Ghost Marriage Pact

Li Cang had one hand around a cracked bow and the other around a stolen pill tube when the outer yard decided to test him. He had spent twenty years roaming alone, and that made him dangerous in a very specific way. He knew which power methods damaged the body, which ones lied about balance, and which ones only worked because people were too scared to question them. That talent should have made him a teacher. Instead, it made him a problem. At Nine Gate School, he had to climb from the lowest rank while a rival watched for weakness, a friend tried to keep him fed, and the school itself treated him like a tool it had not finished naming. Worse, he heard every argument as a bundle of reasonabl...