My dao to eternity

The change arrived gradually enough that Li Fan noticed it the way he noticed most things — not through any single announcement, but through a shift in the city's ordinary texture that took several days to fully register as a pattern rather than a coincidence.

More banners moved through the inner district's streets than usual. More disciples in matching robes walked in loose formation rather than alone, their bearing carrying the particular confidence of men and women who expected the street to arrange itself around them rather than the reverse. The material markets grew busier, prices for common spiritual metals and refined herbs climbing week over week as demand outpaced what the valley's usual trade could easily supply. He asked no direct questions. He didn't need to. A conversation overheard outside the guild hall, two clerks discussing a sudden surge in commissions for temporary camp formations, told him enough. The Seven Great Sects were sending people into the valley in numbers the city hadn't seen in some while, and Myriad Beast City, true to its function, was simply expanding to absorb whatever business that brought with it.

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