The wound that had already been quietly throbbing split open again under the blow and began to bleed.

The last thread holding Zhang Zhixu’s composure snapped clean.

He turned his eyes slowly toward the overseer below, whip still in hand. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What’s it to you — don’t want to work, then get out!” The overseer raised his arm arrogantly, ready to bring the whip down a second time.

Zhang Zhixu jumped down from the loom, seized the overseer by the front of his collar, and drove a fist into his face.

A solid crack rang out. The overseer went sprawling. The weavers around them screamed.

Chen Baoxiang clutched her own hands in alarm. Great Immortal, this is going to go badly!

The overseer shouted: “You worthless wretch — you dare lay hands on me, I’ll have the skin off your —”

He pressed in close, punching the words out one by one: “Skin. Off. My. Back?”

“Skimming wages, doling out beatings — I’ll take half your life before we’re done!”

“You little — little brat — ow, I was wrong, I was wrong, stop hitting me —” The overseer curled up and howled, throwing his arms over his head. “Money — I’ll give you the money, I’ll give it to you right now!”

Chen Baoxiang watched, wide-eyed, as the man who had lorded over the weavers and bullied them with such relish climbed back to his feet with a battered, swollen face, and shoved a hundred coins into her hand in a panicked heap.

That’s still short.

Zhang Zhixu was more furious than before. He called out to the weavers around him, pressing a hand over Chen Baoxiang’s right shoulder: “Take him to the authorities. I’m filing a complaint.”

The people around them looked at one another.

“What are you all standing there for?” He was genuinely puzzled. “A man like this — if you don’t let the authorities deal with him, are you just going to leave him here to keep beating you?”

Great Immortal.

Now it was Chen Baoxiang’s turn to be caught between laughter and despair. Run. Now.

What?

This is an illegal operation. There’s no chance they’d let anyone take the overseer to the authorities — and once he recovers his wits and calls for backup, we’re the ones who’ll be beaten. Run!

Before Zhang Zhixu had fully grasped the situation, Chen Baoxiang had already taken control of her body and was running full tilt.

“Stop right there!” Several men with clubs came pouring out in pursuit.

Chen Baoxiang ran and screamed for help as she went, but the street was isolated — no officers patrolled here, and no one had the nerve to step in. People stood and watched as a pack of burly men chased down a young girl.

“That way!” Zhang Zhixu directed. “Run toward the main road.”

Chen Baoxiang knew their chances were better there too, but she was no match for that many pursuers. Within a few strides, a kick caught her from behind and sent her crashing to the ground.

Zhang Zhixu pushed back up and fought back.

In his own body, he might have stood a fighting chance against these men — but this was Chen Baoxiang’s body, and her shoulder wound robbed her of any real strength. Her movements were slow. After only a few swings, a club came down hard across her back.

A dull, heavy crack.

The force of it was enough to kill.

Zhang Zhixu let out a muffled grunt and went down to one knee.

“Great Immortal,” Chen Baoxiang whispered, bracing herself against the ground. “I don’t want to die. I cannot die here.”

He heard her. He pressed his hand against the wall beside him and forced himself upright, swallowing back the coppery taste rising in his throat, and grabbed at the bamboo poles and loose objects stacked along the wall.

The grimy clutter went clattering in every direction and slowed the men at his back enough to matter. Zhang Zhixu used the moment to break out of the alley and staggered two steps before collapsing at the edge of the main street.

The men still tried to drag her back.

Chen Baoxiang dug up one last reserve of defiance and screamed at the top of her lungs: “Help! Murder! Someone help!”

Passersby on the main road began to gather. The men retreated to the mouth of the alley and didn’t dare come further out.

Chen Baoxiang lay on the ground, gasping. Her mouth was full of the taste of rust.

Zhang Zhixu registered the pain exploding through her body and found it difficult to believe.

Beneath the very roof of the capital, within reach of its laws — how could something like this still happen?

More disturbing still: the people around them didn’t seem to find it unusual at all. The moment the attackers withdrew, the crowd dispersed on its own, leaving her alone and bleeding on the ground.

“Why is no one going to report this?” He couldn’t understand it. “By law, every one of those men should be thrown in prison.”

Chen Baoxiang wiped blood from her face with a hollow laugh. “Great Immortal — do you know what reporting something to the authorities actually involves?”

“What is there to know? You send someone to the magistrate’s office and they dispatch people to handle it.”

“That’s not right.” She shook her head. “That’s how it works for people with money. For common folk like us, you first have to pay someone to draft the complaint — roughly nine hundred coins. Then you submit it to the magistrate’s office, with a fee of two thousand for the clerks. Then you wait for a hearing date — the earliest would be half a month out. And if you want any chance of a fair outcome, you need to put up silver equal to whatever the accused party has already paid in.”

Zhang Zhixu went still.

He had always believed the magistracy of the Great Sheng moved swiftly. He had sometimes wondered why any citizen could ever fail to find recourse. And now, here in a corner of the world he had never looked at closely, he found what had been there all along.

Chen Baoxiang had a hundred coins. She couldn’t afford to file a complaint.

The wound on her shoulder ached as though it was splitting open. Her back had swelled up into a hard lump where the club had landed, pressing painfully into the stone beneath her with every passing moment. For the first time, Zhang Zhixu felt something close to genuine fear — that she might simply die here on this street.

Chen Baoxiang rested for a while, then dragged herself up to sitting on her own.

“Oh no,” she said, feeling the knot on her back. “I’ve grown a hump. I’m a single-peaked camel.”

The grief that had been building in him shattered on impact with her words.

Zhang Zhixu pressed a hand to his forehead. “And here you are, making jokes at your own expense.”

“If I don’t find something to laugh about, how am I supposed to get through the day?” She counted her coins, grimacing as she got to her feet. “Still something. Enough to eat for a few days. If I can hold on until the third month, all the great houses in Shangjing will be hosting spring banquets — and I can eat my fill without paying for a thing.”

In the past, Zhang Zhixu would have called that freeloading and moral bankruptcy.

Now, he only resented that the great houses waited until the third month to hold their banquets.

“Is this hundred coins enough for you to see a physician?”

“The medicine shops charge a fortune — a few packets of medicine alone will run you over a thousand coins.” She limped along. “My injuries aren’t serious enough to bother with.”

There was a steamed bun vendor by the roadside. She stopped, counted out ten copper coins, and bought two.

She bit into one, and Zhang Zhixu was nearly faint with the fragrance of it.

Meat-filled — with a rich, savory broth inside. The wrapper was thick but deeply satisfying.

Jiuquan had lied to him when he’d said meat buns were coarse things unfit to eat. This was one of the finest things he had ever tasted.

Chen Baoxiang was raising the bun for a second bite when someone bumped into her from behind.

The bun flew from her hand, landed on the ground, and was immediately trampled underfoot.

Zhang Zhixu and Chen Baoxiang both went rigid with fury at the same instant. She spun and glared at the person passing by: “Do you even look where you’re going?!”

The man had a face full of heavy flesh. He looked at her and raised his voice above hers without effort: “So what if I bumped you? What are you going to do about it?”

Then, with deliberate contempt, he stepped on the fallen bun a second time. What had only been dusty a moment ago was now crushed flat into the ground.

Chen Baoxiang’s eyes stung with the urge to cry, but the lesson of earlier still sat fresh in her bones. Battered as she was, she didn’t dare pick another fight — she could only crouch miserably beside what remained of her bun and stare at it.

Zhang Zhixu had never, in the entirety of his life, experienced anything remotely like this. His head was ringing with outrage. He had not a shred of tolerance left. He took control of Chen Baoxiang’s body and started walking.

“Hey — where are we going?” Chen Baoxiang looked back longingly.

Zhang Zhixu turned her head forward and said through gritted teeth: “I’m taking you somewhere you can rise in a single step.”

Patience and proper channels — no money, no dignity. You had nothing in Shangjing without it, and telling someone in that position to mind their manners and follow the rules was the luxury of someone who had never had to live without.

The Great Immortal could not conjure silver out of nothing — but the Great Immortal himself was made of silver.