Ren Wei's recovery was slow. The internal damage was severe, and his pathetic, watery gruel
offered almost no nutritional value for repair. The single bun from Li Mei had felt like a feast, but
it was a fleeting one.
He saw her two days later. He was sitting outside his hovel, trying to meditate as the manual
instructed, but the pain and hunger made it impossible. He was, in effect, slowly dying.
Her footsteps were as soft as he remembered. She appeared at the corner of the hovel, holding
a small, dirty cloth bundle.
"Ren Wei," she whispered.
His head snapped up. Paranoia and hope fought a brief, intense war in his chest.
She knelt in front of him, keeping a respectful, shy distance, and unfolded the cloth. Inside was
a small, gnarled, dark-brown root. "It's... it's just a 'Stone-Knot' root," she said, her eyes
downcast. "It's not a spirit herb. But... it's good for bruises and mending torn-up insides. The
herb-gatherers sometimes miss them by the creek."
She happened to find it. He knew what this meant. She'd spent her own precious free time, time
she should have used for her own cultivation, scrambling over rocks and digging in the mud for
a common, near-worthless herb. For him.
His psychological training kicked in, a cold, analytical voice in the back of his screaming skull.
'No one is this kind.' But all his observations contradicted it. He'd been watching her. She was a
ghost. She spoke to no one. No one spoke to her. She was just as invisible, just as overlooked,
as he was. Her talent, he'd learned by discreetly asking another disciple, was the same as his:
"Low-Mid." Trash.
She wasn't angling for a powerful ally. She wasn't trying to get into his pants—they were both
starving, filthy children. His analysis of her as a "helper archetype" seemed to be the only logical
fit. She saw a fellow sufferer, and her empathy was, perhaps, her greatest weakness.
His modern, cynical heart ached. She's going to be eaten alive here.
"Why are you helping me, Li Mei?" he asked, his voice raw.
She flinched, as if the question were a slap. "I... I told you," she stammered, twisting the cloth in
her hands. "What they did... it was wrong. And... and..."
"And what?"
She looked up, and her dark, clear eyes met his. "No one ever... talks to me," she said, so
quietly he barely heard. "But you. You looked at me. And you said 'thank you.' And you asked...
you asked what I would eat."
His breath hitched. That was it. The barest, most basic human decency. In a world this brutal, a
simple "thank you" was a treasure.
"We... we're the same, Ren Wei," she whispered. "We're the weeds. Stuck in the cracks of
the-the great stones."
A cold, bitter laugh escaped him. "Weeds. Yes. That's what we are." He looked at the root.
"Thank you, Li Mei. I... I won't forget this."
He accepted the herb. That night, he chewed the bitter, earthy root. It tasted like dirt and
survival. The next morning, the fire in his meridians had cooled to a dull, manageable ache.
He found her by the practice ground, standing in the back row, trying to be invisible as she went
through the motions.
"Li Mei," he said.
She started, nearly jumping out of her skin.
"Walk with me," he said, not a request.
He led her away from the main paths, to a small, hidden grove behind the latrines—a place so "Surviving," he said. He sat on a flat rock. "You were right. We're weeds. And on our own, we're
going to be plucked and thrown away. Or trampled."
He looked at her. "You're stuck, aren't you? The Verdant Jade technique. You can't get the Qi to
'settle' in your lower dantian. It keeps... dissipating."
Her eyes went wide with shock. "How... how did you know?"
"Because I'm stuck, too," he said. "It's a flaw in the technique. Or maybe, it's a flaw in us. It
doesn't matter."
He had spent the last two days, his mind clearer thanks to the herb, not just doing the
technique, but reading it. Analyzing it like a textbook. It was horribly written. Vague, mystical,
and inefficient. It was designed for "talented" people who could just "feel" it. It was not designed
for C- students.
"I have an idea," he said, lowering his voice. "A... a stupid idea I had when I was feverish. But it
might work."
He couldn't tell her about psychology. He couldn't tell her about mnemonics or cognitive
visualization. But he could use them.
"The manual says 'Feel the Qi as a river, and let it flow into the sea of your dantian,'" he quoted.
"That's stupid. A river is big. It's messy. It overflows. What if we're not ready for a river?"
He picked up a thin, sharp twig. "What if, instead... it's a thread?"
He looked at her, his eyes intense. "Don't try to 'gather' it. That's too much. Just... find one
single thread of Qi in the air. A tiny, thin, little-bitty wisp. And don't 'push' it into your body. Pull
it."
He scratched a diagram in the dirt. "Imagine your meridian isn't a river. It's the eye of a needle.
A tiny, tiny hole. You just need to get that one, single thread... through the needle's eye."
Her brow furrowed. She didn't get it.
"Look," he said, frustrated. "It's a mind game. The technique is a mind game. It's about focus.
Stop trying to 'cultivate.' Just try to 'sew.' One thread. One needle. That's all. Can you do that?"
She looked at the dirt diagram, then at him. She closed her eyes.
She sat there for ten minutes. Twenty. Ren Wei was about to give up.
Then, a tiny "oh" escaped her lips.
Her pale, sallow face, which was usually the picture of cold passivity, was now... different. There
was a tiny, tiny flicker of energy under her skin, a faint warmth he could feel even from a foot
away.
"It... it's there," she whispered, her eyes flying open. They were shining, and in a way that made
his breath catch. "It's small. But it... it stayed. It didn't leak!"
"It's not much," Ren Wei said, his heart hammering. It worked. His stupid, modern-mind trick
worked. "But it's a start."
"A start," she repeated, her voice full of a strange, breathless awe. She looked at him, and her
gaze was so heavy, so intense, it felt almost physical. "This... this is your idea, Ren Wei. This
secret."
"It's our secret," he corrected her firmly. "Ours. We practice here. Every day. We don't tell
anyone. We share what we find. We're a team." He held out his hand. A modern, business-like
gesture.
She stared at his calloused, dirty hand. She didn't take it.
Instead, she did something that shocked him even more than the bun. She shuffled forward on
her knees and bowed, her forehead touching the dirt at his feet.
"I, Li Mei," she whispered, her voice trembling, "will treasure this. I will... protect this. I swear it."
Ren Wei's stomach went cold. This was... too much. This was a level of devotion that was far
beyond "gratitude." "Li Mei, get up," he said, his voice sharp. "That's not... we're partners. Equals. Get up."
She looked up, her face pale, but her eyes were burning with a terrifying, ecstatic light. "Yes,
Ren Wei," she said, as she got to her feet. "Partners."
He had wanted an ally. A fellow "weed." He had a fragile hope that he wasn't alone.
But as he looked at the almost religious fervor in her eyes, his psychologist's brain screamed a
warning. He had misdiagnosed her. This wasn't a "helper." This was... something else.
He had just given a starving person a scrap of bread, and she was now looking at him like he
was a god. He had wanted a teammate. He'd just gotten his first, terrifying worshipper.