Muo lifted the lamp toward the family cabinet while Daro checked the seal against the new order. The first latch had opened cleanly. Yao had chosen her copy, Jian his, and Lian was marking which sheets they had taken from the cabinet’s records. The original pages sat in their place.
A carved figure shifted on the shelf behind them.
Han saw the movement first. “Step back from the cabinet.”
The figure’s wooden head turned toward the open doors. A row of cords snapped from its chest and lashed across the aisle. One wrapped around Han’s wrist. Another caught the edge of the record case and dragged it off the table.
“Marked aisle!” Muo shouted. “Everyone back to the center.”
The formation had mistaken the movement of the cabinet for an unauthorized extraction. Yan heard the order and reached for the falling case. A cord struck across his forearm and pulled him toward the stone floor.
He started the joint-reinforcement art. The sequence settled into his body at once. The method’s intended strain turned into clean strength through his shoulders and elbows. He braced his arms against the pull and held the cords away from Qinghe and the family witnesses.
The cords tightened around his sleeve. Cloth tore. The pull was real, but his reinforced joints held. He dug his heels into the stone and kept the line high enough that it did not sweep across the papers.
