Morning in a cheap noodle stall built into Tsun-Ji's lower ring. Steam, cracked bowls, and hanging price slips. Yu studies debt notes while six lanterns hover low under the rafters.

Yu checks the legal rule for extinct claimants and lets himself relax too soon.

Geng Rui enters the stall and takes the seat across from Yu without asking.

The Geng lantern reacts to Geng Rui's claim, confirming he may be legally dangerous.

Geng Rui lays out his claim: genealogy, exile record, and mourning cord.

Geng Rui reveals he wants a kidney as a down-payment, turning the legal claim bodily.

Yu weighs the lantern rules: he cannot lie to a present claimant and cannot deny a valid debt if the lantern recognizes him.

Yu begins delaying by invoking physical presentment rules and the need for recognized witnesses.

Yu challenges the genealogy's registration dates and whether Geng Rui can demand immediate collection.

Yu explains organ down-payments require a registered debt schedule; Geng Rui tests whether the lantern will punish the objection.

Geng Rui grants Yu a short delay, making the threat concrete and timed.

Yu hurries from the lower ring to the public archive with the lanterns following under his cloak-like shadows.

Inside the archive, Yu meets Archivist Luo at a desk buried under ledgers.

Yu pays Luo with the money he had saved for winter rent.

Luo leads Yu into the stacks and explains what the public ledgers can and cannot prove.

The Geng records are incomplete, making Geng Rui's claim harder to dismiss than Yu hoped.

Yu shifts from Geng to the smeared third lantern's suspicious filing number.

Luo searches the debt ledgers while Yu watches the filing sequence.

Yu notices the filing number's format does not match its claimed age.

Luo decides the conversation is too dangerous for the open reading stand and leads Yu deeper into the shelves.

In a secluded shelf aisle, Luo checks the cross-index and confirms the number was never issued.

Yu asks how a non-existent public number can appear on an inherited lantern, and Luo explains only Bureau authority can edit filings after inheritance.

The implication hits Yu: the enforcing office may have inserted the false debt, and saying it aloud is dangerous.

Yu exits the shelves and looks up at the sealed Bureau stair, realizing the danger is larger than Geng's knife.