Chapter 4
1095 Words
Wei Liang sat alone in the labor disciples' quarters, staring at his hands. They were cracked from carrying firewood all day. His meridians felt dry, like a riverbed with no water left in it.
He needed spirit herbs. Without them his cultivation would stall and never move again. But labor disciples got no allowance for herbs. No money. No access to the sect's resource hall. That door was for inner disciples only.
So he watched.
For five days he carried wood near the medicine storage building and counted everyone who went in and out. He noted the time the guards changed shifts. He noted which elder checked the inventory and when. He noted the gap between the evening guard leaving and the night guard arriving, a gap of almost ten minutes.
On the fifth night, he moved.
He slipped through the back window using the gap he had mapped. Inside, shelves of herbs lined every wall, sorted by grade. The high grade herbs were locked behind glass. He didn't touch those. He went straight for the disposal bin near the back, the one filled with low grade herbs marked for waste. Wilted roots. Cracked leaves. Things nobody would miss.
He took a handful, wrapped them in cloth, and left the same way he came in. No noise. No trace.
He chewed one of the roots that night in his bunk. It was bitter and weak, barely enough to move his qi an inch. But it was something. For the first time in weeks, he felt his core stir.
He should have known it wouldn't stay quiet for long.
Three days later, his cousin Wei Dong found him at the beast pens, where Wei Liang was shoveling feed into the troughs. Wei Dong didn't come alone. Three inner disciples walked behind him, arms crossed, smug looks already in place.
"Wei Liang." Wei Dong's voice cut through the noise of the pens. "Kneel."
Wei Liang kept shoveling. "Kneel for what?"
"You know what." Wei Dong stepped closer. "Someone broke into the medicine storage five nights ago. A spy among the labor disciples saw you near the building. Confess and maybe the punishment won't be so bad."
Wei Liang set the shovel down slowly. He looked at the three inner disciples standing behind his cousin, then back at Wei Dong.
"You need three people to talk to one labor disciple?"
Wei Dong's face went red. "Don't twist this. You stole from the sect."
"I took herbs marked for disposal. Trash nobody wanted." Wei Liang shrugged. "If that's stealing, then every beggar in the lower city is a criminal too."
"It doesn't matter what grade they were. You had no right to touch them."
"And I had no right to cultivate either, is that it? No money, no connections, no resources. Just supposed to carry wood until I die of old age."
Wei Dong's jaw tightened. He didn't answer that. He didn't have to.
The pens had gone quiet. A few other labor disciples had stopped working, watching from a distance, pretending not to.
"Kneel," Wei Dong said again. "Last chance."
Wei Liang didn't move.
Wei Dong attacked.
His palm shot forward fast, qi gathered at the center, aimed straight at Wei Liang's chest. Wei Liang shifted his weight and slid to the side, the strike passing an inch from his shoulder. He'd learned that movement from Xu, a footwork pattern meant for dodging without wasting energy.
Wei Dong didn't stop. He spun and threw a second strike, faster this time. Wei Liang ducked under it, feeling the wind of it pass over his head.
The three inner disciples behind Wei Dong started murmuring. They hadn't expected a labor disciple to dodge twice.
Wei Dong's face twisted with anger now, not just irritation. He gathered more qi into his palm for the third strike, pulling harder than before, putting real force into it.
Wei Liang didn't dodge this time.
He stood his ground and let the palm connect against his chest.
The moment Wei Dong's qi touched him, his Void root opened like a mouth and pulled it in. It wasn't pain he felt. It was a current running through him, sudden and warm, his root devouring the spiritual energy and turning it into something he could use. His meridians lit up from the inside.
Wei Dong's hand hit something that felt like solid stone wrapped in cloth. The shock of it traveled back up his arm, numbing his fingers. He staggered back, shaking his hand out, his face caught between confusion and pain.
"What—" He stared at his own palm like it had betrayed him.
Wei Liang straightened up. He felt different. Lighter, somehow, and also heavier in the right places, like something inside him had finally caught and started turning. He hadn't felt this kind of fullness in his core since before his root was tested and mocked.
"That hurt you more than me," Wei Liang said.
Wei Dong said nothing. He just stood there, flexing his fingers, looking for an explanation that wouldn't come.
Wei Liang picked the shovel back up. He didn't throw another word at any of them. He turned and walked back toward the troughs like nothing had happened, like three inner disciples weren't standing there stunned at what they'd just seen.
He didn't feel like he had won anything. Winning wasn't the word for it. What he felt was something else entirely — the simple, quiet relief of not being powerless anymore. Even if it was just for a moment. Even if it was just against his own cousin.
That night, Xu found him sitting outside his bunk, turning the empty cloth wrap from the herbs over in his hands.
"I heard what happened at the pens," Xu said, sitting down beside him.
"It worked."
"It worked once." Xu's tone was flat, no excitement in it. "Maybe twice if you're lucky. After that, people learn. They'll stop hitting you with force you can absorb. They'll come at you with blades, or with qi types your root can't swallow, or they'll just g**g up and skip the fight altogether."
Wei Liang didn't answer right away.
"You need real power," Xu said. "Not tricks. Not borrowed qi from someone else's strike. If you keep provoking people like Wei Dong before you're ready, one day someone smarter will be standing where he was."
Wei Liang looked down at his hands again. They didn't feel as weak as before. But Xu was right, and he knew it.
He had bought himself time. Nothing more.
- Writer
