The remainder of the journey to Pine Valley and back to the capital felt like crossing a graveyard.
No more of Uncle Gou's raspy laughter. No more idle chatter from the young guards. For the rest of the route, they kept a distance of at least five paces from the rear wagon.
When night fell and they had to make camp, not a single one of them dared ask Wei Liang to take a watch shift.
They treated him not as a young master to be protected, but as an anomaly to be avoided.
When the wagons finally rolled back into the courtyard of the Thousand Steps Escort Guild two days later, Wei Changfeng was already waiting at the pavilion.
"How was the trip, Old Gou?" asked Changfeng as he checked the cargo ropes.
Uncle Gou stiffened for a moment. The veteran's eyes flicked briefly toward Wei Liang, who had just climbed down from his wagon.
"Smoothly, Guild Master," Uncle Gou answered, his voice slightly hoarse. "No… significant obstacles."
Wei Changfeng furrowed his brow, catching the unnatural tension in his most trusted guard's shoulders.
But before he could ask further, he saw his son walking past him toward the barracks.
"Liang-er," Changfeng called. "Wash the road dust off yourself and change your clothes. In half an hour, come with me."
Wei Liang stopped walking, turning his head slightly without rotating his entire body.
"For what?"
"To listen," his father answered curtly. "You've seen how the Escort Guild operates on the road. Now you need to see how they operate at the table."
One hour later.
Six escort guild representatives from various district territories sat around a round table whose surface was already scored with old cuts.
They were all smiling. Hidden smiles.
Wei Liang sat quietly on a wooden chair directly behind his father's back.
One hundred and twenty seconds. That was all the time he needed to categorize every person in this room by their level of biological threat.
The two men on the left side of the table had short, restless breaths. They always stared at their cups when speaking.
Bottom-tier herbivores. Surviving by eating scraps.
The three men on the right had more upright postures, swords leaning near their knees. But the calluses on their hands were uneven, a sign that they had been counting coins far more often than swinging blades lately.
Former predators whose teeth had begun to dull.
Then there was the sixth man.
He sat directly across from Wei Changfeng. His robe was made of thick black silk, stark against the room's worn furnishings. He was the Guild Master of White Tiger Guild, the largest escort guild controlling the majority of trade routes in this territory.
The alpha of this small pack, Wei Liang thought.
"Brother Wei," the White Tiger Guild Master's voice cut through the room's small talk. "I heard you recently lost three wagons on the river route and were forced to detour through Stone Hill. That's a very exhausting route."
Wei Changfeng set down his teacup calmly. "Just a minor logistics issue, Guild Master Ma. The cargo arrived safely, and the client was not disappointed. That is what matters most."
Guild Master Ma laughed softly. "Of course, of course. But we all know, the Thousand Steps Escort Guild is… running short of breath. Security taxes on the southern routes are rising, and the bandits are growing bolder."
He leaned his body forward.
"Listen, we all walk the same roads. If one escort guild falls, all our reputations suffer. I have two escort contracts from the capital that are short on manpower this month. What if I redirected them to Thousand Steps? You wouldn't need to bother finding clients — just lend us your banner and your men."
The room fell abruptly silent. The five other guild masters stopped moving.
Some looked down. Others averted their gaze.
From behind his chair, Wei Liang observed the exchange.
No coins offered on the table. No written agreement.
Guild Master Ma had just offered assistance to save Thousand Steps from bankruptcy. But Wei Liang could smell the rot coming off that offer.
In this lower tier of the murim world, a debt of money had a final repayment date. But a debt of favor had no limit.
If Changfeng accepted those contracts, White Tiger Guild would not merely be buying Thousand Steps' labor, but all of their future assets.
So humans have created a currency made of obligation, Wei Liang thought. No wonder they never stop fighting over it.
"I deeply appreciate your offer, Brother Ma," Changfeng answered. "But our hands are already full this month. I'm afraid we cannot serve the capital's clients at the standard they would expect. Let White Tiger take that honor."
Guild Master Ma smiled.
To the others in the room, that smile appeared understanding. But Wei Liang's eyes caught the vein in Guild Master Ma's neck suddenly pulsing faster, and his pupils contracting in a way that was not natural.
That was not an offer. That was a test.
Guild Master Ma had never intended to hand over those contracts. He was only measuring how desperate Thousand Steps had become.
And Changfeng's refusal had just given the alpha an answer he did not like: Thousand Steps was still fighting back.
"A pity," Guild Master Ma murmured, leaning back. "White Tiger's door is always open if you change your mind, Brother Wei."
Wei Liang shifted his gaze away from the round table.
His observation of White Tiger was complete. But as he turned his head, his eyes caught something that did not fit the geometry of this room.
In the darkest corner of the room, far from the round table, sat a man in dull grey clothing.
The man had no teacup. He had not been invited to the table, and not a single one of the six escort guild representatives had noticed his presence.
But what made Wei Liang's instincts snap to attention was the direction of the man's gaze.
That pair of eyes. utterly calm, utterly without emotion, was looking directly at Wei Liang.
Wei Liang held the gaze. He let his instincts touch the air, trying to read any ripple of qi or emotional fluctuation from the man.
Empty.
Like himself, the man radiated no fear, no anger, no killing intent.
The man was looking at Wei Liang the way one looks at a puzzle piece found in the wrong place on a chessboard.
After a stretch of tedious time, the round table meeting ended.
Chairs scraped backward. The sound of polite laughter filled the air again as the guild masters rose to exchange farewells.
Just as someone walked past and cut Wei Liang's line of sight, the grey-clad man in the corner rose.
Wei Liang shifted left to look again.
Only dust drifted through a slant of light from the gap in the window. The corner was empty.
The man had vanished as though he had never been there at all.
In a thousand years of hunting, no target had ever disappeared before he could identify it.