Winter still held.
It just wasn't clean anymore.
The yard had turned to mud that grabbed at your soles and made every short walk feel like distance. Water ran in thin lines off roof edges and down posts, darkening the brace boards Bai Ren had hammered into the dorm wall until the wood looked like it had been soaked on purpose.
Li Shen woke before the bell, because his body had learned the late window's shape and refused to sleep past it.
He sat on his plank and listened.
Drip. Drip. A cough from somewhere down the row. A man turning in his sleep like it was work.
Li Shen didn't open his ledger. He didn't need paper to tell him he was tired.
He breathed instead—plain breath first, until his pulse stopped climbing on its own. Then a short hold, a clean release, Smoke-Sealing used the way he used everything now: only to keep the body from announcing itself.
The dryness stayed behind his teeth, rude but quiet.
That was enough.
He stood, rinsed his face with cold water that smelled faintly of lime, and walked out into the wet air.
---
The forge station post had a new stack of slips clipped to it, issued the way tools were issued: without explanation.
Someone had chalked a small tally beside the clip, unofficial and blunt.
2/3
Li Shen didn't look at it long.
Habits liked being watched.
Wu Kai arrived early again, tool roll tight under one arm, shoulders set like he expected the paper to jump off the post and bite him.
He didn't bow too deep. He didn't speak first.
Good.
Li Shen set his kit down. Jig. Tongs. Dip rack. Oil bucket checked against the scratch marks on the stone base.
Only then did he nod once.
Wu Kai exhaled and kept his voice low. "Senior Li."
"Same rules," Li Shen said.
Wu Kai answered immediately. "Hands off racks unless you say. If I touch anything, I say it out loud. Immediately."
Li Shen began work.
Heat. Shape. Check. Dip. Lift. Cool.
Escort hardware didn't care about the weather. It cared about repeatability.
Iron Grip came in short pulses when the metal tried to twist. Clamp. Release. Clamp. Release. No long squeeze. No dragging hold.
Wu Kai shadowed him without hovering too close. When he shifted his feet, he said it out loud once, like the words were a safety rope.
"Stepping back," Wu Kai murmured.
Li Shen didn't acknowledge it. The line kept moving.
Half an hour in, a runner drifted past with a tray. He glanced at Li Shen's station, then kept walking.
No "urgent support" today.
Either they'd learned, or they were saving it for when it would cost more.
Li Shen didn't relax.
Relaxing was how you paid twice.
---
The late window arrived like a weight placed gently on shoulders.
The air didn't change. Men did.
A little slower. A little drier. A little more willing to turn annoyance into a word they could write down later.
Li Shen felt the tremor waiting closer than it should have been, just behind the forearms, as if the body had moved its warning line forward.
He adjusted his work to match.
Shorter pulses. Cleaner releases. No extra holds, even when the piece would have been faster with greed.
Wu Kai watched his hands like he was trying to memorize a rhythm. He didn't speak.
Good.
Near the end of the window, the stone walkway outside the station edge slicked with rinse water again—someone else's spill, thin and shining.
Li Shen didn't stop working. He didn't make a show of avoiding it.
When his foot needed to cross it, he did it the same way he had done it yesterday.
He shifted his weight first.
Then he placed the step—made without breaking rhythm.
There was no scramble, no breath debt worth noticing, no stumble for anyone to point at later.
He didn't think about a technique name. He just noted the order and moved on.
---
The clerk came with the stamp block at the end of the late window, as predictable as the bell.
"Observation," the clerk said, bored.
Li Shen took the slip and wrote one sentence—tight, factual, cold.
Helper assigned. No incidents. Batch clean.
Wu Kai signed under the sentence without looking at the boxes.
The clerk stamped the corner—received—and moved on, disappointed by the lack of narrative.
Wu Kai held his breath until the clerk's footsteps faded.
"That's three," Wu Kai whispered, like saying it louder might summon someone.
Li Shen didn't answer with relief. Relief was also a tell.
He cleaned his station, wiped his tools, and left the forge.
---
Outside, the yard felt wider than it had in weeks.
Not because anything had changed in the walls. Because the gate had shifted in his head.
Three clean slips meant the system had to acknowledge him again.
It didn't mean they would like it.
The rotation board had a crowd around it. Wet robes. Muddy hems. Men pretending not to push while they pushed.
And the board itself was stripped down to what mattered—no explanations, no comfort.
STAGE-ONE ROTATION — RAVINE CUTS
SIGN-IN: Beast Yard Desk — dawn
GATE: Eligible strip (on file)
NOTE: See Desk
That was all.
It didn't tell you why. It told you where the latch was.
Bai Ren was there too, not reading the board like he wanted something—just standing nearby with a plank over one shoulder, grin fixed, looking like a man who had wandered into the wrong line and decided to enjoy it.
He saw Li Shen and raised his free hand in greeting, loud enough for the watchers.
"Senior Li! Congratulations on being officially harmless on paper!"
A few people laughed. The laugh was thin, but it was real enough to do its job.
Li Shen stepped away from the board and toward the Beast Yard Desk.
The desk wasn't a desk. It was a checkpoint disguised as a window. Seals, stamps, ledgers behind slats, guards who didn't look like guards until you did something wrong.
The clerk on duty didn't recognize faces, only problems.
"Name," the clerk said.
"Li Shen," Li Shen replied.
The clerk's brush paused for a fraction. Not surprise. Recognition of a file.
"Purpose."
"Rotation eligibility," Li Shen said. "Three slips."
The clerk's eyes flicked to the side, where a tray sat marked RECEIVED, papers stacked like they were waiting to become real.
Li Shen waited.
Waiting was part of the test.
The clerk lifted the tray, thumbed through it, and stopped. His eyes moved over Li Shen's sentences—facts only—then over Wu Kai's signatures.
"Helper signature matches," the clerk said, as if that mattered more than truth.
"It does," Li Shen replied.
The clerk's mouth tightened. He didn't like agreement that sounded like competence.
He pulled a thin strip from beneath the counter and stamped it twice.
Then he slid it forward.
ELIGIBLE — STAGE-ONE ROTATION WINDOW (7 days)
Seven days.
Not a reward. A leash with length.
Li Shen took the strip without expression. "Dawn sign-in," he said.
The clerk nodded once. "If you miss it, you lose the window."
Li Shen didn't argue. "I won't."
As he turned, he caught a familiar face near the edge of the desk crowd—Ren Jiao, standing like he belonged in air that wasn't locked to a forge.
Ren Jiao didn't smile. He didn't wave.
He just tipped his chin a fraction toward Li Shen's hand, where the eligible strip was now visible.
A question without words.
Li Shen answered with the only thing that mattered: action.
He stepped closer.
Ren Jiao's voice was low, cut through the crowd noise like a blade through cloth. "Dawn."
Li Shen nodded once. "Dawn."
Ren Jiao's eyes flicked over him—hands, posture, throat—reading tells the way men who survived outside learned to read.
"You're still on forge shift," Ren Jiao said.
Li Shen didn't deny it. "Late window."
Ren Jiao's jaw tightened. "Then you don't chase. You hold line."
"I know," Li Shen said.
Ren Jiao's gaze moved to Li Shen's belt. "You still have that hatchet?"
Li Shen touched the tool's handle once. Not pride. Inventory. "Yes."
"Tool," Ren Jiao said, reminding him.
Li Shen's voice stayed flat. "Tool."
Ren Jiao nodded once, satisfied. "Bring it. Bring rope hands, not hero hands."
Li Shen didn't answer with gratitude. Gratitude was noise. "Understood."
Ren Jiao stepped away without another word, already conserving breath for tomorrow.
---
Bai Ren fell into step beside Li Shen on the walk back, plank still on his shoulder like he was just doing chores and not acting as a screen.
He kept his grin wide for the yard.
"So," Bai Ren said loudly, "are we celebrating your new status as a legally acceptable person?"
Li Shen didn't smile. "Seven days."
Bai Ren's grin didn't move, but his eyes sharpened. "A window."
"A leash," Li Shen corrected quietly.
Bai Ren laughed, too loud again, because loud laughter made the watchers lazy.
Then, softer, "Dawn means you need sleep."
Li Shen looked straight ahead. "Late window."
Bai Ren's grin faltered for half a breath, then snapped back into place. "Of course it is."
They reached the dorm entrance. Bai Ren set the plank down with a grunt, then stretched his shoulders like he was only thinking about wood and nails.
He leaned closer as if to share a joke. "If you want, I'll make sure nobody 'forgets' to wake you."
Li Shen didn't insult him by calling it kindness. "Do that."
Bai Ren's grin softened into something human for a fraction. "Done."
Li Shen went inside.
He didn't open his ledger. He didn't count points. He didn't rehearse tomorrow.
He lay back on his plank and listened to the drip outside like the world marking time.
Three slips had bought him air.
Not freedom.
Air was enough.
At dawn, he would sign in, pick up issued gear, and walk out into mud and cold with a tool on his belt and a rule in his head:
Hold line. Don't chase.
Survive the outside without giving the inside a story to file.