Two days passed too quickly—like water flowing through fingers, like a breath exhaled that cannot be drawn back.
Li Yuan spent that time learning the layout of the village more deeply, listening to Han Wei's stories about the surrounding territory, absorbing as much information as he could about the world he was about to enter without the protection of a kind community.
But the most valuable moments were the simple ones—sitting with Mei Lin as she sewed, listening to the rhythm of the thread being pulled through cloth; walking with Han Wei to the edge of the village, feeling the change from trodden ground to wild earth; hearing the children playing in the distance, the sound of their laughter carrying a reminder that life was still beautiful even though the world could be harsh.
The morning of departure arrived with a thin mist hanging in the air—Li Yuan felt it on his skin, cold and damp, carrying the aroma of soil and wet leaves.
He stood outside Han Wei's house, Chen Ming's bamboo staff in his hand, the small pouch of bread and dried fruit that Mei Lin had forced on him hanging from his shoulder.
Han Wei and Mei Lin stood in front of him—Li Yuan could feel their presence with his Wenjing, could hear the intention behind the heavy silence.
A deep concern. A desire to persuade him to stay but a respect for his choice. An unspoken prayer for his safety. A sadness in knowing that the likelihood of them meeting again was very small.
"Li Yuan," Han Wei said finally, his voice carrying warmth mixed with sadness. "I hope you find what you are looking for. And I hope... I hope the world is kinder to you than I fear it will be."
Li Yuan nodded slowly, feeling the weight of those words.
"Thank you, Village Elder Han Wei," he said with a deep respect. "For all that you and Auntie Mei Lin have given. For the kindness, for the shelter, for... for reminding me that humanity still exists."
Mei Lin stepped forward—Li Yuan felt her movement with his Wenjing—and she touched his hand with a gentleness.
"Be careful," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Do not trust everyone. And if you ever need a place to return, remember that your door is always open here."
Gentle love. A mother's concern even though she was not his mother. A hope that her words would somehow protect him even though she knew words were not enough.
"I will remember," Li Yuan said with a deep sincerity.
They stood in silence for a few more moments—a silence that carried all that could not be spoken, all the worries and hopes and prayers that did not have enough words.
Then Li Yuan turned—a slow, deliberate movement—and he began to walk.
The bamboo staff tapped the ground with a rhythm that was familiar now. Tap. Tap. Tap.
A sound that carried certainty in uncertainty, that carried structure in darkness.
He did not look back—he couldn't, because turning around would not change the darkness—but he heard.
Heard Han Wei's footsteps stop at the threshold of the house. Heard the sob that Mei Lin tried to hold back. Heard the whispered prayer she uttered for the safety of a stranger who had become like a son in such a short time.
And then he walked past the two-meter radius—past the range of his Wenjing—and those voices became just an echo in the distance, just a memory he carried as he stepped from safety into uncertainty.
The way out of the village was not difficult—Han Wei had explained it in meticulous detail, and Li Yuan had walked this route a few times over the past two days to memorize it.
But once he passed the last boundary of the village—once he passed the last well, the last house, the last sound of civilization—something changed.
The air felt different. Colder, sharper, carrying a wilder aroma.
The sounds also changed—no longer were there overlapping human conversations, no longer the sound of hammering or chickens clucking or children playing. Only the sounds of nature—the wind through the trees, birds singing in the distance, insects buzzing, a small stream somewhere unseen.
And something else—something more subtle, more difficult to identify.
Tension. As if the air itself was holding its breath. As if the world was waiting for something to happen.
Li Yuan walked carefully, every step calculated, every tap of the bamboo staff carrying information about the ground ahead.
He followed the directions Han Wei had given—a path that led west, which was supposed to take him to the next village in two or three days of travel. The directions were simple: follow the path until he met a small river, then follow the river in the direction of the flow until he heard the sound of a small waterfall, then turn left and keep walking until he smelled the aroma of smoke from a hearth.
Simple in theory. But in practice, with a constant darkness and only a staff and Wenjing to guide him, every step was a negotiation with uncertainty.
The first day passed without incident—if "without incident" could mean stumbling a few times, almost falling into a small ravine he didn't detect until it was too late, and spending an hour lost because he misheard the direction of a water flow.
When night arrived—he knew from the temperature dropping and the sound of birds changing to the chirping of insects—Li Yuan found a large tree and sat with his back leaning against it, too tired to look for a better spot.
He ate a little of the dry bread Mei Lin had given him, drank from the water pouch he had filled at the river, and he allowed himself to feel the exhaustion that came not just from physical effort but from a constant concentration that could never slacken.
The Understanding of the Body spoke softly—not with words but with sensation, with a reminder that this body—although not a true physical body, although only a projection of consciousness—still felt. Still got tired. Still needed rest.
And in that feeling, in the sensation of real exhaustion, there was a learning—a learning that the body was not just a concept or a tool but an experience, that to understand the body meant to feel what the body felt, not just to observe from a safe distance.
Li Yuan closed his eyes that could not see and let sleep come—a sleep that was uncomfortable on the hard ground, with a cold that seeped in, with the sounds of a forest that was never completely silent.
A vulnerable sleep.
A sleep different from the sleep in Han Wei's safe home.
A sleep that brought dreams of a darkness deeper than just the loss of sight.
The second day began with rain.
Not a downpour, but a steady one—a constant drizzle that soaked his clothes and skin, that made the ground slippery, that made every step more difficult.
Li Yuan walked at a slower pace, his staff tapping the now muddy ground with extra caution.
He found the river as Han Wei had said—he heard the sound of the flowing water before he got too close—and he began to follow it in the direction of the flow.
But at some point, perhaps because the rain made sounds confusing or perhaps because he was too tired to concentrate fully, he lost track of the river.
The sound of the water disappeared—or maybe he had moved away from the river without realizing it—and when he became aware of the mistake, he no longer knew where he was.
Li Yuan stopped, his breath coming out with a frustration he tried to control.
Lost.
He was lost in a forest he did not know, in a rain that would not stop, with only a staff and a Wenjing that did not help for long-distance navigation.
For a few minutes, he just stood there—wet, tired, a little afraid even though he did not want to admit it.
This was real vulnerability. This was real danger.
Chen Ming never went far from his valley precisely because of this—because being lost when blind meant more than just an inconvenience, it could mean death.
Li Yuan took a deep breath, forcing himself to stay calm.
He could not panic. Panic would not help.
He needed to think. He needed to use what he had—sharp hearing, a Wenjing that could sense presence within two meters, a knowledge of how nature worked.
He stood still, listening with an undivided attention.
The sound of rain on the leaves. The sound of the wind. The sound of... birds? No, not birds. Something else.
An unnatural sound. A sound made by humans.
The sound of footsteps. Many footsteps. Moving with an organized rhythm.
Li Yuan turned his head toward the sound, his body tense with a mix of hope and fear.
People. There were people nearby.
Maybe they could help him find the way. Maybe they were from a nearby village.
Or maybe they were the danger that Han Wei and the woman in the market had warned him about.
But he had no choice. He was lost. He needed help.
With a decision made more from desperation than from wisdom, Li Yuan began to walk toward the sound of the footsteps.
"Hello?" he called out, his voice sounding weaker than he intended, swallowed by the rain and wind. "Is anyone there? I... I am lost. I need help."
The footsteps stopped.
A heavy silence—a silence that carried a tension that Li Yuan could feel even without his Wenjing.
Then a voice—a harsh man's voice, which carried something that made Li Yuan's hair stand on end.
"Look what we found," the voice said in a language that was not the Huang language—a sharp language, maybe Volmar or a variation of it.
But when the words entered the two-meter radius of Li Yuan's Wenjing, a transformation occurred—he understood the meaning perfectly.
And more importantly, he heard the intention behind it.
Greed. Predator's joy. A calculation of value. No intention to help—only an intention to take.
Li Yuan stepped back, his body reacting to the intention he felt before his mind fully processed the danger.
"Don't run, young man," said another voice—more subtle, but with the same dark intention. "You are lost, aren't you? We can help. We can take you to a safe place."
A lie. Every word was a lie that Li Yuan could hear with painful clarity through his filtered Wenjing.
No intention to take him to a safe place. Only an intention to capture. To bind. To sell.
Slave traders.
The warning from Han Wei. The warning from the woman in the market. Warnings that Li Yuan had heard but had not fully believed could happen to him.
And now he stood before them—blind, alone, lost, wet, tired.
A perfect target.
Li Yuan turned and tried to run—a foolish instinct because he did not know where he was running, because he could not see the obstacles, because they could see and he could not.
He made three steps before he ran into something—or someone—who caught him.
A rough hand gripped his arm, pulling him back with a force that made him lose his balance.
He fell—his knees hitting the hard ground, a pain stabbing through his consciousness body with a terrible clarity: this was real, this pain was real, this projection body could be hurt, could suffer.
"Blind?" said the first voice in a tone that carried a strange joy. "He is blind? Even better. He won't be able to escape. Won't be able to recognize us. Won't be able to give testimony."
A hand pulled his hair, forcing his head up—a rough motion, one that did not care about pain.
"Look at his eyes," said the other voice. "White as milk. Completely blind. But his face... his face will bring a good price. Young, handsome. Someone will pay a lot for one like this."
Cold calculation. Not seeing him as a human but as merchandise. Value determined not by humanity but by physical appearance and vulnerability.
Li Yuan tried to scream—for what, because no one would hear—but a hand covered his mouth, forcing him to be silent.
Then something hard hit his head—not hard enough to make him lose consciousness but enough to make the world—the darkness he was already in—spin in a way that made him nauseous.
Hands tied his wrists behind his back—a rough rope that scraped his skin, that was tied so tightly that circulation was cut off.
Pain. Real pain in a body that was not a true physical body but that felt every sensation as if it were.
"Let's go before anyone else comes," said the first voice. "We already have three today. That is enough for now."
Li Yuan was pulled up roughly, forced to stand even though his knees could barely support his weight.
Chen Ming's bamboo staff—the staff that had helped him for weeks—lay on the muddy ground, abandoned, useless now.
And Li Yuan—who had chosen to blind himself, who had chosen to be vulnerable, who had thought that he understood what Chen Ming experienced—now understood in a darker, more terrifying, more real way.
Vulnerability was not just an inconvenience.
Vulnerability was not just a philosophical lesson.
Vulnerability—true vulnerability, vulnerability without a safety net—was a real danger, was a real pain, was a total loss of control over what happened to the body.
And as he was dragged through the forest by rough hands, as the rain continued to fall and the darkness remained consistent, as the pain in his wrists and head throbbed with a rhythm that carried a terrible awareness, Li Yuan began to understand that this journey—the journey to understand the Understanding of the Body—had just entered a phase far darker than he had ever imagined.
A phase where the learning did not come from observation or reflection.
But from suffering experienced directly.
From a body that was no longer under his own control.
From a darkness that was not just the loss of sight but the loss of freedom, the loss of choice, the loss of dignity.
And although a part of his consciousness—the part that was still Li Yuan who had lived for sixteen thousand years, who had a power that could destroy his captors in an instant—whispered that he could stop this, could break free, could use his Understanding to escape...
...another part of him—the part that had chosen this path, that had chosen to truly understand what it meant to live as Chen Ming lived—chose not to fight back.
Chose to accept.
Chose to experience to the very end, no matter how dark that end became.
Because this was the path he had chosen.
And the journey to understand a vulnerable body, a suffering body, a body that was treated not as a human but as an object...
...that journey had just begun.
Author's note: Li Yuan is using his Understanding of the Body to be an ordinary human.