The slap landed before Peter Davis had fully returned to his body.Heat spread across his cheek as karaoke music pounded through the glass table, beer bottles, and the crowd gathering at the door. Purple neon rolled over the low ceiling. Cigarette smoke, cheap perfume, spilled liquor, and stale carpet pressed into his lungs.For a breath, another place flickered behind his eyes: marble floors, a sandalwood medicine table, silver needles between his fingers, black blood dripping from the vein of a prince on the Zicari Continent. Then the woman in front of him dragged everything back to the cramped karaoke room.“Still pretending you’re not awake?” she shouted, clutching her chest with both hands.She wore the outfit of a karaoke hostess. Her makeup was thick, her lashes damp, her shoulders shaking as though she were terrified. But when Peter forced his vision to focus, her eyes did not stay on him. They flicked toward the door, toward the phones already raised, then toward a man half h

The city after midnight did not sleep. It only changed faces.Peter walked past closed shops, a coffee stall with dirty glasses left on the tables, and online loan posters pasted crookedly to electric poles. A streetlight flickered at the end of the alley. Beneath it, a motorcycle taxi driver yawned on his bike while two night workers ate instant noodles without speaking to each other.The air smelled of drains, gasoline, and old rain. In Zicari, people killed with poison, swords, and imperial decrees. Here, they killed with cameras, debt, and contracts printed too neatly for poor people in panic.The apartment building stood behind an old minimarket. Seven floors, stained walls, a broken elevator, and damp corridors. Apartment 307 was at the end of the third floor, where the hallway light blinked as if it had wanted to die for a long time.The old key turned roughly. As soon as the door opened, the smell of stale alcohol and damp clothes greeted him. Peter stood in the doorway for a

Morning came without mercy.Gray light slipped through the window of Apartment 307, falling over moldy plates, empty bottles, bills, and a floor that had not been cleaned. Peter woke with a body that felt dragged over stone. His side ached from Hector’s strike, his left arm carried the mark of Skull’s chain, and his chest still felt hollow after forcing his thin Qi to work last night.He sat on the edge of the mattress and counted money from his jacket, drawer, and old trousers. The amount was pitiful, enough for cheap food and transport, not enough to pay the ten million he owed Mr. Wong, let alone the one hundred and fifty million owed to Goro. On the table, Margaret Davis’s hospital notice remained open. Beside it lay the Central Market receipt taken from the thug’s pocket.In Zicari, one low grade pill could buy a courtyard house. Here, without license, reputation, or a clean name, even a miracle could be called fraud. Peter understood that as he washed with slow running cold wate

Apartment 307 still smelled of stale alcohol when Peter returned.He placed Mr. Wong’s package on the narrow table, one of its legs propped up by cardboard. Around it were a small pot, a cracked bowl, an old mortar, and several silver needles. They looked like poor jokes beside the knowledge that had once made Zicari nobles kneel outside his treatment room. There, he had a jade furnace, spirit water, and disciples waiting for orders. Here, he had an old stove whose flame sometimes died on its own.Peter opened the package slowly. The scent of Red Ginseng and Snow Lotus rose faintly, weak compared with Zicari ingredients, but still enough to awaken his physician’s instincts. He did not waste time complaining. This world was poor in Qi. His body was also poor in strength. If he wanted to live, he had to use that poverty like a small knife, not cry over it like a child who had lost an inheritance.The refining began before the sun leaned west.He washed the ingredients with boiled water,

She entered the VIP room wearing a smile she had used for too long.The room was filled with blue light, cigarette smoke, and the scent of expensive drinks mixed with fruit. Leather sofas curved around a glass table. A large screen showed the lyrics of a love song, and three men sat with their collars open. In the middle, a familiar VIP customer waved as if he owned the stage.“You finally came. Sit here. Tonight, your voice has to make us forget to go home.”She laughed softly, sweet enough to sound familiar and distant enough not to seem cheap. “You always exaggerate.”“Exaggerating is a VIP customer’s job.” He poured a drink into a small glass and pushed it toward her. “Just a little. It will warm your throat.”Her throat had been stinging since afternoon. The left side of her chest felt tight, and each time she took a deep breath, heat spread from below the collarbone. But refusing too firmly in a room like this could sound like an insult. She accepted the glass, touched it to her