The Steward's hut was not impressive.
It was a low building of dark wood and patched roof tiles, squatting at the edge of the herb yard like it had been built to be ignored. That was probably the point. People noticed temples. People noticed training fields. People did not notice offices until they needed permission.
Yuan He needed permission.
He stepped up to the window cut into the hut's wall and waited behind three other outer sect disciples. Nobody spoke. The air was full of leaf-smell and damp soil and the quiet impatience of people pretending they weren't impatient.
When it was his turn, he slid the slip of paper onto the counter.
The Steward didn't look up. A hand reached out, took the slip, and vanished it inside as if the hut had eaten it.
"Sort," the Steward said, voice flat.
"Yes," Yuan He replied.
A pause. The sound of paper. The scrape of a brush against wood.
"Don't steal," the Steward added, still not looking at him.
Yuan He kept his face neutral.
Inside his head, a tired part of him wanted to say: If I had food to steal, I would be stealing food.
He said nothing.
Out loud was dangerous. Inside was cheap.
"Yes," he said again.
A dull wooden token slid out through the window. Not a coin. Not a ticket. A marker stamped with a simple character, inked black and still tacky.
"Return it when you're done," the Steward said.
"And… the recorded contribution?" Yuan He asked carefully.
That finally earned him a look, not angry, just assessing, like the Steward was deciding whether Yuan He was a nuisance or a problem.
"After," the Steward said. "If it's done. If it's right."
Yuan He nodded once. "Understood."
He took the token and stepped away.
"Time for the basics again," he muttered, once he was out of earshot. "Input. Process. Verification."
It was crude, but it was a system. Systems could be learned.
He crossed the herb yard to the drying shed. Inside, racks of bundled leaves hung from beams, and the floor was a patchwork of dirt and spilled fragments. The air was thick with bitter-green scent that clung to his tongue.
A few disciples already worked there, hands moving with practiced boredom. Nobody greeted him. Nobody challenged him. They glanced once, saw his bruises, and decided he wasn't worth the effort.
Fine.
He found an empty space at the end of a bench and set the token in front of him like a boundary line.
He took a bundle from the pile and began.
The work was simple: separate brittle from usable, remove anything spotted with rot, re-tie what remained into clean bundles. The manual for the task didn't exist; the rules were written into the way the older disciples' hands moved.
He watched.
He copied.
He tried not to be the slowest.
While his fingers worked, his mind ran in parallel.
He couldn't trust "feelings" as proof. He couldn't trust other people's eyes. He couldn't trust the sect's opinion.
So he needed an instrument.
Not a metal machine, not a sensor, not a screen.
Something internal.
Something repeatable.
He tied a bundle and set it aside. His ribs twinged when he leaned forward.
Noise, he thought.
Pain was noise.
Hunger was noise.
Fear was noise.
He did not have the luxury of eliminating noise. He could only label it and design around it.
He took another bundle.
The leaves crackled softly. A few pieces crumbled to dust between his fingers.
He breathed in and out through his nose, slow enough to keep his shoulders from rising.
"Alright," he murmured, so quietly the leaves would hear him before any disciple did. "If you won't give me a signal, I'll go find it."
He picked a simple cadence.
Inhale for four seconds.
Hold for two seconds.
Exhale slowly over six seconds.
No mysticism. Just a clock he could carry.
He ran the cycle once while his hands continued sorting. It felt ridiculous at first, like trying to do calculus while sweeping a floor.
Then it felt familiar.
Multitasking wasn't a flex. It was survival.
He ran it again.
By the third cycle, he noticed that when he held his breath for two counts, the bruise under his arm flared. His body wanted to tighten and guard.
That tightening changed the rest of the breath.
He adjusted the hold down to one count.
"Constraint satisfied," he whispered.
He went back to sorting.
By late morning, the dryness of the leaves had coated his fingertips with fine powder. His throat wanted water. His stomach wanted something that wasn't air.
He finished the last bundle on his stack and sat back, keeping his shoulders low, breathing through his ribs.
He ran his cadence again, slower now.
Four in.
One hold.
Six out.
He tried to imagine qi gathering in the lower abdomen, the way the manual suggested, and felt nothing dramatic.
So he stopped imagining.
He watched.
The only thing he could say with confidence was that after the long exhale, there was a faint heaviness in his gut that wasn't hunger.
It was subtle enough that if he hadn't been looking for it, he would have dismissed it as fatigue.
He did not dismiss it.
He ran the cadence again and watched for the same heaviness.
It came again, in the same place, after the same phase of the breath.
He sat very still.
"Okay," he whispered, the word tasting like disbelief. "This is something new."
Weak, but not random.
He checked his posture, comparing it to the manual diagram in his memory: spine straight, jaw loose, tongue set, shoulders sunk.
He realized the heaviness did not appear when he clenched his abdomen, even slightly.
It appeared when he let the abdominal tension drop.
"When you stop trying to win," he muttered, and a tired laugh almost escaped him. He swallowed it. "Typical."
He stood and carried his bundles to the inspection table.
A thin, older disciple with an indifferent expression looked them over. He untied one bundle, flicked through it, snorted once, and retied it.
"Acceptable," the older disciple said.
Yuan He nodded. "Where do I return the token?"
"Talk to the steward," the older disciple replied, already turning away.
Yuan He walked back to the hut.
He kept his pace steady. He kept his face neutral. He kept his hands visible. No sudden movements, no invitations.
At the window, he slid the token through.
The steward's hand took it. Paper rustled again. The scrape of brush on wood.
For a moment, nothing happened.
The steward slid a small wooden chit toward him for use in the kitchen, along with a slip of paper stamped in rough black ink.
"One point," the Steward said, flat.
Yuan He accepted both without letting relief show on his face. "Thank you," Yuan He replied then turned away.
Only when he was out of earshot did he exhale and let his shoulders drop.
"I finally got money," he muttered. "Good."
He folded the stamped slip and hid it where his skin would warm it. Not because it could be stolen—if the ledger entry was real, the paper didn't matter much—but because he still needed proof until he understood how real "real" was.
Then he went to the kitchen.
The line moved in slow, resentful increments. Nobody chatted. People's eyes stayed forward, hands tight around bowls.
When Yuan He finally reached the pot, he slid the chit across.
A ladle dipped. Something thick and grayish plopped into his bowl with a wet sound that made his stomach threaten rebellion out of sheer spite.
It smelled like boiled roots and old salt.
He carried it away from the pot and found a spot behind a wall, out of easy view, where he could eat without advertising.
He stared at the bowl.
"This," he whispered, "is what victory tastes like."
He took a bite.
It was worse than it smelled.
He chewed anyway.
His body didn't care about taste. His body cared about calories. Warmth spread through his belly like a small truce.
He let himself breathe for a moment, shoulders loosening by a fraction.
"Okay," he muttered, spoon in hand. "One point. One bowl of… whatever this is."
He took another bite, then another, forcing himself to eat steadily instead of devouring it like a starving animal.
Law-abiding citizen, he reminded himself dryly. Modern adult. You can eat porridge without acting like a barbarian.
He almost laughed again, quietly, into the steam.
He finished the bowl.
The hunger didn't vanish, but it stopped clawing. The pain in his ribs softened at the edges, not because it healed, but because the body had a little fuel to spend on pretending it was okay.
He sat in silence for a few breaths and ran his cadence again, just to check.
Four in.
One hold.
Six out.
There.
A tiny internal weight, like a small bead settling into place.
He opened his eyes and stared at the herb yard fence, at the narrow channels of water, at the world that insisted his path was useless.
"It's there," he whispered, so softly it was only for him. "Faint, but it's there."
He rose and headed back toward the dorms, bruises still there, danger still there, and two small facts in his hands.
A merit point.
A faint sensation he could reproduce on demand. His steady state.
Facts were the only things that couldn't be bullied.