I was twelve when the first bandit grabbed my wrist. His fingers were thick as bamboo, calluses scraping my skin like bark. The smell of sweat and fermented rice wine hit me before his fist did.
"Empty your pockets, kid."
I had nothing but a frog in my left sleeve and dirt in my right pocket. The frog croaked once, like it was laughing.
Behind him, three more shapes shifted in the dusk. One carried a cleaver that had seen better days—its edge nicked and black with old blood. My stomach twisted. Not fear exactly, more like the memory of hunger.
I twisted free, but not far. The bandit's grip had already bruised the bone. He yanked me closer, breath hot against my ear. "No coin? Then your clothes."
The frog chose that moment to leap. It landed on his boot, then shot toward his face. He yelped, swatted wildly. I dropped to the mud, rolled under his flailing arm. My knees hit something hard. A rock? No—smooth, cool, the size of my thumb.
I scooped it up without thinking. Jade. Not the cloudy village stuff, but real jade, green shot through with black veins like lightning frozen mid-flash.
The cleaver man lunged. I scrambled back, jade clenched in my fist. Something shifted inside my chest—like breath, but deeper. My lungs burned, not from running. From... inhaling?
No. From pulling.
The bandit's qi—raw, untrained, but there—flowed toward me. A trickle at first, then a rush. His eyes widened. "What the—"
I didn't understand it. Didn't need to. My meridians, those invisible rivers Ma had whispered about before the fever took her, suddenly had current. The jade warmed against my palm, black veins pulsing in time with my heartbeat.
The cleaver man swung. I dodged, but slower than I should have. The blade kissed my shoulder, parting cloth and skin in a hot line. Blood welled. Pain flared.
But the qi kept coming. Not just his—the frog's too, that tiny spark of life. Even the mud seemed to give something up, earth qi seeping into my soles. My vision sharpened. The bandit's next swing felt predictable, like I'd seen it in a dream.
I moved without deciding. My small fist connected with his knee. Cartilage crunched. He howled, toppled. The others hesitated.
I ran.
Branches whipped my face. The cut on my shoulder throbbed, but the jade's warmth spread through my arm, knitting something inside me. Not healing exactly—more like... learning. The way his qi felt. How it moved.
By the time I reached the stream, the sun had vanished. I collapsed against a willow, breathing hard. The frog had followed, sitting on a rock like nothing happened.
I opened my hand. The jade was cracked now, a hairline fracture running through the black veins. But inside—gods, inside—I felt full. Not of food, but of something else. Power, maybe. Or just the promise of it.
The frog croaked again. I laughed, a short sharp sound that hurt my throat. My reflection in the water looked different. Older. Or maybe just awake.
From the trees, distant shouts. They were coming back.
I closed my fingers around the jade. The crack pulsed, black vein spreading like ink in water.
Tomorrow, I'd figure out what it meant. Tonight, I'd survive.