I don't know if it was a dream or something more.
But I was seeing a boy a weak, broken thing getting beaten so badly he couldn't even scream.
His arms shook. His knees collapsed after the second strike. His opponent some arrogant sect brat laughed as he kicked him across the dirt arena. The crowd didn't cheer. They didn't even pity him. They just turned their heads away, already bored.
The boy lay there. Chest barely rising. Eyes glazed. His qi had cracked mid-fight, his meridians were worse than useless.
Useless.
That's what they called him.
And for some reason, I couldn't look away.
Then I woke up.
A cracked ceiling greeted me. Dust clung to every beam. Rotten wood creaked with each breath of wind. A scent of damp earth, sweat, and old herbs filled my nose.
And beside me someone was crying.
I turned my head.
It was a girl. Thin, with messy black hair stuck to her face, her clothes barely holding together. She had bruises on her arms and dried blood around her knuckles. Her eyes red and swollen widened when she saw me move.
She lunged forward and hugged me tightly.
"Alex!" she sobbed. "You're awake! You're reallythank the heavens
My body was sore. Weak. I could feel the lack of qi inside me like trying to breathe with collapsed lungs.
"Who are you?" I murmured, dazed.
She pulled back, hurt flashing across her face. But then, slowly, it faded.
"You're joking again, right?" she said, trying to smile through her tears. "You always forget things after getting hit too hard
And then it clicked.
She was the one who cheered for the boy in the dream. The only voice that screamed for him to stand up while everyone else laughed.
This boy's sister.
No My sister now.
This world it wasn't unfamiliar.
The sect. The rankings. The cruelty.
The place where only the strong earned food and the weak, like orphans, were barely tolerated. And we were the lowest of them all.
And her body all those bruises. I understood.
She'd fought for the scraps sitting in the corner. Half a bowl of dry rice. A crust of bread. No medicine, no healing salve. Nothing for her injuries. She fought for me.
Again. Just like in that dream. No just like in her reality.
I clenched my fists under the blanket. Weak. This body was so weak. Even its qi circulation was broken in places. Healing would take forever assuming we had the medicine.
And I remembered. A different betrayal. Poison on my lips. A sweet voice in my ears. Then a dagger in my back.
Her laugh. My girlfriend's voice as she revealed how she used me to strike at the Empire. How she manipulated everything even my grief. How she called me a pathetic orphan before I died. And now I had reincarnated into the body of one.
Yue Rin my sister finished checking the wounds on my legs. Then she sat beside me, silent for a moment. Her eyes still carried the weight of a hundred sleepless nights.
Then her tone shifted.
Alex she said quietly, but with steel beneath. "If you keep fighting like that, you'll die. Ididn't answer.
I mean it. She looked at me, eyes fierce now. "If you can't win, you need to surrender next time. I looked at her. The way her fingers curled into fists. The way she tried to hide the pain in her arms. Surrender?
No, I couldn't. Even if this body was trash. Even if the world thought we were just disposable dogs of the sect. I refused to live like that again. Not after what I lost. Not after what they did.