Martial Arts Patch

Nine out of ten martial arts manuals handed down to the present day are incomplete.

Some are missing their final line, some have a move written backwards, and some masters can't even perform the techniques themselves. People pass on the mistakes from one generation to the next. When their practice ruins them, they call it a lack of talent. When it kills them, they call it fate.

Qin Yan is nineteen, has failed the martial arts entrance exam for the second time, scored sixty-one on his reading test, and is the young proprietor of a repair shop in the old city.

He can see where the breaks are. When others throw punches, he doesn't see the moves. He sees which section the breath breaks at, whether it's the hip or the shoulder blade, and whether the line in the manual was written backwards.

He can fix them, and then anyone can master them with a single try. He can't perform them himself.

Each repair burns his vital energy. His nose bleeds until midnight, his ears ring, and his hands shake so badly he can barely hold a file.

He knows he can fix things for everyone else, but not for himself.

Until a piece of copper turns up in his family's scrap pile, its reverse stamped with a serial number worn down to just zero-three.

Forty-one years ago, someone did the same thing. That person died north of the city, and his face was left on the wall of a warehouse.

Now it's his turn to write that final line.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.