Chapter 11: The Crooked Hand

The rain in Nangyang did not fall in the sharp, icy needles of the north. It was a heavy, warm mist that clung to the skin, turning the red clay paths of the village into a slick, treacherous paste.

Yul stood by the communal well, staring down into his wooden bucket.

His left hand was wrapped around the coarse hemp rope. His knuckles were white, his small forearm trembling under the strain. He pulled. The wooden bucket broke the surface of the water, heavy and sluggish.

He managed three tugs before his grip failed.

The rope whipped through his fingers, burning the skin raw. The bucket plunged back into the dark depths of the well with a loud, mocking splash . The rebound of the rope jerked his body forward, his chest slamming hard against the wet stone rim.

The impact jarred his broken right collarbone.

Yul slid to his knees in the red mud, his head resting against the cold stone of the well. He didn't move. He just listened to the steady, wet dripping of the southern rain.

He was incredibly, uselessly small.

For all his analytical instincts, his body was a fragile toy. He couldn't even draw a single bucket of water. The mud seeped through his thin gray trousers, cold and slimy, but he didn't have the strength to stand up. He felt a hot, burning tightness behind his eyes. It wasn't the cold focus he was used to. It was a miserable, heavy ache.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted the drafty woodpile. He wanted the smell of dried pine needles and the quiet, comforting sound of Jun’s voice telling him a story she had made up to make him forget the hunger.

"If you're going to drown yourself, do it quickly," a voice called out from the porch of the nearby hut. "The villagers use that water for tea."

Yul didn't look up. He wiped his nose on his sleeve, swallowing the lump in his throat. "The rope slipped."

Song Chi sat on a low wooden stool, a half-empty clay jug of cheap, sour plum wine resting between his feet. He was wearing his patched gray robe, the sleeves rolled up to reveal thick, hairy forearms crisscrossed with old, white sword scars. He was peeling a small turnip with a knife that looked like it had seen too many whetstones.

"The rope didn't slip. Your hand gave out," Song Chi said, taking a bite of the raw turnip. He chewed noisily. "You're pulling with your shoulder. You think because your right arm is bound, you have to do double the work with your left. You're fighting the water."

"It's heavy," Yul muttered.

"The water isn't heavy. You're just light," Song Chi countered, tossing a piece of turnip peel into the mud. "A leaf doesn't try to pull a stone out of the river. It flows around it. Why do you think the Southern Sky Sect spends three years teaching disciples how to sweep floors before we ever hand them a wooden sword?"

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Yul sat up, his left hand coated in red clay. "To make them obedient."

Song Chi let out a loud, barking laugh that ended in a wet cough. He took a long drag from his wine jug, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Obedience? Bah. The elders in the grand halls of Mount Hua love that word. They think if a boy sweeps a thousand steps, his spirit becomes pure. Pure nonsense, more like. We make them sweep so they learn how their hips move when they are tired. We make them carry water so they understand the weight of their own bones."

Song Chi pointed the tip of his knife at Yul.

"You have a clever mind, boy. I see it in your eyes. You're always counting, always watching. But your mind is miles ahead of your feet. You're trying to run a marathon on legs made of dry straw."

Yul looked down at his splinted right hand. The fingers were still swollen, locked in a stiff, ugly curve beneath the pine-bark wraps. "If I don't get stronger, the Ma Clan will find me."

"And if you try to force it, you'll be a corpse before they even cross the Yangtze," Song Chi said bluntly. He stood up, stretching his back until his spine popped like dry twigs. "Leave the bucket. Come inside."

The interior of the hut was warm, heated by a small clay stove where a pot of simple millet porridge was bubbling.

Yul sat on the edge of the cot, his left arm resting on his knee. He felt exhausted, a deep, bone-weary fatigue that made his eyelids droop.

Song Chi slid a small wooden bowl toward him.

Yul looked down. It wasn't the bitter, black-root medicine or the hard yak meat from the mountains. It was a bowl of steaming yellow millet, and on top, a small, dark brown lump of raw cane sugar was slowly melting into a sweet, amber pool.

In the Ma Clan, Yul had eaten scraps from the kitchen floor—stale mantou, rancid fat, and whatever weeds he could gather near the well. He had never tasted sugar.

He picked up the wooden spoon with his left hand, his grip clumsy and awkward. He took a small bite.

The sweetness hit his tongue, warm and intense. It felt like a sudden burst of sunlight through a dark cloud. He froze, his spoon hovering in the air, his chest tightening in a way that had nothing to do with his damaged meridians.

"The villagers trade it for mountain herbs," Song Chi said, sitting across from him and cleaning his fingernails with the tip of his knife. "The south is damp and miserable, but the earth is kind. Even a beggar can find a sweet leaf if he looks in the right ditch."

Yul ate slowly, savoring every grain of the sweet millet. For a few minutes, the constant, low-grade terror of the chase, the agony of his broken bones, and the cold weight of his destiny seemed to fade into the background. There was only the warmth of the bowl and the sound of the rain outside.

"Tomorrow," Song Chi said, his voice breaking the quiet, "the bone in your hand will have set for a month."

Yul stopped chewing. He looked at the old master.

"The bones in your fingers are healing," Song Chi continued, his eyes resting on Yul’s splinted hand. "But because you used the Bone-Shattering Grip with a child’s soft skeleton, they have set crookedly. The joints are locked. If we leave them as they are, your hand will remain a claw. You will never be able to hold a sword, let alone a teacup."

Yul swallowed the last of the porridge. His throat felt dry. "You have to break them again."

"Yes," Song Chi said. He didn't offer any comfort. He didn't soften his voice. "And we cannot use qi to numb the pain. Your meridians are too raw; any surge of energy will tear them further. You will have to feel every crack."

Yul looked at his crooked fingers. His heart began to hammer, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. He was terrified. He wanted to run, to hide under the cot, to tell the old man to leave him alone.

"Can we wait?" Yul asked, his voice trembling slightly.

Song Chi shook his head. "If the cartilage hardens further, I will have to cut the fingers off entirely. We do it tomorrow morning. When the air is cold."

Yul didn't answer. He couldn't. He stared into his empty wooden bowl, the lingering taste of sugar on his tongue suddenly turning ash-dry.

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