Cold morning at the Hollowfoot Pass inspection gate, black granite arch and caravan queue in fog.

Yan waits in the stopped inspection line just before the collapse is fully understood.

The line reacts to Bak's quiet collapse and the visible black scars.

Yan reads the collapse as a ledger problem rather than a shock.

Master Dou emerges from the inspection booth and selects Yan to certify the death.

Yan steps over Bak's broken ledger and prepares the death certification.

Yan identifies how Bak was trapped by a resealed token.

Yan writes the official cause while withholding the implied accusation.

Master Dou reviews Yan's certification and adds an annotation.

The inspection line resumes around Bak's corpse.

Yan prepares for his own inspection, but Master Dou stops him.

Lady Wei appears from the inspection booth side door.

Master Dou introduces Lady Wei's sealed contract and assigns Yan as courier.

Master Dou invokes Article Four, making refusal dangerous.

Yan chooses compliance and prepares his chest for the token.

Lady Wei reveals the sin-token.

Lady Wei presses the token to Yan's sternum and activates it.

The murder-memory enters Yan as facts rather than a conventional vision.

Yan learns the dead man's name and connects it to old caravan records.

The token reveals its recipient as Master Dou.

The murder-token settles into Yan and changes his physical state.

Master Dou clears Yan for the pass while Yan contains what he learned.

Yan faces Hollowfoot Pass with Bak's body behind him and the active murder-token inside him.

Yan enters Hollowfoot Pass alone with the active token.