That horrible, piercing siren that was definitely going to bring every security guard on campus straight to us.

  Then, as if synchronized, we all moved at once. "RUN," Bonny yelled.

  Tonny scrambled up. Bonny grabbed his arm. Murin was already moving toward the window. I followed. We reached it at the same time, pushing it open, thank God it wasn't locked, and started climbing through. Tonny grabbed my collar and basically threw me out. I landed hard in the bushes below, branches scratching my face. Bonny shoved Murin out after me, then they both jumped, landing in a heap beside us.

  The alarm was still screaming inside. Through the window we could see multiple flashlights moving through the lab. Someone yelling about intruders and stolen instruments and cadavers.

  "Hide," Bonny hissed.

  We scrambled deeper into the bushes, pressing ourselves against the ground, trying to become invisible. But the bushes were thin and offered almost no cover. I could see the flashlights through the leaves, sweeping back and forth. A mosquito landed on my neck. I didn't move. Another one found my arm. Then suddenly it was like the entire mosquito population of the campus had discovered us.

  More flashlights. These came from ground level. Security guards were coming around the building, sweeping their lights across the bushes, the garden, the parking lot.

  "—probably false alarm—"

  "—or someone broke in—"

  "—instruments scattered everywhere, maybe trying to steal them—"

  "—cadavers are valuable on black market—"

  I looked around desperately, trying to orient myself. We were on the north side of the building. Behind us should be... yes. The maintenance garden. Where the hospital grew vegetables for the cafeteria. I reached over and grabbed Murin's collar and pulled. He turned his head, glaring.

  I pointed behind us. Toward the darkness beyond the bushes. He understood immediately and started crawling that direction. The twins figured it out and came after us.

  We crawled through dirt and thorns and more mosquitoes. My hands found mud, then grass, then the neat rows of a vegetable garden. We emerged from the bushes into the relative openness of the garden plot. It was small but well-kept—rows of tomatoes, eggplants, some leafy greens, and in the corner, a mango tree.

  "There," I pointed at the tree.

  "What about it?" Murin whispered.

  "Climb it."

  He stared at me. "Are you seriously asking me to climb a tree while police search for us?"

  "You'll be hidden up there!"

  "And what, you play dead under it? Should the police pretend to be bears? How old are you?"

  "I don't know how to climb trees! Just get up there!"

  "This is the stupidest—"

  Tonny appeared behind us. "Everything's fair in love and war." Before Murin could respond, Tonny grabbed him and literally lifted him toward the lowest branch. Murin had no choice but to grab it. He pulled himself up, shooting me looks that could kill.

  I looked around frantically. "Where do I hide?"

  Bonny ran toward the tomato plants. "You can't hide behind tomato plants!" I hissed.

  But he wasn't hiding. He was grabbing tomatoes. Ripping them off the vines and stuffing them into his pockets. "What are you doing?!"

  "Trust me!"

  I didn't have time to argue. Tonny appeared next to me with something in his hands. A rag. He shoved it into my hands. "Hold this!"

  "Why—"

  "Just hold it!"

  I held it and had no idea why. The flashlight beams swept across the garden.

  "There! Movement!"

  The beams locked onto us. Three security guards and two police officers emerged from around the building, flashlights pointed directly at us. "Freeze!"

  We froze. The tableau we presented must have been bizarre: Murin in a tree, clearly visible, one leg dangling. Bonny crouched by the tomato plants with his hands full of tomatoes, smeared with dirt. I stood there, frozen, holding a rag I had no explanation for, watching Tonny deliver the performance of a lifetime.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He was crying. Actual tears? Where had those come from? How did he do that on command? His voice cracked at exactly the right moments. His hands shook. He kept wiping his nose with his sleeve like a desperate, starving medical student who'd been driven to crime by the cruelty of cafeteria prices. He ran toward them and grabbed the nearest guard's hand and shook it. The guard looked confused but didn't pull away.

  "You're medical students?" The lead guard asked.

  "Yes," Tonny said.

  "At this hour, you're stealing vegetables from a hospital garden."

  "You have to understand, we're medical students, we've been studying for days, we haven't eaten properly in weeks. The hostel food is terrible, the cafeteria is worse, and we're broke!" Tonny gestured wildly. "It's the last week of the month, our stipends don't come until next week, we've run out of money, we're too proud to ask our parents, we're supposed to be adults now! And we don't have time for part-time jobs because we're studying medicine!"

  One of the younger police officers looked genuinely moved. The other officer, older, looked mostly tired. The security guards just looked confused. They looked at Tonny for a long moment. Then at Bonny, clutching his tomatoes like they were stolen treasure. Then at me, holding a rag I still didn't understand.

  "You're telling me," the lead guard said slowly, "that four medical students, in the middle of the night, decided to raid a vegetable garden because you're hungry."

  "Yes," Tonny said.

  The lead guard looked at the police officers. One of them shrugged slightly. "You know what I think?" the guard said.

  "What?" Tonny's voice was admirably steady.

  "I think you're full of shit. But I also think you're too stupid to be actual thieves. Real criminals wouldn't hide in a vegetable garden holding produce."

  Bonny looked down at the tomatoes in his hands. Slowly, like he was just realizing how this looked, he tried to hide them behind his back. It didn't work.

  "Put those back," the guard said.

  Bonny shuffled toward the tomato plants and carefully placed them at the base of the plant. It was the most ridiculous thing I'd ever watched.

  The lead guard turned to me. "You. With the rag. What's your story?"

  I looked at the cloth in my hand. I still had no idea where it came from or why Tonny gave it to me. "I... was going to use it to carry vegetables. It's... cleaner that way?"

  The lead guard stared at me. I stared back. The officer who'd been trying not to laugh gave up and let out a small snort. The light moved up to the tree. To Murin.

  Murin was still in the mango tree. He'd stopped climbing when the police arrived and was now perched on a branch like an owl. His face was pressed against his shoulder, probably to hide the fact that he was dying of embarrassment.

  "You," he called up to Murin. "What are you doing up there?"

  Murin's voice was strained. "I... also wanted vegetables?"

  "From a mango tree?"

  "There are... no vegetables up here. I realize that now."

  I stood there holding rag, wanting the earth to open and swallow me whole.

  One of the security officers sighed. "Did you four come from inside the building?"

  "No sir!" Tonny said. "We came from the hostel. Heard the alarm and panicked."

  "You see anyone running from the building?"

  "No sir. We've been here in the garden and very focused on our... agricultural activities."

  The officers conferred quietly. One of them looked up at Murin. "You. Get down from there."

  Murin climbed down slowly. Stood next to us, his face neutral but his eyes promising future violence.

  "Student IDs."

  We all pulled them out. They checked them against some list on their phones. "You're all actually medical students here."

  "Unfortunately," Murin muttered.

  The lead guard rubbed his face. "Look. Technically, you're trespassing and stealing hospital property. But honestly, the cafeteria food really is terrible."

  "Thank you, sir," Tonny said earnestly.

  "But," the guard continued, "a fire alarm went off in the medical sciences building. Someone was in the anatomy lab. Left instruments scattered everywhere. You're sure you weren't there?"

  "Positive, sir."

  "Because if we find out you were involved—"

  "We weren't, sir. We've been here the whole time. Committing vegetable theft."

  "Get out of here," he said finally. "All of you. If I see you near this building again, I'm calling your Dean."

  We didn't need to be told twice. We walked toward the main path, didn't run, because running would look suspicious. We passed the guards, the police officers and the small crowd of students who'd gathered to watch the show.

  One of them recognized me. "Ashru? What happened?"

  "Nothing," I said. "Wrong place, wrong time. Go back to sleep."

  We kept walking until we were out of sight. Then we kept walking some more. Behind the building. Through the parking lot. Past the deserted basketball courts. Finally, near the hostel, we stopped.

  Bonny reached into his pocket. Pulled out three tomatoes. "You kept some?" Tonny asked.

  "Obviously. I didn't put all of them back."

  We stared at the tomatoes. Slightly dirty but worth every bit of trouble we'd just gone through.

  Tonny and Bonny started laughing. In the end I also ended up laughing. We stood there in the dark, covered in mosquito bites, exhausted, adrenaline crashing, laughing like idiots.

  Murin stood apart. He didn't laugh. Then he turned and walked toward the hostel entrance without a word.

  "Murin," I called. "Murin, wait—"

  He didn't stop. The door closed behind him. I stood there, the laughter dead in my throat, watching the empty space where he'd been.

  Tonny shifted uncomfortably. "Uh... you should probably go after him."

  "Yeah." But I didn't move. The System flickered on.

  What if cultivation was engineering?

  Engineer mind + Taoist cultivation + Blacksmith MC

  He died. He glimpsed infinity. Now he's building his way back—with a hammer.

  No shortcuts. Just a nine-year-old forging lightning generators and formations in a dying kingdom.

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