Luo found Yan at the yard gate before dawn. He had a canvas bag slung over one shoulder and a folded note in his hand.
“You said you wanted a witness,” Yan said.
“I said I wanted a clear account. I did not say I wanted to watch you from the far side of a wall.” Luo unfolded the note. “One low-output activation in the courtyard. I stay outside the boundary, and Bai holds the record.”
Bai Jiu arrived from the market lane carrying a pill delivery. “What record?”
Luo showed him the report copy he had taken to the watch captain. The captain had not ordered Yan to stop, but wanted a witness to confirm the result and the written warning before the next practice. “I can’t tell the clerk what happened by repeating a rumor,” Luo said. “I need a person who saw the activation and a record that says what the art normally costs.”
Bai set the pill sack down. “I can witness the practice. I can also hold the terms if there’s a wager.”
“Why a wager?” Yan asked.
“Because I want you to stand at the end,” Luo said. “If the warning is right for ordinary people, I want to see the difference for myself. I’m not asking you to prove anything for the yard.”
Bai opened the sack and checked that the labeled packets were still tied separately. “Then the witness should have something to remember it by.”
Luo pointed to the bag. “A wager. If Yan collapses, I get the expensive steamed buns. If he remains standing, he gets them.”
Bai grinned. “I’ll hold the purse and keep the terms honest.”
“Why are buns involved?” Yan asked.
“Because the watch crew is tired of dry millet.” Luo handed Bai a coin purse. “The terms are written here. I put down the price of the buns. Yan gets them if he stays up.”
Yan looked at the courtyard. “One activation, complete sequence, low output. Enough qi in reserve.”
“No second use today,” Luo said. “And I still want a written explanation of the danger.”
“You’ll get one.” Gu had come out from the library with the pulse strip. “The warning stays attached to the record.”
Bai checked the purse and copied the terms into his route book. “I’ll witness both the wager and the practice. The buns belong to Yan if he remains standing.”
Luo led them into the courtyard. The chalk ring had been moved to the rear space, where the walls blocked the red glow from the upper walkway. The gate stayed closed. Yan checked the boundary and gathered a measured amount of qi while Gu checked his pulse.
“One activation,” Gu said.
Yan followed the complete breath pattern. Blood-colored qi surged through his limbs, and his strength rose. The life cost began as a cold pull in his chest, then reversed into warmth and renewed vigor before weakness could set in. He remained on his feet.
Luo watched his posture and the pulse strip. “You’re still standing.”
Yan smiled. “I am.”
Bai handed him the canvas bag. It held six steamed buns, still warm through the paper. Yan grinned at Luo. “You paid for all six?”
“I said buns. I didn’t say one.”
Yan took one bun and split the bag between the three of them. “Then we share the prize.”
Luo laughed. “That was not in the terms.”
“It is now.”
Bai took one bun. “I’m not refusing a lawful dividend.”
They sat on the courtyard wall, outside the chalk ring, and ate breakfast. Luo asked Yan to write down the technique’s normal danger in language the watch captain could understand. Yan explained that a single circulation burns a month of lifespan and leaves an ordinary practitioner too weak to stand. The System had changed his own result into renewed vigor, but he had no evidence that it would do the same for another person.
Luo nodded. “I can keep the courtyard schedule clear if you continue practicing at dawn.”
“Keep the light below the roofline,” Bai said. “The last rumor cost us half a market morning.”
Yan agreed. The closed rear courtyard and the early hour would keep others from wandering into the burst or copying it. Luo did not demand that Yan stop. He asked for a time and place where the practice could happen without putting other workers at risk.
Bai brought out the new pill packet he had delivered. It had an intact label and a known source. He checked the fee and recorded the price in his book. Yan looked at the packet, then back at the breakfast bag.
“Is there a courier fee for betting service?” Bai asked.
“No,” Yan said. “But you get a bun as a tip.”
“Now you are charging me for a bun I already ate.”
“I’m not charging. I’m tipping.”
Luo used his winnings to buy a second basket for the watch crew at the market stall. “This way the buns can travel without spilling.”
Bai looked at the basket. “The real cultivation is the watchman’s generosity.”
“Stop talking before the price of breakfast rises again,” Luo said.
Yan left the remaining buns with him. The wager had settled the question of whether Yan could repeat the activation in front of a witness. It had not made the method safe for anyone else. Gu kept the written danger with the practice log, and Luo kept the courtyard schedule clear at dawn.
Before the watchman left, Yan wrote out the warning in full. Luo read it and signed the note as a witness. “I’ll keep this with the report. If anyone asks, I’ll show them the risk and the supervised result together.”
Bai copied the wager into his route book as food paid by Luo, not a pill sale or a courier fee. He counted the buns against the price on the receipt and left the unused coins in the purse. Luo checked the amount and wrote his initials beside Bai’s entry.
“You two have made breakfast more official than my patrol,” Luo said.
“Only because you used a purse,” Bai answered.
Yan tucked the written danger into the same notebook as the pulse record. He did not call it proof that no future activation could hurt him. It was an account of one witnessed morning and the warning for everyone else. “Keep the source attached,” Gu said. “The result without the warning would tell the wrong story.”
Luo folded the copy into his patrol book. “I know.”
The courtyard gate opened. Bai took the pill delivery to the market, and Yan went to his shift with a warm bun in his hand. The red light had stayed below the wall, the practice had been witnessed, and no one had to guess what the wager meant.