The Pebble Roster

Synopsis

Sixteen-year-old Yu Heng enters Cloud-Step Sect as unranked labor, not a disciple: a broom boy with no spiritual root, a debt-bond tied to his wrist, and an eidetic memory for written marks. While sweeping the sect’s white-pebble courtyard, he discovers that the gravel is carved with names of vanished disciples. A stolen janitor’s logbook reveals the sect’s secret: every intake year produces only seven accepted cultivators, while the rest are “absorbed” into the courtyard as spirit-fertilizer. Yu cannot cultivate, cannot run, and cannot protect his mother if her bond defaults. His only weapon is paperwork. Each hidden ledger he reads lets him predict the next cull one step early, forcing him to decide who deserves warning, who can be traded, and whether survival means becoming part of the machine that grinds people into stones.

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