Life in Rukongai

The moment Liu Hao was knocked back, his arm numb, the other burly man seized the opening and swung his wooden club at him with a low growl! A fierce gust hit Liu Hao's face, and in his haste, he could only raise his own club to block again.

Clang!

An even louder crash rang out. A tearing pain shot through the web between Liu Hao's thumb and forefinger. Still off balance, he was driven back several steps by the tremendous force, dust billowing beneath his feet. But a fierce light flashed in his eyes. Using his backward momentum, he hurled his already cracked club like a javelin, putting all his strength into the throw at the nearest burly man!

The club whistled through the air, flying straight at the man's face. He had not expected the move and hastily dodged sideways in shock. The club grazed his ear and buried itself deep in the earthen wall behind him with a thunk, its exposed end still quivering violently.

Seizing the opening, Liu Hao turned without hesitation and sprinted in the opposite direction from Renji and the others! He was so fast that he left only a trail of dust rising behind him.

"Bastard!" the burly man who had been forced back cursed. He was just about to give chase when his companion groaned in pain and called urgently from behind him, "Don't... don't chase him!"

He turned to see the companion Liu Hao had knocked down with a thrust of his club. The man's face was as white as paper, and the blood at the corner of his mouth had yet to dry. He clutched his chest, struggling for breath, each inhalation drawing out a suppressed expression of pain.

"That brat... that blow had so much force behind it... he nearly punched through my soul..." Fear lingered in the injured man's eyes. "There's something wrong with him... Let's go!"

The burly man with the club looked at his companion's miserable state, then at the entrance to the alley where Liu Hao had long since disappeared, and weighed his options.

For a little stolen food, chasing a ruthless boy of unknown origin who might possess an unusual power was clearly unwise.

He spat and ultimately gave up the pursuit. He resentfully helped his injured companion to his feet, and the two staggered away, disappearing at the other end of the street.

Liu Hao ran as fast as he could, his heart pounding like a drum in his chest. Only after he confirmed that there were no more pursuing footsteps or hostile Reiatsu behind him did he stop against a ruined wall, gasping for breath.

He looked around. Unfamiliar streets and alleys crisscrossed the area, lined with an endless succession of low, dilapidated houses. It was nothing like the route he remembered taking. He was lost.

In Soul Society, especially in the relatively lawless districts of Rukongai, getting lost was no small matter.

He steadied himself, forced himself to calm down, and began cautiously exploring the unfamiliar area. There were few pedestrians on the streets, and most wore numb or wary expressions. None paid much attention to an unfamiliar boy.

Meanwhile, Renji and the others, who had successfully escaped, hid far away for a long time. Only when they saw that it was completely safe did they gather together.

"Where's Liu Hao?" Rukia was the first to notice someone was missing, and the relaxed look faded from her face.

"He didn't follow us?" Renji frowned too.

"Could he have..." one child said timidly, "been caught?"

"Let's go back and check!" Rukia said decisively, a flicker of worry in her eyes. In their original plan, Liu Hao was only a newcomer; he should not have been the one taking the risk.

The children retraced their route cautiously, their hearts uneasy. When they slipped back into the alley where the fight had taken place, all they saw was a pool of dark red blood, already half congealed and glaringly conspicuous against the dusty ground. There was no sign of Liu Hao, and the two burly men had also left.

"Blood!" one child cried.

Renji's expression changed. He crouched to examine it closely, then looked warily around. "There's only this one pool, and no signs of a fight or anyone being dragged away... Liu Hao might have escaped."

"But he might also be hurt," Rukia said in a low voice, "or they might have caught him and taken him somewhere else. Let's split up and search nearby!"

The children immediately scattered, searching the surrounding streets and alleys anxiously and calling Liu Hao's name in hushed voices. But all they got for their efforts were a few indifferent or wary looks.

"No, we won't find him like this." Renji wiped away some sweat. "Let's go back and check near the street where we stole the food first. If those two caught him, they might have taken him back to the stall, or they might know something."

Rukia nodded in agreement. It was the most promising lead they had at the moment.

They risked approaching the slightly more "bustling" street again and watched from a concealed spot.

Before long, they spotted the two burly men. The injured one had been helped there by his companion and was sitting behind the stall, his complexion still poor and traces of blood remaining at the corner of his mouth where it had not been wiped clean.

There was no sign of Liu Hao near them, and neither man appeared to be guarding a captive or waiting for anyone. They were simply talking in low voices and looking around warily from time to time, especially toward the alley entrances where the children might appear.

"Looks like Liu Hao really did escape." Rukia breathed a sigh of relief, though her brow remained furrowed. "The blood on the ground belonged to that man. Liu Hao injured him and ran away."

"But where did he run to?" Renji looked at the tangled streets and alleys. "He doesn't know this place at all."

"He might be lost," Rukia concluded. "Let's go back to our place first. Maybe he found his own way back. If he isn't there, one of us can stay home while the others come out and split up to look for him."

No one objected. It was the best plan they could think of. For a group of young children, finding someone in the danger-filled streets of Rukongai was no easy task.

Just as Renji and the others decided to return home, Liu Hao was climbing a slightly elevated, barren slope. The view opened up a little from the top. In the distance, he saw a river winding past, its surface shimmering beneath the thin, luminous mist of Reishi. Souls often gathered more readily near water, and perhaps he could also find his way there.

He walked toward the river. Its water was clearer than he had imagined, and translucent "fish" of various shapes swam beneath the surface. They were not creatures from the World of the Living, but forms of souls condensed from purer Reishi. They were not uncommon in Soul Society and were also one of the food sources available to those with Reiryoku.

I wonder if these things are edible, and how you eat them... Liu Hao stared at the swimming fish. Though he felt no hunger, the mental exhaustion from his frantic escape and the tension just before was real enough.

He needed something to take his mind off things and to obtain some resources for his possible "new life." More importantly, he remembered the general direction: Renji and the others' home seemed to be somewhere downstream.

He rolled up his worn trouser legs and stepped into the icy water. Catching fish was far harder than he had imagined. The fish made of Reishi were extraordinarily slippery, keenly perceptive, and quick. Liu Hao struggled for nearly an hour, soaking himself and becoming thoroughly bedraggled, before he finally spotted an opportunity and lunged with all his strength to catch a silver-white spirit fish about the length of his arm. It struggled nonstop.

Liu Hao climbed back onto the bank, soaking wet, and wrung out the hem of his clothes. Carrying the fish, which was still wriggling slightly, he headed toward the cluster of houses he remembered. From the hillside, he had seen a similar group of shabby houses downstream.

However, most of Rukongai's buildings were dilapidated and looked much the same, and the different areas lacked clear landmarks. As Liu Hao walked, he realized he seemed to have strayed off course again. The houses before him were shabby, but their arrangement was slightly different from what he remembered of the route he had taken back with Renji and the others.

Unable to be certain, he could only wander cautiously around the outskirts of the area, hoping to find a familiar landmark or, if he was lucky, run straight into someone searching for him.

Fortunately, his hopes soon came true. As he stood at a fork in the road, fish in hand and looking somewhat lost, several voices called out behind him, their delight barely suppressed:

"Liu Hao! It's Liu Hao!"

"Liu Hao! There you are!"

Liu Hao spun around to see Rukia, Renji, and two other children emerging from an alley, their faces showing relief and joy at finding their companion.

"I finally found you!" Liu Hao let out a long breath too and hurried over to meet them. "I got lost and wandered around for ages before I found these houses, but I wasn't sure whether this was where you lived, so I was looking around nearby."

Renji looked him up and down, his gaze falling on his soaked clothes and the fish in his hand. "Are you all right? This fish... where did you get it?"

"I'm fine. That was those two men's blood." Liu Hao briefly glossed over the outcome of the fight and raised the fish in his hand. "I got lost after I escaped, and when I saw a river, I thought I'd try catching something. It took a lot of effort to catch just this one. This fish... can we eat it?"

"Yes! Of course we can!" A child came over, eyes shining as he stared at the silver spirit fish. "The fish in the river are really hard to catch. They're slippery and clever. We've tried before, and we hardly ever caught any. Liu Hao, you're amazing!"

"Good, as long as we can eat it." Liu Hao smiled, then thought of a practical problem. "But do we have a pot or a grill? Any salt or other seasonings?"

Rukia and Renji exchanged a slightly embarrassed glance. Rukia said, "Tools... we hardly have any. We usually just share the food we steal and eat it as it is. For grilled fish, we can find some dry firewood, make a fire, and cook it on a stick. Seasonings... we don't have any."

"That's enough. We'll get the natural flavor." Liu Hao was not picky about survival conditions. "Let's give it a try. If it works, maybe we'll have another way to get food in the future. It's safer than... always stealing."

Renji nodded, but then added seriously, "We can catch fish at the river, but we can't go too often, and we especially can't stay long. Out in the wild... sometimes Hollows wander around. You know about Hollows, right?"

Liu Hao's heart tightened, and he nodded. "I know. Do they show up often?"

"Not very often, but they do appear occasionally." Rukia took over, her tone growing grave as well. "Especially in remote places with few people or abnormal flows of Reishi. So we have to be very careful."

With the matter settled, the children took Liu Hao and his fish on a cautious detour first, in case any potential followers discovered their real home. Only then did they return to their ramshackle house, which barely kept out the wind and rain. The child left to watch the place was overjoyed to see Liu Hao return safely.

The children quickly got to work. Some gathered relatively dry firewood nearby, while others found a few reasonably straight branches and sharpened them. They lit a small fire in a relatively secluded clearing behind the house.

With Rukia's guidance, Liu Hao clumsily but carefully prepared the spirit fish, scraping off its tiny translucent scales and removing its innards, though they were more like condensations of Reishi. He threaded the fish onto a branch and slowly turned it over the fire.

As the flames licked the spirit fish, it gradually gave off a strange, faintly sweet fragrance. Unlike the rich aroma of grilled fish in the World of the Living, it was more like the scent of some pure energy being activated. The fish turned slightly golden, and its translucent flesh firmed up.

Once it was cooked, Liu Hao divided the fish into portions and shared it with everyone, along with some previously stolen flatbread and other food that had already grown somewhat dry and hard. The children sat around the fire, carefully savoring this unexpected "feast."

The spirit fish offered little substantial sensation of chewing. It was more like a gentle warmth, accompanied by a faint, fresh sweetness, sliding down their throats and then turning into wisps of Reishi that slowly replenished their meager Reiryoku. For Liu Hao, it seemed to provide more mental comfort than anything else.

For children who had spent years never knowing where their next meal would come from, surviving mainly on theft and the absorption of sparse Reishi, it was a rare delicacy.

"Delicious!" one child mumbled, his eyes narrowing to slits.

"Yeah, much better than dry flatbread." Renji nodded too. Though he tried hard to maintain his composure as the "leader," the speed at which he chewed gave him away.

Rukia ate her portion of fish in small bites, looking at her companions' satisfied faces in the firelight, then at Liu Hao as he focused on tending the fire. A complicated look flashed in her eyes. The boy who had appeared so suddenly seemed to have brought something different.

From that day on, Liu Hao was formally part of the little group of Rukongai orphans. Under the pressure of survival, the days passed slowly and repetitively, and in the blink of an eye, several years had gone by.

Throughout those years, Liu Hao never stopped thinking about his future.

Knowing the course of nearly every major event in this world's future was both an advantage and a heavy burden.

He had tried to learn from Rukia and Renji how to control Reiryoku, the foundation of the power system in the world of Soul Reapers.

Yet no matter how he concentrated on sensing and guiding it, the Reishi within him remained like a stagnant pool, giving no response.

After failing several times, he had no choice but to accept for the time being that he might truly be a soul with "no Reiryoku" or "extremely low Reiryoku," burying his unwillingness deep in his heart.

Hollow attacks also occurred occasionally over those years.

Sometimes there were terrifying roars and eruptions of Reiatsu from the distant sky; at other times, disturbances occurred closer by. But just as Rukia had said, the Soul Reapers Seireitei stationed in each district, even those with poorer public security, were not entirely for show.

Most of the time, before a Hollow could actually enter a densely populated residential area, the Soul Reapers would arrive and quickly deal with it.

Liu Hao had once glimpsed Soul Reapers fighting from a distance. Their speed, swift as the wind, their fierce slashes, and the motes of light that scattered when a Hollow was "purified" were all deeply etched into his mind. They made him feel his own insignificance, while also faintly kindling a certain longing.

Though his personal strength seemed to have stalled, Liu Hao gradually became an indispensable member of the little group in other ways.

He suggested and led more systematic attempts to fish at the river. At first, they still caught fish inefficiently with their bare hands and often returned empty-handed.

Later, drawing on his memories and observations, Liu Hao found a way to weave a simple but usable fishing net with Renji and the others, using worn-out clothes, vines, and other materials.

Though crude, it greatly improved their fishing efficiency. Whenever they went to the river, always choosing relatively safe times and posting a lookout, they brought back something, more or less.

With a surplus of food, a new problem arose. Spirit fish did not keep well, especially in Rukongai, where the concentration of Reishi was unstable. Liu Hao recalled knowledge from the World of the Living and began teaching everyone how to handle the excess fish: air-drying it in a ventilated place or smoking it.

Though simple, these primitive preservation methods effectively extended the time the food remained edible. They even tried taking surplus dried fish to the market to trade with other souls for vegetables, fruit, coarse grains, or daily necessities. Though they did not get much, it gave them a relatively stable, lower-risk source of supplies alongside their sole previous method of theft.

Life was still hard, and they had not stopped stealing entirely. When food was scarce or they needed particular items, it remained their "quickest" option, and they occasionally got caught and beaten as a result.

But compared with a few years earlier, when they had relied entirely on theft and luck, their lives had indeed improved. At least they went hungry less often, occasionally ate grilled fish they had caught themselves or dried-fish soup, and could smile a little more.

Liu Hao's bonds with Renji, Rukia, and the other children also deepened day by day as they depended on one another, worked together, and shared risks. He was still Liu Hao, the one with "no Reiryoku," but his survival skills and contributions to the little group had earned everyone's respect and trust.

Yet whenever the night grew deep and quiet, or he gazed alone at Seireitei's impossibly lofty white tower, Liu Hao's thoughts would churn again: thoughts of the future, of power, and of how to truly gain a foothold in this cruel world that was both familiar and strange.

He knew the great tide of the story would come in time, and he could never be content to remain in a corner of Rukongai as a bystander swept along with the current. Change required strength, and it also required the right opportunity.

He could only wait, and while he waited, accumulate whatever small assets he could for the unknown future.