"One moment," Father said, giving the Uncle a look. "Wait until we're complete."

  A thought occurred to Father then, and without looking at anyone in particular, he spoke again.

  "Hand me a dagger."

  589 sprang into action and snatched a dagger from a nearby table with nimble fingers. He spun it around, took the dagger by the edge so that he could present Father with the hilt, and made not a single sound of protest as the knife's sharp edges cut into the flesh of his fingers when Father pulled it from his loose grasp.

  Father flicked the dagger idly, letting a fat droplet of blood splatter on the tent floor. It was a fine dagger, Wu Hao thought, and he looked it up and down, finding it oddly familiar until the realization struck. This was one of Father's personal daggers, and judging by the little notch that had been carved into the leather of its hilt, it might even have been the same dagger that he had been compelled to kill himself with during his last death.

  Another thump, then another.

  Two more Uncles arrived - the Uncle in charge of cultivation guidance, who he had met earlier, and the Uncle in charge of the material for the camp, as well as the drugs and medicine. Not healing, because that was a privilege not given to deathsworn. On his nose were perched thin-rimmed round glasses, and his hair had been neatly parted in the middle as always.

  "Father," they both greeted as they entered the tent.

  "We have a problem," Father said, turning to them. "Observe."

  Then he turned again to Wu Hao, handed him the dagger, and spoke.

  "721," Father said, staring straight into his eyes. Wu Hao was struck, most of all, by the awful sense of deja vu. If now it was in a well-lit tent rather than outside, otherwise frustratingly little had changed about his situation since his last two deaths. "Kill yourself."

  The dagger in his hands twitched like a living thing.

  And, whether it was his exhaustion or that same spite that had kept his feet moving when that Uncle had wanted him to fail earlier - it didn't go any higher than that. His hand remained at belly height, and while he couldn't lower it, he could keep it from raising past that point.

  He breathed in hard and he felt his muscles strain to the point of snapping, but even so - he remained in that stalemate.

  Father stared at him for a moment longer, then shook his head and snatched the dagger out of Wu Hao's hands. Wu Hao sagged, taking deep gasping breaths as his muscles finally relaxed.

  "He's resisting the conditioning," he told one of the Uncles, displeasure clear from his expression. "Why is he resisting?"

  The Uncles glanced at each other.

  "Maybe it's the drugs?" one asked, the one in charge of the drugs. "I'd heard that Elder Kong made some changes to the formula to make it slightly less expensive."

  Father scowled. "That cheap bastard. You're telling me this entire batch might be resistant to the conditioning?"

  "It's only slightly," the Uncle said. "Sir -"

  "Slightly is bad enough!" Father shouted back, and that Uncle flinched back. "How many times do I have to tell you? There is absolute obedience and there is failure! What else is there? Trust? Loyalty? Friendship? Love? They are chains that hold us down, Liu Xijing!"

  "Of course, sir," that Uncle said, his glasses sliding to the tip of his nose as he almost literally staggered back and fell over himself. "I apologize, sir. It wasn't my intention to question you."

  Father harrumphed.

  "It only seemed like a waste to me," the Uncle said hurriedly, to explain himself.

  "A waste?" Father asked dismissively. "A waste is when you lose something that you did not have to lose. If we cannot be sure of absolute loyalty, then there is nothing we can be sure of with this batch. Discarding them then is the only possible solution."

  "But the drugs alone aren't our only way to ensure loyalty," that Uncle argued. "We could step up the punishments, no? That might -"

  "Father is right," the Uncle in charge of cultivation guidance said slowly but loudly and definitively. There was a warning in his tone. "We do as he says."

  "I merely don't want to do anything unnecessarily drastic," the Uncle argued. "It might be a mistake to -"

  Father growled, then surged forward. Qi poured from his body like a sudden blast that rocked the tent, setting the cloth to flutter and his desk to heel back slightly from the sudden power that Father had brought forth.

  Father's hand clenched around that Uncle's neck and lifted him easily, squeezing so that his fingers pressed deep into the flesh of the man's neck. That Uncle was the same height as Father, but Father just raised his arm slightly without apparent strain so that the Uncle's feet dangled off the floor.

  It was not the first time that Wu Hao had seen Father use his qi, but the sheer weight of it still astounded him. Father had to be at least a first-grade martial artist. Possibly he was even a Master. His qi felt, in a word, like light without warmth. Wu Hao tasted cinnamon and it tasted wrong in ways he couldn't begin to articulate.

  "I do not merely require discipline and obeisance from the deathsworn," Father said, tone harsh. "Don't argue with me again, or else no one will ever find your corpse."

  The Uncle nodded as fast as he could, face pale. "Yes, Father," he croaked. "Apologies, Father."

  Father opened his hand and let the Uncle fall to his feet again. He thought for a moment, with everyone else holding their breaths. Finally, he broke the silence.

  "Test if the deterrent mechanism still works," Father ordered. "589, hold him. Get started, Bai Jing."

  Wu Hao tried to turn, but before he managed 589 threw himself forward like an arrow from a bow, slamming a fist into Wu Hao's stomach. The punch forced the air out of Wu Hao's lungs, and while he was dazed from the impact two strong, qi-enhanced arms snaked around Wu Hao's arms and held him tight.

  Maybe he really should have kept that dagger, he had time to think, and then he was being choked.

  The left Uncle scowled at Wu Hao. He must have been awakened in a hurry, and he didn't carry his flask of wine, which hadn't seemed to help his mood any. So his name was Bai Jing, and the other was Liu Xijing? Wu Hao had never heard any of the Uncles be referred to by anything as mundane as a name before. What was the third Uncle's name, then?

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  At the same time, he also didn't know who the other man the Uncles had referred to was either. Who was Elder Kong? What role did he play, beyond apparently being the one in charge of the recipes for their medicine?

  "Father," he tried. "I'm not defective..."

  Uncle Bai Jing reached out and slammed a punch into Wu Hao's stomach, which would have doubled him over if not for 589 still holding him in position with arms that felt like bands of iron clamped around his own.

  "No one's interested in hearing from a defective product," the Uncle said viciously. And with that punch, he had robbed Wu Hao of the ability to speak, as well.

  "Stop tormenting him," Father said, scowling. "There's no point to it. Leave your games for the living, not the walking corpses."

  "Yes, sir, my apologies," Uncle Bai Jing muttered. He slapped Wu Hao again, though. It stung, and Wu Hao felt something give beneath the Uncle's hand against his cheek. A tooth, maybe.

  "Come on," Bai Jing ordered. "This'll get too messy for the tent. Follow me, you."

  But 589 looked at Father first, who nodded. Only then did he push Wu Hao forwards, shoving him forward using his hips so that he didn't have to let go of him at any point. Even if Wu Hao had allowed himself to be carried away, orders were orders.

  They left the tent, with the tent flap smacking Wu Hao in the head as he was pushed outside. The Uncle was already standing near to the tent and was walking to one of the more open fields where cultivation guidance had happened earlier, and Wu Hao was pushed over there as well.

  He was dimly aware that he was going to die here, beyond exhausted and numb. If he hadn't been so tired, then maybe he could have escaped.

  Something to consider for the next time, he thought, finding something darkly funny about the thought. Here he was, about to die again. He struggled against 589's arms, trying to find a way to twist around and escape, but the other boy held him in too tight of a lock to do so.

  Uncle grunted in an annoyed way and forced his qi into Wu Hao, where it paralyzed him utterly. His heart sank and his eyes darted, one side to another, hoping that there was some way to get free.

  "Last words?" Uncle asked, stepping closer again.

  Wu Hao didn't stop trying to struggle with as little of his body as he had left to him.

  The Uncle scrunched his eyebrows into an expression of annoyance, but then he realized it didn't matter. With a quick little grunt he then gathered himself.

  That same thick, oily qi that Wu Hao had seen yesterday began to roil up from his core, surging outwards from his limbs and coiling around his left arm, concentrating into his hand. He turned that to Wu Hao, palm open, fingers splayed. The heavy scent of awful wine roiled through the air.

  Suddenly it was like nothing in the world existed except for that single palm. Despite his posture, though, the Uncle didn't strike Wu Hao at all. Instead, all he did was draw his hand back, and the circle of qi that had been buzzing in Wu Hao's chest followed along with him, blasting out of his chest.

  And with the filter gone, the rest of his qi came flooding in. This wasn't the regulated trickle of qi that dripped into his core throughout the day, keeping him more alert and fitter than an average boy despite the rough treatment. That had been a droplet. This was an entire river bursting through the dams that had been set up, pouring into his core that had been deprived of the qi it needed for what felt like years now.

  In the first second he felt nothing but an immense warmth flooding his chest, a contentment and power like he had never felt before in his life. It felt like a banquet after starving, like a warm fire in the middle of a blizzard. It felt fantastic, and despite his training Wu Hao couldn't stop himself from letting out a relaxed groan slip.

  589 let Wu Hao go hurriedly, then stepped back to a safer distance.

  But then it kept coming. More and more power that had been locked away poured down until his core was filled to the brim and then kept receiving more, spilling over until it infected his heart and his limbs in a riotous loop that fed upon itself and kept giving him more and more power.

  With every heartbeat, the power kept swelling. He tried to control it, vaguely aware that this was more power than he should have had access to, but with the dual effect of the exhaustion he just couldn't manage a decent grip on the power and it slipped. The qi was now pumping through his limbs again and they were reddening with the strain. With his senses enhanced to the limit, he could feel that blood vessels were stimulated until they simply burst throughout his body, and even then the power inside his core kept building without restraint.

  It was too much. The qi throughout his limbs finished its first half cycle and forced its way back to his heart to complete it entirely, smashing into the power already there, and causing even more spillage. It grew - another cycle rampaged through his body and grew again - he had only a moment to think that everything was going horribly, horribly wrong -

  The bubble of qi that had been boiling inside his core burst, cracking his core and exploding out of his ribcage.

  Wu Hao didn't even feel the pain. He just suddenly felt nothing - could control no muscles, felt no injury. Everything was gone, before he could even react. Even with all his enhanced senses and the sudden influx of power that the qi had given him, all of it was immediately gone. Sensation, thought, and his life, all sundered in a single blast.

  As if from a great distance, he heard Uncle's voice.

  "It still works, then. At least we have that. 589, was it? Get one of the others to clean up the body, then grab someone else from his batch to see how well the indoctrination held up."

  Then Wu Hao knew no more.