The Street of the Weavers was a different kind of loud. It wasn't the grand, ordered noise of a main thoroughfare; it was the clattering, intimate racket of a hundred hands at work. The rhythmic *thump-thump-thump* of wooden looms from open-front workshops fought with the calls of thread merchants. The air smelled of raw hemp, pungent dye-stuffs, and dust.
"This place never quiets down, does it?" Gen said, weaving through the press of bodies. The energy was a constant hum against his skin, a buzzing life that felt more honest than the stillness of meditation. It pushed back, just a little, against the hollow quiet inside him.
"Nothing like the Capital," Liang agreed, raising his voice beside him. He wasn't complaining; his eyes were wide, taking it all in. "Back home, even the markets felt... planned. This is just people living. It's good."
Moving with a purpose, with a real clue, felt like stretching a stiff muscle. The scribe's angry tip was a small, warm stone in Gen's pocket of hope. They followed his directions, the character of the noise shifting as they entered a smaller, cramped square dedicated to the cloth dyers. Here, massive clay vats, each the size of a cart, simmered over low fires, filled with liquids the color of bruises, sunsets, and deep forests. The heat from the fires was a dry wall, and the ground was permanently stained in a wild patchwork.
And there, in a corner tucked between a vat of furious indigo and a soot-blackened wall, they found her.
A rickety stand—just a warped plank balanced on two crumbling brick piles—was heaped with bundles of dried, dusty-looking herbs. Behind it stood a girl who couldn't have been more than twelve. She was thin as a reed, her dark hair fighting its way out of a practical knot, her clothes neat but visibly mended. And she was, as advertised, a living alarm bell.
"GALE-GRASS! KNOCKS THE FEVER RIGHT OUT! STILL-DEW MOSS, SETTLES A ROILING GUT! DON'T BE SHY, YOUR GRANDMOTHER WILL BLESS YOU!" Her voice was a piercing, startlingly clear instrument, cutting through the industrial din without a shred of doubt. She brandished a limp bunch of weeds at a passing apprentice, who just shook his head with a weary grin.
Gen and Liang halted, staring. The upstairs man hadn't been spinning a tale. You couldn't miss her if you tried.
A slow, surprised grin broke across Gen's face. Liang let out a short laugh, shaking his head. "She's got lungs on her," he said, impressed.
But Gen's eyes had already skipped past the noise to the simple pendant around her neck. Bamboo. Just like the man said. And carved into its surface was a strange, swirling symbol that looked less like writing and more like the natural grain of an ancient tree bent into a pattern. His heart gave a solid, hopeful thud against his ribs. *It's real. It's a thing. It connects to him.*
As they stepped closer, the girl—Lolly—noticed them. Her wide, sales-smile didn't falter, but her eyes, sharp and dark as a bird's, did a quick, appraising sweep. She took in Gen's set jaw and the lingering shadows under his eyes, Liang's intelligent but cautious posture, their robes which were of good make but carried the dust of the long road.
She leaned forward over her plank, squinting, then made a shooing motion with one hand, the gesture oddly mature and dismissive. "Scram, you two. You don't look like you can afford the premium stock. The cheap wormroot's sold by the old well."
Gen's mouth fell open. The sheer gall of this tiny, shouting weed-seller! "We can absolutely afford it!" he spluttered, his pride instantly engaged. "What do you take us for?"
Liang, ever the one to back up a claim with fact, nodded firmly. "We've been on the road. We've earned a good number of Milky Stones."
Lolly planted her fists on her narrow hips. "Oh yeah? Let's see 'em, then. Show me the sparkles."
Gen and Liang froze. They looked at each other, the same, terrible realization dawning in unison. *Madame Su holds the purse. All of it.* In their single-minded rush to chase the lead, the idea of needing actual money hadn't even crossed their minds.
"We... don't have them on us right this second," Gen admitted, the heat rising to his cheeks.
"But we're not beggars!" Liang insisted, though it sounded weak even to him.
Lolly's expression melted into one of pure, condescending big-sister pity. She waved both hands at them now. "Uh-huh. Sure you're not. Run along now, kids. Go play somewhere else. You're blocking the light for my paying customers."
*Kids.* The word was a spark to tinder. He was fifteen! He'd faced down a Divine General's puppet! He'd... he'd done things that weighed on him in the dark. He leaned down, bringing his face closer to hers, a mocking smirk plastered on his face. "Look who's talking about kids! You can't even be seen over your own stand! I've seen yearling lambs with more height on them!"
Liang snorted, clapping a hand over his mouth too late.
Lolly's face scrunched into a mask of instant, volcanic fury. "Why you little—!" In a flash of temper, she kicked out at Gen's shin from behind the safety of her plank.
She misjudged.
Her foot connected with the unstable brick pile supporting one end of her stand. The bricks wobbled. The plank lurched. With a sharp yelp, Lolly flailed, grabbing at nothing, and succeeded only in throwing herself sideways off her perch. She hit the stained cobbles with a solid *thump* and a small, pained gasp.
For a heartbeat, she just sat there, shock and hurt painted plainly on her face. Then her features crumpled. Her lower lip trembled, and she scrubbed at her eyes with a grimy fist, a sniffle escaping her.
All the fight rushed out of Gen, replaced by a cold, swift flood of guilt. *Great. Fantastic. Now you've made a street kid cry. Real heroic, Jiang.* "Hey, I didn't mean—" he started, stepping forward, his hand reaching out to help her up.
The moment his fingers were within range, Lolly's sorrow vanished. Her head snapped up. A wicked, triumphant smirk replaced the tears. She lunged forward like a striking snake and **bit** the back of his hand.
"AH! What in the—!" Gen yelped, jerking his hand back. It wasn't a serious bite, but it was sharp, startling, and it broke the skin.
In that instant of his shock, Lolly was a blur of motion. She scrambled to her feet, scooped up her scattered herb bundles with a speed that made Liang blink, and shot into the narrow, shadowed mouth of an alley feeding off the dyers' square. She vanished as completely as a fish into reeds.
Gen and Liang stood frozen for half a breath, staring at the empty space and the faint, stinging mark on Gen's hand.
Then they moved as one.
"After her!" Gen shouted, and they plunged into the alley.
What followed was a frantic, absurd chase through the underbelly of Heaven's Gate. Lolly was a ghost, a whisper of patched cloth around corners, a flash of bamboo pendant disappearing through a perpetually half-open gate. Gen pushed his body, calling on the familiar patterns of motion, but the explosive, sustaining power of **Jingdao** wasn't there. His lungs burned faster, his legs felt heavier. Still, he was faster than he had been a week ago—a slight, hard-won improvement from Madame Su's brutal conditioning drills. It was meager, but it was something.
"By the silent stars, can she run!" Liang panted beside him, struggling to keep up. His own cultivation wasn't geared for speed.
"Has she opened a Wheel already?" Gen gasped back, ducking under a low-hanging sign. "At her age?" The thought was both alarming and impressive. She moved with an unnatural, darting economy.
They burst out of an alley into a broader market, earning curses and shaken fists from people they nearly bowled over. They didn't stop to apologize. They caught another glimpse of her, a small figure vaulting over a low wall of stacked baskets with effortless grace. The chase wore on, turning from minutes into a dogged hour. They lost her, found her again by the glint of her pendant in a sunbeam, lost her again. It was maddening.
Finally, their breath coming in ragged gulps, they stumbled into a quieter, mid-level plaza centered around a tiered fountain of white stone. They leaned on their knees, sweat dripping.
"There," Liang wheezed, pointing.
Lolly stood calmly on the wide rim of the fountain's middle tier, putting her almost eye-to-eye with Gen. She wasn't even breathing hard. She looked at them, her head tilted, all traces of the crying herb-seller or the fleeing urchin gone.
"You two are like stubborn mules," she stated, her voice no longer a shout but clear and firm. "What do you want so bad you'd run half the city for it?"
Gen straightened up, wiping sweat from his brow. The frustration of the chase, the lingering sting on his hand, and the sheer exhaustion melted away, leaving only the raw, aching need he carried everywhere. His face, for a moment, lost its usual defiant edge. It just looked young, and tired, and desperate.
"I lost something," he said, the words coming out quieter than he intended. He wasn't talking about a misplaced pouch. "Something… fundamental. A healer I know of, called the Blackgreen Wood… he might be the only one who can help me get it back. Or help me learn to live without it." He met her gaze, not demanding, but pleading. "Please."
Liang, seeing his friend's unguarded moment, stepped forward, clasping his hands in a gesture of earnest supplication. "We're not trying to cause trouble. We've been searching for days. If you know him, if you know where he is… could you take us? We'd be in your debt. A serious debt."
Lolly studied them. The sharp, assessing look returned, but it was different now. She looked from Gen's solemn, hopeful eyes to Liang's sincere ones. A flicker of something passed over her face—surprise, maybe, or recognition of a kind of loss she understood too well. The hard, street-smart shell softened, just for a second.
Then she blinked, and it was back. "Okay," she said simply.
The word was so plain, so unexpected after the chaos, that both boys stared. A wave of pure, dizzying relief washed over Gen. His face lit up, the weariness vanishing beneath a brilliant, grateful smile. "Really? You will? Thank you! Thank you so—"
"First," Lolly interrupted, holding up a single, grubby finger. A slow, devilish smile spread across her face, transforming her from a tired child into a tiny, plotting empress. "First, you do something for me."
The smile on Gen's face froze. He and Liang exchanged a long, weary look. The relief curdled into a familiar, cautious tension. This little hurricane wasn't done with them yet.