CHAPTER 4

The next morning, Roa returned carrying a wooden box.

He set it down carefully near the fire, then crouched beside it. “Nearly one month has passed since we started treating your body. Now, I suppose it is time for this.”

He opened the box carefully. 

Inside lay several items. Dried herbs Rae did not recognize. Small vials with dark liquid. And at the center, a round jar with hundreds of crimson beans.

Roa lifted one between two fingers and held it up to the firelight.

Rae stared at it. “...What is that?”

“Crimson Meridian Restoration Beans.” 

“...What are these strange beans for?” 

“These are not simple beans,”  Roa pointed at him. “your insides are worse than your skin was, smoke scorched your lungs, cold cracked your channels and on top of that fire twisted your meridians.”

Rae processed that.

“…So I’m broken?”

“I would say more than that.”

Rae nodded once. That sounded about right.
“And this will fix it?”

“It will force your body to repair what it cannot fix on its own. When we are finished, you will be as new.”

Rae stared at the bean again. “...Force?” 

Roa raised an eyebrow. “Did you not want it the hard way?”

Rae hesitated, then muttered, “It is not that but… You are not trying to kill me, right?

Roa snorted. “If I wanted you dead, I would not waste time and good medicine on you.” 

Rae considered that. “...Fair.”

Roa placed it in Rae’s palm. It looked harmless. Smooth. Ordinary. 

He took the bean and the moment it touched his tongue, pain exploded.

A pain that could only be described as hell.

It felt like his body was being crushed from the inside, every meridian screaming as something violent tore through them, stitching and ripping at the same time.

Rae convulsed.

His breath vanished. His vision went white.

“...AH!”

Roa caught him by the shoulder and slammed him back into a seated position.

"Swallow," he ordered. “Do not bite it, you will die instantly.”

Rae obeyed and the pain doubled if not tripled. 

His muscles locked. His bones felt like they were grinding against each other. Something burned through his chest, down his spine, then burst outward like shattered glass.

Rae shook violently.

“...You said repair!” He gasped.

He fell forward, vomiting onto the stone. Thick, dark blood splattered across the floor. He barely heard Roa’s voice over the ringing in his ears.

“I did,” Roa replied calmly. “And I said force, too.”

He glanced at the jar.

“That was one.”

Rae froze “...One?”

Roa's expression did not change, but something in his eyes gleamed. “Three times a day. Three days.”

Rae lifted his head slowly. “...I take that back. You are trying to kill me.”

Roa turned away. “If you want the medicine to work, you must lock it in place.” 

“Stand.” 

Rae blinked. “...What?”

“Stand,” Roa repeated. “Now.”

Rae barely managed to push himself upright. His legs shook violently.

Roa tapped the stone with his staff. ”Feet shoulder width. Knees bent. Spine straight.”

Rae did as he was told.

“Hold.”

Pain screamed through his body. The bean had torn him apart and now the stance demanded that he stay whole.

Rae clenched his teeth and held.

Minutes passed.

Then his legs gave out and he crashed to the floor.

Roa nodded once. “Now rest. In one hour, we start again.”

When the second dose came, Rae tried to prepare himself to brace for what was coming.
It did not help one bit.

The bean dissolved on his tongue, and the pain returned like an old enemy. Familiar now, but no less vicious.

His meridians burned as they knit back together. Channels that had been fractured for weeks screamed as they reconnected. His body fought the process, resisted every correction, every forced repair.

Rae bit down hard enough to taste blood. 

“Stand,” Roa said immediately.

Rae pushed himself up, legs shaking. He assumed the position without being told. Feet apart, knees bent. Back straight.

Sweat poured down his face. His muscles spasmed violently as he held the stance again, every instinct screaming to fall.

Roa sat nearby, watching with the same flat expression. Neither judging nor encouraging. Simply observing.

“...how much longer?” He rasped. 

“This is just the beginning.” Roa said.

Rae closed his eyes and laughed weakly. “I hate you.”

“Good,” Roa said. “Hate keeps you alive.”

By the third day, Rae no longer screamed.

Not because the pain was less.

Because he had nothing left.

His body moved on instinct now. Swallow. Stand. Endure. Breathe when it allowed him to breathe.

The ninth bean went down like all the others.

But this time, something changed.

The pressure in his chest shifted. Not crushing inward anymore, spreading outward. His meridians, twisted and broken for so long, began to settle. Channels that had been blocked opened slowly, reluctantly.

Rae gasped.

Air filled his lungs fully for the first time since the fire.

He coughed once, hard, and something dark splattered onto the stone. Old blood. Scorched tissue. The remnants of damage his body had carried for weeks.

“Stand,” Roa said.

Rae stood.

This time, the stance felt different. His legs still burned, his muscles still screamed, but  something had shifted. The pain no longer scattered his focus. His breath held steady.

He stood for an hour.

When he finally collapsed, it was not from agony. It was from exhaustion.

That night, Rae lay on his back staring at the cavern ceiling.

“Roa,” he said quietly.

“Yes.”

“Am I still broken?”

Roa considered the question.

“Less than before,” he said. “Enough that what is suppressing you has begun to react.”

Rae’s chest tightened. “React how?”

Roa did not answer immediately.

Instead, he walked closer and pressed two fingers lightly against Rae’s sternum.

Rae felt it then.

Not pain.

Pressure.

A heaviness deep inside him shifted, just slightly. Like something tightening its grip.

Roa withdrew his hand.

“It knows you are changing,” he said. “That is good.”

“How?”

“Because if it were permanent,” Roa replied, “you would not be able to feel it at all.”

Rae closed his eyes.

For the first time since the river, since the fire, since everything had burned away, he felt something close to certainty.

Whatever was inside him was not invincible.

And neither was the world that put it there.

Roa turned away and returned to the fire.

“Rest,” he said. “Tomorrow, we add weight.”

Rae laughed weakly, then stopped when his chest protested.

As the fire crackled and the mountain wind whispered through the cavern, Rae breathed slowly, deeply, and listened.

His body was no longer just surviving.

It was being forged.