My dao to eternity

Nothing happened for the better part of a month, and Li Fan found that particular nothing more difficult to carry than he'd expected it to be.

He'd grown accustomed, across the years, to quiet stretching out ahead of him uninterrupted, whole seasons where the shop's ordinary rhythm was the only rhythm that mattered. This quiet felt different, thinner somehow, a held breath rather than genuine rest. He varied his route home each evening out of habit now rather than fresh alarm, checked the courtyard's outer ward each night before sleep, kept his sword worn openly rather than sheathed beneath his robe. The habits themselves had settled into something almost ordinary. The reason behind them hadn't.

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