In the narrow spaces of the deep stone halls, violence was a sound disaster.
A shouted curse, a clattering blade, or the thud of a falling body did not scatter into the open sky. It rebounded between the dense hard speckled rock walls, multiplying its hum until the entire chamber rang with clashing tension.
Qiao Ming understood this with the bone-deep knowledge of a land-mapper who had spent hundreds of years listening to the subtle groans of the great foundations. When a wave strikes an upright cliff, the water shatters into white, useless foam, tearing its own energy to pieces. But when that same wave encounters a sloping shingle beach, the water glides upward, expends its driving force in silence, and recedes without breaking a single stone.
He stood by the low stone table, his back to Yan Zhiqiu, adjusting the placement of the wooden bowl with slow, careful fingers.
Behind him, her ragged, whistling breathing filled the nook like the breath of a dying forge-bellows. The jagged stump of shale was still pressed against the soft skin of her throat, her hand shaking with such intense tremors that the sharp stone edge was nicking her deep skin. It drew tiny beads of dark crimson that trickled down her collarbone.
