The scent resin pouch warmed in Lin Wuchen's palm as if it had a pulse.
It didn't, of course. It was just sticky, oily, alive with smell. Sweet rot, bruised fruit, something that made the back of the throat tighten.
Predator language.
Wuchen kept his hand inside his sleeve as he moved east, letting cloth soak a little of the resin so it wouldn't drip and leave an obvious shiny trail. Wei had said smear a decoy trail, not paint a road a child could follow.
He walked fast without running.
Running too early made sound. Sound made human eyes. Human eyes made everything complicated.
The deadfall gully came into view as the ridge dipped.
A narrow cut in the mountain, steep on both sides, filled with fallen trunks and broken stone. Wind moved strangely there. It funneled scent in a straight line and trapped it, making it feel like prey was always just ahead.
A perfect throat.
Wuchen stopped above it and listened.
No footsteps yet.
No laughter.
No Shen Lu.
That meant Shen Lu was still hunting his old line, still angry, still hungry for a rat that kept slipping away.
Good.
Hungry men didn't check the rope before it tightened.
Wuchen crouched and began making the decoy trail.
Not by pouring resin.
By touching.
He dabbed a finger into the pouch, then pressed it onto three stones in a line leading toward the gully mouth. A little on a low branch, as if a sleeve had brushed it. A smear on a pine root, then a broken twig placed deliberately, like someone had panicked and snapped it while running.
False signs.
Gu Yan's training without Gu Yan's face.
Then he did the more dangerous part.
He made himself the second story.
Wuchen dipped again and smeared resin onto a strip of cloth torn from his own sleeve. He tied the strip to a thorn bush at the gully's edge, high enough to catch scent in the wind.
It looked like torn clothing from a chase.
It smelled like it too.
Then he moved into the gully.
He didn't go deep. He went just far enough that if Shen Lu followed, he would commit to the descent and lose sight of the ridge behind him.
He crouched behind a fallen trunk and waited.
Waiting was the hardest work.
Your body wanted to move. Your mind wanted to imagine footsteps. Your breath wanted to turn loud.
Wuchen slowed everything down.
Ten breaths.
Twenty.
Thirty.
Then he heard it.
A single footstep on loose stone above.
Careful. Controlled. Not a beast.
Wuchen's fingers tightened around a rock shard, not as a weapon, but as something to keep his hands from shaking.
Shen Lu's voice drifted down, soft and pleased. "So you're here."
Wuchen didn't move.
A moment later, Shen Lu appeared at the gully mouth.
Narrow eyes, long nose, cloth wraps on knee and thigh. He looked tired, but his smile was bright with satisfaction. His gaze swept the broken branches, the resin marks, the torn cloth strip.
He nodded slowly like a man reading a letter written in scent.
"Good," Shen Lu murmured. "You learned to leave trails."
He stepped into the gully.
The deadfall swallowed him.
Wuchen's stomach tightened.
He stayed behind the trunk, forcing himself to wait until Shen Lu came farther down. If Shen Lu turned back too soon, the trap failed. If Wuchen moved too early, Shen Lu might hear and leap away.
Shen Lu walked down the gully carefully, stepping over logs, avoiding loose rocks. His posture was relaxed, but his eyes were sharp.
He stopped, sniffed, then smiled wider.
"You're close," he called softly. "I can smell your fear."
Wuchen's throat tightened.
He knew Shen Lu was lying. Fear didn't smell like that. Resin did.
But Shen Lu wanted Wuchen to believe he could be read completely.
That was how predators made prey freeze.
Wuchen didn't freeze.
He shifted his weight slowly, preparing to move.
Then Shen Lu spoke again, voice almost gentle. "Come out," he said. "I won't kill you fast. I'll break you and let you crawl back to Gu Yan."
Wuchen's fingers tightened hard enough to hurt.
Gu Yan wanted Shen Lu.
Wei wanted proof.
Sun Jiao wanted Wuchen back alive.
None of those wants mattered if Wuchen died here.
So Wuchen chose the only job he could do.
Run.
He slipped backward along the fallen trunk, moving deeper into the gully's maze of dead wood. He made sure to brush his sleeve lightly against rocks and branches as he went, letting resin marks continue.
Not too obvious.
Just enough.
Shen Lu heard the faint scrape.
He smiled.
"There," he whispered.
Footsteps sped up behind Wuchen, controlled but eager now. Shen Lu was committing.
Wuchen kept moving, guiding him toward the narrowest section of the gully where two fallen trunks formed a low arch and loose stones piled high on both sides.
A deadfall.
If it shifted, it would bury a man.
Wuchen had noticed it earlier when he scouted. The stones were balanced like teeth. One shove at the wrong point could make the whole pile collapse.
Wei's attendants would be waiting higher up, ready to push when Shen Lu entered.
That was the plan.
Wuchen's job was to bring Shen Lu under the teeth.
He reached the deadfall pinch point and slipped through first, belly low, moving like a rat.
He didn't stop.
He didn't look back.
He only listened for Shen Lu's weight.
One step.
Two.
The stones trembled faintly.
Shen Lu's voice came closer, amused. "You run like you were born in a latrine."
Wuchen's jaw clenched.
Then Shen Lu stepped under the deadfall.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Wuchen's stomach dropped.
Had Wei's attendants missed the cue?
Had they hesitated?
Had Shen Lu noticed?
Then a small stone clicked above.
A second click.
A slow shifting sound.
The deadfall pile began to move.
Shen Lu's head snapped up.
He had just enough time to widen his eyes.
"Ambush—" he started.
The stones came down.
Not all at once like a clean avalanche, but in a brutal cascade. Rocks slammed onto Shen Lu's shoulder, his back, his wrapped knee. He screamed, the sound raw, cut short as another stone struck his jaw.
Dust exploded.
Wuchen dropped flat behind a log and covered his head.
More rocks slid.
Wood cracked.
Then silence, except for the slow settling of stone and the hiss of dust.
Wuchen's lungs burned.
He lifted his head slowly.
The pinch point was clogged now. Stones and splintered trunk blocked the path. Somewhere under it, Shen Lu's body was pinned.
A weak sound came from beneath.
A wet, bubbling gasp.
Not dead.
Not yet.
Wuchen felt his stomach twist.
Wei had said useful, not alive. But a living Shen Lu might still crawl out with enough time and enough hatred.
Wuchen stepped closer, careful. He didn't climb the rocks. He knelt near a gap where he could see into the rubble.
A hand moved under stone.
Fingers twitching.
Blood.
Shen Lu's voice came, broken, furious. "Rat… I'll… I'll—"
Wuchen's throat tightened.
He wasn't supposed to fight him.
But this wasn't a fight.
It was a decision.
Wei wanted proof.
Proof could be a token.
Or fingers.
Wuchen stared at the hand.
He remembered the archer's knife at the stream.
Quiet blood.
He remembered Scribe Qiao's words about lying with blood.
He swallowed hard and took out Qin Sui's crude needle.
A thorn tip wrapped in cloth.
Not a knife.
Still sharp.
He leaned in and pressed it against Shen Lu's finger joint, right where bone met bone.
Shen Lu hissed, trying to pull away, but stone pinned him.
Wuchen's hands trembled once.
Then steadied.
He twisted hard.
A crack.
Shen Lu screamed, a thin, animal sound.
Wuchen didn't stop. He twisted again, breaking a second finger, then a third, fast, before his courage could fail.
He ripped the broken fingers free with the cloth strip, blood slick.
Shen Lu's hand spasmed, then went still.
Wuchen backed away, breathing hard, fingers bloody, stomach cold.
From above, a whistle sounded.
Wei's signal.
The attendants were coming down now, clean hands ready to collect what Wuchen had dirtied.
Wuchen wrapped the bloody fingers in oilcloth, shoved them into his sleeve, and stood, posture slumped again.
He waited near the gully mouth.
When Wei arrived, his eyes flicked once to Wuchen's sleeve and the faint red seep.
Wei didn't ask about Shen Lu's screams.
He only asked, voice flat, "Proof?"
Wuchen held out the oilcloth bundle.
Wei took it without expression, unwrapped it just enough to see, then nodded once.
"Good," Wei said. "Senior Brother Gu will be pleased."
Wuchen's throat tightened. "Is he dead?"
Wei glanced toward the rubble. "He will be," he said. "If not, the mountain finishes."
Wuchen swallowed.
Wei's eyes stayed flat. "You did well," he said, and it sounded like nothing.
Then Wei added, "Now go back to your team. Leave no trail that leads here."
Wuchen bowed.
He turned and walked away from the deadfall gully, sleeve heavy with blood smell despite the wrapping, mind steady only because it had to be.
He had delivered a man's broken fingers as proof.
He had become exactly the kind of tool Gu Yan liked.
And the worst part was that he didn't even know whether he'd done it to survive, or because he was learning to enjoy being useful.