Day 1

You sigh aloud and feel a jolt in your neck. Your try to move, and feel a jolt in your neck. You touch your neck and feel a jolt in your neck. Needless to say, there's a jolt in your neck. Now you're not a doctor, and neither was Huai Ren before your unhostile take-over, but you're pretty sure that Huai Ren broke his neck from the jump off the five-story building. By extension, this means that you have a broken neck.

You mull over what you should do with that information for a minute. Then your equine companion nudges you to the side. You feel more painful jolts run through your body and you had to clench your teeth to not scream aloud. After a few moments of clenching, you realize that the pain is ebbing away. Gingerly, you begin to sit up without moving your neck. You lean against the wall of one of the buildings and touch your neck again. There are still jolts of pain but you're getting used to it. As time passes and you move more, the pain slowly begins to ebb away. It still hurts, yes, but it stops becoming the biggest thing in your mind.

After a few more minute passes, you attempt to stand up. It takes a couple of tries but you get on your feet by the end of the process. Like a recovering astronaut after coming back to Earth, you reobtain your sense of balance enough to be able to walk. Every step was a pain in the neck but you weren't looking to go far.

You exit the gap between the buildings that hid your body and enter the street. There are people hustling and bustling round and round. The lights of the lanterns around you make for a dizzying spectacle that makes your addled head hurts. You take a few more steps out while bracing against the building to get a proper look around.

"An's Alcohol... Fin's fishery... Din's deal... Tin's Things..."

Original names and simple pictures are drawn on the signboards throughout the street for you to see. Though they were written in some character-style language system, you were able to read them easily thanks to Huai Ren's knowledge. None of them were what you needed right now, though An's store might be where you head to if you don't find what you want soon.

You hear a shuffling sound behind you and turn around just enough to see that it's the horse that was with you. It's chewing on something that looks kind of like hay. Where it got the mouthful of feed from, you have no idea. It swallows its mouthful and snorts at you. You give it a young master-approved raised eyebrow to imperiously ask it what it wants without saying it aloud. The horse snorts at you again and taps a hoof on the wall of the building you're using as support.

Your raised eyebrow flickers slightly, to ask the horse to clarify its message and you receive a horsey eye roll. It trudges out of the alley as well and flicks its head towards the building you're leaning on. You step aside to see what it is that the horse is trying to tell you when you see the signboard nailed to the top of the entrance.

"In's Inn."

Well damn, that's exactly what you needed. You turn back to the horse, nod your thanks for its guidance and watch it return back into the alleyway. Curiously, you look back into the backstreet to see that there's a stable there. The wise horse kicks open one of the stable doors and walks right in. It proceeds to flop itself down in the spot and starts chewing on hay. Its eyes meet yours midchew and it snorts at you. You give it a young master-approved nod, to show that you understand that it wants some alone time.

Without another word, you turn back to the inn that you've been loitering in front of. You take a shaky breath to center yourself and pull your hand away from the wall. With equally shaky steps you shuffle to the entrance and walk inside. The reception area is a small room with two doors leading inwards and a stairway leading upwards. The receptionist is a young lady who has an impeccable business smile. Overall, the impression you get of the inn is that it's a bit cramped. That was until the noise upstairs starts picking up. Your ears perk at the familiarity of the noise.

Though muffled, you pick up some inflamed voices, the clattering of dishes, the scraping of furniture, and the sound of flesh impacting flesh. It doesn't provoke any particular memory in your mind but it does in Huai Ren's head. That is the sound of a barfight picking up. Then there's a big thump which silences the fight altogether. After a moment a body flies down from the floor above to the streets below, into the alleyway that you were occupying earlier, actually. The crowd moves on their merry way with only a few giving the alleyway some wary gazes and a wide berth. You get a bit of insight into why nobody helped you earlier.

Following along, you close the door and face the smiling receptionist. Just as before, her business smile is impeccable. Also a bit unnerving, you're not gonna lie.

"Welcome to In's inn, sir. How may I be of service to you?"

You want to point at your neck and ask her if she can fix that but you somewhat doubt that she's a good chiropractor or acupuncturer, or whichever -ur sounding practice it is that's going to be able to help with your case.

"A room for one."

Instead, you go with your original plan of getting off the streets and into someplace decent with a modicum of privacy so that you can investigate your injury.

"Of course. For tonight only or more?"

"Just tonight."

She nods and flips opens a journal. With a piece of something dark in her hand, she stops at a page with a blank spot at the bottom of it.

"Very well, sir. May I have your name?"

"John Smith."

She nods and writes something on the journal that your brain translates as "Yuehan Shimisu" which vaguely sounds like what you meant. She then asks for payment and if you'll be having dinner in their tavern area upstairs. Still occupied with how she had to go out of her way to write that, you answer automatically. Pulling out Huai Ren's coin purse, you give her a random coin from in it and tell her that you won't be needing dinner. When she brings out a lockbox from beneath the table to get you your change, you tell her to keep whatever she owes you. She nods at that in a somewhat grateful manner.

"Your room will be the second last from the left after the second left, sir. If you have any questions, just ask me or any receptionist on duty and we'll do our best to help you."

You would've nod back but your neck says no. Instead, you hum in acknowledgment and take her proffered key. You walk to the door to the left of the receptionist and open it to see a row of rooms. As you walk by her, you remember the horse that was with you and its hostile takeover of one of the outside stable. It wasn't yours, since Huai Ren came into town on foot, so you assume it belongs to one of Huai Ren's friends that ditched him.

"There's also a horse outside that's occupying one of your stables. That one is mine as well."

"Of course, sir. We will bring out fresh feed and water for your steed."

The receptionist bows to you but doesn't ask for any more money. You assume that whatever you paid her earlier was enough to cover the bill so you continue your way to your room. It takes you two attempts to figure out what, " the second last from the left after the second left" meant but, eventually, you enter your room. Locking the door behind you, you beeline your way to the only bed in the room and take a seat. You lean your back against the wall, relax your neck from its task, and sigh contently as the nagging pain you've been feeling eases up.

You reach up to touch your neck after your moment of respite. Feeling around, you find out that the pain is mostly coming from one particular area in your neck around the spine. A touch at the spot brings you pain that makes you want to scream. You confirm that there's something wrong there, but can't think of anything that could help. Wincing, you take a dive into Huai Ren's memories to see if there's something in his head that might be able to help you.

After some searching, you come across a memory of Huai Ren training with his master. It is one of Huai Ren's older memories but it was one that's remembered rather vividly. It was the first time his master taught him something that didn't involve meditation and it was to help Huai Ren heal from a broken arm. What his teacher taught was an entry-level cultivation technique that Huai Ren practiced diligently for the first few years of his life. It was called Ensnaring Cloud by his master.

For most beginners, it was a technique that forces Qi out of the body. It is meant as a way to practice shaping and manipulating Qi and is usually exercised as such. At Huai Ren's level of mastery, the technique comes out shaped as a thick semi-viscous, manipulatable cloud. Through his will, the cloud can touch, sense, and even grab things to a certain extent. With this technique, Huai Ren's master was able to set the bones in his arm and realign everything seamlessly back into place. You can feel the wonderment that Huai Ren felt when he first saw the technique even though it's only a memory.

You sit up and cross your legs so that you're copying the meditative pose that's in Huai Ren's memories. Recalling the steps and procedures to enacting the technique, you draw on that magical ancient Chinese power called Qi. You fall into a trance between trying to replicate what's in Huai Ren's memories and attempting to execute it in real life. You start first by probing around your arm as a test and a practice. Then, once you're feeling confident enough that you've gotten it down, you move over to feeling around your neck.

You work carefully so that you can make sure that you're not making the injury worse and by the time your neck stops sending your brain signals of jolting pain, you feel tapped out. Opening your eyes, you find that you're sitting in a dark room. The light of the moon trickling in from the open window is the only thing illuminating the room. With a once-over, you see that there's also a candle stand placed on the small table in the middle of the room. There are no candles to put on the stand though, as far as you can see.

You weren't looking to do any late-night reading anyways, so finding more illumination is a moot point. Uncrossing your legs from the pose you've been sitting in, you stretch in place and relish the pops and cracks of your joints and muscles. There are no jolts of pain, only the dull and satisfying aches of stretched muscles after having sat in place for hours.

You lay on your back and feel the bed creak underneath your weight. After a moment of thought, you close your eyes again but it's not to meditate. Instead, you welcome the sweet embrace of unconsciousness.