Dawn at Cloud-Step Sect side gate. Servants enter below the shining disciple arch.

Flashback to Yu’s village farewell as Lin Qiao ties the debt-bond tag.

Back at Cloud-Step, the main disciple procession passes over the servant courtyard.

Elder Mo assigns labor and explains bond procedure with bureaucratic coldness.

Yu is not dramatically rejected; he is filed into labor.

Yu begins his first work in the white-pebble courtyard.

Yu accidentally nears the disciple stair path as intake disciples descend between tests.

Han Zhi shoves Yu into the pebbles and humiliates him.

Yu swallows the humiliation because retaliation is impossible.

Yu sweeps for hours and begins to notice the courtyard’s marks.

A single engraved character catches Yu’s attention.

Yu remembers why the character matters.

Yu examines the pebble more closely and finds something on its underside.

The word hits Yu harder than the shove.

Yu begins to read the courtyard as a possible text.

Night falls, but Yu cannot sleep after finding the scratched word.

Yu creeps under the steward office window while Elder Mo works inside.

Yu sees the steward ledger and memorizes what he can.

Yu redraws the ledger from memory and connects it to the courtyard.