Chapter 4: The Routine
One week into his second life, Jake Turner had developed a schedule.
6 AM: Wake up. The cart was already steaming. It did this every morning whether Jake asked it to or not — the Thousand Strikes Body System apparently included a breakfast shift he hadn't negotiated. He'd pull open the steamer, find fresh buns arranged in neat rows, and stare at them the way an office worker stares at a printer that keeps producing documents nobody requested.
7 AM: Open for business. This was the part that went poorly.
9 AM: Still going poorly.
11 AM: Impressively, somehow worse.
Jake had sold four buns in a week. Four. The laborer from day two came back once, said "same as last time?" and bought another. A stray dog had knocked one off the cart and eaten it, which Jake counted as a sale because the System's EXP tracking did not extend to petty theft and he needed the emotional win.
The rest of the time, he stood behind his cart, watched the market flow past, and perfected the art of looking busy while doing absolutely nothing. He'd rearranged the buns seventeen times. He'd rewritten his sign three times. He'd practiced his sales pitch on a hat rack he'd found behind the cart, because the hat rack didn't judge and had the same number of customers as his actual stall.
"Steamed buns. Fresh. Pork filling." He said it to the hat rack. The hat rack said nothing. "You're right. It needs more energy." He tried again. "STEAMED BUNS! Get your STEAMED—" A passing cultivator glanced at him with the specific expression of someone who had just heard a mortal scream about bread and decided it wasn't worth investigating.
The hat rack sold more buns than Jake. The hat rack was not selling buns. This was not the comparison that made Jake feel good.
At 11:55, Jake put down his steaming paddle and stretched.
The cart had noticed. Jake was sure of this now — not because the System said anything, but because the steamer's temperature ticked up slightly whenever he looked at it with intent. The cart was eager. The cart was a team player. The cart wanted Jake to succeed in the same way a personal trainer wants their client to succeed, which is to say: aggressively and without consulting the client's preferences.
"Easy," Jake muttered. "It's not even noon yet."
Two stalls down, a man named Gregor was counting coins. Jake had learned this over the past week the way you learn a weather pattern — by observing it with growing unease. Gregor counted coins the way other people breathed. Constantly, involuntarily, and with the same general expression of someone who suspected the air was trying to steal from him.
Gregor was fifty-five, had a face like a clenched fist, and sold talismans of questionable quality. Jake knew this because Gregor had told him — loudly, on day three — when Jake's cart "steamed too aggressively" and set off one of Gregor's proximity charms. The resulting argument had lasted four minutes and ended with Gregor calling Jake "the loudest bun peddler in three provinces," which Jake chose to take as a compliment.
They hadn't spoken much since. But Jake had noticed something: Gregor watched him. Not with suspicion, exactly. With the specific attention of a man who counted everything and had noticed that something in his column didn't add up.
At noon, Gregor looked up from his coins, looked at Jake, and looked at the fountain at the end of Merchant's Row.
Then he went back to counting.
At exactly noon, Big Mike arrived.
This was the part of Jake's day that most closely resembled a commute. Mike came from the south end of the market, walking with the heavy purpose of a man who had a job to do and increasingly wished he didn't. His two bookends trailed behind him — tooth-missing and personality-missing — though both had started keeping noticeably more distance than they had on day one.
Jake leaned against his cart and waited.
"Turner," Mike said. He'd stopped using "you" two days ago. The direct address was somehow worse.
"Mike. Punctual as always. Did you eat lunch? You should eat before we start."
Mike didn't smile. Mike hadn't smiled since the bun. The bun had broken something in him — not physically, though his knuckles were still scabbed from day one — but conceptually. Mike had built his entire career on the understanding that people feared him. Jake did not fear him. Jake gave him buns. It was, Jake suspected, the most confusing thing that had ever happened to Mike, and Mike's life included a period where he'd accidentally punched a bear.
"The fee," Mike said.
"Still not paying it."
Mike sighed. It was a tired sigh, the sigh of a man filing a tax return. "Then I gotta hit you."
"I know. I'm ready. Left hook or right? I've been working on my jaw positioning and I think the left gives me better XP—" He caught himself. "Better angle. Better angle for absorption."
Mike hit him.
Left hook. Jake's head snapped sideways. The cobblestones blurred. The blue screen flickered:
+35 EXP.
Thirty-five now? Jake blinked. Last week it had been fifty. He'd assumed higher — but no, he realized. Tough Skin. The 15% damage reduction meant less damage registered, which meant less EXP. A skill that made him stronger was literally costing him experience points.
This was, Jake thought while picking himself up, the most relatable financial problem he'd ever had.
"Again," Jake said.
Mike hit him again. Right hook. Jake skidded backward into his own cart, which did not move because the cart was apparently as stubborn as its owner.
+35 EXP.
"Solid," Jake said, standing up. He brushed off his apron. "Good rotation today. You've been practicing."
"I have not been—"
"You have. That right hook has better follow-through than Tuesday. Tuesday was sloppy."
Mike's eye twitched. Behind him, personality-missing muttered something to tooth-missing. Tooth-missing nodded slowly.
"One more," Jake said. "For the road."
Mike looked at him for a long moment. Then he hit Jake one more time — not hard, not soft, somewhere in the exhausted middle ground of a man who was beginning to suspect that hitting Jake Turner was less like punishment and more like a morning jog.
+35 EXP.
EXP: 300 → 405
LEVEL UP! Level 5 → Level 6 Defense +1. HP +20. Pain Resistance +1.
LEVEL UP! Level 6 → Level 7 Defense +1. HP +20. Pain Resistance +1.
LEVEL UP! Level 7 → Level 8 Defense +1. HP +20. Pain Resistance +1.
Next Level: 500 EXP needed.
Three levels in one week. Jake kept his face neutral while the warmth rolled through him — each level a quiet tightening, a subtle hardening, like the difference between regular skin and something that might, in the right light, look like leather.
Mike flexed his right hand. He'd stopped looking at his knuckles after day four, but Jake noticed the way he held them — loose, careful, the way you hold something that hurts to close.
"See you tomorrow?" Jake asked.
Mike didn't answer. He turned and walked away. The walk was slower now. Not the confused slow from day one. A tired slow. The walk of a man who had checked "punch Jake" off his to-do list and needed to go home and reassess every skill he'd ever learned.
Jake watched him go, then reached under his apron and pulled out a small jar of charcoal paste. He daubed it around his left eye in a rough circle, smudged it with his thumb, and examined the result in the cart's polished side panel.
A convincing black eye. Applied every afternoon for the past three days. Because Jake had noticed, around day four, that he stopped showing bruises.
"You have a black eye again."
Lily appeared at his stall at 3 PM, the way she always did — carrying flowers, wearing an expression that was sixty percent friendliness and forty percent investigation. Over the past week, the ratio had been shifting.
"I do," Jake agreed.
"Mike?"
"Who else."
Lily set a small bundle of river lilies on the edge of his cart. She did this every afternoon. Jake had not asked her to. He had not paid her. She just did it, the way some people leave water out for stray cats, with the understanding that the cat is pathetic and you might as well.
"I saw him hit you Tuesday," she said. "From behind the jasmine display. You went down hard."
"I did."
"You got up in about three seconds."
"Good cardio."
"Jake." She leaned on the cart. She was good at leaning — she could lean in a way that said I am friendly and I am not leaving simultaneously. "You had a black eye for two days. Then it was gone. Now you have another one. Mike hits you three or four times a week. Any normal person would be in a healer's office."
"I heal fast."
"People don't heal that fast unless they're cultivators." Her voice dropped. "And I've watched you. I've been watching. You don't have a spiritual root, Jake. I checked — don't look at me like that, the whole market checks everyone, it's not weird—"
"It's a little weird."
"—and you have nothing. No qi. No cultivation base. Nothing. So how are you healing?"
Jake looked at her. She looked back. The jasmine on his cart swayed in a breeze that didn't seem to touch anything else.
"Lily," he said, "what if I told you that I have a skin care routine that would make your head spin?"
"I'd say you're lying."
"Then I guess we're at an impasse."
She held his gaze for three more seconds. Jake could see the calculation happening — Lily was smart, smarter than he was comfortable with, and she'd been collecting data points like a detective who didn't know she was a detective. The healing. The smile. The way Mike's knuckles bled and Jake's face didn't bruise. The cart that survived a kicked-over lantern on day four without a scratch.
She let it go. But she let it go the way you release a rope — slowly, with your hand still on the other end.
"I'm going to figure you out," she said.
"I believe you."
"Good."
She went back to her stall. Jake watched her go, then pulled the jar of charcoal paste from under the counter and added it to the growing list of things that made no sense in his new life: a cart that cooked itself, a system that rewarded pain, a flower girl who wouldn't stop asking questions, and a man named Gregor who had just, for the first time, stopped counting coins and started counting Jake's black eyes instead.
Jake scraped the charcoal off with his thumbnail. Underneath, his skin was perfect. Not healed. Perfect. As if the bruise had never existed.
He put the lid back on the jar, checked his stats one more time, and started prepping tomorrow's buns.
Same time. Same place. Same everything.
Except for the numbers, which kept going up.
THOUSAND STRIKES BODY — STATUS
Level: 8 HP: 240/240 Defense: 11 Pain Resistance: 10 EXP: 405 Skills: Tough Skin (Passive — 15% physical damage reduction)
Note: Host's physical durability now exceeds that of Foundation Building cultivators at equivalent level. Incoming damage from current primary source (Big Mike) is approaching marginal EXP efficiency. Recommendation: Seek stronger damage sources.
Jake read the note twice.
Seek stronger damage sources.
He looked toward the south end of the market, where Mike had disappeared. Then he looked north, toward the hills where, on clear days, he could see the distant glint of swords in the sky — cultivators flying between sects, training, fighting, living the kind of lives that involved a lot more hitting than bun-selling.
"Stronger damage sources," Jake muttered. "Great. That's not ominous at all."
The cart steamed in agreement.