He felt the gaze before he found the eyes.
Midday in Yunzhong's west market was a kind of cultivated chaos: vendors shouting over one another, steam rising from bamboo baskets, the clang of ladles against iron woks.
Zhenan moved through it in plain grey, no Crimson Red sash, no sect emblem. Only a nine-section chain lay coiled at his forearm like a bracelet and a duan dao rode high and plain, meant to be mistaken for a workman's knife. His sleeves were rolled once at the forearms and his collar loose at the throat to let the heat out. Nothing to betray the fact that he outranked most of the armed men in three streets.
Just one more tall figure in Yunzhong's midday crush.
That was the point.
Keep the steps even. Don't cut too clean a line through the crowd. Don't move like someone people should make room for.
He almost never saw the market this bright anymore. Most of his hours belonged to the river now: night crates, wet planks, fogged lanterns. Day crowds felt… thin, like a city wearing only half its weight.
Old Crane's voice, one of his informants, still echoed in his head:
"In and out. Don't linger. And don't let anyone with eyes like a ledger see you coming from my teahouse."
He was halfway past a stall selling bronze mirrors when he felt it.
A consciousness hooking, however briefly, on him. A thread of attention.
His Qi tightened, drawing in, condensing at his center. Years of practice made it subtle. From outside, not much shifted. On the inside, invisible lines cinched like a belt one notch tighter.
He didn't turn.
Zhenan had been taught to notice attention the way other men noticed weather.
It changed the air. It altered the flow.
Most stares in Yunzhong were predictable: fear that wanted distance, admiration that wanted proximity, resentment that wanted an excuse.
This one was different.
It was… measured.
He let his gaze slide, slow, across the source of the disturbance. The nearest reflective surface.
A bronze mirror.
First, it showed him only the crowd: a woman balancing baskets, a boy running with a string of candied fruit, a merchant leaning too close to his own reflection, inspecting his beard.
Then the mirror caught a cleaner angle.
Long lines, first. The impression of height, of someone built to leap and land lightly. The kind of body trained to leave the ground often, with that particular spring coiled in the calves.
Not a merchant's daughter. Not a dock girl. Not a courtesan.
A sect woman.
Jade Wind, if he read the posture right: wind-trained, ridge-boned, the kind that learnt distance as doctrine.
One of Pavilion Master Yun's.
The reflection sharpened as he slowed his gait to focus better.
A jade-green over-robe split high at the sides to mid-hip, flashing the long line of her legs as the panels shifted. She was slightly braced with the easy balance of a trained fighter. The Saffron Yellow sash at her waist marked her for what she was: Junior Ascendant of the Jade Wind Pavilion. The Ministry of War's couriers in all but name. Clean contracts. Clean reputation. A sect that had once burned a Bureau writ instead of bending to it.
But it wasn't the robe or the sash that held him.
Her long hair, dark brown and glossy, was tied back in a high tail, lightly swinging behind her. High cheekbones, full lips set in a line as she was concentrating. And her eyes…
Deep chestnut, with a glint of gold as the middle light hit. Focused. Intelligent. Too intent for someone who had only happened to glance his way. Eyes that missed little.
Those eyes were on him.
Not on the stall, not on the crowd. On him.
Something in him that had been coiled eased just a fraction.
A Jade Wind woman was watching him like he was a knot she meant to pick apart. That kind of attention got people killed.
In the mirror, he watched her realize he'd seen her.
Her shoulders went still. It was the smallest hitch, almost nothing, except he'd trained too long and too hard not to notice the way a body betrayed its owner.
He could have turned and pinned her with his gaze, forced her to look away, reminded her and the market who held the heavier weight in Yunzhong.
He didn't.
Jade Wind were not tavern girls. They watched for different reasons. And a misstep with them could travel back up a mountain.
Then, as if a string had been cut, she turned her head aside.
One smooth pivot, as though she'd only been eyeing the mirror itself and had now lost interest. Her fingers reached for a comb in the tray, a touch too quick to be natural. A woman reaching for cover. Pretending she'd never been staring at all.
A smile threatened. He set it back where it belonged.
Not bold, then.
Not immune to being caught… and not yet used to having her curiosity cost her. More interesting than Lord Xie's ledgers, at least.
He adjusted his path, just enough that he would pass within arm's length, nothing more. Enough to test a different sense.
As he stepped into the narrow shade of the stall, the market smells shifted. Oil and metal and sweat, and under that, the trace of wind, sun-warmed tile and the faint salt of exertion. The scent of someone who spent as much time on rooftops and courtyards as on streets.
Her Saffron Yellow sash was in his peripheral vision now, the ends swaying lightly with each breath. From this angle he saw how her shoulder blades sat perfectly aligned, no slack in her posture, the elegant lines of her back born less from vanity than from relentless training and corrections.
He felt the edge of her Qi brush his again, as he drew level.
Probing. Measuring. Not as delicate as an Elder's, but sharper than most in her rank. She reached for his center, trying to gauge weight, depth, threat.
He let her.
He simply let her feel what any Senior Ascendant should feel like: the steadiness, the layered control. The extra depth stayed wrapped tight, the way Elder Qiang and Deputy Elder Bai had drilled into him.
"Show them the cup," Elder Qiang had said once, a dry half-smile on his face. "Not the well."
Her reach touched that controlled surface and faltered. Like someone who'd expected to meet stone and instead found a curtain with something they couldn't name.
Good, he thought. Take what I give you, Jade Wind. Nothing more.
Then, deliberately, he smoothed his own Qi, easing the tightness, letting the lines lie calm and even. The way a hand might pass over ruffled water to erase the disturbance his first reaction had left.
He passed behind her then, the space between his sleeve and her shoulder no more than the width of two fingers. Not close enough to draw comment. Close enough to feel the way her breath stuttered once at his nearness.
She didn't look up.
To anyone else, she was just examining a comb, shoulder turned, posture loose. But he could feel how her awareness stayed locked on him, her attention burning like a candle turned sideways, pointed straight at his back through lowered eyelashes.
He didn't half-smile the way he did with tavern girls or curious outer disciples.
He just walked on.
He had an errand to finish. Old Crane would complain if he dawdled.
At the edge of the market, where the noise thinned, he finally allowed himself one small indulgence: a slow exhale and the ghost of a huff that might, in different life, have been a laugh.
She'd stared. Been caught. Then chosen to pretend nothing had happened.
He found he didn't dismiss it. That was already too much.
And there was more. He didn't know why she'd eased something in him he hadn't realised was taut.
He only knew this:
For the rest of the walk, his mind kept slipping back to the mirror and the way her gaze had snapped away when he met it.
Next time, he'd identify her before she'd even looked and decide whether he wanted to cut the thread or follow it.