The fog didn't leave after morning.
It stayed—
not drifting, not spreading. Just holding its shape, like it had somewhere to be and decided Willow Brook was inconveniently in the way.
Tianlian noticed the delay first.
Fog was lazy by nature. This one wasn't.
He slowed near the marsh without announcing it. Mei adjusted immediately, a half-step behind him instead of walking beside him like usual.
Good. She's learning.
He crouched and pressed two fingers into the wet earth. The moisture clung longer than it should've. When he lifted his hand, the surface didn't rebound right away.
"…Still warm," he muttered.
Mei frowned. "From the sun?"
"No." He wiped his fingers on his pants. "From traffic."
She stiffened. Her eyes flicked to the reeds—not where the path was clear, but where it almost was. "People?"
"Maybe." Tianlian tilted his head, scanning the fog-laced marsh. "More likely tools."
That earned him a look.
"Tools?" she echoed.
"Yeah," he said calmly. "Nobody serious comes in person for first contact. Too much commitment."
They moved again.
The marsh path hadn't changed—at least, not visibly—but the choices had. Some stones were easier to step on now. Some reeds parted more cleanly. Others resisted, snagging at sleeves and hems like mild discouragement.
Tianlian followed the easy route for exactly three steps.
Then stopped.
"…Nope."
He stepped sideways, deliberately choosing the slightly worse footing.
The fog reacted late.
Not wrong. Just late.
That was enough.
He exhaled through his nose, more amused than tense. "Yeah. That's definitely a record process."
Mei blinked. "A what?"
"Think paperwork," he said. "We're being filled in, not hunted."
She didn't look reassured. "That's supposed to be better?"
"Marginally," he replied. "Means whoever set this up doesn't like surprises."
A soft click echoed somewhere in the fog. Not loud. Not mechanical. More like the sound of a decision being acknowledged.
Tianlian smiled faintly. "There it is."
Mei grabbed his sleeve. "Lian'er, what was that?"
"Confirmation," he said. "We're off the default path now."
They went deeper.
No ambush came.
No pressure. No killing intent.
Instead, the terrain adjusted in small, irritating ways. Paths that almost worked. Sightlines that cleared just enough to tempt, then blurred again.
This wasn't pursuit.
This was evaluation.
Tianlian crouched beside a half-submerged stone marker. Its surface was etched with something shallow and utilitarian—not a symbol, not a formation core. Just a reference groove.
He tapped it once.
"Cheap," he muttered. "Temporary unit."
Mei leaned closer. "You can tell?"
"Mm. Permanent ones don't rush jobs like this." He stood. "Whoever authorized it didn't expect anything worth staying for."
She hesitated. "…They underestimated us?"
He shrugged. "They underestimated you."
Her breath hitched.
Before she could respond, he shifted slightly—just enough to block the marker's line of sight to her face.
Subtle. Automatic.
The fog pulsed again. Slower this time.
Delayed response. Logged, not corrected.
Tianlian's expression flattened. Still recording. No escalation. Good.
A ripple passed through the water to their right. Not movement—adjustment. Like the environment itself was checking alignment.
"This isn't danger," he said quietly. "It's calibration."
Mei swallowed. "Calibration for what?"
He resumed walking. "That's the part they don't tell the testers."
They reached the far edge of the marsh where old stone foundations jutted from the mud, half-collapsed. Beyond them, village rooftops peeked through the haze—close enough to feel safe, far enough to be irrelevant.
Tianlian stopped.
Not because of the fog.
Because the path ended too neatly.
He nudged a loose stone with his boot. It slid aside, revealing a faint residual groove underneath—unfinished. Incomplete.
"Yeah," he murmured. "They pulled the probe early."
Mei glanced around. "Why?"
"Because the record didn't resolve." He straightened. "We didn't behave like reference material."
Silence settled.
The fog began to loosen at the edges, its structure degrading without supervision.
Mei hugged her arms. "…So what now?"
Tianlian glanced once at the thinning mist, then back toward Willow Brook.
"Now?" he said. "Now someone has to explain an anomaly report."
She stared at him.
He smiled—lazy, faintly annoyed.
"And trust me," he added, "nobody likes extra paperwork."
They turned back toward the village.
Behind them, the last trace of fog collapsed in on itself—not erased, not cleansed.
Just archived.