The blue glaze hissed against Master Yaoquan’s robes as the supervisor flailed, coughing up mouthfuls of indelible cerulean slime. Five junior hands rushed past Cui Heng with pine poles and hemp toweling, shouting in panic, their boots skidding across the wet stone. None of them looked twice at the trembling mixer pressed against the timber pillar. Cui Heng slipped backward into the steam-choked alley between the drying sheds, one hand clamped over the bulge in his coarse canvas tunic. *"Cease squishing my ribs, mortal,"* the voice grumbled directly behind his forehead. It sounded like two river rocks grinding together beneath a muddy current. *"A celestial being requires breathing room, particularly after consuming stale lard and whatever foul grease coated that brass whip."* Cui Heng ducked beneath a low tile eaves, sweat chilling along his collarbone as he pulled open his tunic. The creature poked its blunt, whiskers-strewn snout into the cool mountain air. Small, iridescent scales shimmered along its russet fur like wet pennies. Its pupils were horizontal slits of pale gold. "You... spoke," Cui Heng whispered, checking over both shoulders. "Inside my skull." *"Of course I spoke inside your skull. Moving my tongue in this damp chill requires far too much moisture. I am Baozong, Sovereign of the Shallows, Lord of the Ebbing Tide, Scourge of—pah. Look at these whiskers. Two are snapped. Unacceptable."* The rust-cat squirmed, settling its forepaws over Cui Heng’s collarbone. *"Hear me clearly, lackey. The heavens operate on strict balance sheets. You bought my shell with silver and bitter dock ointment. The cosmos recognizes the debt. Therefore, so long as you feed my gut, any mortal harboring spite toward you shall have their fortunate stars liquidated. I convert their malice into immediate, localized catastrophe."* "Catastrophe?" Cui Heng swallowed, his thumb tracing a jagged burn on his palm where pine-flux had eaten through skin three months ago. "Master Yaoquan... he fell because of you?" *"A clumsy toad blinded by rancor. The ledger balanced itself by sending him skull-first into the dye. Now, shut your useless mouth and procure the carp. Steamed with wild ginger, or raw if the scales are crisp. If you bring me dried smelt again, I shall curse your left sandal to come untied every eight paces."* Cui Heng had spent seven years keeping his chin tucked against his throat, absorbing kicks from senior disciples and scalding splashes from the boiling vats. He was accustomed to yielding, accustomed to shrinking until he became invisible against the gray flagstones. The idea that someone—or some beast—punished his tormentors made his teeth buzz with unease. Yet, looking down at the creature's notched ears, he felt a strange, quiet tug of duty. A promise was a promise. He trotted toward the rear sculleries of the outer court, keeping to the drainage gutters where the runoff smelled of vinegar and lye. The cooks had cleared lunch service an hour prior, leaving the slop buckets and wicker pens submerged in the river sluice. Cui Heng had just managed to scoop a fat, mud-colored grass carp from an untreated wooden cistern when a sharp voice broke the steady murmur of the waterfall. "If you pull that out by the gills, the bile will burst and taint the flesh." Cui Heng jumped, nearly dropping the writhing fish back into the ditch. Standing on the stone steps above him was a young woman in the pale jade robes of an inner artisan, though her sleeves were pinned back with cheap hemp twine rather than silver needles. Ink stains darkened her fingertips to the knuckle, and her long hair was tied in an untidy bun pierced with a bamboo stylus. Su Linyin. Cui Heng recognized her instantly; terrace gossip named her as the talisman-painter demoted to mending cracked storage urns after defying Elder Meng's circle. "M-my apologies, Lady Su," Cui Heng stammered, dropping to one knee on the mossy rock. "I did not mean to trespass. The cook said the dead fish could be cleared—" "Get up," she sighed, descending the stairs with a basket of tallow candles. Her gaze fell not on his frightened face, but on his forearms, where raw, peeled scars formed a sickening web around his wrists—the mark of daily contact with caustic sulfur glazes. "Your hands are weeping blood, boy. Don't hide them. It does no good to play the stone when the water is already wearing you down." She set her basket on a rain barrel, reached into her sleeve, and produced a small strip of thick peachwood bark painted with vermilion cinnabar. "Here. Slip this under your leather wrist-guards. It won't cure the poison, but it repels the corrosive vapor for half a month. A failed talisman of mine—the ink line wobbled on the seventh stroke—so the inspectors won't log it missing." Cui Heng stared at the wood. Even an imperfect talisman carried a value equal to three months of his meager stipend. "I... I cannot take this, Scholar Su. I have nothing to give in return." *"Take it, idiot,"* Baozong's mind-voice hissed from inside his jacket, vibrating against Cui Heng’s chest. *"The ink is made with ground tortoise shell. It hums with good sediment. Take it before she notices the tail sticking out of your armpit."* "Take it," Su Linyin repeated, pressing the bark into his calloused palm. Her fingers were cold, smelling of dried pine soot and wolf hair. "The craft was meant to elevate iron into art, not grind boys into bone meal. Go on, before the cooks wake from their nap." Cui Heng bowed three times, backing away until the curve of the granary wall hid her from sight. In his chest pocket, Baozong began gnawing hungrily on the raw carp's head with terrifying efficiency, bones crunching like gravel under a wagon wheel. When Cui Heng returned to the second terrace, the air in the boiling-hall had turned sour. Master Yaoquan stood on the supervisor’s dais wrapped in wool blankets, his scalp and face dyed an absurd, glaring azure. Only his bloodshot eyes showed white against the indigo mask of permanent pigment. Below him, two senior disciples—Gao Feng and his cousin, both favored sycophants who carried lacquered short-swords—leaned against a railing, glowering at Cui Heng as he took his place by the third simmering vat. "Look at the dog," Gao Feng muttered, loud enough to carry over the rumble of boiling resin. "The supervisor slips, and the vat-boy scuttles off to flirt with the disgraced scribe by the kitchens. Did you see her hand him a charm? A rat receiving jade." "He needs a lesson in rank," his cousin replied, palming a small paper packet of sulfur-ash—a common explosive agent used to blast rock in the lower mines. "Let's see him work his kettle when the scalding gum splashes his teeth." Cui Heng kept his head bowed, grasping his heavy ash-wood paddle and sinking it into the thick, steaming gray resin. He felt the disciples approach, heard the scrape of their soft-soled shoes on the stone behind his back. His knuckles whitened against the paddle. He waited for the blow, or the scald, bracing his legs as he had done a hundred times before. *"Disrespectful grubs,"* Baozong murmured, his voice thick with satisfied carp grease. *"They intend to spoil my afternoon slumber. Diverting river flow... adjusting the cloud-veins... now."* Gao Feng flicked his wrist, tossing the open packet of gray powder toward Cui Heng's bubbling kettle. At that precise fraction of a second, an unnatural draft sucked down through the ventilation flues of the high stone ceiling. The air inverted with a low *thwip*. The powder stalled mid-air, caught by the counter-draft, and blew violently backward into Gao Feng’s open mouth and his cousin’s blinking face. Simultaneously, the simmering tub spat an oily globule of seething binding-gum—not forward, but straight into the wind, splattering across both disciples' faces. Panicking, both youths slapped their palms against their cheeks to scrape away the scalding paste. The gum set instantaneously. A chorus of muffled, nasal shrieks echoed through the vat-house. Both disciples stumbled across the flagstones, their hands cemented fast over their mouths and noses, fingers fused into solid blocks of cured amber crust. They collided with an iron drying rack, toppling dozens of cured spear shafts with a deafening clatter. Cui Heng stood motionless, paddle submerged, blinking through the gray steam. Not a single drop had touched his clothes. Up on the supervisor's platform, Master Yaoquan went stiff. Through his solid-blue face, a vein pulsed violently over his temple. His hand crushed the cedar tally-slate he held until the cord snapped. He stared past his squirming, glued disciples straight at Cui Heng. "You," Yaoquan's voice rattled from across the hall, thick with hatred. "Cui Heng." Cui Heng dropped his gaze to the stone floor immediately, his spine bending by reflex. "Master Yaoquan." "Since you possess such remarkable luck with ordinary resins," Yaoquan hissed, limping down the steps, blue crust flaking off his dried earlobes, "you are promoted. Clear your bench. You will paddle Vat Nine for the remainder of the cycle." A suffocating quiet fell over the floor. Men turned away, crossing their fingers inside their sleeves. Vat Nine was the Crimson Venom cauldron—a deep, iron basin filled with seething blood-root and mountain-wasp bile, notorious for venting lethal fumes that rotted a man's lungs within three shifts. No worker assigned to Vat Nine had survived to attend a Grand Festival in forty years. *"Blood-root?"* Baozong's sleepy voice rumbled inside Cui Heng’s chest, accompanied by a small, wet burp. *"Splendid. The fumes smell of roasted sparrow. Make sure you fetch two carp tomorrow, boy. This next balance sheet is going to require substantial ink."*

The Ebbing Tide Demands Carp