Incoming message: K. L. Wong
Subject: Where did you disappear to?
Content:
The message arrived while Nur and I were drinking tea in my room.
I still owed her some essence!
Outgoing message: K. L. Wong
Subject: Working
Content: Garden–block–techs on the tablet. And I haven’t forgotten the essence.
Incoming call: K. L. Wong
Accept / Decline
I tapped to accept and raised a finger to my lips to signal Nur to stay quiet.
“Yes?”
“What essence?” she asked.
“The one I owe you. M2.”
“Oh!” She clearly only just remembered and waved it off. “You’ll pay up — you’ve got no choice.” Then her tone shifted to something more demanding. “And have you forgotten about the Flow Chambers?!”
“No, I remember. Cultivation tomorrow — twenty-five minutes.”
Nur stared at me again and quietly choked on her tea.
“Uh-huh… And you’ve actually booked a slot?”
“Uhh…”
“Book one, while there are still spots!” Kate barked and hung up.
I grabbed the tablet and opened the school’s main page...
“You wouldn't happen to know how to sign up for the Flow Chambers, would you?” I asked Nur.
She finally stopped suppressing that cough and let it go — that choking fit had held her since the tea went down the wrong pipe. After clearing her throat, she asked, eyes wide:
“Twenty-five minutes!?”
“Technically thirty. My mentor just doesn’t want me rushing. I had a reassessment not that long ago.”
“You sure the demon didn’t leave something behind?” she tapped her own head, then pointed at mine. “’Cause it looks like I got the migraine and you got all the perks!”
“No, it’s just my natural talent,” I said confidently. Though honestly — who knows. Still, better to nip that thought in the bud before Vaclav — God forbid he’s listening — decides to test me. They’ll bury me and Rahman both.
“And you…” I’d heard her number during her first visit to the Meditation Hall.
“13.42,” she prompted. “Wait — how many sessions have you done? They don’t do a reassessment right after the initial test. So at least three. We’ve only been here two weeks. Did you buy extra time?”
Sharp, even with a migraine. Ah well, it’s not a secret.
“Yeah, I got insurance money for the memory loss. Four million.”
Nur gave me a look full of suspicion, then covered her face with both hands, tilted her head back and groaned through clenched teeth. After that emotional outburst, she threw the leftovers right at me.
“I hate you! Give me half!”
“Why the hell would I?”
“I’m the one with a demon in my head!” she jabbed a finger at her temple. Then she flinched and snapped, “Oh, fuck off!” — and that wasn’t aimed at me.
“You can talk to it?”
“Usually I just get insults and threats. This time, for a change, he’s suggesting we kill you.” Rahman laughed. “Not just kill — he wants to transfer his consciousness into your body!” She shook her head.
“And you refused?”
“Would you agree?!” she huffed, genuinely offended.
“Yes! Let him tell me how it’s done!”
Rahman winced from the headache and rolled her neck.
“He says I’m a dumb cow, and he tells you to go and fuck yourself,” she muttered and collapsed onto Denis’s bed.
Watching her, I was becoming more and more convinced that I’d gotten lucky with this amnesia business. Honestly, lucky to be alive at all — but having to live with a hostile hitchhiker in your brain? No thanks. The constant migraines alone...
“How do you even cultivate?” I asked. “The flow targets weakness directly. Thirteen minutes is a decent time. Your migraine should’ve killed you.”
Rahman suddenly sat up on the bed like the idea had just occurred to her.
“He woke up after my first time in the flow! That same day — after the chamber. And he didn’t interfere at all the next time. Maybe he wants me to cultivate?”
A chill ran down my spine. Not quite the same as when talking to Novak — that one was more about the pressure of overwhelming cultivation. This was just fear.
The idea that the demon was gaining strength was... unsettling. If Nur’s cultivation was helping him take control — or even just stabilise — then she couldn’t be allowed to cultivate. But if she couldn’t cultivate, her value dropped. A lot.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. That still needs to be verified,” I reassured her.
Not that I could change anything either way — the decision would come from Novak regardless. But I absolutely needed to cultivate.
“So, do you know how to get in line for the Chambers?”
Rahman frowned, then snatched the tablet from my hands and opened the right menu. Good thing Kate reminded me — there were only late-night slots left.
I booked one for 22:20.
As soon as I thought Nur wasn’t looking, I messaged Vaclav.
He replied that she should sign up for cultivation too.
Rahman tried to argue, saying her free sessions had run out, but I told her it was a direct order from the boss. And really, 2,300–2,400 — which was about how much a Chamber session cost with her stats — wasn’t that much.
Rahman puffed her cheeks at me and grumbled that unlike me, she wasn’t a millionaire. But she still signed up — 22:35. She was just about to give me a full-on lecture about the value of money when Bao burst into the room.
He gave Nur a wild, furious look — and froze. She was sitting on Denis’s bed, right under Fen’s shelf.
Wait — that look wasn’t fury. That was a bruise swelling.
I glanced at the time — my order maintenance shift had already started — then at the minimap: no alerts.
Pulling my thoughts together, I decided to go the diplomatic route first.
“This is Nur Amira Rahman,” I said. “Nur, this is Bao Fen.”
“Nice to meet you,” Bao replied automatically, then suddenly turned to me. “Can I borrow your mace?”
“For use inside the block?” I clarified.
“Uhh…”
“Nur…” I patted the bed next to me, and she rolled her eyes but moved over. “Bao,” I gestured to Denis’s bed.
Bao didn’t sit there, though — he grabbed a chair from the desk, dragged it over, dropped into it, then jumped right back up.
“No! I don’t have time for this!” He scanned the room one more time and made for the door.
I barely managed to grab him by the shoulder.
“Sometimes it’s worth taking a moment and thinking.”
“I’m not doing this in the block!” he snapped, trying to shake my hand off. It didn’t work, so he narrowed his already narrow eyes. “Let go.”
I remembered just how dangerous this short guy could be — but I didn’t let go.
“Did they tell you how I beat up Tariq and his lot?” Damn it, that came out wrong.
“You ambushed them. That won’t work on me. Let go.” He was practically boiling, but since I stayed relatively calm, the alarm hadn’t triggered.
“I planned that ambush the moment they beat the crap out of me in the showers. If I’d charged in with a mace five minutes later, they’d have just shoved it up my arse. Do you have a plan, or just pure emotion? Want me to remind you where your emotions — or rather, impulses — got you last time?”
Bao flinched — the bruised eye twitched.
“Don’t!” he snapped, but managed to pull himself together.
I let go of his shoulder, picked up the electric kettle, and shoved it into his hands.
“Go get some water. Then we’ll talk.”
“Spending time with you might turn out more interesting than I expected,” Rahman commented.
“It’s always interesting — when someone else is the one getting punched,” I teased her.
“Oh!” she placed a hand on her chest. “How heartless of me!”
Bao came back a minute later. We set up the kettle, brewed some Gunpowder... I really needed to buy some black tea — I was getting tired of green.
Bao gave Rahman a sideways look, but didn’t bother explaining the bruise.
Tariq and co. Of course it was them. That street rat gang had earned a solid ban from Liang Shi in our block, but they found a workaround — They’d cornered Bao on the metro stairs and helpfully explained that he was their bitch now. Their exact words: “You’re our bitch now, blue-hair.”
“And what were you planning to do?” I asked.
“Grab a mace and beat the crap out of them. Like you...” he glanced at Nur. “Well, like you showed me the other day.”
Yeah, I had shown him a few moves recently.
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t going to do it in the block,” he added.
“Mistake,” I said, taking a sip of tea. “But just to make things clear — that whole fight with Tariq? You started it. You were being an arse, and what happened was your fault.” I jabbed a few fingers at him — not exactly diplomatically.
“No, it wasn’t!” Bao protested, hotly. “They were mocking me!”
I raised my hands, trying to calm him before he fully wound up.
“Wait!” I barked, then spoke quickly, before he could cut me off again. “Turn off your bloody emotions for once and listen! If it were anyone else, I might’ve even taken their side in this situation. But Tariq! That guy’s a bigger arsehole than you’ll ever be. He’s been one since the moment we met. So... do it in the block. Make sure at least a couple of them are there — and ideally, do it during my shift, so I can hit them with double fines. Yes, you’ll get hit hardest, but they’ll learn not to mess with you again.”
Bao took another sip of tea, nodded and thanked me.
“That’s a good plan,” he said.
“But it’ll take some work — you’ll need to buy your own weapon, figure out their schedule so you can catch several at once. Also, the double fines won’t apply to one of the four. The Asian guy. Kim, I think.”
Bao nodded again — this time with more confidence.
“I think I know who to ask.”
Still, Bao didn’t have the patience. He got up — ready to put the plan into action.
“And stop by the infirmary — get that bruise sorted. Otherwise every bully in the place is going to swarm you like flies,” I called after him.
This time, Bao didn’t respond. Didn’t even look back. Just waved a hand.
“Wow!” Nur clapped her hands. “You really are a diplomat! With any luck, executing this plan will take him a good six months, or maybe he’ll just cool off and forget about it.”
“You think that was my goal?” I asked, pulling gloves and my mace out of the locker.
Whether my patrol shift was going to be quiet or not — better to have gear at hand. Bao wasn’t the only one around here with a temper...
And of course.
The alarm blared in my ears, and the minimap lit up red. I shoved the mace between my teeth, slid my right hand into the glove, and burst into the hallway.
At the far end, near the block exit, stood Bao — and four bullies. All of them taller and bulkier than him.
The redhead in the group noticed me, leaned down to Bao with a smile, and whispered something in his ear. Bao hit him with a palm-up uppercut. The redhead’s head flattened like a pancake, and his neck stretched for a fraction of a second before chaos erupted.
The bully lifted off the ground, while the Asian guy — the one I’d mentioned earlier — took a clean shot to the jaw. Bao leapt, did a tornado kick, and dropped the other two — Tariq and the black guy. They scattered like bowling pins. The redhead even managed to cover himself with his own legs.
I picked up speed.
“Fuhk!” Tariq slurred. He was trying to get up, holding his ribs. “Fet waf nef feehs!”
He made it to his knees — Bao stepped in, knocked out the black guy with a clean kick, then grabbed Tariq’s head with both hands and drove his knee into the man’s jaw.
Tariq hit the floor — out cold.
The only one still conscious was the Asian guy. Kim — I’d been right.
Bao took a step toward him, but I was already there and barked:
“That’s enough!”
No way I was grabbing Fen’s shoulder this time. No thanks — I wasn’t looking to get knocked out next to the bullies.
“He attacked us! You saw it!” the cadet said, clutching his jaw.
I glanced at Bao. My brain kicked into high gear, searching for a way out of this mess.
“I saw him wreck you,” I said. “Didn’t see when he got that black eye, though.” I pointed at the bruise.
“That didn’t happen here!”
“So, you were following him?”
“No, that’s not—” the cadet stalled.
“It was on the stairs,” Bao said. “I had to run. There were four of them. But when they caught me, I decided to fight.”
I almost choked. Did not expect that line from Fen. Keeping a straight face took serious willpower.
“That’s not—” Kim started.
“Shut up and stop digging your own grave,” I snapped, already calling Liang Shi.
“This better be something important,” the supervisor answered gruffly.
“It is,” I assured him. “And I need your input — it’s those same bastards I’ve got a personal grudge against. If it were up to me, I’d just fine them all a ten and call it a day. But I’m biased, so I need your judgement.”
“Go on...” Liang Shi said, and I gave him Bao’s version of events.
In the end, I couldn’t get Bao’s fine reduced. Liang Shi gave him five, same as Kim. But the other three, the unconscious ones — they got the ‘double reward’. And Kim was officially added to their gang.
Bao was beaming like a brand-new coin.
By the way — about that “nef feehs”… There was a scattered pile of teeth on the floor next to Tariq. A couple of adult teeth, and half a dozen smaller ones — fresh replacements still growing in from his last fight.
“Nine!” Bao counted. “I beat your record!”
“No!” I shot back. “The little ones don’t count as full ones! And we’re not even sure they’re all his.” I pointed at Tariq.