The 9,999th step is cracked down the middle, and there's moss growing in the crack.
You've swept this staircase every morning for forty days — punishment for spilling an Elder's tea. Forty days of cold wind, sore shoulders, and the other servants laughing that the cripple got sent to the dead mountain.
Your broom catches on something in the moss. Hard. Green. You kneel and dig it out with your fingers: a lamp, carved from jade, with a crack running through it like a scar.
The moment your skin touches it, the cold of the Ninth Peak rushes into your arm. Not into your meridians — those are broken, everyone says so. Into your bones.
"Oh, wonderful," says a voice. Dry. Old. Very close. "Three hundred years, and the first hand to touch me belongs to a servant with meridians like a sieve."
You almost drop it.
"Careful, Broom. If you crack me further I'll haunt you, and I'm very good at haunting." The lamp flickers, pale blue. "Now. Tell me. Do you want to stay a servant until you die — or do you want to climb?"