They were gathered again in the main courtyard.

  The stone had cooled since afternoon, dusk dragging long shadows from pillar to lantern. A few late arrivals slipped in—sashes half-tied, sleeves still damp from hurried washing. No one spoke above a whisper. No one laughed.

  The lamps along the courtyard’s edge were already lit—glass spheres resting in dark iron frames, burning with slow, steady light that smelled faintly of sandalwood. The air held a bite of pine and smoke and the quiet of people trying not to shift their weight too loudly.

  Rulan stood near the edge, half in shadow, Shen Li besides her.

  She hadn’t asked her to stay. Shen Li just had.

  She hadn't said much since walking her to the dorm, and Rulan hadn’t offered anything back. It wasn’t silence between them. Just stillness.

  The disciples arranged themselves loosely across the stone yard—seventy or so bodies in pale green and grey, some clustered in twos or threes, some deliberately apart. Rulan kept her eyes low, scanning for movement more than faces.

  Then the elders arrived.

  There were three, and never in all her days had Rulan seen anything like them.

  They did not descend from the air or stride in like generals. They simply appeared—from a side door or a stone corridor Rulan hadn’t noticed perhaps—like shadows that had decided to wear robes.

  The one in the centre wore nothing ornate. No talismans or rings. He wore simple, weighted green and black robes, and his stillness was so absolute that it left the other two feeling like mere echoes. His hair was silver and bound at the neck. His face was lined like wind-cut stone, but he moved with the silence of someone who had long since outgrown the need for movement at all.

  The other two flanked him without fanfare. One was tall, with broad shoulders and a scar that curled from chin to collarbone like a brand. The other was slim, her robes folded neat as origami, expression unreadable and hair pinned in grey curls.

  No names were given.

  No introductions.

  When the middle elder spoke, his voice did not rise. It didn’t need to.

  “I am Elder Yi. You are the new year of outer disciples,” he said. “Seventy-four strong.”

  A beat of silence.

  Rulan felt the number settle like a mark carved into stone. Not a welcome. A tally.

  “For the next three months, you will reside in the southern quarter of the outer sect,” he continued. “This is your trial period. During this time, no violence will be tolerated. No interference from inner sect disciples and outer disciples alike is permitted."

  His eyes moved across the courtyard like a blade drawn slow across silk.

  “This is a rule as old as the mountain. It is enforced without mercy.”

  Rulan’s shoulders stayed loose, but her pulse quickened.

  No violence.

  She wasn’t sure if that meant safety or a more subtle kind of danger.

  She scanned the crowd. Some nodded, some stood frozen. A few—bolder, older—looked disappointed. Like they'd come ready to prove themselves with fists.

  The elder’s voice never changed.

  “You will be taught by two senior disciples on the cusp of elder—one in the spiritual arts, one in the physical. Both are essential. Both are sacred.”

  There was a twitch near the back of the crowd. Someone shifted their stance, adjusting a strap or a sleeve. Rulan didn’t look to see who. Her focus stayed forward.

  “You are given five red stones each moon,” he said. “You may earn more through service—internal tasks, fieldwork, archives. Merit earns access. Laziness earns nothing.”

  At her side, Shen Li exhaled slowly. A breath with edges. Rulan couldn’t tell if it was hope or calculation.

  “The base art of this sect is the Jewel Lotus Art,” the elder said. “It is yours to study. Yours to fail. Yours to master.”

  He paused.

  “If you prove yourselves, you will receive more.”

  Another pause.

  “If you do not…”

  He left it there. No elaboration. Just the space where a consequence should be.

  Rulan didn’t need it spelt out.

  “Three months,” he said finally. “You may train. You may study. You may rise.”

  A final glance across them all.

  “Or you may go.”

  Then he turned and walked away, visible one moment and then out of sight the next.

  The other two followed, robes silent against the stone.

  No benediction. No chants. No final word.

  Just the smell of sandalwood smoke and the weight of dusk.

  Rulan stayed where she was, spine loose, jaw tight.

  She didn’t know if it had been a warning or a promise.

  The courtyard didn’t scatter.

  Not yet.

  The elders had gone, their footsteps swallowed by stone and silence, but the disciples lingered—uncertain, waiting. They lingered like stray dogs, uncertain if the meal was truly over or if another scrap might fall. A few drifted towards the benches along the walls. Others stood in tight huddles, voices low, eyes flicking sideways.

  Rulan stayed where she was.

  Her hands were folded into her sleeves. Her eyes moved slowly, deliberately, taking the measure of the crowd.

  Too many.

  She scanned for weight. For confidence. For threat.

  She counted three tight-knit groups—noble-born, or sons and daughters of inner sect families, if she had to guess. Their robes were newer, their hair tied with silk, their movements spare. They didn’t touch. They had no need to touch. They stood like they’d trained in formation since birth.

  Two of those groups had already chosen someone to speak for them. A boy with his arms crossed, spine easy, and eyes half-lidded. People made room for him when he shifted. That meant something.

  Farther out, she noted two more who stood alone. One stood perfectly still, watching everything. The other looked like she’d rather vanish into her own sleeves.

  And then there was Shen Li.

  Still at her side. Neither close nor apart. Not waiting for anything in particular—just . Like she was keeping quiet watch over a fire no one else had noticed starting.

  Rulan hadn’t asked her to stay.

  She didn’t know why she had.

  “Why’re you helping me?” she asked, voice low and blunt.

  Shen Li didn’t look over. “Helping?”

  “You read the board. Offered to walk me to housing. You didn’t have to.”

  “No,” Shen Li said. “I didn’t.”

  Nothing more.

  Rulan studied her again.

  Her robe was clean but not elaborate. Boots mended once at the toe. Sleeves plain. No house crest stitched at the cuff, no gleam of favour or funding. But her speech was clipped and clean. Her stance deliberate. Like she’d learned the shape of power, even if she’d never held it.

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  Not a noble. Not a sect darling. Not poor, maybe—but not either.

  So what was she?

  A watcher. Like her.

  “People like that boy,” Shen Li said, her voice still low, “cling to bloodlines. Banners. Names.”

  She didn’t have to say for Rulan to know who she meant.

  “But the sect doesn’t care about names. Not at first. They want to see what’s inside.”

  Rulan narrowed her eyes. “You speak like you know what you're talking about.”

  “I listen.”

  “You act like you’re not scared.”

  “I am,” Shen Li said. “Just not of the same things.”

  Rulan let that sit. Let it settle. Let her own breath settle.

  Her thoughts coiled slow and sharp, the way they always did when things got dangerous. Alone

  But strength in numbers was real. If the price was low enough.

  She looked at Shen Li again.

  If she was lying, she was better at it than anyone Rulan had met here so far, and she doubted many would risk the wrath of mountain spirits and angry elders trying to drown a street rat.

  “…You been in the sect long?” Rulan asked.

  “A week now.”

  Rulan nodded once.

  Didn’t say thank you. Didn’t offer anything. But she didn’t walk away either.

  That was answer enough.

  The path curved gently uphill, stone underfoot still warm from the day.

  They walked in silence. Shen Li didn’t speak unless needed, and Rulan didn’t need much.

  The houses that lined the slope varied—some narrow and dim, others wide-fronted and better kept. When they reached the row set slightly higher into the hillside, Rulan slowed.

  Mid-tier.

  She hadn’t expected it. She’d expected a dorm room crammed with straw beds and thin curtains. Instead, she found carved eaves and proper shutters. A door that looked like it latched clean.

  Her assigned house was stone-faced and square, with a small tiled porch and no visible damage. A wooden tag hung besides the door, marked with characters she didn’t recognise. Shen Li read them with a glance.

  “This one’s yours,” she said. “House Nine.”

  Rulan’s grip on her bundle tightened, not because it was heavy, but because she didn’t quite believe she was about to walk into a place with a roof that didn’t leak.

  “Mid-tier?” she asked.

  Shen Li nodded. “Three rooms. Two bedrooms and a shared front room.”

  A pause.

  “There’s one spot left.”

  Rulan didn’t say she didn’t understand how. Didn’t ask who decided.

  She stepped up to the door and turned back only when she realised Shen Li had stopped at the gate.

  “I’m a few houses down,” Shen Li said. “House Eleven.”

  She didn’t sound like she meant anything by it. Just a fact, placed gently between them.

  Rulan lingered. She didn’t know why.

  Then: “...Right.”

  She shifted the bundle in her arms, preparing to step inside.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow?” Shen Li asked. “Morning class, spiritual arts. South garden platform.”

  Rulan hesitated.

  The offer wasn’t warm. Wasn’t eager. Just... .

  “…Yeah,” she said, quietly.

  Shen Li nodded once, then turned and walked away without waiting for thanks.

  Rulan watched her go. Just for a moment.

  Then she stepped through the door.

  The front room was empty—still, clean, touched by lamplight that flickered in a carved sconce near the far wall. A sitting mat rested near a low table. One bedroom door was already shut.

  The other stood open.

  Rulan stepped inside, bundle clutched tight.

  A figure sat on the sleeping mat, legs folded beneath a flawless white robe edged in pale blue stitching. Her hair was long, black, coiled with sharp precision into a single braid that hung down her back like a blade. A clan seal gleamed at her belt, but she could not distinguish it.

  The girl didn’t rise. She didn’t look over.

  “I see the housing assignments are... efficient this year,” she said, her voice cool and clear.

  Rulan stood in the doorway. She didn’t answer. She was still trying to understand what kind of battlefield this was.

  “You’ll take the other room,” the girl continued. “I meditate in the common space after dawn. I prefer silence.”

  Rulan looked at the pack resting besides the mat. Its edges were precise, contents likely folded down to the thread. There was no mess. No scent of sweat or oil. Everything about this girl said .

  She turned her head then. Just slightly, enough to look at Rulan directly.

  Her eyes were dark grey, pale enough to be frostlit in the lantern glow.

  “You are the street rat, yes? The one the guards dragged in like a foundling?”

  Rulan didn’t flinch. “They didn’t ask if I wanted to come," she retorts, flat.

  “Good,” Feiyan said, turning back, like she'd satisfied some little lingering curiosity and found the answer boring. “Then we’re both here against our preference. Do stay out of my way."

  She reached for a scroll tucked besides her mat and unrolled it with silent grace.

  Rulan stepped back into the sitting room, jaw tight with the clear dismissal. What a rude girl.

  Such an attitude would've never survived the gutter.

  The door closed behind her without a sound, but she let her hand rest on the frame a moment longer than she needed to, seeking a sense of solidity.

  The walls were clean. The lamp burned steadily.

  She wasn’t welcome.

  But she wasn’t on the street, and she’d slept in worse places than this.

  The door to her room shut behind her with a soft click.

  It was small—bare stone walls, a single shuttered window, and a sleeping mat rolled neatly in the corner. A low shelf was built into the wall opposite, empty but for a small silver-grey scroll. It smelled faintly of cedar oil and old paper.

  Rulan stood for a moment in the middle of the space, bundle still in her arms.

  Then she knelt slowly, settled cross-legged on the mat, and began to unpack.

  The robe she wore now—too clean, too even—rustled as she moved. Her fingers worked silently, deliberate and spare, untying the knot of twine that held her things together.

  A comb. A sliver of soap. A needle and thread wrapped in a scrap of cloth.

  Two pieces of dried plum, wrapped in waxed paper so thin it crinkled like old leaves.

  A flattened pouch of rice.

  And the bone pick, sharpened to a point, still tucked into the inner fold like a blade too small to see.

  She laid them out in a line.

  Not to admire them. Just to them, as if to confirm that they hadn't disappeared, undergone any changes, or transformed into something unfamiliar in the mountain air.

  She hesitated before lifting the final thing: a strip of faded red ribbon, worn soft at the edges. It had no use. It had long since lost its colour, and she couldn’t remember where she’d gotten it—only that she’d had it since she could remember.

  She ran her thumb along its edge. Once, twice.

  Then tucked it back into the bundle.

  She moved the rest to the shelf. Each piece placed slowly, not for neatness, but for . The comb besides the thread. The rice tucked in the corner. The bone pick rested atop the soap, ready to vanish if needed.

  It wasn’t much.

  But it was hers.

  For now.

  She sat there for a while longer, knees pulled to her chest, listening to the stillness through the wall. No sound from the sitting room. No noise from Feiyan’s side, the door wedged tight.

  Just mountain air and the low, constant hum of a sect built on silence and breath.

  Rulan woke before the first bell.

  She hadn't actually slept, truly.

  She had closed her eyes, yes. Had lain still for hours, dozed in the wee hours. But her body had never let go. Her back never truly sank into the mat, and her breath never quite slowed. Sleep required surrender. And surrender was a thing she'd never learned, not when the room was too quiet and too clean.

  The walls here too clean. No mould stains. No cracks to watch for shifting light. No smell of smoke, piss, or warm, three-day-old rice going sweet-sick in the sun. Just stone and cedar and the faint iron tang of morning mist.

  Every sound was magnified in the silence, and she found herself detesting it.

  A door closing somewhere down the slope. A shutter creaking open on a neighbouring house. A bird's wings cutting through the still air overhead. Each noise landed inside her like a stone dropped into a bowl, rippling outward.

  The room didn’t move, didn’t shift with the wind or the weight of another body.

  And that, more than anything, unsettled her.

  She lay there, still, spine aching from stillness, watching pale mist curl through the slats of the window. It reached across the room in thin fingers, brushing the edge of her mat like it wanted to wake her on its own.

  Outside, the mountain was quiet—but not dead.

  It was the kind of quiet that pressed close to her skin and waited. Like it wanted something from her .

  She breathed out, slow.

  Then sat up, careful not to let her robe rustle too loudly.

  Her bare feet touched cool stone. Smooth. Swept. No sand or ash or broken tile.

  She pressed her toes down anyway, just to remind herself there was something solid underneath her.

  It didn’t feel like morning.

  It felt like a test.

  The front room was empty.

  The lamp had burned low overnight. The wick was black, the oil dish dry. No scent of smoke lingered. The silence had eaten even that.

  She didn’t touch it.

  Instead, she opened the door and stepped outside.

  The small lane was wrapped in mist, thick as pulled gauze, pale as bone. It softened everything—edges, paths, and sounds. The stones beneath her feet were damp and silent. Trees along the ridgeline stood like brushstrokes, frozen mid-paint.

  Somewhere below, the first bells chimed—thin and distant, ceremonial more than functional. A reminder to the mountain that people lived here.

  She breathed in through her nose.

  The air was clean. So clean, it hurt.

  It didn’t smell like people. It didn't smell like the crowded streets or the back alley temples where the walls were inhabited by incense, sweat, and old cabbage. This air was sharp. Pale. Cold on the inhale.

  She felt like a fish pulled into clear water only to find it too cold to breathe.

  She stood there a little longer, arms tucked into her sleeves, letting the cold settle into her skin.

  Then she went back inside.

  The scroll was still where she’d left it the night before: tucked neatly on the shelf besides her bundle. Pale-grey seal. Untouched.

  She picked it up with both hands.

  Held it for a moment like it might accuse her.

  Then sat cross-legged on the mat and unrolled it.

  The characters stared back at her. Elegant strokes. The ink is still crisp.

  She didn’t know what they said.

  Couldn’t read the script. Couldn’t even guess; she knows the words for bakery and inn and bar and guard station. She knows the word for whorehouse. What else does one living on the street need to know except for where to run to, where to run from?

  Her jaw tightened. Her eyes burned.

  She stared at the page until the lines swam and the strokes blurred. She wasn’t sure if it was the effort or the shame that brought the heat to her eyes.

  She couldn’t read the instructions; she couldn’t read the teachings.

  She couldn’t even read her own name.

  The walls didn’t laugh, and the scroll didn’t spit or sneer, but why would it even need to?

  It knew what she didn’t.

  It knew she was a fake—a shadow in borrowed robes, a child in a grown cultivator’s shell.

  She inhaled through her nose. Once. Twice. Her breath came thin and shallow.

  And still the thoughts came:

  Three months.

  That’s what the elder had said. That’s what the courtyard had echoed.

  Three months to learn. To train. To prove.

  To catch up to people who’d been studying this since they could walk. Who spoke in brushstrokes and books? Who looked at scrolls like invitations, not riddles written in stone?

  And if she failed?

  What then?

  Where would she go?

  Back to the city?

  Back to the streets, to the smell of wet ash and fish bones, to alley doors slammed in her face and guards with heavy boots, and merchants who sneered when she lingered too long by the food carts?

  Back to being no one.

  Not just by name.

  By shape. By fate

  There was no “back.”

  There had never been a future.

  And now there was only this—this scroll she couldn’t read, these robes she hadn’t earned, this sect that wouldn’t even remember her name if she failed to say it loud enough.

  She closed the scroll.

  Tied it again, tight and clean.

  She placed it gently on the shelf, besides the comb, the soap, and the two dried plums. Her hand brushed the faded red ribbon folded beneath them.

  Her fingers paused.

  Just for a moment, there was something in the air that didn’t smell like street rot, that didn’t make a day look hungry ahead of her.