#2
A crowd had gathered in front of a larger shack—one that likely functioned as a kind of slum council hall—fighting over something. Yu Ruishu approached cautiously, blending into the press of gaunt bodies. The smell of thin but tempting soup hung in the air.
A weary-faced woman ladled murky liquid from a large cauldron.
"Line up! One bowl per person! This is an allotment from the City Yamen—don't fight over it!"
Allotment.
The word triggered his analytical instincts. There was a system here, however primitive. The city government—the Yamen—still sent aid. That meant this place hadn't been completely abandoned.
So why was it still hell?
He observed the recipients. Some gulped the soup down immediately. Others—those who looked stronger or had children—quickly hid their bowls before they could be snatched away. A black market mechanism existed within the aid itself.
Suddenly, a hard shove from behind nearly knocked him over. A solidly built teenager with an arrogant posture elbowed him aside.
"Move it, corpse! You're in the way!"
Yu Ruishu steadied himself and didn't retaliate. His eyes recorded details automatically:
Teenager. Developed muscles. Relatively intact clothing. Shoes.
Status: low-level local thug.
Threat: moderate.
Advantage: information.
He stepped back and gave way. The teenager pushed forward and took two bowls without protest from the distributor.
The law of the jungle.
When it was Yu Ruishu's turn, the woman looked at him dully and poured the murky liquid into his cracked wooden bowl.
"You're new? Your face is unfamiliar."
He nodded briefly, saying nothing. His voice could reveal an origin he didn't need exposed.
"Listen," the woman whispered suddenly, her voice low. "Drink fast and leave. You're too skinny and alone. They like people like you."
They.
The word was darkened by fear.
"Thank you," Yu Ruishu murmured, deliberately making his voice hoarse. He took the bowl and slipped away, heading for a quiet corner behind a collapsed shack.
The soup was barely food—wilted vegetables and floating grains of husk—but it tasted divine to his dry throat. He drank slowly, restraining himself from finishing it at once. As he drank, his eyes never stopped scanning.
He saw the group of teenagers laughing loudly.
He saw a mother feeding her child with half her portion.
And he saw three men.
They weren't lining up. They stood at the edges, watching. Their clothes were better—coarse but intact fabric, worn leather shoes still serviceable. Their faces were expressionless, but their eyes moved from person to person, like merchants appraising livestock.
One of them looked at him.
The gaze was cold. Calculating.
Not curiosity. Not open threat.
Assessment.
The same look the guards in the Cambodian warehouse had worn before dragging him toward the operating table.
A chill ran down Yu Ruishu's spine.
Meat Collectors.
He lowered his head, pretending to keep drinking, then turned and slipped into the gap between two shacks, breaking their line of sight. His heart pounded, but his mind moved faster.
They were looking for specific targets: alone, weak, unconnected.
I am a perfect candidate.
Temporary safety: they don't act in broad daylight, in the middle of a crowd. They wait. Or select.
Meaning: I still have time.
Time—for what?
He needed information.
And he needed alliances. Or at least the illusion that he wasn't alone.
Remembering the woman who had distributed the soup, he decided to approach her again after the crowd dispersed. She had warned him. That was a small piece of social capital worth cultivating.
As he waited, he noticed the boy whose food had been stolen earlier. The boy now sat alone, hugging his knees in front of the most decrepit shack. His eyes were red, but he wasn't crying.
Already numb.
Yu Ruishu finished the rest of his soup and approached, bowl still in hand. He sat beside the boy, not too close.
"What's your name?" he asked flatly.
The boy shot him a suspicious look. "Why do you care?"
"So I know how to address you. I don't have a name."
The boy hesitated. "They call me Rat. Because I can find food anywhere." There was a trace of pride in his young voice.
"Good, Rat," Yu Ruishu said. "Do you know those men? The three standing over there?" He didn't point—only nodded subtly.
Fear immediately filled Rat's eyes.
"You have to stay away from them. They… they take people. Those who get taken never come back."
"Where to?"
"I don't know. But some say—to the city. To the big people. For… for materials." His voice trembled. "Sometimes, if they need someone fast, they pay. Food. Or copper."
They paid informants.
That meant a hidden economy. Corruption down to the lowest level.
"Has anyone ever fought back?"
Rat shook his head. "They have… qi. Not like us. They can break wood with their bare hands."
Cultivators.
Even the lowest tier stood far above ordinary people.
Yu Ruishu nodded, processing. The threat was greater than he'd assumed. Not just thugs—but thugs backed by supernatural force. He had no weapons. No power.
Only his mind.
"Thank you, Rat." He stood. "If you ever need another pair of eyes to watch your food, tell me."
He walked away, leaving the boy confused. It wasn't friendship. It was a transaction: information in exchange for vigilance.
Evening crept in. The gray sky turned a dirty orange. Yu Ruishu found the soup woman cleaning the cauldron behind the shack.
"Back again?" she said without turning. "You're still alive. Good."
"I need to know more about them," Yu Ruishu said bluntly. "And what happens to the people they take."
The woman—who introduced herself as Bu Lan—finally spoke. Her husband, a laborer, had been taken a year ago. Never returned. Since then, she'd received a small "protection"—the job of distributing rations—from a local thug connected to the Meat Collectors. In exchange, she had to stay silent.
"They look for the weak," Bu Lan whispered, tears welling. "Those no one will search for. The sick. The injured. The old. Or… people like you. Nameless newcomers. They sell them to the city lords. For what, I don't dare ask. But once… once someone escaped. And he said—there, they don't take people to make them slaves."
Yu Ruishu held his breath. "Then for what?"
"To be… processed," Bu Lan hissed. "Like meat. Or medicinal roots. For their cultivation."
Organ harvesting. Again.
The irony was so bitter Yu Ruishu almost laughed. He had escaped one system that consumed bodies, only to fall into another—perhaps even worse.
He thanked Bu Lan and left.
Night fell quickly. Cold seeped into his bones. He returned to his damp gutter—this time with a mind full of threat maps and narrow windows of opportunity.
The Meat Collectors were the apex predators of this ecosystem.
Local thugs were the hyenas—both threat and potential information gateways.
Yamen rations were limited resources controlled by thugs.
People like Bu Lan and Rat were information nodes—possible distractions or early warning systems.
He had no power.
But he had one weapon: he was a new variable. An outsider not yet factored into anyone's calculations.
Shivering in the darkness, Yu Ruishu planned. Tomorrow, the audit would begin. Mapping the Meat Collectors' movement patterns. Identifying weaknesses in the local control system. Perhaps—just perhaps—finding something he could trade for temporary safety.
Above, between the clouds, a thin crescent moon shone coldly. In the distance, the city towers remained lit—beautiful and unreachable. The Flawless Expanse.
Here, in the Grave of Mercy, Yu Ruishu clenched his fists inside his thin pockets. His hands trembled—but his eyes were no longer empty.
They might come for him.
But this time, they wouldn't get a passive victim.
They would face an analyst—one already betrayed by a far more sophisticated system.
And an analyst who knows how to find loopholes is far more dangerous than a desperate orphan.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Defense begins tomorrow.
And in defense, sometimes the best offense is knowing exactly when and where the enemy will strike.