My dao to eternity

They entered Quiet River Town on a gray afternoon, ten of them, walking in loose formation down the main street with the particular bearing that no amount of plain traveling clothes could fully disguise — straight spines, even strides, eyes that moved across the town's rooftops and alleyways with a thoroughness no ordinary traveler would think to apply.

Li Fan felt them before he saw them, a ripple of unfamiliar qi crossing the edge of his ordinary, modest range while he stood at his workbench with a half-finished drawer joint in his hands. He did not go to the window. He simply kept working, the chisel moving in slow, even strokes, while beneath the stillness his attention sharpened to a fine point.