The crackdown didn't come with banners.
It came with inconvenience.
Ren noticed it in the smallest ways first.
A road normally open was suddenly "under review."A river crossing demanded new documentation.Waystations that once asked nothing now asked everything.
Not just of him.
Of everyone.
Merchants argued with clerks who didn't understand the orders they were enforcing. Refugees waited for hours under the sun while guards flipped through papers that didn't exist yesterday.
The echo inside Ren stirred faintly.
Not alarmed.
Displeased.
"They're trying to catch smoke with a net," the courier muttered as they stood in line at a checkpoint that had doubled in size overnight.
Ren watched the guards work.
They weren't cruel.
They were confused.
A young guard glanced up at Ren, eyes tired.
"Affiliation?" he asked automatically.
"None," Ren replied.
The guard hesitated, quill hovering.
"…Then what category?"
Ren met his gaze.
"Traveler."
The guard wrote it down and waved him through, relief plain on his face.
Behind Ren, an argument broke out.
A merchant shouted.A cultivator scoffed.A guard raised his voice too quickly.
Tension spread.
Ren kept walking.
By midday, word had traveled ahead of him.
"Routes are slowing.""Trade's choking.""They're stopping the wrong people."
At a crossroads market, Ren listened as a woman cursed under her breath.
"They say it's about safety," she spat."But all it's doing is making people desperate."
Ren nodded.
Desperation always found an outlet.
The echo pulsed — attentive.
That evening, Ren and his small group camped near a dried riverbed. Fires dotted the distance as other travelers did the same, unable to reach towns before nightfall because of inspections.
People talked.
Shared food.
Shared information.
And slowly, something unexpected happened.
They coordinated.
Without being asked.
Someone suggested watch rotations.Another mapped which checkpoints were strictest.A third shared a safer detour.
Ren watched it unfold without intervening.
The echo hummed — not pleased, not proud.
Confirmed.
"They're doing it themselves," the guard murmured beside Ren.
"Yes," Ren replied quietly."That's what happens when control overreaches."
Far away, in a hall filled with raised voices, an official slammed his palm against a table.
"This is inefficient!"
An elder replied coldly:
"Then isolate the source."
"We can't," another snapped."He's not centralized."
Silence followed.
The net had been thrown too wide.
And instead of catching its target…
It had taught everyone how to move around it.
Ren lay beneath the stars that night, hands folded behind his head.
The echo pulsed steadily in his chest.
Not expanding.
Not hiding.
Anchoring.
"They're afraid of losing control," Ren murmured.
The echo agreed.
And when the world tried to tighten its grip…
It only revealed how much it relied on fear to function.
Tomorrow, the net would tighten again.
But Ren already knew the truth:
The wider it spread,the easier it was to slip through.