Yu's attic above the noodle stall on a grey morning. Steam seeps through floorboards while the six lanterns hover low around his desk.

Yu prepares to leave, checking his notes and trying to steady his hands before the formal negotiation.

The street climb from the lower ring to the Mu contract hall, shifting from soot and noodles to polished stone and guarded warehouses.

The Mu contract hall, a wealthy merchant venue arranged for public negotiation.

Inside the hall: incense, contract boards, witnesses, and Mu Zhaowen waiting as if presiding over a performance.

The formal opening of the negotiation, with ritual courtesy and contract tools displayed.

Yu tries to force the discussion onto the actual Mu debt, but Mu redirects with social pressure.

Mu publicly draws attention to the smeared third lantern, turning Yu's private fear into public embarrassment.

Mu presents the trap as a reasonable gesture of honesty before negotiation.

Yu remembers the rule of voluntary extinction and feels the bodily consequence behind Mu's polite wording.

Yu resists the urge to react and begins questioning Mu's position.

Mu turns Yu's caution into a public accusation of dishonesty.

Yu nearly reaches toward the third lantern, tempted by the chance that the false debt might vanish.

Yu stops himself and turns the trap into a recordable statement.

Mu, eager to humiliate Yu, repeats the extinction request clearly before witnesses.

Yu confirms that Mu has made extinction a condition of negotiation.

Yu names the precedent that converts Mu's trap into coercive initiation.

Yu explains the precedent plainly while the lanterns react to the legal truth.

The supernatural contract confirms Yu's argument, humiliating Mu before the witnesses.

Mu's public poise breaks for a moment; the room laughs once and then remembers the danger.

Mu retreats from the trap but refuses to resolve the actual Mu debt, leaving Yu's victory incomplete.

Outside the Mu hall at dusk, Yu leaves shaken and finds Bei Ling waiting with a black-edged writ.

Bei Ling delivers the reassignment order and the Bureau's revised schedule.

Bei Ling's official mask cracks as she tells Yu the deadline has been shortened to fourteen days.