He discovered the drain's true scope on the second day.

  They had rented rooms at the Falling Leaf. Merchant Luo's recommendation had been accurate. Clean rooms, reasonable rates, no questions.

  The innkeeper, Fang Hua, radiated the calm authority of someone who had seen everything and been impressed by nothing.

  Chen Xi spent the first night recalibrating the vortex.

  The governor was crude, a blunt constriction that reduced intake but also reduced efficiency.

  By morning, he had redesigned it into a variable-aperture system that could widen or narrow in response to ambient conditions.

  A small victory. The first since arriving. He filed it where small victories belonged: in the column marked necessary but insufficient.

  His efficiency settled at fifty-four percent. Lower than the Silt's sixty-seven, but stable.

  A win. Small. Necessary.

  He felt the drain at breakfast.

  Fang Hua served congee with spiritual herbs. Chen Xi ate at a table near the window while Wu Zheng attempted to charm the innkeeper into revealing her ginger supplier.

  At the adjacent table, three Iron Crown cultivators ate in focused silence.

  The vortex reached. Not dramatically. A subtle increase in the rotation's draw, the low-pressure zone pulling not just ambient Qi but the energy being actively circulated by the three cultivators.

  Two percent per minute. At Torrent density. Within three metres.

  In thirty minutes of proximity, he would drain their reserves by more than half.

  He stood up. Left the table. Went outside.

  Stood in the street with his eyes closed, counting prime numbers.

  2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29, 31...

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  The implications settled into the spaces between the numbers.

  In the Silt, the drain had been a theoretical problem. A side effect to fix later.

  In the Torrent, it was a weapon. Involuntary, continuous, operating whenever he was near other cultivators.

  He could not share a room with Su Yiran without draining her.

  He could not eat at a crowded inn.

  He could not spar, train, or collaborate with anyone at close range.

  The Vortex Core — his masterwork, the thing that had saved them all, was a parasite.

  And in the Torrent, the parasite had teeth.

  ───

  He told them that evening.

  Wu Zheng's room had already transformed into something between a laboratory and a kitchen. Herb bundles hung from the ceiling.

  A portable stove produced smells that shouldn't have been possible in a rented room.

  "Thirty metres," Chen Xi said. "That's the safe distance."

  He laid out the data. Beyond thirty metres, negligible. Within thirty, it scaled with proximity. Within three metres, significant energy loss in minutes.

  The silence had a shape.

  It was the shape of four people realising the person they'd followed into a new world could not safely be near them.

  Little Abacus spoke first. Because Little Abacus always spoke first.

  "So you need to fix it."

  "Yes."

  "How long?"

  "Weeks. Possibly months."

  "And in the meantime?"

  "In the meantime, I maintain a minimum distance of thirty metres from other cultivators. I sleep alone. I train alone. I eat at off-peak hours."

  Wu Zheng set down his ladle.

  "You are not doing this alone."

  "I have to. That's literally the point."

  "The point is that you need to fix the vortex. The point is NOT that you need to exile yourself while you do it."

  The old man's voice carried the weight of someone who had spent seventy-three years understanding exactly what isolation cost.

  "We can work around thirty metres. Thirty metres is the length of this hallway. We will shout."

  "That's not practical—"

  "I spent seventy-three years talking to corpses. I am an expert in maintaining relationships across impractical distances."

  He picked the ladle back up.

  "Eat your soup."

  The soup was at the midpoint table. Fifteen and a half metres from each end of the hallway. Little Abacus had measured with a knotted cord — thirty metres long with one knot at the mark.

  Chen Xi carried the bowl to his end. Sat on the floor. Ate soup that tasted like ginger, star anise, and the memory of being cared for by someone who could not reach you.

  The boy had named the cord the Chen Xi Line. Everything inside: danger zone. Everything outside: safe.

  He carried it everywhere.

  "I've already mapped the inn," Little Abacus announced.

  "The third-floor hallway is thirty-four metres end to end. You can stand at one end and we'll stand at the other and have perfectly normalconversations as long as we're both willing to shout."

  "That is the least normal conversation arrangement I can imagine."

  "You reincarnated into a cultivation world and built a turbine in your chest. Normal left a long time ago."

  The hallway became their life. And Chen Xi had a deadline he hadn't told them about.

  The Verdant Basin Sect was holding a Newcomer Assessment in forty-two days, and passing it was the only way to secure long-term residency permits.

  Forty-two days to fix the drain. Or lose their only safe harbour.