CHAPTER 202
### Xian Yue's Father
The message came from Xian Yue three days after Li Shan's distributed resonance report.
Not formal. Not a field report.
Short.
*My father is visiting the eastern sections.*
*Not the main compound territory. The sections east of Dragon Sect's boundary — the ones Wei Lan's family has been farming for generations. The ones the merchant family visits twice a year.*
*He requested a guided visit through the eastern liaison office.*
*He did not ask me directly. He submitted a formal request through the office's standard process.*
*He did not know I would be the one to process it.*
*I processed it.*
*I assigned myself as the guide.*
*He arrives in four days.*
He read the message.
He read the part about submitting through the standard process again.
He sent back: *The Dragon Roar Fang's northeastern sections — Feng Luo arrives in two days. The guide for your father's visit: make sure he sees the generating sections. Not the archive documentation. The land itself.*
Xian Yue: *I know.*
*Also: he submitted the visit request under his formal Dragon Sect leadership title. The request form has a field for reason of visit. He wrote: personal interest in the recovery work's regional effects.*
*Personal interest.*
*He wrote personal interest.*
He held the message.
Feng Luo would be at the northeastern sections in two days.
Xian Yue's father was visiting the eastern sections in four days.
Feng Luo at the northeastern sections. Xian Yue at the eastern sections with her father. Both of them doing the growing season work in adjacent territories at the same time.
He did not plan this.
The road did.
He sent a message to Feng Luo: *Xian Yue is guiding her father through the eastern sections in four days. The northeastern sections are two days from the eastern boundary territory.*
Feng Luo's response came back fast.
*I know.*
*I read Xian Yue's relay network reports.*
*The northeastern sections will be complete in two days. I will be in the eastern boundary territory when her father arrives.*
He looked at that message.
He thought about Feng Luo reading Xian Yue's relay network reports.
Not the archive sections. The relay network field reports.
The ones she sent to the coordination network about the eastern liaison office's work.
He thought about correspondence that had been going on for nine months.
He thought about the fire at the correct size.
He sent back: *The eastern sections are in the Dragon Roar Fang's combination contribution frequency zone. The Dragon Roar Fang and the specific frequency of the Xian Yue's section — the calibrated application you did at the five sword sections — the Dragon Roar Fang's section is in Xian Yue's territory.*
Feng Luo: *I know that too.*
One more message from Feng Luo arrived thirty seconds later.
*Stop helping.*
He lowered the relay.
Lin Mei was beside him.
She had been reading over his shoulder.
"Stop helping," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"He told you to stop helping," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at the road.
She was managing her expression.
He could not read what she was managing it away from.
He reviewed the last thirty seconds.
Feng Luo had told him to stop helping.
Which meant he had been helping.
Which meant Feng Luo did not need help.
Which meant —
"The door stays open," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"He knows that," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"He does not need me to tell him," he said.
"No," she said.
He looked at the grey blade.
He committed.
He stopped helping.
He walked west.
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