The Wei Clan compound was a palace built by the petty, for the petty. Every step Tobi took along the jade-tiled corridors was matched by a chorus of whispers. Servants, juniors, hangers-on, all falling quiet a fraction too late as "Young Master Trash" passed by. The titles changed, but the contempt never did.
He moved with his old city walk—shoulders hunched, head angled down just enough to suggest submission, but eyes always scanning the periphery. The pickpocket in him kept count: seven sneers, three upturned noses, one spat seed that landed precisely in the shadow of his left foot.
The floor glimmered with inlaid greenstone, cut to a mathematical perfection that would have cost five years of rent back in his old world. The walls were hung with silk banners, each hand-painted with a scene from some ancient massacre or feat of cultivation. Even the pillars were alive with dragon heads that seemed to watch you as you moved, lacquered eyes tracking the slow parade of humiliation.
He let them whisper.
The dining hall announced itself long before he reached it: the clatter of porcelain, the murmur of conversation, the rich smell of braised pork and jasmine rice. His stomach clenched. Xuanji's body hadn't eaten properly in days, and whatever the previous owner had been drinking had stripped the lining from his gut.
Two servants flanked the entrance, their faces carefully blank. They didn't bow. Didn't acknowledge him at all. Just slid the doors open with synchronized precision and let him walk into the lion's den.
The hall stretched the length of a basketball court, dominated by a U-shaped table of lacquered rosewood. Silk lanterns hung from the rafters, casting everything in amber light. At the head sat Patriarch Wei Zhenmu, his iron-gray beard immaculate, his eyes like flint chips embedded in granite. To his right, a cluster of elders in midnight blue. To his left, the younger generation—cousins, siblings, rivals—all arranged by some invisible hierarchy that Tobi didn't yet understand.
Every head turned as he entered.
"Ah." A voice cut through the murmur. "The corpse walks."
Wei Jianyu sat three seats down from the Patriarch, resplendent in robes the color of fresh snow, a jade hairpin glinting in his topknot. His smile was all teeth. "I thought we'd finally be rid of you."
Tobi kept walking. The space designated for him was at the far end of the table, practically in the servants' corridor. He took his seat without acknowledging the comment.
"Jianyu." The Patriarch's voice was quiet, but it carried. "We do not mock the injured."
"My apologies, Grandfather." Jianyu inclined his head, the picture of filial piety. "I merely expressed surprise. After all, the physicians said—"
"The physicians were wrong." Tobi reached for the tea in front of him. His hand was steady. "Clearly."
A ripple of whispers ran down the table. Someone snickered.
An older woman—Third Aunt, his borrowed memories supplied—leaned forward. Her face was sharp as a hatchet. "You collapsed in the garden. Stopped breathing for nearly a minute. Elder Shen had to force qi directly into your heart to restart it."
"Then I owe Elder Shen my thanks."
"You owe this clan more than thanks." Third Aunt's chopsticks clicked against her bowl. "You owe it a functioning cultivator. Instead, we have—" She gestured at him, the motion somehow encompassing every failure Wei Xuanji had ever committed.
Tobi sipped his tea. It was bitter, exactly as expected. He set the cup down.
"A functioning cultivator," he repeated. "Is that what this family needs?"
"It's what this family has, except for you." Jianyu's smile widened. "Seven generations of the Wei bloodline, and you can't even complete basic Qi circulation without your meridian leaking like a cracked pot."
"Jianyu." The Patriarch again, quieter this time.
"I speak only truth, Grandfather. We all watched him fail the Flame Lighting ceremony. We all saw him stumble through every assessment since childhood. And now he nearly dies from—what was it again?" Jianyu tilted his head, mock-thoughtful. "Drinking himself unconscious in the garden?"
Tobi's fingers tightened around the teacup. The borrowed memories churned beneath his skin, shame and rage that weren't quite his own.
"The practice field opens at the hour of the rooster," he said.
The table went silent.
Third Aunt's chopsticks froze halfway to her mouth. "What did you say?"
"The practice field. I'll be there tonight." Tobi met her gaze. "Unless the clan has decided to bar me from training entirely?"
Jianyu laughed. The sound was bright and cruel. "You? On the practice field? You stopped breathing less than a day ago."
"And now I'm breathing fine."
"Your Heart Meridian is damaged beyond repair. Every physician in this compound has confirmed it. You're broken, Xuanji. Fundamentally, irreparably broken."
"Then I have nothing to lose from a little training."
The words hung in the air. Tobi watched Jianyu's smile falter, just for an instant, before it returned wider than before.
"Nothing to lose," Jianyu repeated. "How poetic. The trash cultivator, embracing his fate."
"Enough." The Patriarch set down his cup. The porcelain clicked against rosewood with the finality of a gavel. "If Wei Xuanji wishes to train, he may train. That is his right as a member of this clan."
"Grandfather—"
"I said enough."
Jianyu's jaw tightened. He reached for his wine, took a long drink, and said nothing more.
The meal continued in strained silence. Dishes arrived and departed, each more elaborate than the last. Tobi forced himself to eat—rice, vegetables, a few bites of pork that sat heavy in his stomach. The food was excellent. He barely tasted it.
Across the table, he caught Mei Ran watching him. She sat among the minor branch members, her simple training clothes a stark contrast to the silk and brocade around her. Her eyes were sharp, calculating. When she noticed him looking, she didn't glance away. Just held his gaze for a long moment, then returned to her meal.
He filed that away. She was someone who noticed things. Someone who might be useful, or dangerous, or both.
The Patriarch rose first, as protocol demanded. The rest of the table followed in order of rank, a choreographed wave of silk and bowing heads. Tobi waited until the last possible moment before standing, letting the minor insult register with those who cared about such things.
The servants reappeared to clear the dishes. The elders drifted toward the doors in clusters, murmuring about trade routes and cultivation resources and other matters that didn't concern the clan embarrassment. Jianyu swept past without a glance, his entourage trailing behind like pale shadows.
By the time he reached the courtyard's arched entrance, his nerves buzzed so hard he thought he might short-circuit.
Outdoors, the air was a slap—cool, with a bite of incense smoke drifting in from the family shrines. The main yard was a riot: three dozen juniors in azure training silks, all shouting as they battered each other with staves and blunted swords. Overseers marched the perimeter with scrolls, ticking off errors, distributing correction with sharp wooden rods. It looked like chaos, but every movement radiated an undertone of discipline, a sickly pulse of ambition.
He cut across the flagstones toward the far wall, keeping close to the shadow of the eaves. There, in the dead center of the yard, stood Wei Jianyu.
The prodigy cousin. The unassailable prince. The current golden cock of this particular dung heap.
He was bigger than Tobi remembered. Not fatter—he carried muscle like a fencing champion, dense and packed under tailored robes. Black hair was slicked up in a martial topknot, secured by a green-jade hairpin that matched the envy in half the girls' eyes. He finished a kata as Tobi approached, the wooden blade blurring with such speed it hummed in the air. When he landed, he let the blade rest on his shoulder, a study in effortless authority.
A ripple passed through the crowd.
"Cousin!" Jianyu called, voice booming over the clangor. "Come. We saved you a place up front."
The circle of disciples parted, some with theatrical bows, others with barely concealed giggles. Tobi walked into the ring with all the grace of a man being led to his own execution.
Jianyu smiled a smile that said, Welcome to the show.
"So you actually showed, cousin? I'm impressed." Jianyu's gaze flicked over Tobi's borrowed robe, noting the ink stains and the lack of any rank insignia. "Perfect timing. We could always use a demonstration of... cautionary technique."
The laughter from the crowd was instant and unanimous.
Tobi's pulse beat in his jaw. He didn't answer. He let his eyes go flat, the way you do when a mark suspects you're about to lift his wallet.
Jianyu didn't like that. The smile sharpened.
"Very well. How about a simple test?" He gestured to the bench beside him, where an array of calligraphy brushes lay in a neat line, each with its own inkstone and slip of rice paper. "You must know how to circulate Qi, yes? Even a baby can do that much."
He picked up a brush, dipped it in the ink, and traced a perfect circle in one motion. "Watch."
Jianyu pressed two fingers to his wrist. The veins along his arm stood up, luminous beneath the skin. With a flick of the brush, he sent a thin arc of blue energy onto the paper, where it sizzled and left a glowing rune behind.
A few of the juniors clapped. One whistled.
Jianyu held the brush out to Tobi, but didn't release it when Tobi grabbed the handle. He held the gaze, smile going soft and lethal.
"Your turn, cousin."
Tobi took the brush, feeling the pulse of a hundred eyes on him. His first instinct was to run, but old misplaced ego rebelled. He could lift a man's wallet while being frisked by two cops and the victim's wife; surely he could fake his way through this.
He pressed two fingers to his own wrist, just as he'd seen. Nothing happened. The crowd grew silent. Then he remembered the sequence Qiao had used: the touch above the vein, the shallow inhale, the infinitesimal shift in thumb pressure.
He tried it.
For a split second, he felt a shimmer—something slippery, almost like adrenaline but colder. He directed it down his arm, visualizing the path exactly as he'd observed.
A bead of sweat rolled down his spine.
He dipped the brush and moved it over the paper.
What came out was a blur—not a neat circle, but a stuttering, jagged line that writhed, alive and desperate. Worse, his hand trembled. The brush slipped, scattering droplets of ink across the rice paper and onto the sleeve of the nearest onlooker.
Qi pulsed, for an instant. The room's temperature seemed to drop.
Then it all went wrong.
A thin, pale mist leaked from his palm, dribbled down his fingers, and dissipated in the air with a faint hiss. The paper browned at the edges, then caught fire—just a whiff of smoke, then a charred hole where the circle had been.
The juniors howled with laughter. Several doubled over, one even falling to his knees, pounding the ground. Someone in the back actually clapped, slow and sarcastic.
Jianyu didn't even have to speak—the look on his face was pure, distilled pity.
But he spoke anyway. "Astonishing! Not only did you fail to circulate your own Qi, you nearly set the clan record for fastest loss of control. There's talent, and then there's…" He gestured at the smoldering paper.
A voice from the crowd: "Maybe next time, try using water, not ink!"
More laughter.
Tobi's ears burned. The sweat was ice now, cold and humiliating. He started to move, but Jianyu caught his arm, not hard, just enough to make the point.
"Listen," Jianyu whispered, pitched only for Tobi, "You don't belong here. You never did. Don't embarrass the rest of us by pretending otherwise."
He let go. Tobi turned to go, but stopped when he saw Master Cao Ping.
The old instructor was at the edge of the crowd, half-hunched and nearly lost behind a wall of juniors. His face looked like someone had folded him up and left him in the sun to dry: all angles and paper-thin skin. He held a jade abacus in one hand, working the beads with silent precision.
When their eyes met, Cao Ping didn't laugh, didn't even frown. He just watched, eyebrows twitching upward, as if recalculating a problem he'd thought long-solved.
Tobi let the crowd swallow him. He dropped the ruined brush into the nearest waste urn and didn't look back.
He kept his eyes on the ground until the voices faded.
The corridor was empty when he reached it. Small mercies.
He pressed his back against a pillar and let himself breathe. The laughter still echoed in his skull, mixing with the memory of smoke curling from ruined paper. His palm ached where the Qi had leaked out, a dull throb that matched his heartbeat.
"That was painful to watch."
He spun.
Mei Ran stood three paces behind him, arms crossed, her simple training clothes making her nearly invisible against the shadowed wall. She must have followed him from the yard. He hadn't heard a single footstep.
"Didn't realize I had an audience," he said.
"You had several dozen. I was just the only one who bothered to follow." She tilted her head, studying him the way a cat studies a mouse it hasn't decided to eat yet. "You're different."
"Different how?"
"The old Xuanji would have thrown a tantrum by now. Screamed at someone. Maybe tried to hit Jianyu and gotten himself beaten bloody for the trouble." Her eyes narrowed. "You just... walked away."
"Maybe I'm tired."
"Maybe." She didn't sound convinced. "Or maybe you finally realized that throwing fits won't fix a broken meridian."
The words landed like a punch to the gut. He kept his face blank.
"What do you want?"
"Nothing. I'm just curious." She uncrossed her arms, fingers brushing the wall as she pushed off from the stone. "You never looked at people the way you did today. Like you're measuring them for something."
"...And how did I look at people?"
"Like a thief."
The word hung between them. Tobi felt his shoulders tense, an old reflex.
Mei Ran smiled, just barely. "Relax. I'm not accusing you of anything. I'm from a minor branch—we don't have enough worth stealing." Her eyes flicked to his hands. "But that Qi control technique Jianyu showed? Even you could master it with practice. The old sanctuary behind the eastern storage would be perfect—no one goes there anymore."
She was gone before he could respond. One moment there, the next disappearing between pillars like she'd never existed at all.
He stood alone in the corridor, pulse finally slowing.
_Like a thief huh. _
She wasn't wrong.
=====
The sanctuary was exactly where Mei Ran, and Xuanji's memories said it would be: accessible only through a gap in a crumbling wall that the groundskeepers had been meaning to repair for three years. The gap was narrow enough that anyone with proper bulk couldn't squeeze through. For Tobi's borrowed frame, it was almost comfortable.
He emerged into a space the size of a modest bedroom, hemmed in by walls on three sides and a collapsed storage shed on the fourth.
No one visited, not even the gardeners. The courtyard was a fossil, left over from when the compound had been smaller, poorer, less obsessed with ceremonial grandeur. Its stone tiles were split, uneven, dotted with moss and tufts of grass that erupted after every rain. Bamboo clustered in one corner, half-dead but refusing to topple, and a shallow pool had become a graveyard for insects and lost coins.
It was perfect. He could hear the distant war cries of the training yard, but here the only sounds were water dripping from the broken eaves and the distant chitter of sparrows in the roof beams.
He sat cross-legged by the empty fountain, rolled up his sleeve, and began.
Step one: Recall the feeling.
He closed his eyes and summoned the memory of Qiao Luwei's touch. It had been almost nothing, a graze, but it carried more information than a week's worth of lessons. The angle of the wrist, the breath caught in the chest, the way she used her pinky to anchor her position before committing pressure with the thumb.
He mimicked the gesture, slow and deliberate, until his fingers landed on the correct point just above his heart. He inhaled, shallow, then exhaled as he pressed.
Step two: Run the sequence.
At first, nothing happened.
But he kept at it. He cycled through the steps, adjusting micro-movements, correcting for the differences between his body and hers. Each time, he felt a faint pulse beneath his thumb, like a ripple in a dirty puddle. It was weak, unsteady.
He changed tactics.
Instead of pushing with brute force, he "lifted" the sensation, the way you'd tease the phone out of a mark's pocket. Gentle, insistent, always feeling for resistance. He visualized the broken artery in his chest, the old scar tissue, the places where Qi bled out and never returned.
This time, when he pressed, a warmth spread from the point of contact.
He kept his eyes closed, riding the sensation. He followed the flow up to his shoulder, down to his wrist, then looped it back to the heart. Each time he lost it, he tried again, mapping the failures as carefully as the successes.
After twenty minutes, sweat beaded on his neck. The ache in his chest was gone, replaced by a sensation he could only describe as… tightness. Not painful. More like someone had cinched a belt around his sternum, holding the leaking parts together.
He opened his eyes and stared at his hand. The skin was flushed. The fingers trembled, not from weakness but from something else: hunger. A need to keep going, to perfect the trick.
He ran the sequence again, and again, refining it every time.
On the sixth attempt, the tightness resolved into a bright, brittle clarity. For the first time since waking in this world, the headache didn't come back.
He laughed, the sound startling in the empty courtyard.
For the first time since waking up in this body, he felt something like hope. The meridian wasn't fixed—not by a long shot—but it was responding. Working. Alive.
He rolled down his sleeve slowly, savoring the lingering warmth beneath his skin. In his old life, progress had been measured in dollars lifted from wallets, in nights he didn't go hungry. Small victories that evaporated by morning. Nothing permanent. Nothing that couldn't be taken away.
But this? This was his. A foundation he could build on, brick by brick.
He ran his fingers over the spot where he'd applied the technique, mentally cataloging what he'd learned:
Qiao's diagnostic touch: patch the Heart Meridian temporarily, but repeatable. No side effects so far. Next step would be scaling up, experimenting with other techniques.
He stood and dusted himself off, looking around the forgotten courtyard with new eyes. He was stuck here—in this world, in this body—but for the first time, that didn't feel like a sentence.
It felt like a beginning.