For a month, they lived in a fragile bubble of progress.
Their "thread" technique, as Ren Wei had dubbed it, was agonizingly slow, but it was theirs.
Every evening, in the hidden, foul-smelling grove behind the latrines, they would meet. They
would sit, side-by-side, and "sew." While other disciples tried to violently wrestle Qi into
submission, Ren Wei and Li Mei patiently, painstakingly, drew one tiny thread at a time.
It was working. The fire in Ren Wei's meridians had long since healed. He felt a small, nascent
core of energy, no bigger than a grain of rice, slowly forming in his dantian. Li Mei, too, had a
new, quiet vibrance to her. The sallow, listless look in her eyes was replaced by a focused,
sharp stillness.
They were still weeds, but they were growing. They shared their meager rations, they shared
their insights, and they shared a desperate, unspoken hope. Ren Wei felt, for the first time, like
he might actually survive this. He was even, in a strange, twisted way, grateful for this new life.
He had a purpose. He had a partner.
His modern hubris was just beginning to re-emerge when the world, as it always did, decided to
remind him of his place.
His name was Jiao. "Senior Brother Jiao." He was a third-year outer disciple, a lanky,
sallow-skinned youth with a perpetual sneer and two cronies who followed him like hyenas. His
talent wasn't "heaven-defying"—it was just... "less-trash." He'd managed to reach the second
stage of Qi Condensation, giving him the right to bully the first-stage "freshmen" like Ren Wei
and Li Mei.
He and his cronies found them in their grove.
"Well, well," Jiao's voice slithered into their quiet meditation. "What do we have here? A little
rat's nest."
Ren Wei and Li Mei's eyes snapped open. The three disciples stood at the entrance to the
grove, blocking the only exit.
"Senior Brother Jiao," Ren Wei said, getting to his feet slowly. He moved, almost by instinct, to
stand slightly in front of Li Mei. "We are just... practicing."
"Practicing?" Jiao laughed, a wet, ugly sound. "It stinks of shit back here. What are you
practicing, how to eat it?" His eyes slid past Ren Wei to Li Mei, who had shrunk behind him. His
gaze was oily, and it lingered. "And you found a little mouse to practice with, huh?"
"We don't want any trouble, Senior Brother," Ren Wei said, his voice level. His heart was
hammering against his ribs. This was not a patient in a psych ward. This was a thug.
De-escalate. Find his motive. What does he want?
"No trouble?" Jiao said, stepping into the grove. His friends fanned out, their expressions dull
and thuggish. "I think you do want trouble. Hiding back here, sharing secrets... you're not
sharing with the rest of us. That's not fair, is it?"
He was close now. He smelled of sweat and unwashed robes. "So, here's the 'no-trouble' deal.
You give me half your rations for the next month. And... you tell me the little 'secret' you're
practicing back here." His eyes flicked to Li Mei again. "And maybe... you lend me your little
mouse for a few... 'private lessons.'"
A cold, white-hot fury, utterly alien to his modern self, spiked in Ren Wei's chest. "She's not—"
"I think," Ren Wei said, cutting his own anger off and forcing his voice into a calm, reasonable
tone, "that we can come to a better arrangement, Senior Brother."
Jiao paused, surprised. "Oh? A better one?"
"Look at us," Ren Wei said, gesturing to his and Li Mei's patched robes. "We're trash. 'Low-Mid'
talent. We have no secrets. We have no food. Hurting us gets you nothing. You'd get more by...
by having us work for you. We could... we could do your laundry. Clean your quarters." Appeal Jiao stared at him. Ren Wei thought, for a second, that his logic had worked.
Then Jiao laughed. A loud, braying, genuine laugh. "Laundry? You think I want a 'trash' disciple
touching my things?" He shook his head. "You're a weird one. All these... fancy words."
His eyes hardened. "I don't want a 'better arrangement.' I want to hear you beg."
He shoved Ren Wei.
It was a simple, brutal push. Ren Wei, in his under-fed, 16-year-old body, stumbled back and fell
over the rock he'd been meditating on. He landed hard, the wind knocked out of him.
"Ren Wei!" Li Mei shrieked. It was a thin, terrified sound.
"Shut up, bitch," one of the cronies snapped.
Jiao advanced on Ren Wei, who was gasping on the ground. "See? All your words... and you're
just like the rest of them. You're dirt." He drew back his foot.
"Leave her alone!" Ren Wei yelled, a desperate, foolish act of defiance.
That sealed his fate.
"Her?" Jiao sneered. "You're worried about her?" He grabbed Ren Wei by the front of his robes
and hauled him up. "You can't even protect yourself!"
He punched Ren Wei in the stomach. The air left his body in a fiery explosion. Jiao dropped
him. The two cronies moved in.
It wasn't a fight. It was a beating.
They kicked him in the ribs, the back, the legs. Ren Wei curled into a ball, his psychologist's
mind just... gone, replaced by a primal, screaming pain. Through the haze, he could hear Li Mei.
She was sobbing, screaming, begging.
"Please! Stop! You're hurting him! Please, I'll... I'll do anything! Stop!"
Her screams, high and terrified, seemed to only fuel their cruelty.
"Hear that, rat?" Jiao said, standing over him. "Your little mouse is willing to 'do anything.' Maybe
we'll take her up on that."
He motioned for his cronies to stop. Ren Wei was a wheezing, bloody mess in the dirt.
Jiao crouched down, grabbing Ren Wei's hair and forcing his head up. "This is a lesson. You're
nothing. Your words are nothing. I am the one who decides what happens to you."
He let Ren Wei's head fall back. "But... I think I'll break your arm. As a... 'study fee.'"
Before Ren Wei could even process the words, Jiao stomped on his outstretched left arm.
A sound, a pop that was louder than a gunshot, echoed in the small grove. The pain was
immediate, blinding, and absolute. It was a white light of pure, unadulterated agony that
vaporized all thought. Ren Wei's scream was a thin, reedy shriek.
"Next time, I will take her," Jiao spat. "Don't let me see you two together again."
He and his cronies left, laughing.
For a long time, the only sounds in the grove were Ren Wei's agonized, gasping sobs and Li
Mei's frantic, terrified crying.
She crawled to him, her face a mask of tears and snot. "Ren Wei... Ren Wei... your arm... oh,
gods... your arm..."
She was the perfect picture of a terrified, helpless girl. Ren Wei, half-conscious with pain, looked
at her. He felt no anger at her for "freezing." He just felt a deep, profound, and soul-crushing
failure. His "logic" and "psychology" were a joke.
Jiao was right. His words were nothing.