The balance pole was four inches wide.

  Daniel stood on it with one leg extended, arms out, the wood biting into the arch of his foot. His standing leg burned. Deep in the muscle, past the point where burning meant anything. Just sensation now. Just the body doing what it was told.

  Li Qinghua's walking stick tapped the courtyard stones. Once. Twice.

  "Your hip is dropping."

  He adjusted. The burning shifted, found new places to live.

  Fifteen days of this. The pole used to be a foot wide. Then eight inches. Then six. Now four, and his body was learning to find balance in smaller and smaller spaces.

  The afternoon light slanted across the courtyard walls. Moss thick in the northwest corner where shadow pooled longest. The ceramic water basin with its crescent-moon chip.

  A spider had built a new web between the basin and the wall, the silk catching water drops in a way that made it look like lines in the air. Somewhere beyond the walls, a vendor called out prices for fruits, the same rising and falling beat Daniel had heard a hundred times.

  His extended leg trembled. Not much. A flicker in the quadricep, traveling up through his hip. He breathed into it. Tried to find the stillness underneath the shaking.

  Almost.

  Then his leg gave out.

  He stepped off the pole, caught himself, stood there breathing. Sweat cooling on his neck. The stone pavers rough through his thin shoes. A line of ants carried something white across the courtyard, moving with a purpose he couldn't guess at.

  Li Qinghua watched him from her stool.

  "You're pushing too hard," she said. "You need to calm down."

  Daniel wiped sweat from his forehead. "But I can't calm down."

  "Why?"

  He didn't answer.

  Li Qinghua was quiet for a moment.

  "One more time," she said.

  Henry arrived late, something with a supplier and frozen shrimp that had arrived soft and smelling like low tide. He dropped his bag by the wall and started running laps without being told. Two weeks had taught him the routine. Show up. Suffer. Leave slightly stronger than you came.

  Daniel returned to the pole. Breathed. Found center.

  The wood grain had a knot near the left end that bit if he landed wrong. A slight warp in the middle that made one section unpredictable. He knew this pole now. Knew where it would forgive him and where it wouldn't.

  Henry passed on his third lap. His sneakers slapped against the stone in an uneven beat.

  "You know," he gasped as he passed, "I read that running releases endorphins. Makes you feel good."

  Daniel held his balance. Didn't respond.

  "I think my body forgot to read that article."

  Fourth lap, his arms stopped swinging properly. Fifth, small grunts escaped on each exhale, sounds he probably didn't know he was making.

  Sixth lap. His face had gone from red to pale to something grayish. Seventh. He made it halfway before stopping, hands on knees, breathing in wet gasps.

  Li Qinghua made a sound from her stool. Might have been a laugh.

  Henry straightened. Slowly. Like a man three times his age. His t-shirt was soaked through, clinging to his back in a dark V.

  "I hate running."

  "You're getting faster."

  "I hate it faster."

  They trained until Henry's legs shook. Until Daniel's thighs burned past feeling. Until the shadows had moved halfway across the courtyard and the city beyond the walls had shifted into evening.

  Li Qinghua disappeared inside. Came back with two cups of water. She handed one to Daniel, one to Henry, said nothing. The water was warm.

  The session wound down. Henry left first something about helping his mother close the restaurant. He waved over his shoulder, shirt tag sticking up from his collar like a small white flag. Daniel didn't tell him. Some things were funnier later.

  Daniel stayed, stretching out his legs on the warm stones, watching the shadows lengthen across the courtyard.

  The stones held the day's heat. Warmth seeped through his pants, into his aching muscles. Above the walls, the sky had gone the color of bruised fruit, purple and orange fading into night.

  Li Qinghua hadn't moved from her stool. Her walking stick rested against her knee, the worn spot near the middle where her fingers always found the same place. Decades of the same grip. The wood lighter there, almost white, polished by skin and time and repetition.

  "You know," she said. "Once upon a time. There was a temple."

  Daniel looked up.

  She wasn't looking at him. Looking at the water basin, at the sky reflected in its still surface.

  "On a mountain. A long time ago." Her voice had changed. Softer. Further away. "The courtyard had a pine tree that grew sideways out of the cliff face. Its roots had split the rock over centuries. The monks there used to say it was reaching for something only it could see."

  Her walking stick tapped once against the stone. Soft.

  "In winter, the students would stand in the snow until they couldn't feel their feet. Then they would begin. Forms practiced in silence, breath visible in the cold. They would wake before dawn, when the mist still clung to the peaks and you couldn't tell where the mountain ended and the sky began."

  She turned the stick in her hands, examining it like she was seeing it for the first time.

  "The incense in the main hall was pine and sandalwood. It seeped into your robes, your hair, your skin. You could always tell someone from the temple, even years later. They carried the smell with them."

  Her eyes had gone distant. Focused on something that wasn't the courtyard, wasn't anything in this city or this decade.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  "That way no matter where you were. You'd know you were with family."

  The courtyard was very quiet. Even the traffic sounds seemed distant. The spider web trembled in a breeze Daniel couldn't feel.

  "Don't forget to come back tomorrow," she said.

  The evening crowd had thinned by the time Daniel made it to Grant Avenue.

  He walked slow, letting his legs recover. His bag hung heavy with notebooks. An old man sat on a bench reading a newspaper, his glasses perched on the end of his nose, one lens cracked in the corner, pages rustling when he turned them.

  A kid on a bicycle cut through traffic, weaving between cars, a delivery box strapped to the back. The tape holding it shut had started to peel, flapping in the wind like something trying to escape.

  Further down the block, two women argued over a parking spot, their Cantonese rising sharp and fast. One gestured at the curb. The other gestured at the sky. Neither moved their cars.

  His stomach growled. Loud enough that a person passing by glanced at him, then looked away.

  The noodle shop on the corner was still open, a small place with six tables, the kind of restaurant that survived on regulars and stubbornness. The sign above the door was hand-painted with characters faded but legible, and one of them had a streak of bird poop across it that nobody had bothered to clean.

  Through the window, he could see the counter woman flipping through a magazine. A cook in the back, visible through the service window, stirring something in a wok. The hiss of oil hitting metal. Steam rising in white clouds that caught the light.

  A man at one of the tables was eating alone, chopsticks rising and falling in the same pattern over and over. Soup, noodles, tea. The holy trinity of the working poor. Daniel knew the routine.

  Daniel pushed inside.

  The smell hit him first: pork broth and green onion, chili oil, the deep savory weight of bones that had been simmering all day. His stomach answered before he could.

  The floor was sticky in places, tiles that had once been white now yellowed with age and grease. A calendar on the wall showed March from three years ago, a photo of a waterfall somewhere that looked nothing like San Francisco. The strip light above the counter buzzed with one tube dimmer than the other, casting everything in uneven yellow.

  He was halfway to the counter when he saw her.

  Corner table, bowl in front of her with chopsticks resting across the rim. Ngau lam mein, beef brisket noodles, or what was left of them. The broth had gone dark and cold with a film forming on the surface, the meat long gone, just a few noodle strands floating in the dregs. A rich meal reduced to its bare essentials.

  Li Mei looked up and their eyes met.

  "Eh?"

  "…"

  Neither moved.

  The bell rang. Another customer walking in.

  They kept meeting at the worst times.

  "What are you doing here?" asked Daniel, breaking the silence.

  "Eating." She picked up a noodle and let it hang. "What? I can't eat now?"

  Daniel paused, considering the situation.

  It was strange. He'd fought her twice. Been chased around by her with a sword. And here she was eating noodles like anyone else. Like she had a life outside of whatever this was.

  For a moment he considered fighting. Right here, right now. But the thought passed. They weren't enemies. Weren't friends either. Something in between.

  Li Mei gestured at the empty seat, barely a movement that could have meant anything.

  He sat down.

  The table between them was small. Formica top, a ring stain from someone's teacup that had probably been there since the Reagan administration. A napkin dispenser, chrome dulled with fingerprints. A bottle of soy sauce, the label half-scraped off.

  The objects around him felt strange.

  The chair wobbled because one leg was shorter than the others, or maybe the floor was uneven, and he shifted his weight until he found a position that didn't rock.

  Only then did he notice where she'd chosen to sit. Back to the wall, clear sightline to the door. He'd taken the opposite corner without thinking, same instinct mirrored. When had he started doing that?

  The woman behind the counter looked up from her magazine and asked him what he wanted.

  "Yeung chun mein."

  Sunny spring noodles. The plainest, cheapest option. Clear broth, thin noodles, maybe a few greens. Arrives looking like almost nothing. But it's honest, warm, fills you up.

  It took a moment, and the server came out and placed it on his table.

  The bowl was chipped at the rim. The broth was clear, catching the uneven light from overhead. Thin noodles coiled at the bottom. A few leaves of bok choy floated on the surface, wilted but still green.

  Daniel picked up his chopsticks. Ceramic, not wood. Heavier than he expected.

  The first bite was good. Hot, simple, the broth cutting through the chill that had settled into his bones during the afternoon. He ate without hurrying. Whatever this was, it could wait until he had something in his stomach.

  Li Mei watched him eat, not staring, just there, her finger tracing the rim of her empty bowl around and around with the ceramic humming faintly.

  "So, why did you save me?" she asked in Cantonese.

  "You're still thinking about that?" asked Daniel, slurping the noodle. "I told you. I don't know."

  "Rivers carve mountains without intent." She tilted her head. "Can you say the same of your hands?"

  "What…?"

  Daniel blinked, thrown by the question.

  The strip light flickered and buzzed, and for a moment the shop went dim.

  "To you it isn't important," Li Mei continued. "But the reason I'm asking is because it is important to me. God, sometimes it feels like I'm talking to a barbarian. Did being American make you an idiot? Why would I ask something if it didn't matter."

  "Hey! What does being an American have to do with…"

  "Americans are arrogant assholes. They treat everything with the same careless manner and have no respect for anything they touch.

  If they can't understand something, they make fun of it, stripping down all the meaning, and making it sound stupid.

  Kung fu? Ching-Chong Chinaman. Mystical energy. Get lost nerd. Say I'm wrong. Isn't this normal?"

  The old man finished his soup and set his bowl down with a ceramic clunk before shuffling toward the door. The bell chimed as he left.

  It was somewhat true. How many bullies had he met in his life? Way too many. All they did was make fun of something. Cause when something's funny, you didn't have to understand it. You didn't have to know anything about it at all. Just that it was stupid.

  Then again…calling all Americans assholes wasn't true either.

  Once you define it, you limit what it could be.

  Daniel set his chopsticks down.

  "Even so, I don't think that's completely true. Being American doesn't make you any more of an asshole than another person. Just because one is, doesn't mean all of them are. You call them arrogant, but isn't this conversation the same thing? To treat all with indifference?"

  He met her eyes.

  "Arrogance without reason is the same as tasting one drop of water and claiming you know the sea."

  Li Mei paused, tilting her head.

  "Oh?" Her chopsticks clicked against the empty bowl. "So, you aren't completely uneducated. Maybe not completely hopeless."

  The strip light buzzed. Somewhere in the kitchen, a pot clanged against a stove.

  "So, then what? You just helped me out of the goodness of your heart? A xia's heart and a hero's blade?"

  "Yeah, if you want to put it that way. Being good isn't a sin. Helping people isn't a crime."

  "You say that but even the sages knew that mercy had its limits. The man who feeds a tiger has a kind heart and no head."

  Daniel paused, recalibrating. She was watching him the way she'd watched him the first time they had met. Waiting to see which way he'd move.

  And suddenly it clicked. This was a fight. Just one with words instead of fists. His eyes sharpened.

  "But people aren't tigers. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Everyone knows that."

  "So, we should take the golden rule as truth?"

  "If not that, then what?"

  "Hmph. If the words of the scholars were always right, they would be kings."

  "What does that mean?"

  "That the smartest people in the world often see the sky yet overlook one simple fact."

  "Which is?"

  She picked up her cold tea, turned the cup slowly in her hands.

  "You have to keep your head to speak your mind."

  The words hung there. Daniel's chopsticks stopped halfway to his mouth. She wasn't talking about philosophy anymore.

  Li Mei leaned back, her left hand coming up to rest on the table while her right stayed beneath it, hidden.

  "Jianghu," she said.

  The word landed strange.

  "Us in the old martial world call it the rivers and the lakes," Li Mei continued. "Beggars, thieves, outcasts. Anyone society left behind. In ancient China, the waterways were how people traveled and traded outside government control. That's Jianghu. The world beneath the world. The home of all martial artists."

  She wiped a smudge from the table with her napkin.

  "But inside Jianghu, there's Wulin. The martial forest. The ones who can actually end a life with a flick of a finger or the touch of a blade."

  She drained the tea, set the cup down.

  "And everyone in Wulin follows the rules. Break them and you're a wild dog. And wild dogs get put down."

  She looked at him.

  "When you broke in and attacked us, you made us enemies."

  Daniel said nothing.

  "Then you saved me, which put me in debt to you, and I had to pay it back by teaching you pressure points. You idiot."

  Li Mei started tapping her finger impatiently.

  "You want to keep stumbling around blind, that's your business. But don't go around confusing everyone around you, muddying the waters so that people can't tell left from right."

  She shook her head, frustrated.

  "Anyway, that's all I have to say. And…now we've met a few times, I'll offer once." She stood. "Do you want to see it?"

  "See what?"

  "What the world really looks like."