Walking through the streets of Baiyun County, Shen Yi went down the line asking each girl where she lived.

He’d sent the other constables away mostly because their reputations were too rancid — not the right company for what he was doing.

Even so, the people on the street parted around him like he was carrying plague.

Shen Yi shook his head and knocked on the first door.

The woman who answered had been crying recently — her eyes were red and swollen. At the sight of a young man with a saber, she started to pull the door shut on instinct.

Shen Yi held it open, stepped to the side, and a small girl launched herself into the woman’s arms, crying in a raw, cracked voice that had already been worn down to almost nothing. “Mama!”

The woman stood frozen for a long moment, blinking through her red-rimmed eyes as if she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Then her face crumpled, and she pulled the girl in tight. “My baby — those bastard constables—”

The words died in her throat. She snuck a glance at the tall figure in the doorway, realizing too late what she’d said.

Shen Yi gave no sign of having heard. He turned, took two sacks of rice and flour from Chen Ji along with a cut of pork, and crouched down to set them beside the woman’s feet.

“She hasn’t eaten in a while and she’s had a bad fright. Make her a meat congee when you get a chance.”

Chen Ji stood there with the remaining supplies, something shifting in his usually closed-off expression.

Shen Yi — who spent most of his waking hours with a face like a locked door — had just clasped his hands together in a small bow, offered an apologetic smile, and quietly pulled the door shut behind the mother and daughter.

What in the world.

The same scene played out six more times.

When the last girl had been returned home, Shen Yi stepped back onto the street and spent a moment working the stiffness out of the corners of his mouth.

Chen Jinyu caught the gesture and quietly laughed. There was something unexpectedly funny about it.

He was obviously terrible at this — at interacting with people, at apologizing, at any of it. That air of calm detachment was completely hollow. His whole body had been rigid the entire time.

“Brother — is this a new superior officer at the yamen?”

Chen Ji glanced at his sister. “No. That’s Shen Yi.”

Chen Jinyu’s hand flew to her mouth.

She’d never met the man before — Chen Ji had always made sure of that — but she’d heard the name plenty of times.

“Stay away from him.”

Chen Ji said it quietly, but his thoughts were anything but quiet.

It wasn’t just Shen Yi’s transformation he couldn’t make sense of. There was a more pressing problem demanding his attention.

All the girls had been sent home. But what about the old apes? When the deadline came and Shen Yi had nothing to deliver — then what?

“Sir.”

Chen Ji fell into step beside him. Shen Yi glanced over.

“The rest of the supplies are for your sister. Take them home.”

“That’s not what I wanted to say!”

Chen Ji pressed a hand to his temple. He couldn’t figure out why the man kept steering around the actual issue. It had been the same with the Dog Demons earlier — as if refusing to discuss a problem was the same as the problem not existing.

Under Chen Ji’s stare, Shen Yi was quiet for a moment.

“I don’t know,” he said.

Four words. Chen Ji’s expression shifted. “Are you joking with me?”

Shen Yi looked back at him evenly.

He wasn’t.

Baiyun County was already past the point where one person having a change of heart could fix anything. The Dog Demon that had attacked him at the Liu house. Yellow Six and his mate setting up residence in the village. The ape clan making increasingly unreasonable demands. All of them were trampling over whatever arrangement had existed between the demons and the yamen.

Either the constables’ endless capitulation had emboldened them — or the demons had caught wind of the Demon Suppression Division’s coming inspection and were acting out while they still could, squeezing the yamen for everything before the window closed.

Shen Yi was a minor official. He had no channel to the Division, no leverage to maneuver with.

His options were: hand the county’s civilians over to the demons and look the other way, or strip off the uniform now and focus purely on keeping himself alive.

【Personal Remaining Lifespan: 1 year】

He turned slightly and looked at those cold words on the panel.

Keeping himself alive wasn’t a real option either. His only real hope was finding a martial art somewhere in this world capable of extending his lifespan — whether through the panel’s advancement system or through the Demon Suppression Division. Both paths ran through the same place.

Demons to kill. That was the only road forward.

The saber at his hip was the only thing he could count on.

“Let’s go.” He started walking.

“Where?” Chen Ji fell in beside him.

“Your place. I’m hungry.”

“…”

Chen Ji’s reluctance to let Shen Yi through his front door was obvious to anyone paying attention.

But after everything that had happened today, as much as he hated it, he didn’t say no.

The siblings shared a yamen-assigned unit — one bedroom, which belonged to Chen Jinyu, and a small woodshed out back that Chen Ji had converted into sleeping quarters for himself.

“Brother, come inside and sit—”

“Go start dinner.”

Chen Ji marched Shen Yi into the woodshed with his head down and dragged out two short stools.

“Isn’t this a bit much.” Shen Yi looked at the stools — each about a foot high — and raised an eyebrow. “Sitting on these is basically sitting on the floor. Your sister’s room looks perfectly spacious. I’m not a thief — what exactly are you protecting her from?”

“It’s fine.”

Chen Ji went to the cot, lifted the grass matting, and took out a yellowed sheet of paper from underneath.

He stood holding it, eyes closed, hesitating for a long moment. In his mind: Shen Yi with his arm around Yellow Six, blade going in. Then the same man standing at a doorway, offering an apologetic smile to a tearful mother.

“I don’t know whether you genuinely have no plan or whether you just don’t want to explain yourself to me. Either way, I can’t do much to help.”

He opened his eyes and held out the paper. “Take it.”

“What’s this?”

Shen Yi took it. His expression changed as he read.

He didn’t need Chen Ji to explain. The panel had already answered.

【Thunder-Wind Scripture, Volume One — Untrained】

“The Commander pulled me aside after he came through. Said I had talent. On top of the three techniques he passed to everyone, he wrote these seventy-eight characters out for me personally.”

“It’s a body-refinement method. Tendons, bone, flesh, skin — four stages of transformation. Complete all four, and you’ve reached the absolute ceiling of what a mortal body can become.”

Chen Ji smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Sharp eyes, the Commander has — except he apparently looked right past you. I don’t know if that means he saw through your character from the start. Either way, three years in and I haven’t broken through the first stage.”

He turned toward the door. “Giving it to you now probably won’t change much. But it’s all I have to offer. Take your time with it — I’ll go help with the cooking.”

Shen Yi waited until Chen Ji was gone, then allowed himself a long breath to steady the excitement trying to surface on his face.

The man wasn’t wrong on the merits. For anyone else, picking up a new technique this close to a crisis would be nearly useless.

For Shen Yi, it was an entirely different story.

【Remaining Demon Lifespan: 199 years】

Good thing I held back this morning.

He kept his breathing even. Same approach as always — start with ten years, see what happens.

Ten years of demon lifespan poured into the Thunder-Wind Scripture. Lines of text surfaced one after another.

【Year one — you study the refinement method thoroughly, using the essence of natural materials to temper the body’s primary tendons.】

【Year three — medicinal resources exhausted. You are reduced to drawing trace essence from food alone. Progress slows to a crawl.】

【Year seven — faint signs of a breakthrough. Your tendons have grown taut and powerful as coiled dragons — but without sufficient essence to fuel the final push, you proceed carefully, accumulating strength over time.】

【Year ten — you break through the Tendon Stage. Thunder-Wind Scripture, Volume One: Novice.】

(End of Chapter)