He had to get up.
The thought was a life raft in a sea of agony. If he didn't get up, he wouldn't get food. If he didn't
get food, he would die. It was a brutal, simple equation that his 21st-century mind, so used to
complexities and nuance, was now forced to accept as law.
Clenching his jaw against the fire in his ravaged meridians, Ren Wei pushed himself to his feet.
The world swam in a nauseating, gray-tinted wave. He used the cold, stone wall as a crutch, his
new body as light as a child's but as frail as an old man's.
He staggered out of the hovel into the pre-dawn mist. The air was cold and bit at his thin,
patched robes. The "mountain" was less of a serene, spiritual peak and more of a jagged,
windswept prison.
Hundreds of other disciples, all in the same gray robes, were moving like a silent, morose river
toward the main training ground. Their faces were sallow, their eyes dull. This was not a school
of wondrous magic; it was a labor camp with a mystical curriculum.
Ren Wei fell into the shuffling line, his head down, trying to imitate the original's memories, to
just... blend in.
The training ground was a vast, muddy plaza. A "Senior Brother," barely twenty himself but with
a thick, muscular build that spoke of slightly better talent, stood on a raised platform. He didn't
speak. He just glared.
"Begin," he barked.
The disciples spread out and began the "Verdant Jade Breathing Technique."
Ren Wei tried to copy them. He stood, feet apart, and attempted to draw in the world's spiritual
energy. The original's muscle memory was there, but the second he tried to pull the wisp of cold
Qi into his body, his internal injuries screamed.
It was like trying to drink acid through a straw made of paper. The pain was so sudden, so
blinding, that his knees buckled.
He gasped, a dry, pathetic sound, and stumbled, breaking the formation.
Silence.
The hundreds of disciples around him froze. The air became heavy.
"Trash."
The voice came from the platform. The Senior Brother was glaring directly at him. "You broke
the harmony. Do you know how hard it is to gather Qi on this trash heap of a peak? And you, a
piece of broken garbage, dare to disturb it?"
Ren Wei tried to speak. "Senior... I... I'm injured..."
"Injured?" The Senior Brother sneered, leaping down from the platform. He strode over to Ren
Wei, radiating a weak, but to Ren Wei, overwhelming, pressure. "You're not injured. You're
finished. You pushed too hard, shattered your own pathways. You're useless. A walking corpse."
He was just venting. Asserting his tiny, insignificant bit of power over someone even lower on
the rung than he was.
"A corpse shouldn't stand with the living," the Senior Brother said. He drew back his foot and
kicked.
Not a Qi-infused, bone-shattering kick. That would be a waste of energy and would draw an
elder's ire. It was just a simple, brutal, physical kick, one that connected squarely with Ren Wei's
already-burning stomach.
The air rushed out of Ren Wei's lungs. He collapsed into the mud, the world exploding into
black-and-red pain.
No one moved to help him. They just watched. Indifferent. Cold. This was normal.
"Get him out of here," the Senior Brother spat, wiping his boot on a clean patch of grass. "His No one moved.
The Senior Brother scoffed, turned, and went back to the platform. "Continue!"
The practice resumed. Ren Wei was left, curled in the mud, as hundreds of people pretended he
didn't exist. He lay there, his mind a howling vortex of pain, humiliation, and a terrifying, cold
rage. This was the world he was in. There was no law. There was only power.
He must have blacked out. When he came to, the training ground was empty. The bell for the
morning's rations—a thin, watery rice gruel—had already rung.
Panic cut through the pain. Food.
He clawed his way up, mud and blood caking his robes. He half-ran, half-crawled to the dining
hall, a large, open-air shed. He was last in line.
When he finally reached the large, black cauldron, the disciple in charge scraped the bottom. A
single, watery spoonful of gray sludge splashed into his bowl.
It wasn't enough to feed a bird.
He stood there, shaking, holding his near-empty bowl. He'd endured all of that... for this. He was
going to starve.
He didn't make it back to his hovel. The brief surge of adrenaline died, and the pain, hunger, and
despair crashed down on him. He slumped against the back of a woodshed, out of the main
path, and slid to the ground. The world was gray and spinning.
"This is it," he thought, a strange, detached calm settling over him. "I transmigrated... just to die
of starvation in an alley. How... pathetic."
A soft sound. The shuffle of cloth on gravel.
His head snapped up, paranoia screaming. Another bully?
A shadow fell over him. He looked up, squinting.
It was a girl.
She was small, perhaps his age, and just as thin. Her gray robes were patched, like his, but
they were impeccably clean. Her black hair was tied back in a simple, severe braid. She wasn't
a "jade-like beauty" of fantasy. Her face was plain, oval, and pale from the same lack of nutrition
they all suffered.
But her eyes... her eyes were wide, dark, and clear, and they were staring at him with a startling,
profound-looking concern.
She said nothing. She just knelt, her knees hitting the dirt, and looked at him. She was holding a
small, wooden bowl.
Then, she did the most shocking thing he had ever seen.
She held the bowl out to him.
Inside were two small, slightly lumpy, yellow-ish steamed buns.
Ren Wei stared. This wasn't watery gruel. This was real food. This was a luxury. This was worth
days of rations.
"What...?" he croaked.
"You're hurt," she whispered. Her voice was like her, soft and clean. "I saw what Senior Brother
Wang did. It was wrong."
She pushed the bowl closer. "Eat."
Ren Wei's "psychologist" brain, the only part of him that wasn't screaming in agony or want,
flared to life. Motive? What's her angle? Poison? A trap? No one is this kind. Not here.
He analyzed her. Her posture was non-threatening, shoulders slightly hunched. She avoided his
gaze, looking at his chest, his hands, the ground. Classic shyness. Her hands, holding the bowl,
were steady, but her knuckles were white. She was nervous.
"Why?" he asked. His voice was a rasp.
"He shouldn't have done that," she said again, as if it were the only explanation needed. "You were just... in pain."
She... noticed. She saw he was in pain, not just lazy or disruptive.
Ah, his brain supplied. The helper archetype. A fixer. Someone who gains a sense of control or
self-worth by caring for the 'broken.' A common response to a traumatic or powerless
environment. She's not a threat. She's... safe.
He looked at the bun, then at her. "If I take this... what will you eat?"
A faint, pink blush colored her pale cheeks. "I already had mine," she lied. Her stomach chose
that exact moment to let out a quiet, protesting gurgle.
She froze, mortified.
A tiny, cracked, painful smile touched Ren Wei's lips. It was the first one in this new life.
He reached out a trembling, filthy hand and took one of the buns. He couldn't take both. "Thank
you," he said.
He bit into it. It was coarse, gritty, and probably made of the worst-grade flour. It was the most
delicious thing he had ever tasted.
She watched him eat, her expression unreadable. After he finished, she produced a small skin
of water. He drank, rinsing the grime from his mouth.
"I... I am Ren Wei," he said, his voice stronger now.
"I know," she said softly. "I'm Li Mei. We live in the same row of quarters."
She helped him to his feet. He was surprised by the wiry strength in her thin arms. He leaned on
her, just a little, and she didn't buckle.
As she helped him limp back toward the hovels, Ren Wei felt, for the first time since waking up
in this nightmare, a single, tiny, fragile flicker of warmth.
It wasn't just the food in his belly. It was her. A small, clean, kind person in a world of mud and
brutality.
He was still in a cage. But it felt, for a second, like someone had just passed him a key. He
didn't realize, as he leaned on her small frame, that she was the cage.