By midday, Qinghe had water and no certainty.
The discovery of the spring should have brought celebration. Instead, it brought a quieter kind of fear. Li Qingluan used the silver-threaded water first on the worst wounded, diluting it with boiled rainwater as Yue Lingxi instructed. Cuts that had refused to close softened. Fevered breathing steadied. One old woman who had seemed certain to die opened her eyes long enough to ask whether the sky was still burning.
No one told the entire settlement where the water came from.
That secrecy sat poorly with many who knew enough to suspect. Rumors moved faster than carts, and Qinghe had neither carts nor walls. A child had seen shining water. A doctor had suddenly gained cleaner bandages. The cooking fire no longer smelled only of mud. People noticed. Hungry, thirsty people always noticed.
But the spring did not solve the larger problem.
The palisade remained unfinished.
At the northern edge, where the wolves had watched through the night, the stakes leaned too far apart. The western curve existed only as a line of holes Ma Shicheng had marked in mud. The southern side, near the burial slope, had no proper barrier at all. If a single wolf could leap the outer gaps, a pack could turn the central clearing into a slaughter ground before Han Yue's defenders formed a line.
Han Yue drove a broken stake into the ground with three savage blows.
"It will not hold," he said.
Ma Shicheng stood beside him, face drawn, calculating lengths with a builder's eye and a desperate man's heart. "No. Not as it is. We need thicker trunks for the corners and cross-bracing for the weak sections."
"Then we cut them."
Yue Lingxi, who had just returned from marking safe deadwood near the forest edge, turned sharply. "No."
Han did not look at her. "We do not have enough fallen wood."
"Then we use less wall."
"Less wall means dead children."
"Cut the wrong trees," Yue said, "and you may not live long enough to see whether the wall helps."
Qin Moxuan approached with his ledger tucked under one arm. He had mud on his robes and charcoal on his fingers, but his expression remained severe. "The defensive requirement is immediate. The ecological response is uncertain."
Yue's eyes narrowed. "Uncertain does not mean imaginary."
"I did not say imaginary. I said uncertain. We have confirmed wolves. We have not confirmed that cutting trees causes an organized spiritual retaliation."
"Sun Hao was attacked for picking up deadwood near a root hollow."
Qin replied, "Correlation is not law."
Han Yue gave a low growl. "Enough philosophy. We need timber."
The argument drew workers toward them. Some still held branches. Others carried strips of bark, vines, half-shaped stakes. Their faces were gray with exhaustion, but fear sharpened them. Everyone understood what was being weighed.
Wood or restraint.
Wall or forest.
Tonight or tomorrow.
Ji Yuan stood at the edge of the unfinished palisade and looked toward Qingmu Forest.
The trees were silent.
That silence had begun to feel like speech.
He held the cracked jade seal and called the Record of Ten Thousand Eras with thought rather than words. Pale gold characters unfolded before him.
Resource Assessment: Defensive Timber Deficit.
Available Deadwood: Insufficient for minimum perimeter stabilization.
Living Timber: Present.
Warning: Excessive extraction from Qingmu Forest may reduce territorial affinity.
Risk of spiritual response: Moderate.
Recommended action: Limited extraction, root preservation, compensatory rite, future replanting.
Ji Yuan read the final line twice.
Compensatory rite.
The Record spoke like a clerk, but beneath its words lay something older than administration. It did not say the forest would forgive. It did not say Qinghe had permission. It only named the price of taking.
He lowered his hand.
"We cut," he said.
Yue Lingxi's face tightened.
Ji Yuan continued before Han Yue could seize the decision as victory.
"But not freely. Yue marks the trees. Only the belt between the first hollow and the broken stone ridge. No cutting beyond that line. No stripping bark from living trunks not chosen. Roots remain intact wherever possible. We take trunks for corner posts and cross-braces only."
Han frowned. "That may not be enough."
"It will be what we take today."
Qin Moxuan nodded slowly. "A defined extraction zone is defensible policy."
Yue looked at Ji Yuan. "Policy does not soothe roots."
"No," Ji Yuan said. "But neither does pretending we can live without wood."
Her eyes stayed hard.
He did not blame her.
Ma Shicheng asked, "How many trunks?"
Ji Yuan turned to Yue.
She closed her eyes for one breath, then opened them and pointed toward the forest. "Six. No more than six living trunks. Young, straight, outer growth. Not the veined elders. Not anything with exposed luminous roots. Not anything birds or burrows are using."
Han Yue muttered, "Six trunks to hold a settlement."
"Six trunks," Ji Yuan said, "to keep us from declaring war on the forest before we understand the first terms."
The workers began moving.
Yue led them to the marked belt, her spear in one hand and a strip of cloth in the other. She tied cloth around the trees chosen for cutting. Each time she marked one, she paused with her fingers against the bark, as if apologizing or listening for refusal.
Qin recorded each marked trunk.
Mo Tieheng inspected the tools. "These edges are shameful. Whoever swings, strike clean. Do not chew the wood to death like drunk beavers."
Yin Meiniang sent Wei Cang with water skins and a warning that if anyone spilled the spring water she would personally feed him to the wolves in pieces too small to interest them.
At the burial slope, Bai Suyin watched the preparation with her bundle of bones in her arms.
Ji Yuan walked to her. "The Record advised a compensatory rite."
Bai Suyin looked toward the graves. "The dead and the trees have something in common."
"What?"
"They both remember being touched."
He waited.
She knelt beside the first grave marker and brushed mud from the bark strip bearing Lu Wen's name.
"Bury seeds with the dead," she said. "Not over them as disguise. Beside them as promise. The first grove of Qinghe should grow from grief, not greed."
Ji Yuan felt something settle in him.
A grove.
Not a wall. Not a weapon. Something useless for tonight, and therefore necessary for tomorrow.
He ordered Xu Lianhua to gather whatever seeds had come with Duanmu Rong's caravan and whatever local seeds Yue judged safe. Not many could be spared. Every seed was food delayed, and food delayed could become hunger now. Qin objected at once.
"We cannot bury viable seed casually."
"Not casually," Ji Yuan said.
"Symbolism consumes resources."
"So does despair."
Qin's mouth tightened. "You are sentimental at dangerous moments."
"Perhaps."
Yue, standing within earshot, said nothing, but her expression softened by the width of a breath.
They planted only a handful.
Beside the graves, not atop them. Three seeds near Lu Wen. Two near the unknown woman with the silver blanket. One near the unnamed child with red shoes. Bai Suyin whispered names. Luo Qingshu recorded the act. Xu Lianhua covered each seed with mud as carefully as if she were tucking in a sleeping child.
Then the axes fell.
The first living tree did not scream.
That would have been easier.
Instead, Mo Tieheng's sharpened metal bit into blue-green bark with a wet, heavy sound. Sap welled from the cut, pale and luminous. The scent that rose was sharp, clean, and wounded.
The workers struck again.
And again.
Yue Lingxi stood rigid, jaw clenched.
Han Yue watched the forest, not the tree.
Ji Yuan forced himself to watch both.
When the trunk finally gave way, Ma Shicheng shouted for the workers to guide it down. Ropes tightened. Mud slipped beneath feet. The tree leaned slowly, then fell with a sound that rolled through the clearing like a drumbeat from underground.
The moment it struck earth, the roots beneath Qinghe trembled.
Not much.
Enough.
Every worker froze.
The unfinished palisade shivered. The shallow graves settled. The spring, hidden below the lower roots, gave a distant silver pulse.
Deep within Qingmu Forest, beyond the first belt, beyond the deadwood line, beyond the places humans had dared to step, something lifted its head.
A wolf larger than any the scouts had seen opened both green eyes.
Moss shifted along its back.
Roots curled around its paws.
The Qingmu Alpha listened to the echo of the fallen tree.
Then it rose.