It took a few minutes for me to realise that I was alive.

The realisation wasn’t heralded by some particularly dramatic awakening. Coming to was a slow enough process that by the time consciousness arrived in full, I’d already been staring at the ceiling of the sect’s hospital for two chimes of the twelfth-bell, and had listened to the slow and steady thrum of the unit’s healing artefacts for six more. Of course, while the delicate tones of five minutes passing by were easily missed, it took a little more to ignore the deep resonance of the Hourbell shaking the air with its commanding voice, dragging me out of the last of the haze that clouded my head.

Even with the comforting fog of sleep banished from my mind, I didn’t immediately move from my bed. I took the time to lift a hand above my face first, turning it over and inspecting its surface. It was in a fair enough state, though the knuckles were still healing over from training my resilience against Steel-Barked Palms. This was the expected result of my cursory examination. Then, I pulled that hand underneath the covers of the thin blanket, running it over my chest to poke and prod at unbroken skin.

For a man whose last memory was death, that wasn’t the expected outcome at all.

I let my hand fall to my necklace, fingers running along the bronze coins as I stared back up at the hospital’s ceiling with unseeing eyes, my mind instead going to the conundrum. I knew I had died. Even if the higher disciples of the sect crowed about how much we didn’t know, there were still some basic elements of life that even the lowest peasant is familiar with. Things like boiling water, or building a fire, or dying to your chest being caved in by a cultivator.

And while it had taken longer for me to experience Death in that form, I was still intimately familiar with its impact. I’d looked after livestock for my family, even as they’d gone still from the plague that infected them. I’d done the same for younger brothers and sisters, who simply hadn’t had the constitution to make it to their Nameday. Those days I’d worked the pastures, or held my mother’s shoulders as she’d cried out her grief, I had felt Death. It had approached us, surrounded us in its grim aura, and gently carried away the spirits of the deceased when it finally left.

So how was it that my spirit hadn’t been taken when I surely should have gone? I pinched my thigh, acknowledging the slight touch of pain even as I pitched my body to the right, glancing down the rest of the hospital’s hallway, its clean tiles stretching off in cold lines down past the curtains and bed carriages. Death was not something that could be denied. Only cultivators escaped that cruel fate, and if there was anything that exchange of pointers had revealed, it was that I was no cultivator.

“Ah, would you look at that! Still alive! And awake, too!” Any further thoughts of Death fell from my mind, as a familiar voice intruded upon my thoughts. Even as I tried to turn my head I felt a hand grip my chin to hold it in place, as a sharp face bearing thin-framed glasses appeared above me. “Now now, don’t move just yet, you were still a puddle when you were brought here, and we don’t want you shaking loose any more bits just yet! Or at least wait until I get a bucket underneath you to catch what falls out, one moment-”

The face disappeared once more, only to return as the white-robed figure walked around into my field of view in the direction of the storage cupboard that laid across the hallway. I took the time to slowly pull myself up, leaning back against the headboard of my bed as I properly checked myself over. Despite the man’s remarks, I couldn’t find any other sign of my duel, and my body itself felt as good if not better than it had for months.

“Doctor Lei.” There was nothing else for it than to ask the man as to what had happened. “How bad was it?”

“Aha, well, young Ryan, I’d say it could’ve been worse-” the Doctor leaned out the back room, promised bucket in hand. “But it really couldn’t. Your condition was utterly appalling. Honestly, I’m surprised they even bothered dragging you back here.”

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To someone else, the disgust apparent on the Doctor’s expression would’ve seemed more related to what had been done to me, and the insult of not even granting me a proper burial. Seeing the tall man scowl like that, crossing his arms across his chest and staring out over his glasses towards the entrance of the hospital might even have made such an unfamiliar spirit more comfortable, happy to be in the hands of a Doctor so concerned with the welfare of his patients.

I’d even thought the same thing once, on my first visit to the hospital years ago. But I’d long since learnt the lesson working underneath the Doctor that the actual condition of those under his care was immaterial to him. It wasn’t that he didn’t value human life; he just valued human life starting at 15,600 Imperial yuan, going up from there the more interesting the specimen.

The trick, I’d learnt, was to not think about it too much. “Maybe they thought that the Witch Doctor of the Seven Falls would’ve had more use for my body than the crows?” I joked.

Doctor Lei sneered at the implication. “As if the mess they’d made of you would’ve even been worth picking through. Your ribs did an excellent job tearing through most of your organs. It would’ve barely been worth recovering your liver and kidneys. And your heart? A total lost cause.”

“Well,” for a moment, I actually felt touched. “Thank you then, for doing your best anyway.” And I did feel great; apart from the sensitive skin that laid over my sternum, I felt like I could leap right into my standard training regimen.

“The two who brought you back insisted upon it.” Of course, Doctor Lei was more than happy to dispel my wrong impression of his generosity. “It seemed that the Young Master you decided to kill yourself upon thought you deserved to live. He purchased several healing potions and a guarantee from me not to do anything else to your body.” Lei chuckled at his own words, drumming his fingers against the rim of the bucket. “I figured, why not, right? Your spirit was totally severed from your coil. Without the spirit to nurture the magical properties of the medicine, it would have been as effective as water to a man already dead of thirst.”

“But-” the air in the hospital was turning cold, now, a breeze pushing past the sterile curtains to brush lightly against my skin, sending a shiver up my spine. “...I’m still alive.”

“Indeed.” Lei was giving me a very dangerous look now. “When I said you were dead, I was not exaggerating. To lose the connection between your immortal spirit and your mortal body is to invite Death to take your soul off to the Cycle. Even restarting one’s heart and invoking an impulse in their brain would accomplish nothing in bringing them back to life. And yet, it worked for you.”

I see. Death hadn’t spared me at all. She’d just been too busy and decided that someone else could finish the job. I slowly edged a foot out from underneath the blanket to anchor on the tiled floor. “Perhaps we could discuss this?”

Lei wasn’t even paying attention to me any more, his eyes firmly affixed upon the bucket in his hands. “Someone who maintained their existence even despite impossible harm to their body would surely be of immense use to my experiments,” the Doctor murmured. “In fact, several cultivation methods that would usually induce unbearable, fatal pain would now not cause an issue at all. Pairing that with supremely concentrated elixirs would also avoid the usual issues of powerful aids rotting away the body of those not strong enough to handle them-”

I’d made a mistake. The Doctor had no interest in killing me, not when he could do far worse. Just the thought of an unkillable test subject for his work was already leading his brain off into horrors better left unmentioned.

Ignoring my body’s cries of pain, I hurried out of the bed, necklace jingling as I gathered up the belongings of mine I could spot at the end of the bed, hopping on each foot as I quickly donned my sandals and outer robe. “Actually, Doctor Lei, I feel my soul returning to my body as we speak. In fact, if you were to cut my head off I’m sure I would die right now.”

“Oh, truly?” The mention of my death seemed enough to pull him from his daydreams and my nightmares, leaving him simply disappointed as he looked up from the bucket. “That’s unfortunate. You’ve always been a valuable assistant, your value would have only gone up.”

“Very unfortunate indeed,” I lied through my teeth as I kept hopping backwards towards the hospital exit. “Still, I hope that I’ll still be able to assist you as normal in the future.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” The Doctor waved his free hand even as he tossed the bucket onto my bed. “That’ll be fine, I suppose. Just let me know if you ever do have another bout of immortality, eh?”

“Most assuredly,” I lied again, now with both sandals on and accelerating into a run. “A good day to you, Doctor!”

“And to you, Ryan! Don’t be a stranger!”

The Doctor’s parting words were met only by the wind from my steps as I beat a hasty retreat.