The caravan has just entered the stone throat of Hollowfoot Pass. Cold daylight, cliff walls, lantern chain, loaded mules, and Yan at the front edge of the procession under the active murder-token.

Yan discovers the murder-token's strength in small involuntary ways while walking the narrow mountain road.

Yan anchors his fear with the system he learned as a child: convert panic into columns and totals.

The murder rule is stated plainly: he must commit a same-category act before sundown or the weight will crush him.

The caravan creeps toward the mid-peak waystation, and Yan calculates the remaining route.

Yan begins the human inventory of the caravan.

Yan crosses out the first categories of impossible targets: senior figures, the already dying, and protected children.

Guard Chen becomes the first serious entry on Yan's list, but Yan remembers the man's small past kindnesses.

Yan notices the kitchen-boy with the crooked nose giving extra food to Qiu, making him emotionally costly even before Yan knows the deeper connection.

Yan remembers what refusal or failure would cost his sister because her status remains legally vulnerable.

Yan assesses Lady Wei, the client who gave him the murder-token, and notices the courier-like control in her posture.

Yan assesses the remaining possible targets: a neutral merchant and an unknown ledger-clerk, but neither solves the practical problem cleanly.

The list narrows instead of solving anything.

The active murder-token hums in Yan's body, offering steadiness that feels like contamination.

Yan remembers courier training: do not re-read sin-memories, because the sinner's perspective can bleed into the carrier.

Yan re-enters the murder-memory: wine-cup, drain, merchant district stones, and the dead man, shown as fractured impressions rather than a full reveal.

In the memory, Yan reaches the argument before the murder and hears a third name used as leverage.

Yan physically stops in the road when the name lands, causing a minor disruption behind him.

Yan moves the discovery into a new column rather than reacting emotionally.

Yan connects Pei to transit papers and a senior signatory, realizing Pei's presence in the caravan was arranged.

Yan re-evaluates the months of extra rations Pei gave Qiu, realizing he treated kindness as a solved number when it may have been a hidden connection.

Pei shifts from background kindness to active list entry, and Yan resists the emotional simplification.

The deadline returns with brutal clarity: sundown is closer, and the mountain itself feels like a clock.

Yan closes the first list, opens the revised list, and walks faster toward the waystation with the murder-token active in his chest.