The rubber gloves hung limply at Chen Mei’s side, an awkward appendage that seemed to mock her martial arts training. Clumsy. Always clumsy. Her thoughts swirled like autumn leaves, fragmented and restless.

“You’ll never be a true warrior,” Master Liu had said years ago, his words etching themselves into her memory like a blade carving stone.

Rubber against skin. Soft. Yielding. Nothing like the hard discipline of a warrior’s hand.

She remembered the monastery, the endless hours of training, her hands perpetually raw and aching. The other disciples moved with fluid grace—silk through wind—while she stumbled, each movement a declaration of her inadequacy.

“Why do you persist?” her training partner, Wei, would ask, his eyes both compassionate and slightly pitying.

The rubber gloves. Absurd protection. Against what?

Her stream of consciousness meandered, touching memories like a butterfly landing on fragile branches. The gloves had been a gift from her mother—practical, unremarkable. Yet today, they felt like a strange talisman.

Outside the small teahouse where she sat, the mountain winds whispered ancient secrets. A traveler entered, his movements deliberate, his gaze scanning the room with predatory precision.

“Chen Mei?” he asked.

She nodded, her rubber-gloved hand unconsciously touching the tea cup.

“I bring a message,” he said, sliding a weathered scroll across the table.

The scroll contained not words, but an intricate map—revealing a path she had never known existed. A route that wound through impossible mountain passes, leading to a place that existed between memory and myth.

The gloves. The map. The moment.

When she unrolled the scroll, something unexpected happened. The rubber gloves, those clumsy instruments of protection, began to shimmer. Transforming. Metamorphosing.

They were no longer mere rubber—but weapons. Rare. Powerful. Legendary.

The traveler smiled. “Your journey begins now.”

The teahouse dissolved around her, the mountain winds carrying the scent of destiny.

Clumsy no more.