Promotion courtyard of Mirror Pool Sect under morning mist, jade mirrors, and floating oath-bells.

Elder Luo reads promotion results from a lacquered ledger as disciples wait.

Disciples mock Yan's failure while the mountain-binding cord on his wrist is shown.

A debt dispute interrupts the promotion results near the oath-bells.

Cai Ren is positioned under the oath-bell as Elder Luo explains the rule.

Cai Ren lies under oath and is immediately punished.

The courtyard falls silent after oath punishment.

Elder Luo dismisses Yan to records duty and adds a worse task.

Yan walks from the promotion courtyard toward the Records Pavilion, aware he cannot leave the mountain.

The Records Pavilion interior, full of tablet racks, clerks, and dust.

Elder Luo shows Yan the sealed stack of ancient oath-tablets.

Yan begins cleaning the tablets and notices a familiar brush style.

Yan discovers the tablets were written by his disgraced grandfather and remembers the inkstick.

Night falls in the Records Pavilion; Yan unwraps the salt-wrapped inkstick.

Yan grinds the inherited ink and applies it to an oath-tablet.

A second hidden line appears beneath the visible oath.

Yan verifies that the second line is part of the oath structure, not a stain or illusion.

Yan realizes servant disciples were never taught to read the hidden fallback clauses.

Yan finds a tablet bearing the seal of First Seat Mu Qingyuan.

Yan works through what the hidden clause means and what it does not reveal yet.

Yan finds more tablets bearing First Seat-related seals in the same stack.

Dawn reaches the Records Pavilion as Yan begins copying the hidden clauses.