The next night on the seventh floor: moonlit jade counters, immortal clerks above, mortal courier lanes below, and Lu Yan returning to work after the green-hooded deposit.

Lu Yan hides her forbidden stitched ledger inside her courier satchel before the shift fully begins.

Another mortal courier notices Lu Yan guarding her satchel and warns her not to attract attention.

Lu Yan performs the official verification procedure, showing how her taste gift fits into pawnshop work.

A sect elder’s century-old deposit tastes wrong: too young, medicinal, and not his.

Lu Yan signs the official receipt while secretly encoding the stolen disciple-years into her ledger.

A fellow courier nearly catches Lu Yan writing and warns her again.

A veiled noble presents a ten-year pledge sealed in a cinnabar orb.

The noble’s single pledge tastes like three siblings blended together under one seal.

Lu Yan records the blended sibling taste without being able to accuse the noble.

A wandering swordsman arrives with a narrow crystal vial of lifespan collateral.

The swordsman’s collateral contains the death-flash of mountain rain, implying the years came from someone who died violently.

Lu Yan must complete the transaction even though the taste suggests murder.

Lu Yan develops her own coded language because she cannot read the official cultivation script.

The floor grows busier, making Lu Yan’s secret work more dangerous.

The other couriers remind Lu Yan that Lu Miao’s treatment depends on her clean work record.

A new, unrelated customer’s deposit carries a faint note of Lu Yan’s mother’s bloodline.

The faint maternal note evokes Lu Suwen’s remembered taste, but only as a fragment.

Lu Yan secretly records the maternal fragment but refuses to jump to conclusions without a pattern.

A second unrelated transaction carries the same maternal note, making coincidence impossible.

Lu Yan understands that her mother’s lifespan may have been divided and laundered through multiple accounts.

As the shift thins out, Lu Yan finds a talisman-lit corner to expand the ledger map.

Lu Yan draws a rough map of counters, routes, robe colors, and bloodline fragments.

Lu Yan circles the green hood’s route in shaking ink, understanding that her mother’s stolen years are part of a larger chain.