"Bro, what the hell did they feed you in that hospital?"Danny circled around me like I was some kind of science experiment, eyes wide, one hand gesturing wildly with his beer. "Seriously. You look like you grew a whole-ass foot.""I didn't grow a foot," I said, dropping onto the couch in our tiny living room. The cushions sagged under my weight—same as always. "You guys are being dramatic.""Dramatic?" Ricky leaned forward from his spot on the floor, controller in hand, the video game paused on the screen. "Man, when you went into the hospital, you were like... tiny. No offense.""None taken.""And now—" He gestured at me with the controller. "Now you look like you've been doing CrossFit or some shit. Your shoulders are wider. Your face looks different. Even your hair is longer and somehow better? How does hospital air make your hair better?"Marcus—who'd squeezed into our apartment along with the others—nodded from his seat on the arm of the couch. "He's right. You filled out, kid.

KAIOld Man Zhang's office was exactly how I remembered it—cramped, dingy, smelling like stale cigarette smoke and something that might've been mold. The walls were covered with faded fight posters from decades ago, some of them so old the paper had turned yellow and brittle. A single desk dominated the small space, buried under papers, beer bottles, and overfilled ashtrays.Zhang himself sat behind the desk, already lighting up another cigarette even though one was still burning in the ashtray. He looked up when I knocked on the open door, and his eyes widened."Kai Wang." He stood up slowly, cigarette dangling from his lips. "Well, I'll be damned.""Hey, Zhang.""Come in, come in. Close the door." He gestured with the cigarette, ash falling onto the already dirty floor. "Sit down. You want a drink? I got beer, I got whiskey—well, it's not really whiskey, it's the cheap stuff, but it does the job.""I'm good." I closed the door and moved toward the chair across from his desk."Suit y

KaiTuesday came faster than I expected.I'd spent the last three days training like a madman, running in the mornings, hitting the heavy bag at Ricky's gym in the afternoons, doing bodyweight exercises at night. All without the system's help. All without those daily tasks telling me what to do. It was painfully frustrating but the only logical choice I had. My body was paying the price. Everything hurt. My knuckles were bruised and swollen. My ribs—still not completely healed from Chen Wei—ached with every breath. I'd pulled something in my shoulder that made lifting my left arm a special kind of torture.But I kept going. Because what choice did I have?The system was still giving me the silent treatment. Every morning I'd wake up, check for the interface, and get nothing. Sometimes that stupid eye-roll emoji would appear just to mock me, but that was it."Fine," I'd told it this morning while doing push-ups. "Be petty. See if I care."🙄"Real mature."Now it was 5:45 PM on Tuesda

KAI Saturday night came too fast.I stood in the locker room of the warehouse, wrapping my hands with tape that had seen better days. My fingers moved on subconsciously—around the wrist, between the knuckles, across the palm. A ritual I'd done hundreds of times before.But this time felt different.Maybe because I'd spent two weeks training like a madman without any supernatural help. Maybe because I was about to step into the ring with a guy who could actually kill me. Maybe because some part of me still wondered if I'd made the right choice going against the system's orders.The door opened. Ricky walked in carrying my water bottle and mouth guard."Crowd's packed," he said, setting the stuff down on the bench. "Even more than Chen Wei's fight. Word got out that you're back. Everyone wants to see if lightning strikes twice.""You mean they want to see if I die again.""That too, yeah." He sat down next to me. "You good?""Define good.""Fair point." He watched me finish wrapping my

Kai "—and then the ref was like, 'Are you sure you want to continue?' and Razor was just bleeding everywhere, and I'm thinking, holy shit, Kai actually did it—"Danny was retelling the fight for what had to be the fifth time tonight. We were at Ricky's apartment—cramped living room, cheap beer, pizza boxes stacked on the coffee table. A celebration, apparently.For me beating Razor. For proving I wasn't just a punching bag anymore."The look on Chen Wei's face when he heard!" Marcus laughed, cracking open another beer. "I ran into him at the gym yesterday. Man looked like someone kicked his dog. He kept saying it was luck, that Razor had an off night.""Fuck Chen Wei," Ricky said, raising his bottle. "To Kai. Who actually showed up and won for once."They all clinked bottles. Looked at me expectantly.I lifted my beer. Smiled. "Thanks, guys."We drank.But I wasn't really there.My body was sitting on Ricky's worn-out couch, beer in hand, surrounded by my friends. But my mind was som