Wuchen stepped back from the desk and opened his free hand. The ledger’s copper edge brightened. Yan felt the pressure before he understood its target: the practiced sequence of the Heaven-Burial Step, the foot placement and breath that had carried him through the folded corridor.
The details blurred. His leading foot seemed to belong to the wrong step. The hall tilted as if the floor had shifted beneath him.
Yan brought up the Forgetting River Sutra. He had practiced it often enough to know what it did: the repeated forms had strengthened his memory, and he could keep his own surface thoughts concealed. It did not reveal Wuchen’s intention. It did not make the attack harmless. He fixed his attention on the route he had just crossed—the first mark, the turn, the last step—and kept the order clear.
The pressure bore down harder. For half a breath, the corridor in his mind vanished. Then the remembered stone under his sole returned: rough at the threshold, smooth past the fold. He could still feel the balance of his weight shifting forward. The Step had not been erased. It had been obscured, and he had enough practice to find it again.
Wuchen moved the brush through the air. The ink drew a black arch between them. Its surface filled with a picture of the central furnace collapsing. Yan saw Qinghe at the console, then a bright burst from the coils and the ring empty beneath the falling roof.
