The sky had gone the color of ash by the time Yuan He reached the outer sect dorms.
Smoke from the communal kitchens hung low in the yard, clinging to clothes and hair. A few disciples gathered around a pot, bowls in hand, talking in the quiet, guarded way of people who expected their food to be taken if they looked too happy about it.
Yuan He's stomach tightened, but he didn't stop. He had ration tickets. He had one merit point left. He had exactly enough to not feel desperate tomorrow.
He kept his head down and walked along the edge of the yard, where shadows pooled near the walls. He adjusted his robe so the pouch sat deeper against his ribs. His fingers checked it once, quick and invisible.
Still there.
A laugh rolled out from the side alley between dorm buildings. Loud. Confident. The kind of laugh that didn't have to ask permission to exist.
Yuan He stopped without meaning to.
His body knew the sound.
The second set of memories surfaced like a bruise being pressed: a hand yanking him back, a knee in his gut, someone saying, "Five elements? You want to cultivate with mud?"
He forced himself to keep moving. He told himself it was only sound. He told himself he had learned the system today. He told himself he could avoid trouble by being careful.
He turned the corner.
Sun Ba was there.
He leaned against the wall as if it belonged to him, one foot propped casually behind him. His robe was still an outer sect robe, but it was cleaner and better fitted, the sleeves less frayed. Two other disciples stood with him, not quite behind and not quite beside, like dogs trained to be seen.
Sun Ba's eyes slid to Yuan He's face, then to his hands, then back to his eyes. The look was easy, practiced. A person taking inventory.
"Yuan He," Sun Ba said, as if tasting the name. "I heard you worked today."
Yuan He didn't answer immediately. He measured distance. He noted the angle of the alley and the yard beyond it. He noted how few people were looking in their direction and how quickly their gazes shifted away when they realized what they might be asked to witness.
No help, the other memories confirmed.
Sun Ba smiled. "Don't stand there like you're important. I'm talking to you."
"I worked," Yuan He said.
Sun Ba pushed away from the wall and took two slow steps forward, like he was closing a conversation rather than a gap. "Good. Then you got paid."
Yuan He kept his face blank. "Outer sect work doesn't pay much."
Sun Ba's smile widened, amused by the attempt at understatement. "Not much is still something. And you know how this works."
One of the disciples behind him laughed. The other one didn't, but his eyes sharpened.
Yuan He's hand tightened on the edge of his robe, then relaxed. He didn't want them to see tension. Tension invited play.
"I don't know what you mean," Yuan He said.
Sun Ba's gaze shifted, just for a moment, to Yuan He's cheekbone. The bruise there was old now, but the memory of it wasn't. His voice stayed casual.
"You live in this dorm and you don't know what I mean?" Sun Ba asked. "Either you're stupid, or you're pretending to be."
He leaned in slightly, lowering his voice so it could be heard without being overheard.
"Give me your merit point and your meal tickets."
Yuan He's stomach went cold, not because he hadn't expected it, but because the timing was perfect. He had just learned the value of the smallest unit of currency here. Sun Ba was taking it before Yuan He could convert it into anything safer.
Yuan He thought fast.
If he handed it over, he would eat less tomorrow. He would be weaker. He would be easier to crush. If he resisted, he would be beaten, and then he would be weaker anyway.
There was a narrow solution that depended on something he didn't yet have: leverage.
He didn't have leverage today.
He had a choice between two kinds of loss, and he chose the kind that gave him information.
"No," Yuan He said.
The alley went quiet.
Sun Ba blinked once, as if he hadn't heard correctly. Then he laughed, sharp and short. "No?"
Yuan He kept his voice level. "You'll take it anyway. But I'm saying no."
One of the disciples stepped forward, already reaching. Yuan He moved at the same time, not to fight, but to protect the pouch. He turned his shoulder, used his forearm to block the hand, and for a fraction of a second he felt something that wasn't strength, but structure.
He remembered the manual's posture. The idea of not locking joints. The idea of letting force pass through without breaking you.
The block worked.
Then Sun Ba's fist hit his ribs.
Pain flared white, stealing breath. Yuan He staggered.
He tried to step back into the yard, to make it public, but the second disciple slid into his path and shoved him sideways into the wall. Not hard, not enough to break bone. Just enough to keep him where Sun Ba wanted him.
Sun Ba's voice was still calm. "You think you're clever because you watered plants without killing them? You think you're different?"
Yuan He didn't answer. He couldn't, not while breath fought to return.
Sun Ba's hand darted to the pouch.
Yuan He grabbed his wrist.
For a heartbeat, their grips locked. Yuan He felt Sun Ba's skin, the tendons, the small strength in the joint. He felt his own hands, smaller, bruised, and he understood with humiliating clarity that he was trying to hold back a tide with a stick.
Sun Ba twisted. Pain shot up Yuan He's arm. Yuan He's fingers opened.
Sun Ba pulled the pouch free with a neat motion and stepped back. He loosened the drawstring and tipped the contents into his own palm like a man checking change.
One merit point.
Two ration tickets.
A few copper coins.
Sun Ba clicked his tongue. "Pathetic."
He tossed the copper coins back at Yuan He. They hit his chest and fell to the ground. Not generosity. Contempt. Coins were beneath him. Hunger wasn't.
Yuan He bent slightly, not to pick them up, but because his ribs demanded it.
Sun Ba held up the ration tickets. "You can starve tonight. Consider it a lesson."
Yuan He forced himself upright again. His eyes stayed on Sun Ba's face, not because he wanted to glare, but because he wanted to remember. Expression. Habit. The way Sun Ba moved. The way he chose timing. The way he used the presence of others as an implicit threat.
Sun Ba noticed the look and smiled again, pleased. "What is that?" he asked. "Are you angry?"
Yuan He's voice came out rough. "I'm learning."
Sun Ba laughed, genuinely entertained now. He turned away, already bored. "Learn faster," he said over his shoulder. "Or you'll disappear."
The two disciples followed him out of the alley like shadows with legs.
Yuan He stood alone.
The pain in his ribs settled into something deeper and uglier. His hand shook once, then steadied. He took a breath that scraped his lungs. He looked down at the copper coins in the dirt and did not pick them up.
Not yet.
He walked back into the dorm.
Inside, the air was warmer and worse. Bodies shifted in the bunks. Someone looked at him, saw blood at the corner of his mouth, and immediately looked away. Not cruelty, exactly. Self-preservation.
Yuan He sat on the edge of his bunk and pressed his palm against his ribs, feeling the swelling already forming. His mind tried to spiral, and he stopped it the way he had stopped panic on Earth.
Inventory.
He had lost one merit point and two ration tickets. He still had his body. Bruised, but intact. He still had knowledge. He still had time, if he was careful.
Sun Ba would keep taking, because taking worked.
That meant the problem was not Sun Ba's personality. The problem was the system that made Sun Ba a stable state.
You could not fix a stable state with emotion.
You needed constraints.
You needed containment.
On Earth, when energy escaped a system, you didn't scream at it. You didn't insult it. You redesigned the boundary conditions until the behavior changed.
Here, his boundary conditions were hunger, status, and the fact that he couldn't guard a pouch with his hands forever.
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would work again. He would earn again. Sun Ba would take again, unless Yuan He changed the equation.
He needed a way to store value that couldn't be stolen easily. He needed a way to make taking from him cost more than it was worth. He needed, above all, a repeatable method. Not a lucky punch. Not a desperate gamble.
Repeatable.
The word steadied him.
He opened his eyes and stared at the darkness between bunks, where the air smelled like sweat and old straw.
"I died once," he whispered, so quietly that even he barely heard it. "I'm not going to die here because someone wants my dinner."
He inhaled through the pain and let his thoughts settle into the shape they always took when he was about to work.
Assumptions.
Variables.
Constraints.
Goal.
He didn't have a way out tonight. But he had a direction, and direction was the first kind of power.
He lay back on the straw, ribs aching, and in the darkness he began to plan.
Not a plan for revenge.
A plan for stability.