Outside the restricted top-floor circle after the commendation meeting, moonlit jade and gold mist recede behind Jiaolin.

Jiaolin begins the long descent from the senior floors toward the public levels.

Jiaolin passes through a lower administrative hall where clerks notice his return from above.

At the turn toward the bank's lower exits, a stair sign points to the basement furnace room.

The physical weight of the two pockets stops Jiaolin before he can leave.

Jiaolin enters the black-stone basement passage leading to the melting furnace.

The furnace clerk demonstrates ordinary melting with retired metal.

Jiaolin gets the furnace room to himself.

Jiaolin removes the inherited witness coin for the first time in the furnace room.

Jiaolin compares the coin against Meilin's freedom paper, making the choice concrete.

The conspiracy presses back through memory and evidence, but Jiaolin refuses to let it outweigh Meilin.

Jiaolin commits to destroying the inherited coin.

The inherited coin enters the fire.

The furnace behaves normally at first, and Jiaolin waits for the choice to become irreversible.

The inherited coin refuses the furnace for the first time visibly.

Jiaolin recognizes the witness-coin furnace rule from collector training.

Jiaolin tests the refusal and confirms it is not ordinary stubborn metal.

Jiaolin rethinks the grandmaster's truthful offer in light of the coin's refusal.

Jiaolin understands the two terrifying possibilities.

Meilin's freedom paper becomes fragile in Jiaolin's hands again.

The furnace clerk calls from outside, forcing Jiaolin to hide the scale of the problem.

Jiaolin realizes neither leaving nor taking the coin is safe.

The pilot closes on the furnace's verdict: the coin intact, Jiaolin alone before it.