Chapter 27: Before the Hand Moves

On Saturday morning, Zhao Xiaotian tried to pull qi out of the floor. Mo stopped him with one finger laid across the back of his hand. The boy's hand hung above the training hall boards. Faint heat trembled along his fingertips. Beneath them, something cold withdrew through the wood. "I almost had it," Xiaotian said. "That is why I stopped you." His Wang school shirt had come untucked on one side. A blue sports drink stood beside his shoes, bright enough to warn birds away from poisoned fruit. Xiaotian glanced at it. "Jay says electrolytes are modern qi." "Jay has been wrong before." "He says being wrong confidently is a leadership skill." "He has demonstrated this." Upstairs, a pipe knocked inside the wall. Across the hall, Wang Dehai spoke to the first children's class of the day. Their feet struck the canvas in uneven rows. Xiaotian flexed the hand Mo…