By the time Yuan He finished tying the last bundle, his hands smelled like crushed leaves and damp earth. The skin at his knuckles was stained green in the creases. His ribs still hurt when he breathed too deeply, but the pain had shifted into something manageable, the way a bruise became part of the body's background noise.
He carried the bundles to the gate in two trips. Each time, the gray-robed ledger man stamped, marked, and moved on. No praise, no complaint. Just the quiet insistence of a system that wanted him to be a number.
When Yuan He finally stepped out of the garden with his empty hands, the sun was sinking behind the outer buildings, turning the yard into long shadows and thin light.
He didn't go back to the dorms.
Not yet.
Hunger was a problem he could solve with food. Tomorrow's hunger was a problem he could solve with merit points. But the larger problem was time, and time was never free in a place like this.
He walked toward the Merit Hall.
From the outside, it was not impressive. It was a wide, low building of pale stone with a dark tiled roof, set apart from the dormitories by a clean courtyard that looked like it had been swept more often than the rest of the outer sect. The doorway was framed by two pillars carved with cloud motifs that had softened with age.
People moved in and out in a steady line. Nobody laughed here. Nobody shoved. Even the loud ones lowered their voices, as if the air itself could record disrespect.
A signboard stood by the entrance, lacquered and polished. It listed exchange rates in neat characters, the kind of neatness that told Yuan He someone had taken pride in bureaucracy.
He stepped closer and read.
He did not understand every term, but the structure was familiar. Basic rations, small luxuries, training aids, access privileges. Everything had a cost.
Rice and dried vegetables: cheap.
Lamp oil: a little more.
Paper and ink: expensive enough to make him blink. It wasn't the paper itself that cost; it was the permission to leave a record.
Herb bundles, if you wanted to buy rather than earn: ridiculous.
There were items listed that made his pulse quicken, not because he wanted them immediately, but because they represented a different tier of life.
Low-grade spirit stones: priced in a way that made it clear they were not for people like him unless he changed something about his situation.
Training manuals: a whole section of the board dedicated to them, with costs that varied by grade and authorization.
Authorization, he noted. Not just merit points. Permission.
He saw an item labeled Outer Library Entry Token, and beside it, a cost in merit points that was not impossible, but not trivial either. The note beside it made his mouth tighten.
One entry. One hour. No copying.
So even knowledge was rented, not given.
A man's voice near the door said, "Don't waste your points," in the tone of someone advising a child while also enjoying the advice too much. "You won't understand those manuals anyway."
Someone laughed. Someone else laughed a little late.
Yuan He let the line pull him forward. The inside of the hall smelled like incense and old paper. There were counters along the far wall, each with a clerk behind it and a small wooden plaque that listed what that window handled: exchanges, disputes, records, penalties.
Penalties had its own window.
Of course it did.
He chose the exchange counter with the shortest line and waited, watching the flow.
A disciple with cleaner robes stepped up, presented a token, and received a small pouch with barely any conversation. The clerk's brush moved with practiced speed. The disciple left without looking at the rates board, as if he did not need to.
Next, a thin outer disciple stepped up, presented a token, and got scolded for something. The clerk spoke loudly enough that the nearby line could hear.
"You damaged the leaves. The ledger marked it. Your points are reduced."
"I didn't," the disciple said, voice thin.
The clerk didn't look up. "The ledger marked it."
That was the end of the discussion.
The disciple's shoulders sank. He accepted a smaller pouch and left quickly, as if his shame might be contagious.
Yuan He watched him go and felt something settle into place. Not anger. Understanding.
This hall was not about fairness. It was about authority. The ledger did not have to be right. The ledger only had to be believed.
When it was his turn, Yuan He stepped forward and placed his token on the counter.
The clerk behind the counter was older, with hair pulled back and a face that looked like it had been carved by habit. His eyes flicked over Yuan He's bruises, then away. He picked up the token, glanced at a mark on its surface, and reached beneath the counter.
He set a small pouch down. It was light. Yuan He didn't need to open it to know.
The clerk's brush scratched on paper. "Two merit points," he said, flat.
Yuan He opened the pouch anyway. Inside were a few small square slips of lacquered wood, each stamped with the same symbol he had seen in the ledger marks. Merit points, made physical. There were also two thin ration tickets, the kind used for communal meals.
His earlier impression of two being food and time had been correct.
He kept his face neutral. "Is there a list of what two merit points can exchange for?"
The clerk looked up, and for the first time there was a faint expression in his eyes. Not surprise. Amusement, again, like Yuan He had asked a question that revealed his ignorance.
"The board is outside," the clerk said. "If you can read."
"I can read," Yuan He said.
"Then read," the clerk replied, and reached for the next token.
Yuan He did not move away. "Outer library token," he said, and placed one of the wooden slips on the counter. "How much is it?"
The clerk's brush paused for a heartbeat, then resumed. "You don't have enough."
Yuan He nodded as if he already knew. He did. He had read the board.
"What can I buy that helps me earn more?" Yuan He asked.
That, at least, got a longer look.
The clerk's gaze moved over Yuan He slowly, as if appraising livestock. Five-element root. Outer sect. No backing. Bruised. Hungry. A person the system had already categorized.
"Work," the clerk said, and there was faint contempt in the simplicity. "Do better work."
Yuan He thought of the marks in the ledger. He thought of the stamps. He thought of the cracks he had seen. The clerk was not wrong, but he was not complete.
"What about manuals?" Yuan He asked. "Body tempering. Outer sect grade."
The clerk's expression turned faintly annoyed, as if Yuan He's persistence was a form of misbehavior. He reached under the counter and pulled out a thin booklet, the cover plain, the paper thick.
"Basic," the clerk said. "Outer Sect Tempered Body Art. Everyone gets the first chapter. Merit points for the rest."
He flipped it open with one hand and tapped a line. "You can read it in the hall. You cannot take it out."
So even this was rented.
Yuan He leaned in and scanned the first page. The characters were dense, but his comprehension held. Instructions, posture names, breathing patterns, warnings about overexertion. It was not elegant. It was functional.
He could work with functional.
"How much for one hour?" Yuan He asked.
The clerk's brush scratched. "One merit point."
Half his day's earnings for an hour of reading.
Yuan He did not flinch. He placed a merit slip on the counter.
The clerk stamped a small paper tag and slid it toward him. The tag had a time mark and a warning: return the booklet; do not damage; do not copy.
Yuan He took the booklet and moved to the side tables.
The reading area was really just a set of benches and tables arranged so clerks could see you. Several outer disciples sat there, heads down, lips moving as they mouthed words to themselves. One kept glancing at the penalty counter with the nervousness of someone expecting to be called.
Yuan He sat where he had light and space. He set the booklet down and forced himself to slow.
He wanted to devour it. He wanted to seize knowledge the way a starving person seized food. But the way he had survived on Earth was by respecting constraints. If he rushed and missed something, he might hurt this body. A torn muscle here could mean weeks of vulnerability.
He read the first section carefully.
The technique was designed for people with weak foundations. It emphasized endurance, circulation, and incremental strengthening. It treated the body like a vessel that had to be reinforced before it could hold more.
Containment, he thought, and almost smiled.
The parallels were almost insulting.
He tested the first posture while seated, subtle enough that nobody would notice. He adjusted his breathing. He paid attention to sensation.
There was something there. Not a flood of power, not a cinematic surge. More like a faint warmth deep in his abdomen, a pressure that responded when he focused. It moved when he guided it, slow and reluctant, like water through a narrow pipe.
Qi, the other memories supplied. Spiritual energy. Whatever you called it, it behaved like a flow.
He tried to push it further and felt it split. Not evenly. Not neatly. Like a stream hitting a bed of stones and dividing into too many thin channels.
Five elements, he realized. Dispersal.
It wasn't just social stigma. It was physics, in its own way. Too many degrees of freedom. Too much leakage. Energy going everywhere, doing nothing.
On Earth, that kind of problem had solutions. Not easy ones, but solutions: confinement geometry, stability criteria, feedback loops.
Here, he didn't have coils. He didn't have sensors. He had breath, intent, and a body that remembered being hit.
He read the section on balancing and found it was vague in the way old manuals were vague. Harmonize your five energies. Align your breath with the heavens. Feel the cycle.
Useful as poetry. Useless as instruction.
He looked up from the booklet and stared at the far wall, not seeing it.
If the five elements dispersed like this, then the first goal wasn't more power. More power would just leak faster. The first goal was stability. Reduce leakage. Build a structure that could hold.
Elemental Interlock, his mind supplied, and he felt the phrase click into place with a small satisfaction.
He lowered his gaze and continued reading, extracting what he could, ignoring the rest.
From time to time, outer disciples nearby whispered to each other, trading hints like contraband.
"Don't lock your knees," one said.
"I heard if you breathe too deep, you bruise your meridians."
"That's only if you're stupid," someone replied, too loudly, and drew a glare from a clerk.
Yuan He didn't join their conversation. He didn't want to be noticed. He simply listened, filed away anything that sounded like a real observation, and discarded superstition.
When the time mark on his paper tag reached its end, he closed the booklet gently and returned it to the counter.
The clerk took it, checked the cover, and made a mark. "Next."
Yuan He stepped away, one merit point poorer, and did not regret it.
Outside the hall, the last light of day was fading. The courtyard had cooled. The air smelled faintly of cooking somewhere beyond the dorms.
He opened his pouch again and counted what was left.
One merit point.
Two ration tickets.
A few copper coins that felt like they belonged to a different century.
Not enough to buy freedom. Not even enough to buy safety.
But he had something he didn't have this morning.
A clearer model.
A sense of the system's pressure points.
And a small, private confirmation that qi existed and could be guided, even if it bled away through five-element dispersal.
As he started back toward the dorms, he passed the rates board again and forced himself to read the bottom lines, the ones most people pretended not to see.
Penalty rates. Labor debts. Merit deductions for disturbing order.
The costs of being visible.
He tucked his remaining merit point deeper into his pouch and adjusted his robe so it covered it. Tomorrow, someone would try to take it. That was as predictable as gravity.
He walked with his head down, not because he was defeated, but because he was learning how to move through a system designed to grind him into powder.
Quietly.
Carefully.
With as few wasted motions as possible.