The straw hat smelled of dried clover and dust.
Kaelen Vance lay flat on his back atop three packed bales of rye hay. A warm sunbeam cut through a broken cedar roof slat, warming his left shin. Dust motes drifted in the yellow light like lazy gnats.
Beneath the straw brim, his eyes remained fixed on page forty-two.
The binding was heavy calfskin stamped with Claire Vance’s faded crest. To any servant, it looked like his mother’s old recipe book. Inside rested the real prize: the first pamphlet of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
At the corner of his vision, a pale grey stone tablet hovered in the air.
[The Fallow Slate] [Current Abstinence: 99 Hours, 45 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State] [Current Multiplier: 100x (Stage 1: Mortal Tally)] [Next Milestone: 100 Hours (101x Ready)]
Fifteen minutes left.
Just fifteen minutes of absolute, unblemished indolence, and the counter would hit triple digits.
Kaelen turned the page with one thumb. On the rough paper, Lady Vivienne swooned by an abandoned watermill while the bandit chief stripped off his leather jerkin. The pacing dragged, and the villain had no sensible motive.
Kaelen loved every word.
Let First Brother swing that iron broadsword until his palms bleed, Kaelen thought. Every hour he grinds is one baseline hour. Every hour I lie on this hay bale with a straw hat over my face is another hundred percent on the tally.
The rules of the slate were simple and brutal.
To maintain the True Fallow State, he could not circulate Qi through his meridians. He could not run combat footwork drills. He could not light an alchemy furnace or ponder the mysteries of the heavens.
If his mind wandered toward martial ambition for even five seconds, the slate registered intent. The counter would snap straight back to zero.
Reading trashy mortal romance, however, counted as pure waste. The slate approved.
“Kaelen!”
A wooden ladle slammed against the iron rim of a washbasin. The ringing crack bounced off the stone walls of the Third Herb Shed.
Kaelen did not flinch. He merely tilted his hat half an inch.
Barnaby Holt stood five paces away, trembling with indignation. The old man wore a grease-stained smock that hung loose over his missing left shoulder.
His remaining right arm gripped an ash-wood ladle like a club, and thick gray hair stuck out from his temples in wild tufts.
“Ninety-nine hours,” Barnaby barked, his voice raspy as dry gravel. “You’ve been on that straw since Windsday. Do you know what day it is, Third Young Master?”
“Middleday,” Kaelen said. “The sun is past the lintel. Time for my second nap.”
“It is audit day!” Barnaby roared. He stomped forward, waving the ladle at Kaelen’s nose. “Inspectors are everywhere. And here you are, rotting on cow fodder with a stolen ledger!”
“Mother’s pastry notes are demanding, Old Barnaby. Flaky crust requires deep reflection.”
“You haven’t baked a biscuit in three years!” Barnaby reached out with the ladle, trying to hook the leather cover.
Kaelen twisted his wrist, dropping the book flat against his stomach. The straw hat stayed firmly over his eyes.
“Don’t snatch,” Kaelen said. “Agitation disturbs the dust. If I inhale mold spores, my lung gates will seize. Your bad hip would never forgive you for carrying me to the medic hall.”
Barnaby let out a sputtering wheeze. He dropped the ladle, rubbing his leathery temple. The anger in his eyes faded into tired sorrow.
“Kaelen,” the old man murmured, his tone dropping low. “Look at your hands.”
Kaelen did not look. Beneath the pale skin of his forearms, faint blue lines pulsed with an unnatural chill.
“The cold poison from that arrow is still there,” Barnaby said quietly. “Someone put iron into your back during the mountain hunt three years ago. Your Second Meridian has been blocked ever since. You are eighteen years old, boy. You are still stuck at Mortal Pulse Rank 2.”
“Rank 2 is comfortable,” Kaelen said. “Nobody challenges a Rank 2 to a duel over garden borders.”
“Your half-brothers are advancing every month!” Barnaby stepped closer, his boots crunching on dry stalks. “Cassian broke into Mortal Pulse Rank 8 last week. The entire manor celebrated with roasted oxen. Even Garrick reached Rank 6.”
Barnaby shook his head. “They call you the Vance Clan’s discarded weed.”
Cassian eats poison pills like candy, Kaelen thought. His meridians will snap when he tries to forge an Iron Bone. Let him enjoy his roasted ox.
“I like weeds,” Kaelen replied. “Nobody weeds a ditch unless it clogs the irrigation.”
“You have the Vance Frost-Pine Breath Manual,” Barnaby pleaded, leaning over the bale. “The Baron gave it to you himself after the accident. If you circulate thirty cycles of frost-pine breath, you can vent that cold poison. Just one single hour of effort, Kaelen!”
Kaelen suppressed a dry chuckle.
Old Barnaby had a good heart, but he was blind to the rot inside the manor. Baron Derrick Vance hadn’t gifted that manual out of love. Madam Evelyn had selected the scroll personally.
The Vance Frost-Pine Breath Manual had two reversed circulation routes in the second stage. For a healthy disciple, it merely caused mild chest tightness. For someone carrying a three-year-old cold-arrow toxin, though, the frost wouldn’t vent—it would plunge straight into the bone marrow and seal his pulse gates forever.
They hadn’t tried to kill Kaelen openly. They had simply handed him a shovel and invited him to dig his own grave.
“I can’t circulate Qi right now, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said, his voice flat and reasonable. “The sun is at its zenith.”
Barnaby blinked. “What does the sun have to do with your lungs?”
“Everything,” Kaelen explained. “At high noon, solar fire peaks across the sky. The heat clashes directly with my spleen meridian. If I force cold frost-pine breath into an overheated spleen, the internal steam will curdle my gastric juices.”
Kaelen paused for effect. “It turns the stomach into sour goat cheese.”
Barnaby’s mouth fell open. “Sour what?”
“Curdled spleen syndrome,” Kaelen said with utter solemnity. “A very tragic condition. It causes permanent bloating and makes you burp sulfur for six moons. We must respect the natural balance.”
Barnaby’s face turned plum-purple. He raised the ladle high above his head, trembling.
“Curdled spleen! You lazy rascal! I was refining medicine before your father wore trousers! There is no such thing as curdled spleen syndrome!”
“Medicine evolves, Elder,” Kaelen said. He lifted a cracked clay teacup and took a slow sip of warm willow-bark tea. “You must keep an open mind.”
In the corner of his vision, the letters shifted slightly.
[Current Abstinence: 99 Hours, 49 Minutes]
Eleven minutes.
The pine door of the shed banged open so hard the leather hinges groaned.
A small gust of wind swept into the room, scattering dried mint leaves across the flagstones. A slender figure tumbled across the threshold, catching herself on the doorframe.
“Brother!”
Mina Vance stood in the doorway, panting for breath. She was twelve years old, with pale skin that looked almost translucent in the daylight.
A faded blue wool shawl wrapped her thin shoulders. Her lips were tinted lavender, and every breath formed tiny plumes of white frost.
Frost-Marrow Decay.
The same hereditary chill that plagued their mother had taken root in Mina’s chest. And just like Kaelen, the clan’s so-called healing arts had only made her symptoms worse.
“Mina?” Barnaby lowered his ladle, his anger vanishing. “Child, why are you running? The draft will chill your chest!”
“Garrick...” Mina gasped, her chest heaving as she stumbled toward the hay. Her small hands gripped Kaelen’s sleeve, shivering uncontrollably. “Kaelen, you have to get up. You have to hide!”
Kaelen swung his legs off the bale, though he kept his back resting against the straw. He placed a hand over hers. Her skin felt like river ice.
A cold prickle of anger stirred deep in Kaelen’s chest, but he kept his face calm.
“Breathe, little sister,” Kaelen said softly. “Who is coming?”
“Second Brother sent an inspection squad,” Mina whispered, tears in her eyes. “They’re auditing the outer workshops, and Enforcer Douglas is leading them. They’ll reach our shed in less than fifteen minutes!”
Barnaby stiffened. “Douglas? That brute from the punishment hall?”
“Yes!” Mina tugged at Kaelen’s robe. “Garrick told the elders that the Third Herb Shed has missed its quota for three months. If Douglas finds you lying here, he will drag you to the main hall. Madam Evelyn will take away our shed allowance completely!”
Kaelen knew the numbers far better than Mina did.
The Third Herb Shed was supposed to receive twenty silver taels a month for coal and dried herbs, but the allowance was three months in arrears. Kaelen had only fourteen silver taels, thirty-two copper bits, and zero Low-Grade Spirit Stones left in his pouch.
This audit wasn’t about missing quotas. Garrick had withheld their sixty silver of allowance and now wanted an excuse to shutter the shed entirely.
“Mina,” Kaelen said gently, patting her frozen fingers. “Panicking elevates the lung meridian pulse.”
Mina froze, staring at him through her tears. “What?”
“When you sprint while terrified, your lung Qi runs backward,” Kaelen stated in a serious tone. “If the lung pulse reverses while your chest carries frost, the cold locks around your vocal cords.”
Kaelen nodded solemnly. “You’ll wake up tomorrow croaking like a marsh bullfrog.”
Mina blinked, her mouth half-open. “A bullfrog?”
“A spotted one,” Kaelen confirmed. “Sit down on that grain sack. Close your right eye and breathe through your left nostril for two minutes. It balances the internal winds.”
“Kaelen Vance!” Barnaby bellowed in panic. “Douglas is a Mortal Pulse Rank 5 martial artist! If he catches you lying on hay with a romantic farce, he will break your collarbones!”
The old man grabbed Kaelen’s shoulder with his lone hand, trying to haul the young man up.
Kaelen didn’t budge. He sank his weight into the hay like an anchor.
“Sudden standing is lethal, Old Barnaby,” Kaelen said calmly.
“You are eighteen years old! Standing up is not lethal!”
“It is when you have been horizontal for ninety-nine hours,” Kaelen countered. “The blood has pooled in my lower extremities. If I stand up without a twenty-minute transitional reclining period, the blood will abandon my upper dantian.”
Kaelen tapped his brow. “A starved upper dantian causes severe scalp shock.”
Barnaby let go of his shoulder, staring at him in disbelief. “Scalp shock?”
“Total follicular death,” Kaelen said. “All my hair will fall out within forty breaths. A bald cultivator loses sixty percent of his natural martial dignity. How can I represent the Vance Clan with a head as shiny as an oiled gourd?”
Barnaby raised his ladle toward the ceiling, his single shoulder shaking. “Heavens above, strike this boy down! Strike him down before I do it myself!”
Mina snorted despite her terror, a tiny laugh escaping her lips before she clamped her hands over her mouth.
Never look diligent in a noble house, Kaelen thought as he watched them. If they see you sweating in the courtyard, they poison your soup. If they see you brewing red-bean tea at noon, they only lose their minds from blood pressure.
Kaelen reached over to the low pine stool beside his bale. A small clay kettle rested there, wrapped in thick wool. He poured a steaming stream of amber liquid into a chipped porcelain cup and handed it to Mina.
“Drink,” Kaelen said.
“What is it?” she asked softly.
“Dried ginger and boiled willow bark,” he replied. “It won’t cure your marrow, but it will warm your stomach.”
Mina wrapped both shivering hands around the warm cup. She took a tiny sip, and faint color returned to her cheeks. “It tastes spicy.”
“That means the fire is doing its job,” Kaelen said.
He glanced up at the slate.
[Current Abstinence: 99 Hours, 57 Minutes]
Three minutes left.
Just three minutes.
Heavy footsteps sounded outside on the gravel path.
The iron-shod boots struck the stones with heavy thuds. Each step carried the dense weight of a trained martial artist. The dry weeds outside the window rustled as a harsh voice drifted through the wooden slats.
“Third Young Master! By order of Second Young Master Garrick, the internal affairs pavilion is inspecting the premises!”
The voice was rough, grating, and dripping with mockery.
Mina gasped, nearly spilling her tea as she shrank back against the hay.
Barnaby grabbed a heavy iron fire-poker from beside the cold furnace, his face pale and grim. He stepped in front of Mina and planted his boots wide.
“Douglas,” Barnaby muttered under his breath. “That snake.”
Kaelen didn’t move. He lay back down against the hay, pulling the straw hat back over his forehead.
“Kaelen!” Mina hissed in terror. “He’s at the gate!”
“Let him knock,” Kaelen murmured. “It’s impolite to barge in without an invitation.”
Outside, the heavy boots halted right in front of the shed’s outer gate.
A wooden sign hung on that gate:
Third Young Master is convalescing. Leave herbs by the bucket. No cultivation talk.
“Convalescing?” Douglas’s sneer echoed loudly through the fence. “Convalescing on clan silver while the family prepares for the autumn tournament? Second Young Master wants an accounting of every copper spent on this dump! Open the gate, old cripple, or I kick it off its hinges!”
Barnaby gripped the fire-poker tighter. “This shed answers to the clan elders, Douglas! You have no authority to break our locks!”
“My authority comes from Master Garrick!” Douglas barked. “Three breaths, old man! Open up!”
One hundred and twenty seconds, Kaelen noted silently.
The grey letters on the floating tablet pulsed with a faint, steady rhythm.
[Current Abstinence: 99 Hours, 59 Minutes] [Current State: True Fallow State]
Kaelen took a slow, easy breath, keeping his pulse utterly calm. He didn’t tighten his muscles or channel a single drop of Qi into his limbs. He didn’t even plan what he would do to Douglas.
To plan a fight was to invite martial intent. To invite martial intent was to ruin the harvest.
He thought only of the warm sun on his shin, the smell of dusty clover, and the ridiculous twist in the novel where the bandit chief turned out to be a prince.
“Time’s up!” Douglas shouted from the path.
A violent thud shook the outer fence. An iron-tipped boot slammed into the wooden gate with brutal force.
CRACK!
The wooden gate shivered on its iron posts as Garrick’s enforcer drew his heavy boot back for another kick.
In Kaelen’s mind, the grey tablet flared.
The pale stone surface turned to brilliant liquid silver, and a chiming bell echoed cleanly between his ears:
[100 Hours Abstained -> Multiplier: 101x READY!]