From Kenji Tanaka’s analytical perspective, the sunrise over the City of the Golden Carp was a logistical catastrophe. The sun ascended without a light optimization plan, casting inefficient shadows over the curved rooftops and awakening the chaos of urban life with a cacophony of redundant sounds: the cry of a fishmonger competing with that of a town crier; the screech of a cart with an ungreased wheel, a considerable loss of kinetic energy due to sheer maintenance negligence.

This world was a failed project. An emerging market with no leadership, no strategy, and not the slightest knowledge of resource allocation. And Kenji, after a night of controlled hibernation in an alley whose aroma of rotten fish and despair he had cataloged as an “indicator of low socioeconomic performance,” was on his way to his first job interview.

His destination: the Silver Cloud Clan. His objective: infiltration.

Upon reaching the memorized address, he found himself before a wall. No, “wall” was too simplistic a term. It was a statement of power. A rampart of white stone, so tall and smooth it seemed designed as much to repel an army as to humiliate the sun.

Infrastructure Assessment: Solid Perimeter, Kenji thought, his eyes scanning the structure with an auditor’s coldness. However, the battlements are poorly distributed. They leave a fifteen-degree blind spot to the southeast. The lookout points on the roofs offer broad, yet incomplete, coverage and are vulnerable to a coordinated aerial assault. High security budget, but amateur execution. Concerning.

He ignored the main entrance, an opulent portal reserved for high-value assets like clan members or important allies, and headed for the service door—a more logical access point for a zero-value asset like himself. It was a sturdy, iron-reinforced wooden door, flanked by two guards.

These were not the pathetic municipal guards from the alley, bribable with a stale onion. They wore gray silk uniforms, were armed with swords instead of spears, and their stances were alert. Their gazes were sharp.

Security Personnel Analysis: Mid-to-High Level. Professional, but arrogant.

As Kenji approached, one of the guards raised a hand to stop him. His eyes swept over the teenager’s skeletal body, his threadbare tunic, and his bare feet with a disdain that was not lazy, but professional. It was the contempt of someone who had received specific training in the art of contempt.

“Get lost, street rat. This isn’t a soup kitchen,” the guard said. His voice was cold, a standardized deterrence protocol.

Kenji did not back down. He showed no fear or submission. Fear was an emotional response that clouded judgment, a luxury his operating system no longer processed. Instead, he applied the Protocol for Interaction with Low-Level Hostile Personnel v2.1: Disorientation via Unexpected Logic.

He pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his tattered tunic—a copy of the notice he had seen on the post—and smoothed it out with almost ceremonial care. He held it up to the guard as if it were a corporate access badge.

“I am here for the servant vacancy,” his voice was calm and direct, without the tremor of a supplicant, but with the neutrality of a candidate presenting his resume. “My capacity to assimilate new protocols is high, and my maintenance cost is minimal. I am a low-risk, high-growth-potential investment.”

The guard froze. He blinked. He looked at the parchment, then at Kenji’s deathly serious face, and then at his partner, who shrugged with an expression of utter confusion. They had expected a begging mendicant, a crying child. They had not expected… a walking business plan. The total absence of fear in the teenager’s eyes was anomalous. It was an error in the social system they didn’t know how to process.

“Matriarch Feng said to interview everyone who showed up,” the first guard grumbled, clearly irritated by the break in his routine. “Let him pass.”

He opened the door just enough for Kenji to slip through, as if afraid his strange logic might be contagious.

“Go to that courtyard and wait. And don’t touch anything. Your current value doesn’t even cover the cost of the dust you might kick up.”

Kenji nodded once. Flawed initial selection protocol. They rely on appearance, not intent. However, they follow orders from a superior. Functional hierarchical structure. Good.

The courtyard was a space of austere and efficient beauty. Perfectly fitted stone slabs, a single maple tree with vibrant red leaves, and a silence that was a luxury in itself. A dozen people were already waiting.

They were a sampling of desperation. Men with broad backs and calloused hands, women with worn-out gazes, and youths barely older than him. They looked at him with a mixture of pity and annoyance, as if his scrawny presence devalued their own meager chances.

Kenji ignored them. To him, they weren’t people. They were the competition. And his analysis was swift and brutal.

Competitor A: Male, approx. 40 years old. Primary asset: brute force. Liability: probable alcoholism, visible in the broken facial capillaries. Value proposition: unskilled labor. Risk: low reliability, high long-term maintenance cost. Dismissed. Competitor B: Female, approx. 35 years old. Primary asset: expression of a martyr, designed to evoke pity. Liability: three malnourished children waiting outside (observed on the way to the gate). Value proposition: loyalty based on desperation. Risk: her primary motivation is not the company, but an external factor, making her an unstable asset. Dismissed.

His gaze swept over the rest. They were all the same. Low-performance assets competing for an entry-level position with deficient strategies. He felt a pang of frustration so sharp it was almost physical. It was like being in a startup meeting where all the founders presented the same failed idea with different fonts. Did no one in this world understand the concept of market differentiation?

Then, she appeared.

The murmur in the courtyard died as if an invisible hand had strangled the sound. An elderly woman emerged from one of the pavilions. She moved with an imposing rigidity, her back as straight as an iron rod. She wore a dark silk robe, and her gray hair was gathered in a severe bun, held by a single silver hairpin.

Kenji felt a chill that had nothing to do with the morning cold. Analysis of incoming asset: Matriarch Feng, Head of Domestic Operations. No Qi fluctuation in her; she is not a powerful cultivator. Her power is of another kind. It is pure, distilled authority—the kind of power that doesn’t need to shout because its mere presence is a command. Her eyes, sharp and piercing as a bird of prey’s, scanned the candidates. They didn’t linger. They swept, processed, evaluated, dismissed. When her eyes passed over Kenji, they paused for a fraction of a second longer than necessary.

It was a microsecond, but Kenji registered it. It was the moment a facial recognition system finds an anomaly in the database. He was the anomaly.

“You,” she said, pointing to the muscular man. “Inside.”

The interview was brief. The man came out with a distraught face, rejected. Others followed. Most emerged defeated. A few, the most honest- and strong-looking ones, were sent to a different side of the courtyard. Hired.

Finally, only Kenji remained.

“You,” said Matriarch Feng, her voice as dry as autumn leaves. “Come in.”

Kenji followed her into a small, neat office. A polished wooden desk, unadorned. Only ledgers and records stacked with a millimeter precision that Kenji found oddly comforting. It was the sanctuary of an orderly mind.

Feng sat down, gesturing for him to remain standing. The silence stretched as she examined him. It was not the guard’s look of contempt, nor the other candidates’ pity. It was an evaluative gaze. She was measuring his worth, or lack thereof.

Interviewer Analysis: CEO mentality. Wastes no time on formalities. Goes straight to cost-benefit analysis. This is the first competent person I have met in this world. Respect.

“The notice is for laborers, not for children who can barely stand,” Feng began. Her tone was not a question but a stress test, designed to see if he would break. “You are consuming my time, the most valuable resource of the Silver Cloud Clan. You have ten seconds to present a value proposition that justifies this loss. Nine. Eight…”

Kenji didn’t flinch. He didn’t plead. He didn’t try to evoke pity, a tactic his prior analysis had shown to be ineffective with this type of manager. He responded as if he were in a boardroom, presenting a hostile takeover bid of himself.

“Because I am the most cost-effective option you will see today, Matriarch,” he said calmly. The countdown stopped. “My maintenance cost is negligible. My resource consumption is minimal. My learning potential is exponential; I have no bad habits to unlearn, and my ability to assimilate new operating protocols is, I estimate, incomparably superior to that of the candidates you have accepted.”

Feng narrowed her eyes. “Operating protocols? Cost-effective? What kind of merchant jargon is that?” “It is the language of efficiency,” Kenji replied, his logic flowing like a river of ice. “You are not hiring a body; you are acquiring an asset. The other candidates offer you short-term depreciation: strong bodies that will wear out, loyalties based on a desperation that will fade with the first extra bowl of rice. I offer you long-term appreciation. A brain. An analytical ability that can optimize any system to which it is applied. Investing in me is not an expense; it is planting a seed.”

He paused, looking directly into the old woman’s eyes. His coup de grâce.

“My loyalty will not be emotional, and therefore, volatile. It will be transactional and, consequently, absolute. It will be directly proportional to the value the Silver Cloud Clan invests in me. I am a low-risk investment with no initial cost and unlimited return potential. Your most logical decision of the day.”

Matriarch Feng fell silent. A silence so profound Kenji could hear the soft buzz of a fly near the window.

She didn’t understand half the words the boy had used. Asset? Return potential? Operating protocols? It was the language of merchants, yes, but applied in a strange, abstract, almost… philosophical way.

But what she did understand, with a clarity that chilled her blood, was the underlying logic. She understood the confidence. The monumental, ice-cold arrogance behind those words. This scrawny boy wasn’t asking for charity. He wasn’t begging. He was presenting a verbal contract. He was offering his future services as an asset in exchange for an initial investment: roof and food.

It was the most absurd, insolent, and brilliant thing she had heard in her sixty years of service.

Everyone else had pleaded, had spoken of their hungry families, of their desperation. He had presented her with a business plan.

He’s different, she thought, and the idea was like a flash of lightning in the gloom of her mind. There’s something in his eyes. It’s not the look of a street child. It’s the look of… I don’t know what. But it’s interesting. A mystery. And mysteries can be useful or dangerous. It’s worth keeping him close to find out.

“You speak with a boldness that does not match your size,” Feng finally said, and in her voice was a nuance that was neither approval nor disapproval. “A very sharp tool can be useful, or it can cut the hand of the one who wields it.”

She stood up, her decision made.

“Very well, ‘analyst.’ We will test your ‘learning potential’ and your ‘cost-effectiveness.’ You will be assigned to the kitchens and the laundry. The most basic, filthiest tasks. You will scrub floors, chop vegetables, and wash clothes until your hands bleed. You will receive a cot in the servants’ quarters, two meals a day, and five copper coins a week. A single mistake, a single complaint, and you will go back to the street you came from. And then your ‘asset’ will be liquidated. Understood?”

“Perfectly,” Kenji replied without hesitation. “The terms of the contract are acceptable.”

Phase one complete. Market penetration has been successful. The position is entry-level, but the location is strategic. Now begins phase two: data collection and internal process optimization to demonstrate value and secure promotion.

“Follow me,” Feng ordered.

She led him out of the office, through labyrinthine corridors, to the far reaches of the compound, where the air smelled of coal and lye. She handed him a servant’s uniform, coarse and of a nondescript gray color.

Kenji Tanaka, the CEO who had once restructured global corporations, the man who had directed symphonies of capital across the planet, accepted his new uniform.

It was his access card. His first tangible asset in this new world. The hostile takeover had begun.