Intense pain, random blows landing everywhere, shouts in a language he didn't know but seemed to understand perfectly—words full of contempt that pierced his ears.
Suddenly, he opens his eyes and sees three boys, between 15 and 17 years old, beating him on the ground.
Despite the intense ache in his body, he leaps up, regaining his feet with surprising speed.
Observing the group, Sebastián notices they are wearing Daoist robes. It strikes him as incredibly strange, but they give him no time to think: one of the boys lunges forward, aiming a strike at his chest.
"Li Yi! Do you really think you can escape with what little strength you have left?"
Sebastián attempts to block the blow, parrying it with his arm, but the moment the fist meets his palm, he feels a force that nearly shatters his hand.
He immediately backs away. "Li Yi?" he thinks, confused.
"Why was that strike so strong? That punch left my hand numb."
Looking down at his limb, he noticed it was smaller than normal. He was also dressed as a Daoist, but his robes were different—tattered and bruised.
"Li Yi? Could that be the name of this body's owner?"
One of the aggressors spoke up:
"Li Yi, did you think you could just go and steal medicinal herbs from the martial arts school grounds? You, with your mediocre and shattered foundation, with no future... you can only be an ephemeral mundane until the day you die. We've come here to break your legs and arms so you never try to steal what you can't have again."
At that instant, the other two rushed in to strike him.
Sebastián thought fast:
"These people's strikes are too strong; if I let them land directly on my body, several bones might break."
He decided to use the combat style he had learned in the other world: Aikido.
As a blow from one of them arrived, Sebastián didn't take it head-on. Instead, he stepped slightly aside, grabbed the attacker's arm, and yanked it downward.
Driven by the momentum, they both went rolling.
When the other boy approached to kick him, Sebastián rolled and used the first attacker's body as a shield, which absorbed the full impact.
In that same moment, he managed to slide between the second boy's feet, tripping him and sending him face-first into the ground.
The boy looked back at him with hatred and threw a kick directly at his face; at the same time, the third youth—seeing the other two had been taken down—ran forward and threw a punch.
For a moment, Sebastián was trapped between two attacks. He quickly ducked away: the kick meant for his face struck the third boy instead, and the third boy's punch ended up landing squarely in the groin of the one already on the ground.
Taking advantage of their dazed state, he began to run toward the forest, hoping they wouldn't pursue him once they managed to get up.
He ran for a long time while the pain made him nearly lose consciousness.
He veered off the paths and threw himself into a small river, eventually floating to the shore several minutes later.
There, he dragged himself out of the water and leaned against a stone while the current passed between his feet. He fell asleep until nightfall.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
There was barely any sunlight left. He still felt intense pain throughout his body, but also a strange sensation in his abdomen: like an energy slowly repairing him.
As best he could, he walked away from the shore and looked out from a small, steep hill that allowed him to see over the trees.
"There seems to be smoke in the distance... like a small village or town," he whispered.
He walked slowly for a few hours until he reached the outskirts of the town. Some people saw him wounded and helped him recover; they even gave him some pills that helped him heal.
"What is your name?" one of the people asked.
Noticing he was in a different place from where he had been beaten, he knew he wouldn't run into those three anytime soon.
"I can't say my name is Sebastián; it would sound too strange. These people don't seem to have bad intentions... the owner of this body seems to be named Li Yi, so that will be my name from now on."
"Li Yi. That is my name," he replied firmly.
The next day, when he woke up, he noticed his wounds were already better.
Upon getting up, he saw that the lady of the house had left him a bowl of food, which he consumed quickly. Leaving the cabin, he observed a woman and some children plowing the land. With great gratitude, he approached her.
"Thank you for helping me with my wounds," Li Yi said.
"Don't worry, here in the village we all help each other. The important thing is that you feel better now," the woman replied. "What happened to you yesterday? It looked like you had been badly beaten."
"Don't worry, it was just that I was in the forest and some people attacked me, but I managed to escape."
He couldn't tell her he had been thrashed for stealing.
With a bow—the correct way to say goodbye in Daoist culture, as far as he could remember—Li Yi took his leave and began to walk through the center of town, sharpening his ears to catch the conversations on the street.