On the thirtieth morning, Sun Wei put down the sack and did not pick up another.
His shoulders had changed. The first week, they had carried weight like insult. The second, like punishment. By the third, like work. The cord-burns on his palms had thickened into new callus. His pride had found quieter ways to stand.
The steward clapped dust from his hands and eyed the ledger. "That's thirty," he said. "No more. Unless you like it."
Sun Wei snorted. "I dislike it less," he said. "That's dangerous enough."
Children in the south yard had taken to imitating him, staggering under empty sacks, collapsing dramatically whenever he passed. Today, when he stepped out of the warehouse, they stopped the game. One skinny boy with a missing front tooth lifted his chin.
"Road captain," he said solemnly.
Sun Wei stiffened. "I am no one's captain now," he replied.
The boy blinked, then shrugged. "Then you should be," he said. "Someone has to tell the new ones which sacks bite." He ran off before the weight of his own words could catch him.
He found Ziyan waiting under the eaves, cloak dusted with sleet, Feiyan's absence like a missing tooth in the circle around her. Li Qiang stood at her shoulder; Han, Wei, Shuye, Zhao and Ren loitered with varying degrees of subtlety.
"Sun Wei," Ziyan said.
He bowed, jerky but honest. "Lady Road," he said. The title had begun as a joke. It had stayed because no one could agree on a better one.
"We judged you once," she said. "Today we decide if the judgment holds."
He braced. "You want me gone," he said. It was easier to say than to hear.
"No," she said. "We want to know which road you stand on."
She gestured toward the square. "Walk with me."
He did.
The granary yard was crowded again: not for a trial, but for something stranger. Shuye had chalked lines on the stones, a crude map of roads and rivers reaching out from Yong'an like roots. Children had added sparrows in the gaps. Ren the scribe stood with three thin tablets tucked under his arm.
By the law pillars, the midwife with the burned hair thumped her staff. "Make way," she barked. "Some of us are old and don't bend as fast as your fancy new rules."
The crowd parted.
Ziyan stopped where Shuye's chalk showed a river crossing east of them, a crude square labelled only with a question mark.
"We're full," she said simply. "Full of mouths, full of anger, full of ideas. We can hold Yong'an, maybe. But if we stay only behind these walls, we become exactly what they say we are: a corner case. A story they can isolate and kill."
"A boil to be lanced," Han grunted.
"Comforting," Zhao murmured.
"We have to spread," Ziyan said. "Not like an army. Like a language. I don't mean banners and thrones. Not yet. I mean small places where the Road's law is real. Weigh-stations. Inns. Granaries. Little bits of 'no soldier seizes food without record' and 'no beating without witness' planted where people already walk."
Shuye tapped the chalk square. "There is a ferry-town here," he said. "Haojin. Where the lower river bends before wandering into Xia's maps. It's nominally Qi. In practice, it belongs to whomever's soldiers ate there last."
"Bandits," Chen Rui said. She had appeared with her usual talent for arriving midway through the argument. "Levy gangs. Petty officials who charge 'river taxes' with one hand and pay smugglers with the other."
"Perfect soil," Ziyan said. "Everyone hates everyone, but no one trusts anyone enough to change anything. We send a stone into that water and see what ripples."
"Who's the stone?" Wei asked.
Shuye grinned. "I go," he said. "Someone has to talk to the jar-men and keep the accounts. Chen Rui comes. She knows the road and how not to die in a dice game. I'd like Sun Wei." His eyes flicked to the ex-captain. "Men there will listen to a soldier who carried sacks."
Murmurs.
Sun Wei's gut did something unpleasant. "You want me to go… spread your law," he said slowly. "In a town that still thinks Qi matters."
"Yes," Ziyan said. "Because you know both hearts. Qi's and the Road's. You know what men in armor expect, and what they should hear instead."
"And if they laugh?" Sun Wei asked. "If they spit in my face and call me traitor twice over?"
"Then you tell them," the midwife called, "that at least you're getting better at switching sides."
Laughter rippled. Even Sun Wei's mouth twitched, unwilling and brief.
Li Qiang spoke for the first time. "You'll have tablets," he said. "Not just words. Clay, carved, carried. We're drafting three for you: one on weighing grain; one on soldiers and food; one on disputes. Start with those. Don't preach. Put them where people come to argue anyway."
"A tavern," Zhao suggested cheerily. "Wars have started and ended over bowls there."
Han scowled. "You send only a handful?" he said. "To a place where Zhang's men pass through when they're bored? You hand him your first outpost to smash."
"This isn't an outpost," Ziyan said. "It's… an experiment. If Haojin chews and spits us out, we learn. If it swallows, we know the Road can grow."
She looked at Sun Wei. "You can refuse," she said.
He thought of the thirty days. Of the steward's narrow eyes watching him count. Of the boy calling him captain. Of the first time someone had said "thank you" when he distributed sacks instead of taking them.
"If I refuse," he said slowly, "and stay here, what am I?"
"A man who carried sacks and then stopped," Feiyan would have said. She was not there. Ziyan only waited.
"A citizen," Ren offered. "Of Yong'an."
The word hung there, new.
Sun Wei squared his shoulders. "I fought three years for a king who never learned my name," he said. "Then I tried to take three sacks and was told my rank was worth less than a ledger line. For thirty days, I lifted other people's hunger and was called 'Road work'."
He looked at the chalk map. "Fine," he said. "I'll go to this Haojin. I'll carry your tablets on my back and see who tries to knock them off. If they succeed, I'll crawl back and tell you how the stone broke. If they fail…" He shrugged. "Then maybe the Road has one more muddy stretch."
Ziyan's smile was fierce and brief. "Good," she said. "You leave at dawn."