Weeks bled into a painful, gray month. Ren Wei's arm was a torment, but the "Stone-Knot" roots
Li Mei scavenged, combined with his body's youthful (if weak) constitution, were knitting the
bone back together. It was a slow, agonizingly itchy process.
His cultivation, however, was completely stalled. And so, by extension, was Li Mei's.
He had tried. He'd sit in their hidden grove, his left arm in its crude sling, and attempt the
"thread-sewing" technique. But the pain, the imbalance, and the sheer frustration made it
impossible. His mind, the only "talent" he had, was clouded by his own body's betrayal.
He was sitting on his mat, glaring at the wall of his hovel, when she entered. She always moved
silently, a small ghost, but he felt her presence.
"It's no use," Ren Wei said, his voice a flat, angry line. "I can't... I can't focus. Every time I try to
pull a thread, the pain in my arm flares. It's a wall. I'm... I'm done. I'm back to being trash."
Li Mei was silent for a long moment. She placed a small, wrapped cloth on his mat. His portion
of her own rations. He'd become completely dependent on her, a fact that ate at his pride like
acid.
"No," she said. Her voice was soft, but for the first time, it held a thread of... steel.
"No?" he snapped, glaring at her. "What do you mean, 'no'? Look at me! I can't even hold a
damn rice bowl properly!"
"You're not done," she said. She knelt in front of him, closer than she ever had before. "You...
you taught me. Now I... I'll help you."
"How?" he scoffed. "Are you going to magically heal me? Are you going to fight off the next
Jiao? We're just waiting for the assessment, Mei. We're going to be thrown out. Or worse."
"There is... a way," she said, her eyes on her own lap. She was visibly nervous, her hands
twisting in her robe. "An... old text. In the library. It... it's a technique for 'Harmonious
Resonance.' For... for partners. To share a... a circuit."
Ren Wei's "psychologist" brain, rusty as it was, flickered. "Share a circuit? What are you talking
about?"
"If one cultivator is... is injured," she recited, as if from memory, "their partner can act as a... a
conduit. To... to guide the Qi. To complete the cycle." She looked up, her face pale but her dark
eyes intense. "I... I can be your conduit, Ren Wei."
He stared at her. "That sounds dangerous. What text? I've read everything in the 'trash'
section—"
"It was a... a scroll. It was old. It... it crumbled after I read it," she said, her blush returning. The
lie was so obvious, so clumsy, that in his desperate state, he almost believed it.
What choice did he have?
"Okay," he said, his voice rough. "Okay. What do I do?"
"Sit," she whispered. "Like you taught me. But... turn around."
He was confused, but he did as she asked. He sat cross-legged on his mat, his back to her. He
could hear her moving, hear the rustle of her robes as she settled directly behind him.
He tensed. This was... intimate. Far more than just sitting in the same grove.
"I... I have to... touch you," she stammered. "For the... the resonance."
"Just... do it," he said, his jaw tight.
He felt it. Two small, surprisingly warm hands, pressing against his back. They were placed, not
randomly, but with a strange precision, one over his "Sea of Qi" at his lower back, the other
between his shoulder blades, over his "Spirit Tower."
His entire body went rigid. He could feel the slight calluses on her fingertips through his thin
robe. He could smell the faint, clean, herbal scent of her.
"Breathe, Ren Bwei," she whispered. Her voice was right by his ear, a soft, warm puff of air that
sent an involuntary shiver down his spine. "Don't... don't try to pull. Just... open your mind. Let me... let me find the thread for you."
He did. He forced his body to relax, to unclench. He let his mind go blank.
He felt her take a single, slow, deep breath.
And then... it happened.
A single, perfect, crystalline thread of Qi entered his body. It wasn't pulled by him; it was given to
him. It flowed from her hands, bypassing his shattered meridians and his pain-clouded mind,
and sank, warm and pristine, directly into his dantian.
It was... effortless.
"Mei..." he breathed, astonished. "How...?"
"Shh," she whispered. "Just... hold it. Hold my hand... in your mind."
They sat there for an hour. Thread after thread. She wasn't just his conduit; he was hers. She
gathered the Qi, using her own "Silken Heart" art, which was far more refined than he knew, and
then she gave it to him, using his dantian as the "needle's eye" for them both.
They were, for one hour, a single, functioning cultivator.
When they finished, they were both trembling. The amount of Qi they'd gathered was more than
they had in the entire past week.
Ren Wei turned around slowly, his body aching, but his mind... clear. Elated.
She was sitting on her knees, her face sheet-white with exhaustion, her robes damp with sweat.
But her eyes... her eyes were shining. They were fixed on him with a look of such raw, unfiltered
joy that it stole his breath.
"It worked," he said, a laugh bubbling in his chest. A real, actual laugh. "Mei, you... you're a
genius."
"We... we did it," she panted, a small, radiant smile spreading across her face.
They were in the tiny, dark hovel. They were filthy, starving, and crippled. They were two weeds
in a world that wanted them dead. And in that moment, Ren Wei had never felt less alone.
He looked at her smile. He looked at her eyes, which were fixed on him as if he were the sun.
He saw the girl who had given him a bun, the girl who had mended his arm, the girl who had
just, quite literally, breathed her own life-force into his.
His suspicions? His doubts? They were meaningless. They were dust.
This girl was his anchor. His partner.
He leaned forward, his good arm coming up to cup her face. She was so, so small. She
flinched, just a little, her eyes wide, but she didn't pull away. He could feel her trembling under
his touch.
"Thank you, Mei," he whispered.
And he kissed her.
It was hesitant. Chaste. A simple, clumsy press of his dry, chapped lips to hers. It lasted only a
second.
He pulled back. Her eyes were impossibly wide, her face frozen in a look of stunned, breathless
shock. A single tear, one he couldn't possibly analyze, rolled down her cheek.
"Ren Wei..." she breathed.
"We're... we're going to survive this," he said, his voice thick with a storm of gratitude,
loneliness, and a desperate, newfound hope. "I promise."
He pulled her into a one-armed, awkward hug. She was stiff as a board for a second, then she
seemed to melt, her small, frail body collapsing against his, her face burying itself in his
shoulder. He felt her hands grip the back of his robe, not with the strength of a partner, but with
the desperate, white-knuckled, unyielding grip of a drowning person who had just found their
first, and only, piece of driftwood.