The Beast Yard desk wasn't a desk.
It was a bottleneck with a roof.
A plank counter with a narrow window. A ledger chained to a post like it could run. Two guards posted close enough to be felt, far enough to pretend they weren't involved. The line formed the way lines always formed inside the sect—not by fairness, but by the fear of standing wrong.
Li Shen stepped into it with his face neutral and his hands empty.
Empty hands were not humility.
They were risk management.
Bai Ren stayed a few paces off the queue, leaning on a post like a bored ornament. He wasn't in line. He wasn't involved. He was simply… present in the exact place where information fell out of people's mouths.
"You're really doing this," Bai Ren murmured, and his tone tried to sound casual. It didn't quite manage.
Li Shen kept his gaze forward. "Official. Normal. On record."
Bai Ren's mouth twitched into something almost approving. "Look at you. Joining the bureaucratic pilgrimage before dawn. Your ambition is terrifying."
"I'm buying options," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren nodded once. "Fair. Options are expensive here. Sometimes they cost points. Sometimes they cost popularity."
The line moved in jerks. A runner stepped up, slapped a slip down, took a stamp, vanished. A team lead spoke in polite words sharp enough to cut. A boy with a bruised cheek tried to explain himself and got erased mid-sentence without the clerk lifting her eyes.
Then desperation showed up in person.
A man pushed into the edge of the queue, one hand shaking, the other clenched around a clinic token crushed into damp paste. His eyes were red, not from rage—more like he hadn't slept because his hand wouldn't let him.
"Move," he snapped, voice too thin to be confident. "I have a ticket—"
A guard's palm hit his chest with casual force. Not hard enough to injure. Hard enough to remind.
"You don't cut the desk line," the guard said, bored.
The man's breath stuttered. He looked past the guard to the clerk window like stamps were medicine.
"My hand is—" He swallowed, then tried again. "My lane… my credit is held. They pulled clinic priority. I can't—"
The guard didn't care about his hand. That was the mechanism.
"Desk isn't clinic," he said.
"It is clinic when they say I don't get seen," the man snapped back, then realized too late how loud it sounded.
People in line shifted their weight away from him without moving their feet. Nobody wanted his panic brushing their sleeves. Panic was contagious. So was attention.
The man's gaze caught on Li Shen.
Not because Li Shen looked important—he didn't.
Because Li Shen looked controlled.
Controlled looked like resources.
"You," the man rasped. "Forge. You're counted. Tell them—tell them I can't work like this."
Li Shen didn't answer immediately. He'd learned the rule: every word spoken in public became someone else's tool.
The clerk finally looked up, eyes flat as a ledger line.
"Name," she said.
The man lurched forward on hope. "Luo San. Lane six. Escort hardware—"
The clerk's brush paused once, then continued as if the pause had never happened.
"Held," she said. "Review pending."
"I know it's held," Luo San snapped, then forced his voice down too late. "I need a clinic ticket that isn't restricted."
"Clinic priority is policy," the clerk replied. "Desk handles sorties."
Luo San's hand shook harder. His fingers looked swollen, skin tight and angry. Infection, maybe. Or strain. Either way, expensive.
"I can't go back to lane," he said, and he didn't finish the sentence.
If I can't work, they'll move me off the board.
Everyone heard it anyway.
The clerk's eyes slid toward the guard. Not a request. A direction.
The guard stepped in with practiced ease.
"Step out," he told Luo San.
Luo San's breathing turned sharp. "No. Listen—"
His hand twitched and clamped onto the edge of the counter plank.
That was the moment the system stopped being paperwork and became leverage.
The guard's baton came up—not swinging, just pressing down onto the man's wrist.
Pain bent his face open.
"I'm not—" Luo San choked. "I'm not trying to—"
"Then stop trying," the guard said, still bored.
Luo San yanked, hard, and his clinic token—damp, crushed—fell from his fist into the dirt.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was final.
The token hit the ground like a coin in a poor household: small, decisive, and suddenly impossible to replace.
Luo San stared at it for half a breath, then lunged down.
Another boot stepped onto it first.
Not the guard's.
A man from the line—someone who'd been waiting for the world to make an opening—shifted forward and planted his heel like he'd "accidentally" found a place to rest.
Luo San froze.
The line froze with him.
The boot didn't move.
Bai Ren exhaled softly through his nose. It wasn't a laugh. It was almost one—like he refused to let the scene own his mood.
"See?" he murmured to nobody in particular. "The yard doesn't need knives. It just needs incentives."
Li Shen felt something tighten once—jaw, not anger.
He stepped forward.
Not into the guard's space. Not into the clerk's.
Just far enough for his shadow to cross the token.
He used Grey Step without advertising it: half-angle, weight shift, clean placement. No shove, no contact. Just geometry.
He set his foot down close enough that the boot-owner couldn't keep pressure on the token without stepping onto Li Shen's shoe.
It forced a choice.
The man's heel lifted with a flick of irritation.
The token was free.
Luo San snatched it up like it was food.
The guard's gaze flicked to Li Shen.
Recognized. Not friendly. Not hostile.
Catalogued.
"Back," the guard said.
Li Shen stepped back immediately, smoothly, as if nothing had happened.
Doing something and then arguing about it was how you got written down.
Luo San clutched his token, breathing hard, face raw with shame and fear. He looked at Li Shen again—less pleading now, more lost.
"Please," he said quietly. "Just… tell me what to do."
Li Shen kept his voice low enough that it stayed local.
"Don't fight the desk," Li Shen said. "Fight the file."
Luo San blinked, like the sentence was a foreign language.
Bai Ren leaned in with a grin that tried to be kind. "He means: stop bleeding in public. It never buys priority."
Li Shen continued, practical and unromantic. "You need one thing: a witness line. Someone who saw what failed. Processing. Salvage hand. Anyone whose words count as ink."
Luo San swallowed. "It was a pull. The hook snapped. They said—"
"They'll say whatever costs them least," Li Shen replied. "Find the person who saw the grain."
Luo San's eyes darted, searching for a shortcut that wasn't work.
There wasn't one.
He nodded once—shaky, but real—then stepped out of the queue, moving too fast for someone with a damaged hand.
The guard removed the baton from his wrist the moment he complied.
The sect relaxed when you obeyed.
That was its version of kindness.
Bai Ren watched Luo San vanish into the yard flow, then sighed lightly. "All right. One crisis prevented. Congratulations, you've earned yourself… additional attention."
Li Shen didn't answer.
Because Bai Ren wasn't wrong.
The sect didn't punish actions.
It punished meanings.
---
The line resumed as if the last two minutes hadn't happened.
That continuity was its own brutality: the world kept moving, even when someone almost broke in front of you.
When Li Shen reached the window, the clerk didn't look surprised to see him.
That was unsettling on its own.
Her brush hovered. "Name."
"Li Shen."
The brush scratched once. "Forge."
"Yes."
Her eyes lifted for a fraction. "What do you want."
Curiosity was a weak word here.
Li Shen used a stronger one. "Sortie requirements."
A flicker—interest, not admiration.
"Beast rotations?" she asked.
"Eligibility," Li Shen corrected.
The clerk tapped her brush against the ledger chain, once. "You're forge."
"I can still be logged," Li Shen said. "If I'm eligible."
She stared at him a moment too long, then reached under the counter and slid out a thin sheet. Cheap paper. Official stamp. Language written like it expected you to fail.
Team lead sponsor (name + stamp)
No active holds (rolling window applies)
Gear deposit (rope / tool counted on return)
Processing compliance (tag code recorded; cores surrendered to chain)
Mixed-quality clause: if gear fails, liability defaults to team unless issued defect is recorded at processing
Li Shen read the last line twice.
Yesterday's "issued defect" wasn't just a win.
It had become precedent.
The clerk watched his eyes move. "You understand."
Li Shen folded the sheet carefully. Not like he was hiding it—like he respected that paper could be a weapon or a noose depending on who touched it.
"I'll need a sponsor," he said.
Her brush moved again, a small note beside his name. Not a stamp. Not approval.
"You don't get a sponsor by reading," she said. "You get one by being wanted."
Li Shen met her gaze without flinching. "I'm wanted when they need clean salvage."
The clerk's mouth tightened. Agreement and irritation looked similar in this place.
"You're not the only one who can work clean," she said.
Li Shen didn't argue. Ego was noise.
He said, "Log me as seeking eligibility."
The clerk stared at him again, then wrote another line.
Not public. Not ceremonial.
A breadcrumb.
"Logged," she said. "No guarantees. Slots are tight."
"Understood."
Li Shen turned to leave.
The clerk added, flat: "And keep disputes at the dispute desk. Don't bring them here."
Li Shen paused. "I didn't file anything."
Her eyes slid sideways, toward where Luo San had been. "You did," she said.
Li Shen didn't deny it. Denial looked like fear.
He simply said, "He dropped his token."
The clerk's brush paused. "Tokens get dropped."
Li Shen nodded once. "And then people learn."
The clerk didn't reply.
But Li Shen felt it anyway: his name had moved into a different column—one that didn't show on boards, but made certain questions find you faster.
---
Outside the desk area, Bai Ren peeled off his post and fell into step for a few breaths, keeping their pace normal.
Normal was camouflage.
"You got your sheet," Bai Ren said.
"And got logged," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren's grin returned—light, social, almost warm. "Congratulations. You're now officially 'a person with aspirations.' The yard loves that. It tastes like fresh meat."
Li Shen didn't smile.
Bai Ren kept it gentle anyway. "About that token… the guy with the boot? He'll remember you."
"He didn't get a reaction," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren snorted softly. "You existing is a reaction. You don't have to punch a man to offend him. Sometimes you just stand where he wanted to stand."
They passed the public clinic line. A woman sat with a wrapped ankle, waiting for her number like numbers could decide whether she walked again.
A runner moved fast with a small tray under wax seal—private stamp—head down like the stamp itself was dangerous.
Li Shen didn't follow the runner with his eyes.
His breath tightened anyway.
Bai Ren noticed without looking. "Don't," he murmured.
Li Shen exhaled slowly. "I won't."
Bai Ren's tone stayed light, but his meaning sharpened. "Good. Because people are watching who watches. And your gaze is starting to have a reputation."
They reached the quieter edge where noise thinned and walls kept secrets badly.
Bai Ren stopped.
His humor didn't vanish; it just took a step back to let the warning land clean.
"Word's moving," he said. "Not loud. Not yet. But moving."
"What word," Li Shen asked.
Bai Ren's mouth twitched. "That you fight paper. That you don't accept deductions. That you… interfere."
"I didn't interfere," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren looked at him, expression not cruel—just honest. "That's what you'll tell yourself. That's not what they'll tell each other."
Li Shen felt the heaviness behind his navel stir faintly—Qi debt, attention debt, both cumulative.
He said, "And Luo San."
Bai Ren shrugged, a little too casual. "He'll either fix his file or he'll break louder. Either way, someone will connect the next noise to you."
Li Shen nodded once. Acceptance wasn't surrender. It was calculation.
Bai Ren hesitated, then added the part he clearly hated giving away for free.
"And I heard a name near the dispute desk," he said. "Not yours. Not mine. Someone asking who's been filing clean."
Li Shen didn't ask the name. Names were hooks.
He asked the only question that mattered. "Does it reach Yan's corridor."
Bai Ren's face stayed the same. His eyes didn't.
"Yan's wing has traffic," he said. "Assume anything said in the yard eventually drifts there."
Li Shen swallowed the impulse to glance toward inner paths.
He didn't.
He kept his face on the yard, on what could be seen, because being seen was safer than being guessed at.
"Then I move faster," Li Shen said.
Bai Ren's grin came back—brief, almost proud. "Sure. Just remember: speed isn't free. It's just billed later."
"It's still cheaper than waiting," Li Shen replied.
Bai Ren nodded once, then gave him the closest thing he offered anyone as support—light words with real intent behind them.
"Fine," he said. "Move. Just don't drag other people into your shadow if you can help it."
Li Shen didn't promise.
Promises were cheap.
He only said, "I'll try."
And in this place, that was as close to mercy as you could afford without it becoming a liability.