CHAPTER 16: TAYLORSOURCE: FLUIX_CITY_RELAY_9Taylor woke to a smell that was putrid and extremely strong.

  Like, entire head of hair clogged in a toaster, kind of strong.

  She y there for a few seconds just listening.

  This is disgusting. You’d think the maintenance team have some respect. Post some warnings in advance or something if it's going to be this bad.

  Drip.A faint sound came from the kitchen.

  A refrigerator hummed in the background.

  The smell intensified.

  “Or maybe there’s a fire?” She questioned.

  Then a voice.

  “…reliable faucet…”

  What.

  She sat up slowly, suspecting that she was about to regret doing so. She crept around her room.

  Everything looks normal.

  Pale light through the blinds.

  Chair is where I left it. No freaks under it this time either.

  She cracked the door and shimmied through.

  Shoes by the door. Trash by the sink—

  The voice came again. It was soft, slurred, and almost… fanatical?

  “...share your wisdom…”

  Taylor froze.

  You chose the wrong house, bud.

  She turned… then stopped.

  Someone was folded in her sink.

  Her brain stalled for a second, clinging to the word someone like it would make what followed less real.

  There’s a man. Definitely… probably a man. In my sink.

  I don't even…

  In it he was. Torso bent, head turned sideways, upside down, cheek to metal like he’d tried to listen to the heartbeat of the sink. His skin glowed faintly gold, translucent enough that multiple organs were vaguely visible. One arm hung uselessly in the sink. The other was braced awkwardly against the counter with a mutited hand and a thumb that stubbornly reached for the heavens.

  Taylor pushed in on her cheeks, squishing them, and rubbing her eyes.

  It’s too early for this kind of thing. If I wanted this kind of weird, I’d just go to Xu’s.

  Reverent gibberish flowed from the depths of the sink.

  She took a hesitant step closer.

  “Want to tell me what you’re doing in my sink.”

  No response. Just a tiny shift of breath against the drain.

  More gibberish.

  Normally, they would have jumped up by now and apologized. Not that those creeps usually mean it, but the attempt is at least something. Then again… Normally, they wouldn’t be in my sink…

  Taylor pressed her lips together. Her eyes scanned him, looking closer at his injuries, the glow, the surprising flexibility required to hold those angles, the way his chest rose like he was huffing the drain.

  “How did you even—” She stopped herself. There was no answer to that question that would make sense—not at 7 a.m.

  The faucet dripped.

  Taylor stared at the sink. Then at him. Then back at the sink.

  She furrowed her brows, took another careful step forward, and gently shut the facet off.

  He froze mid-breath. His chest contracted. A tiny scream escaped them as they began to breathe faster and faster.

  What a lunatic.Do you want it on or something, you little freak—is… is he having a panic attack?

  Taylor Frowned.

  She reached forward and turned the faucet back on.

  Serenity suffused through the room immediately.Okay. Seriously. What the hell? She considered for a moment.Maybe Lee knows this weirdo.

  LEEYo, some lunatic broke into my apartment and sandwiched himself into my sink. Can you come help me deal with this?

  Please?

  // DELIVERED: 7:07 AM“Excuse me, can you get the fuck out of my apartment, please?”

  No reaction. His eyeshes fluttered, and he shifted a fraction, as if getting even comfier.

  “Okay,” she whispered to herself. “Sink cult. Cool. That’s new.”

  His lips curved the tiniest amount. He seemed… Euphoric?

  A wave of disgust washed through her.

  That can’t be comfortable. He seems really not okay.Taylor sighed.

  “It’s the least I can do… but… also the most I’m willing to.”

  She grabbed a dish towel from the counter and carefully tucked it between his cheek and the metal, padding the contact point. His breathing eased like she’d adjusted a pillow.

  Lee arrived 10 minutes ter.

  Ding.

  Taylor opened the door.

  “I’m assuming that message was like code… for something? I mean, you said please so…” He said, a mix between confusion and concern.

  “Yeah. It’s code for THERE’S A STRANGE MAN IN MY FUCKING SINK. I would really love some help.” Taylor replied with a sweet smile.

  …

  “This isn’t because of a night-time adventure, is it?”

  Lee lowered his head and raised his eyebrows.

  Are you fucking kidding me?You did not just say that.

  “Lee.” She stared daggers into him.

  Lee inhaled, then spoke quickly. “Yep. Thought it. Shouldn’t have said it. Anyways, where’s sink guy?”

  “...In the sink,” She replied ftly.

  Lee walked over and clicked on his phone’s fshlight.

  "You can't just leave a man in the sink, Taylor."

  "I left him a towel."

  "Ah, yes, I see it now, very kind, you even left him—"

  "He broke into my apartment!"

  "HE’S FOLDED IN HALF." Lee gestured in big motions toward said sink.He leaned in to take a closer look.

  “WHAT THE FUCK, TAYLOR!? WHY WOULD YOU LEAVE HIM IN THERE?”Are you stupid?“Why would I have taken him out!?” Taylor snapped back."Dude," Lee's voice rose.

  “BECAUSE IT’S—I DON’T KNOW—XU!?”

  IT’S WHO!?

  Her heart tightened as she rushed to the sink. Her hands gripped the counter.

  It can’t be.No, there’s no way.

  She squinted at the part of his face she could see for a moment.

  It’s not possible.Xu’s not sink man—All of her annoyance evaporated.

  He probably came here because he thought I was safe… and… I left him in the sink to die.“Oh, my god.”

  “UM, YEAH—OH MY GOD.” Lee parroted.

  Lee grabbed Xu’s shoulder, and Taylor unstuck his sword.

  Lee looked at Taylor. “On three”

  “Wait,” Taylor said, grabbing Lee’s arm. “He reacts to stuff weirdly. I turned the faucet off earlier, and he nearly had a meltdown. So I Just… go slow.” Her hands were shaking for a moment.

  "Your glow changed, you know," she said, like it was a confession. "You do a different color when you're conscious."

  "Mnn." Xu smiled.

  "Great," Lee said. "Super. Really reassuring."

  Lee pulled him out and threw him on a chair in the corner. He nded with the sound a sb of meat makes when it hits stone. "Can you move….?"

  Xu considered this—or, at least, he seemed to consider something.

  “Ummm, Taylor… These injuries…” Lee sputtered.

  Taylor leaned over and immediately gasped.

  What the hell happened to you, Xu? Oh my god… your body is…

  "What even happened…" she managed.

  I saw some of it earlier, but that's… he shouldn’t even be…

  Lee looked incredibly serious. “I don’t know what to do. Do you have a healing pill or anything?”

  She stood. Xu heard her moving around the kitchen, opening a cabinet, running water.

  Oh shit. What do we do? What do I do? Taylor started shaking again, harder this time.

  "Lee," Taylor said.

  "I don’t have anything.”

  "We need to pick up the chair and take him to a hospital."

  Xu’s eyes rolled over. He seemed to recognize that word. “NO. No Hospitals. Really, I’m okay…”Oh, thank god. My heart was going to beat out of my chest. DAMN IT XU!She released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding, and her shoulders dropped.

  “Xu, what happened to you!? Are you SURE you’re alright?”…

  “Yeah… I have the… drippies to take care of me…”

  …

  Taylor and Lee shared a look.

  “Grab the chair.”

  “Yep,”

  Xu felt himself fly into the sky. He floated above all like he was born as the sovereign of this world.

  He smiled.

  “Yeah, Taylor, I’m gonna be honest here, not getting the best vibe for how this turns out.” Lee’s casual response trembled.

  “Lee. Shut the fuck up and walk.”Lee’s jaw tightened slightly, but he said nothing. Taylor noticed.

  Dammit I…She shook her head.

  Right now, he just needs help. ER? It’ll bankrupt him. Will they even help him if he can't pay?I… I don't know…“Lee, left.” She said firmly.

  He complied.

  Eventually, after a few confused looks and a lot of steps, they stood in front of a door that read: Sector Medical Director.

  “Um, you know this guy?”

  Taylor knocked on the door.

  It opened.

  In front of them stood the man who had tested Xu and informed them of his condition the day prior.

  “What can I…?”

  His eyes nded on Xu.

  A Desk was completely wiped of items.

  Boxes had their contents evicted at the speed of the price to repce them.

  And for the first time in his life—Xu felt expensive.

  “Is he going to be okay!?” Taylor was fidgeting with her hands. Her knuckles had turned completely white.

  Please be okay. I got here as fast as I could.No response.

  The Spec sat there, staring down at his handheld scanner. Every thirty seconds, he would scan Xu’s lump of a body, look at the screen, furrow his brow, and repeat the process.

  Lee gnced over at Taylor. He took a deep breath, walked over to the Spec, and pced a firm hand on his shoulder. “Hey, bud, she’s talking to you.”

  The Spec seemed lost in a trance-like state. He slowly raised his head to look Lee in the eyes.

  “I’m ashamed to say it… but… I don't know.”

  The room went silent.

  Maybe if I didn’t let him rot so long…

  “How long does he have?” Lee forced out.

  “No, that’s not it at all. He…” the Spec stammered, pointing a trembling finger at the screen. “He…”

  …

  “HE WHAT, DAMMIT!?”

  “He’s going to recover… but I don’t know how. I don’t know why. And honestly…? I don’t know what I’m even looking at.”

  “Huh?” Lee was speechless.

  “So then how can you have the NERVE to sit there and tell US that he’s going to be okay if you don’t have the SLIGHTEST CLUE what’s going on!?” Taylor exploded, stepping forward.

  The man’s gaze fell to the floor. “Because every scan I do tells me how long he has left to live. Typically, they are about ninety-eight percent accurate. The first time I scanned him... he had thirty seconds. He should have died sixteen times over just from the time since you knocked on the door… let alone before that. But every time the scanner refreshes… his estimated time until death increases.”

  The Spec swallowed hard, adjusting his gsses with a shaking hand. “I don’t know what happened to your friend, but I remember why I met him yesterday. I rescanned his meridians… and I don’t understand.”

  Taylor stood up like a rocket. The chair she had been sitting in tipped over backward with a loud ctter. “ARE THEY HEALED!?”

  “No, they aren’t. They are even more destroyed. But what I… What doesn’t make sense is that the structure of his meridians is impossible.”

  The Spec tapped his screen, projecting a translucent wireframe of Xu’s torso into the air. The hologram showed a glowing web of highlighted purple lines.

  “It looks like someone stripped every strand of flesh out of his body one by one, and used Nanosuit Energy Optimization methodology to rebuild his meridians. I… I recognize the principles behind the routing. The entire structure, I mean… some of it is the cutting edge of optimization theory, but the point remains.”

  Xu… Taylor stared at the glowing blue projection, her breath catching.

  “Expin,” Taylor barked.

  “Um, Human meridians are like rivers,” the Spec spoke like a teacher, tracing a finger in the air. “They meander, they pool, they lose pressure sometimes. But this yout is strictly orthogonal. The ‘rivers’ are gone. It’s all perfect forty-five-degree angles.”

  He pointed to strange, zig-zagging patterns near Xu’s joints. “And these are length-matched serpentines. The energy reaches his fingertips at the exact same nanosecond. He’s like a hard-wired machine made of meat.”

  Lee suddenly shifted and looked incredibly guilty.

  “Divine Fission…”He whispered to himself.

  “Is he better?” Lee asked, extremely seriously.

  “He is healing at ludicrous speeds,” the Spec admitted, his voice dropping to a haunted whisper. “Ten, maybe fifty times faster than a normal cultivator. All of him seems to be healing at impossible speeds. You just can’t tell because he’s sustained so many internal… and external injuries, it practically offends science that he’s even breathing. A normal man would be bedridden for a year… He might be up and walking in a week.”

  The Spec turned off the projection.

  “But… there is a terrifying contradiction here.” The Spec looked at Xu, then back to Lee. “The entire purpose of the Zero stages is to cleanse the body. You purge the filth so the flesh can properly resonate with Qi. But whatever caused this restructuring didn't cleanse him. It polluted him. His genetics are saturated with impossible genre switches. He is fundamentally dirty.”

  “I don't care if he’s dirty,” Taylor snapped. “I care if he lives.”

  “You should care,” the Spec countered. “Because Cultivators never lose their Zero stage physique. You cannot unforge steel back into iron ore. But because his system is now choked with these structural and genetic impurities, his resonance compatibility pays the price. My scanner reads that his stage has physically regressed. He isn't a peak Ninth Stage anymore. He’s only an Eighth.”

  The Spec picked up his scanner and held it out so Lee and Taylor could see the bold, red text fshing on the screen, but his hand was shaking violently.

  “And that isn't even the most impossible part,” the Spec breathed, his eyes wide with a mix of awe and horror. He tapped the screen, zooming into a microscopic section of Xu's bicep.

  “His realm dropped because he is impure. But look at his muscle fibers. They aren't just healing. They’re completely changing. The cellur density, the Myofibrilr Hypertrophy, his satellite cells, Myoglobin Concentration… It's completely alien. Cultivation-wise, he is an Eighth Stage. But structurally? Physically? His muscles are almost definitely stronger than they were at whatever the peak of the Ninth Stage was for him. I know he pinged the abnormal list, but I never imagined… incredible.”

  “Again. English, man.”

  The Spec let out a dry, hysterical ugh, running a hand through his hair.

  “He is spiritually devolving, but physically upgrading into a monster.”

  “He pinged the abnormal list?”

  The Spec froze. “Um…”

  He would.

  “Fix it,” Taylor said.

  Lee gnced at her, then back to the Spec.

  “Taylor, you know I—”

  “Mark him as a misread. FIX IT.”

  “That could ruin me. It’s always been my dream to—”

  Her tone lowered the temperature of the room by tens of degrees.

  “I don’t care about your dream. I don’t care about your honor or your special awards. I couldn't care less, but…” Taylor walked up to him, her eyes were stabbing, her face was incredibly tight, and she slowly leaned forward, lowering her voice.

  “I KNOW you can’t help yourself, so I’ll tell you this just once. If you breathe a single word of what you saw. I will kill you. If you don’t remove him from the abnormal list. I will kill you. And if you refuse for the sake of someone you’re trying to protect? I’ll kill them too.”

  Lee’s head had tilted 90 degrees, staring directly at the ceiling, and he mouthed to himself: Holyyyy shit.

  The room was silent and still for 20 seconds, the Spec’s shifting expressions were the only sign that time hadn’t frozen.

  “Fine. But if I do this. I get to study him until he recovers.”

  “Deal, but only if you fund his recovery—in full.”

  If I tell him what I’ll really do to him, he’ll never believe me. Rex, it’s done. He’ll be okay—he has to be.