Inside the Nine Courts, vermilion leases hang like prayer flags over a stone courtroom. Xiǎo Méi stands at the advocate's lectern under harsh lantern light, face fully visible to camera, composed and sharp.

The evidence table is crowded with bamboo slips, red seals, and a floating bead of smoky memory. The Ink Witness appears for formal testimony.

The voided lease burns in the air. Black claws made of contract strokes withdraw from a collapsed cultivator outside the main focus.

Outside Courtroom Seven, grey archive corridors are lined with case slips. Clerk Shu brings an urgent repossession file.

The file opens on a painted likeness and a bronze bell cord pressed flat as evidence. Qin Lian's face appears in the document portrait, fully visible to camera as a court rendering.

A memory interrupts the archive corridor: a woodshed under rain, recruiters' lanterns outside, a boy hiding a younger girl beneath straw.

Xiǎo Méi heads for emergency petition court. Judge Yan exits with Bailiff Niu, blocking the route.

A rapid exchange at the emergency petition counter. The court machinery tries to make urgency look routine.

Clerk Shu leads Xiǎo Méi into a cold archive where repossession warrants float in coffin-like drawers.

Xiǎo Méi peels back the warrant's final silk layer. A red ancient signature mark pulses like an eye.

The archive quiets. Xiǎo Méi decides to see Qin Lian before the law finishes counting him.