Dawn crept over the terraced slope, lighting old rice paddies like cracked mirrors. The farmhouse stood empty behind them — shutter hanging by a single nail, dried blood soaked into rotting floorboards. Another ruin that swallowed teeth instead of prayers.
Li Shen and Yue Lan took the goat trail back to the river. No footprints followed them. Not yet.
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By midday, they reached the river bend where the current split around a cluster of black stones — old altar remnants from a shrine no one bothered to rebuild. Here, rumor clung like mist. River traders claimed you could toss your secrets into the water, and the stones would drown them before the crows caught scent.
Li Shen didn't believe that. Secrets never drowned. They drifted downstream, bloated and hungry.
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They squatted at the bank, sharing a strip of dried fish Yue Lan traded for a single broken spirit needle back in Gray Hollow. She ate slow. He didn't care — chewing through gristle like it was festival pork.
When they finished, Yue Lan flicked the fish bones into the current. She watched the ripples curl and vanish.
"They'll come tonight," she said.
Li Shen dipped his fingers in the river — cold enough to bite his knuckles. He smiled at the stones.
"Let them."
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When dusk settled, the river carried more than fish bones.
First came the ferryman — an old man poling a flat-bottomed boat along the far shallows. He didn't speak, but his eyes lingered too long on Li Shen's blade. Yue Lan's threads brushed the water around the skiff, testing for hidden knives under reed mats.
The ferryman drifted on without a word.
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Next came the beggar girl — barefoot, hair tangled, half her face hidden behind a torn scarf. She stumbled close to their small driftwood fire, palms out, eyes down.
Li Shen caught the glint of polished beads tucked under her ragged sleeve. Prayer beads. Sect beads. Not hers.
Yue Lan's threads drifted up, brushing the girl's wrist. A faint spark — binding charm, cheap and hidden.
Li Shen didn't rise. He met the girl's eyes — dark, wide, terrified.
"Who tied you?" he asked.
She shook her head. The beads slipped from her sleeve, pattering to the dirt like spilled seeds.
Li Shen leaned forward, voice gentle enough to crack frost.
"Run home."
She bolted, bare feet kicking up sand. The beads stayed behind. Yue Lan swept them into the fire. The wood hissed, spit sparks into dusk.
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The third came just before the first stars woke — a shape crouched by the black stones, half-shadow, half-prayer. No blade. No armor. Just a voice drifting over water like smoke.
"Chain-breaker."
Li Shen didn't move. Yue Lan's threads circled him, faint arcs of ghostlight.
The figure raised one empty hand. A silver coin glinted on his palm — stamped with the Nine Heavens' oldest crest.
"Give your name back," the voice rasped. Old, cracked. "Give it back and the river will drown your story. No more knives. No more crowns."
Li Shen laughed — soft, cold.
"No more me."
He rose, stepping through Yue Lan's threads. The figure didn't flinch — only lowered the coin into the river's edge. It sank without a sound.
"A price paid," the figure murmured.
Li Shen's blade flashed once — a whisper through the reeds. The figure's head toppled from his shoulders, rolling into the current. The silver crest vanished beneath a swirl of black water.
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Yue Lan's threads caught the body before it fell. She dragged it back from the bend, stripped the hidden talismans sewn into the ragged robe.
"Another crow?" she asked.
Li Shen knelt, wiping blood from his blade with a patch of grass.
"No," he said. "A leash disguised as mercy."
He flicked the last silver coin into the river. The stones didn't swallow it. The current carried it downstream — rumor's teeth hungry for iron.
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When they left the bend, the black stones gleamed under the new moon — a shrine for secrets that wouldn't drown, and teeth that learned too late whose throat they tried to close.
Li Shen's name did not kneel.
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⚡ End of Chapter Nine — Teeth for the River
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