The side of the storage building was worse than the front.
Which, in Black Reed City, usually meant it was more useful.
The outer wall leaned slightly where old settling had won its long argument with maintenance. One shutter hung crooked above head height. A narrow service gap ran between the building and a collapsed neighbor, cluttered with warped planks, broken hoops, and one mold-blackened crate that looked too rotten to trust with moral support, much less body weight.
Qin Lanyue studied the gap once and said, "You first."
Shen Yan looked at her. "How ungenerous."
"You have more opinions. If the wood gives way, the loss to the conversation is tolerable."
Fair.
He stepped into the gap sideways, careful where he placed his weight. The boards underfoot shifted but did not betray him. Good enough. The wall on his left was damp and cold through the sleeve. Ahead, the crooked shutter showed a thin line of weak light at its edge.
Behind him, Qin Lanyue moved with less noise than he did and looked irritatingly unsurprised by that fact.
They stopped beneath the shutter.
Voices inside.
Closer now.
One of them was definitely Han Wei—ragged, angry, and fraying at the edges.
Another was smoother, thinner, trying for control and not quite reaching it.
The runner.
A third sounded pained and intermittently stupid. Likely the hurt one.
Shen Yan leaned just enough to peer through the cracked slat.
Inside, the storage room had been cleared badly. Old sacks and broken shelving had been kicked to the edges to make space around a table and two lanterns. Han Wei sat tied to a post near the center, one arm bound close to his side, the other bandaged forearm dark in the lamplight. His face was bruised now, a split at the lip and fresh blood drying near the temple.
Still conscious.
Still glaring.
Good.
Three men inside.
One stood near Han Wei with a cudgel and the unfocused impatience of hired muscle.
One sat on an upturned crate clutching his side where, presumably, some earlier life decision had gone wrong.
And one—cleaner sleeves, narrower shoulders, controlled posture—stood by the table.
The runner.
No broker dressed well enough to be important in a high district would have looked twice at him.
In the lower market, though, he stood out immediately as a man who handled other people's dirty work while trying to keep his own cuffs neat.
On the table lay the dust bundle.
Not fully opened.
Not wisely handled either.
A corner of the cloth had loosened, and a thin gray trace marked the wood beneath.
'Idiots', Shen Yan thought. Efficiently, consistently, beautifully idiots.
Han Wei spat blood toward the runner's shoes.
"You can keep asking," he said hoarsely. "The answer won't improve."
The runner stepped back half a pace in disgust. "You misunderstand your position."
"No," Han Wei said. "I understand it better than you do."
That was interesting.
The runner smiled without warmth. "Then let me improve your understanding. You were taken out of a lodging house alive. That means someone here is exercising restraint on your behalf. Don't force me to conclude it's wasted."
Han Wei laughed once, then winced for it. "That sounded rehearsed."
The cudgel man shifted like he wanted permission to solve this with less vocabulary.
The runner ignored him. "Where is the larger piece?"
Han Wei's expression stayed flat. "In your mother's shrine."
The cudgel man took one step forward.
The runner lifted two fingers without looking.
The man stopped.
So he had some control, then. Enough to keep thugs leashed when needed.
"Your friend already sold one fragment," the runner said. "You kept dust. You went deeper than the others. That means you either found more, or you saw where more could be found. I'm not asking for the whole ravine. I'm asking for one location."
Han Wei said nothing.
The runner's gaze dropped to the bound forearm. "And given your condition, you should understand better than anyone how quickly opportunities spoil."
Han Wei looked at him and, to his credit, smiled through split lips. "You touched it too, didn't you?"
The runner's face changed.
Not much.
Enough.
Ah.
There it was.
Not direct contact, maybe. But close enough to have learned caution personally.
Good, Shen Yan thought. Fear in the right place makes men say useful things when the room gets loud.
Qin Lanyue's shoulder brushed his lightly from behind as she shifted for her own angle through the shutter. Her breath barely stirred the air.
Three men.
One runner.
Han Wei tied.
Dust on the table.
No sign of He Tuo.
Expected.Han Wei said, more softly now, "He doesn't even know what he bought."
The runner's expression cooled. "Neither do you."
"No," Han Wei said. "But I know enough not to unwrap it under a roof."
That gave the runner pause.
A small one.
Still there.
The hurt thug on the crate muttered, "We should move it."
The runner snapped, "And carry it where?"
Good question.
The man shut up.
Qin Lanyue leaned closer to Shen Yan's ear and whispered, "The table first."
Yes.
Obviously.
The dust bundle mattered more than the runner.
Han Wei mattered more than the cudgel man.
And if the cloth opened in a fight, the whole room might become inventive in ways nobody wanted.
Shen Yan nodded once.
Qin Lanyue touched two fingers to the lower edge of the shutter frame, then looked at him.
Three.
Two.
One.
He shoved the shutter inward.It banged against the interior wall with enough force to steal everyone's breath for half a heartbeat.
Qin Lanyue moved through the opening first.
Of course she did.
She hit the floor inside in a low step, crossed the room in one line of dark motion, and drove straight for the table, not the men. Her sleeve blade flicked once, cutting the loosened edge of the dust cloth free from the rough wood where it had snagged. Then she swept the whole bundle off the table into her outer wrap before anyone fully processed what had entered the room.
The runner shouted, "Stop them!"
Shen Yan came through second and kicked the table sideways.
One lantern toppled with it.
Light lurched.
Shadows swung.
The hurt thug on the crate cried out and stumbled away from the falling wood.
The cudgel man lunged toward Qin Lanyue.
Wrong choice.
Han Wei, tied to the post but still very much alive and invested in events, drove both feet into the man's knee from the side. It wasn't elegant. It worked. The cudgel strike dropped low, skidding off the floor where Qin Lanyue had been half a breath earlier.
She rewarded the effort by slamming her elbow into the back of his neck.
The man crashed down hard enough to reconsider his career.
Shen Yan went for the runner.
Not because the man looked physically impressive.
Because he was the sort who ran if given one clean lane and then made everything worse from a distance.
The runner saw it and snatched a short blade from his sleeve.
Predictable.
He moved better than a clerk had any business moving—light-footed, angled, trying for Shen Yan's throat with the desperate precision of a man who knew he should never have been forced into the room's violent half.
Shen Yan shifted just inside the line of the blade.
Too close.
The edge kissed his collar and missed the neck by a degree that felt disrespectful.
He caught the runner's wrist with his left hand and rammed his right forearm into the man's chest.
The runner gasped but did not fold.
More training than expected, then.
Annoying.
They hit the wall together.
The runner twisted hard, trying to free the knife hand.
Shen Yan slammed that wrist once against the wall.
Twice.
The blade dropped.
Better.
Behind him, the hurt thug had decided pain was no excuse not to be stupid and was coming in with a broken shelf brace like a club.
"Behind," Han Wei barked.
Shen Yan let go of the runner just long enough to pivot. The shelf brace clipped his shoulder instead of his skull. Bad trade. Acceptable. He drove a heel into the thug's shin, then grabbed the fallen knife off the floor and slashed low across the man's forearm.
Not deep.
Enough.
The brace clattered away.
Qin Lanyue had already finished with the cudgel man and was cutting Han Wei's bonds with one hand while keeping the dust bundle wrapped in the other.
Efficient woman.
The runner, unfortunately, had used the moment to recover and bolt for the door.
Of course.
"Take Han Wei!" Shen Yan snapped.
Then he went after the runner.
The man hit the door frame wrong in his panic, clipped a shoulder, recovered, and spilled into the outer service court at speed. Shen Yan followed half a breath later into the cold evening air and fading gray light.
The runner was fast.
Not fighter-fast.
Escape-fast.
Different discipline.
Still irritating.
He cut across the court toward the alley break, one hand pressed against his chest where Shen Yan had hit him. If he reached the broader lane, he'd vanish into lower-city evening traffic and turn tonight from useful chaos into a long, unpleasant guessing game.
No.
Shen Yan's hand closed around the wrapped fragment still hidden in his sleeve.
Another terrible idea arrived.
He really was being consistent tonight.
He drew the fragment halfway free and hurled the entire cloth-wrapped bundle low—not at the runner's body, but at the stones in front of his next step.
The runner saw movement and reflexively checked his stride.
Too late.
His boot came down half on the cloth bundle, half beside it. The contact was brief, indirect, and still enough.
The man's leg spasmed violently. He cried out and pitched sideways into the alley wall, striking hard enough to lose all elegance and some awareness of his surroundings.
Shen Yan reached him in three strides, drove him flat, and put a knee between his shoulders.
The runner hissed, "Get it off— get that thing away—"
"Gladly," Shen Yan said, retrieving the wrapped fragment with care. "Now we understand each other."
The man's breath had gone ragged. One hand clawed uselessly at the ground, his lower leg not obeying properly yet.
Good.
Momentary numbness.
Longer than before.
Maybe because the contact had hit through a thinner sole and full body weight.
Useful to know.
Qin Lanyue emerged from the building with Han Wei half over one shoulder and a look of concentrated irritation that somehow made the arrangement seem like an insult to architecture.
Han Wei, bruised and pale, still managed: "You came back."
Shen Yan looked at him. "Try not to sound surprised. It lowers morale."
Han Wei laughed once, then coughed for it.
Qin Lanyue shifted him more securely. "He can stand a little. Not much."
"Enough," Shen Yan said.
The runner beneath his knee muttered something ugly.
Qin Lanyue glanced down. "Alive?"
"Regrettably."
"Can he still answer questions?"
"I was hoping so."
Han Wei looked at the runner and spat blood into the drain beside him. "That one talked too much for a courier."
That sharpened Shen Yan's attention again. "Meaning?"
Han Wei licked blood from a split lip and grimaced. "He wasn't just repeating orders. He knew what He Tuo paid for. Knew which scavengers had sold fragments this morning. Knew one buyer in the market was already offering double if the pieces came from deeper ravine cuts."
Qin Lanyue's expression cooled. "That's not runner knowledge."
"No," Shen Yan said. "That's buyer-side coordination."
The runner went very still beneath him.
There.
The useful kind of still.
Not calm.
Contained panic.
Shen Yan leaned down slightly. "Who is buying?"
Silence.
He pressed the wrapped fragment, still covered, lightly against the alley stone beside the man's face.
Not touching him.
Near enough.
The runner flinched hard anyway.
Good.
Learning.
"Who is buying?" Shen Yan repeated.
The man swallowed. "I don't know the true name."
A start.
Liars usually denied first.
This had shape."What do you know?"
"A house name only," he said quickly. "We were told to report through outer market channels. No direct meetings. No direct questions."
"Which house name?"
The runner squeezed his eyes shut for a moment like he regretted ever accepting lower-market work that paid above its dignity.
Then: "Autumn Hall."
Qin Lanyue's head lifted sharply.
Han Wei muttered a curse.
Shen Yan's thoughts clicked into place.
Autumn Hall.
Not one of the five ruling powers directly.
But not small either.
A known commercial house with long hands, cleaner fronts, and enough money to buy half the lower market twice over if something rare began surfacing.
That was bad.
Because it meant the scramble was no longer just local greed.
A real buyer had entered.
Qin Lanyue said, "You're sure?"
The runner laughed weakly. "Do I look eager to invent names right now?"
Fair.
Shen Yan looked at him for another breath, thinking.
Autumn Hall buying through shadows.
He Tuo acting as a lower-market cutout.
Street men grabbing fragments and witnesses.
Han Wei nearly disappeared.
Dust already dangerous in cloth.
And five days until the branch-house review.
The pace had improved.
The situation had not.
Han Wei shifted painfully against the wall and said, "If Autumn Hall's in, then prices go mad by tomorrow."
"Not just prices," Qin Lanyue said.
No.
Not just prices.
Attention.
Violence.
Disappearance.
And eventually, city powers.
Shen Yan rose from the runner and stepped back.
The man looked up warily, still rubbing at the leg that had not yet forgiven him.
Qin Lanyue asked, "What do we do with him?"
A good question.
Kill him?
Clean. Immediate. Risky in its own way.
Let him go?
Simple. Annoying. Potentially useful.
Keep him?
Inconvenient, and nobody here had the sort of evening schedule that welcomed captive management.
Shen Yan looked at the runner and thought, If he crawls back fast enough, He Tuo learns we know about Autumn Hall. If he doesn't, He Tuo assumes the worst anyway.
Either way, tonight's quiet was over.
He said, "Take his coin, not his life."
The runner blinked up at him, startled.
Qin Lanyue was not. "Merciful?"
"No," Shen Yan said. "Efficient."
Han Wei, despite current circumstances, looked amused by that answer.
Qin Lanyue relieved the runner of his purse, his knife, and a narrow bamboo token tucked inside the inner robe seam. That last part mattered more.
She held it up.No insignia on the broad face, but a small lacquered mark along the edge:
a stylized falling leaf.
Autumn Hall indeed.
The runner saw them see it and closed his eyes briefly, as if tonight had become everything he feared and more.
Shen Yan tucked the token away.
"Tell He Tuo something for me," he said.
The runner said nothing.
Shen Yan continued anyway. "Tell him lower-market grabs are over. If he wants to keep chasing west-road pieces, he'd better choose his hands more carefully."
The runner stared.
Han Wei let out a ragged breath that might have been approval.
Qin Lanyue, on the other hand, gave Shen Yan a look that clearly translated to:
you really do enjoy stepping onto knives if they might make room.
Possibly unfair.
Also accurate.
They left the runner alive in the alley and moved fast.
Han Wei could walk, barely, with Qin Lanyue carrying more of his weight than he would ever admit without coercion. Shen Yan took the dust bundle from her once they reached the broader lane and kept it wrapped deep in his outer sleeve, separate from the fragment.
Two dangerous items.
One increasingly inconvenient evening.
As they cut back through the darkening streets, the city around them continued in its ordinary miseries:
vendors shouting late prices,
door bolts dropping,
carts rattling over bad stones,
people pretending not to notice blood when it belonged to someone else.
But under it all, something had changed.
Not in the west ravines.
That had changed already.
Here.
Inside the city.
A real buyer had entered.
The lower market had become contested ground.
And Shen Yan was no longer merely picking clues out of the air.
Now he was in the current.
Han Wei broke the silence first. "You have somewhere in mind?"
Shen Yan did.
Unfortunately, it was inconvenient.
He looked at Qin Lanyue. "Your place or mine?"
She stared at him. "That sounds worse than you intended."
"Medically," he said.
"That helps slightly."
Han Wei muttered, "I'd prefer the place with fewer knives."
Qin Lanyue said, "Then not mine."
A fair answer.
Shen Yan exhaled. "Fine. Mine. Briefly."
Not ideal.
Not safe enough for comfort.
But they needed one clean room, one controlled lamp, and one chance to inspect the dust and Han Wei's arm before Autumn Hall's shadow buyers made tomorrow uglier than today.
'And tomorrow', Shen Yan thought, 'was already shaping up to be unpleasantly crowded.'