. A carpenter suddenly became busy. A man who used to greet him warmly now nodded and moved on.
Not hostility.
Caution.
Lin Yan adjusted.
He paid promptly.
He stopped asking favors.
He let time expose pressure.
The officials returned a week later.
Different men.
Same questions.
This time, they lingered near the cattle.
"Draft animals require special registration," one said.
"They're registered as livestock," Lin Yan replied, producing the document.
The official frowned.
"That category is… flexible."
Lin Yan nodded. "Then please clarify."
The official hesitated.
Flexibility cut both ways.
That night, Zhang Qu received word.
"He's clean," the man said. "Painfully so."
Zhang Qu closed his eyes.
"Then we make him expensive," he said.
The next move was subtle.
A new buyer appeared in the market, offering slightly higher prices for sheep—but only in bulk.
Small holders were squeezed.
Villagers felt it.
"They want us to sell together," Old Sun said. "But only through Zhang Qu."
Lin Yan listened.
"And you?"
Old Sun sighed. "I don't like it."
"Then don't."
"But if I don't, I lose buyers."
"Only temporarily," Lin Yan said. "Markets remember quality."
Old Sun looked unconvinced.
So Lin Yan made a choice.
He bought.
Not everything.
Just enough.
At fair price.
Word spread.
Lin Yan wasn't competing.
He was cushioning.
Zhang Qu heard.
"You think you can become a buyer now?" he scoffed.
"No," the man replied carefully. "But others might."
Zhang Qu's hand slammed the table.
"Then break that."
The incident happened at dusk.
One of Lin Yan's hired hands was shoved in the market. No injury. Just warning.
Lin Yan heard of it that night.
He did not go to the market.
He went to the official.
Qiu Ren listened in silence.
"This is becoming noisy," Lin Yan said.
Qiu Ren frowned. "Names?"
"Patterns," Lin Yan replied.
Qiu Ren nodded slowly.
"I dislike patterns," he said. "They attract attention."
Zhang Qu felt it when the constable visited his shop unannounced.
Routine.
Just like before.
But stillness followed.
The kind he hated.
On the hill, Lin Yan stood with Chen Kui, watching cattle graze.
"They're pushing," Chen Kui said.
"Yes."
"And you?"
"I'm holding."
Chen Kui smiled faintly. "That's worse for them."
That night, Lin Yan walked the pasture alone.
The oxen lay calmly.
The sheep clustered closer than before.
The grass held.
He crouched, pressed his palm to the ground.
It was firm.
He stood.
The cost of standing still was pressure.
But the cost of moving too fast was collapse.
He would pay the first.
Patiently.
Deliberately.
Until those who pushed discovered that the ground beneath them had already shifted.