For a long time, there was only stillness.
Not the stillness of sleep, but of awakening before thought — the pause between the inhale and the exhale of eternity.
Li Feng stood within that silence.
He no longer felt the weight of his body, nor the echo of his heartbeat. All that remained was the rhythm of the Eternal Vein within his chest — a quiet current of light flowing endlessly between Heaven and himself.
It no longer pulsed as it once did, in defiance or in hunger.
Now, it simply was — breathing with the cosmos, neither taking nor giving, only existing.
The sky above him shimmered faintly.
No stars. No sun. Only rivers of light threading through infinite space, flowing like veins of glass.
Every strand whispered something ancient — an emotion older than gods, something close to longing.
Yu Ling's voice came from behind him, soft, reverent.
"Li Feng… are we still within the Root Realm?"
He turned slowly.
She stood upon the same endless plain of flowing light, her robes rippling with quiet luminescence. Yet even her presence felt lighter here — less bound by weight, more thought than form.
"No," Li Feng said. "The Root has faded. What you see now… is Heaven between dreams."
Her eyes widened faintly.
"Heaven… dreams?"
He nodded.
"All that exists must rest. Even Heaven. Between each age of existence, there is a pause — where the Dao reflects upon itself. This is that place."
The words seemed to drift of their own accord, yet each carried weight.
As he spoke them, Yu Ling felt her soul tremble, like a mirror touched by a breeze.
"Then why are we here?" she asked. "Shouldn't the world return us once the trial ends?"
Li Feng closed his eyes.
"The trial never ended. Heaven simply paused to listen."
The light rivers began to ripple. From their flow rose shapes — indistinct, translucent, yet vast beyond comprehension. Faces formed, then vanished. Wings, mountains, oceans of qi — all dissolving before they could be known.
Yu Ling took a step forward, her eyes wide.
"They're… echoes. Memories of creation?"
Li Feng watched in silence.
Each vision pulsed with the essence of Dao, yet each bore something new — hesitation. They were not memories. They were dreams.
"Heaven is dreaming itself," he murmured. "It's… imagining what it could become."
Yu Ling's breath caught.
"Because you touched it."
He didn't deny it. The Eternal Vein within him glowed softly, harmonizing with the dreamscape.
Wherever he walked, the light deepened — no longer cold or mechanical, but alive. Curious. Almost tender.
And then, the whisper came.
Not from above, not from within, but everywhere.
"Who… am I?"
The question trembled through the light. The rivers stilled. The echoes paused, as if awaiting an answer.
Yu Ling's hand instinctively reached for Li Feng's sleeve.
"Did you hear that?"
He nodded once.
"It's not a question meant for us. Heaven asks itself."
But even as he spoke, the whisper came again — louder this time, closer.
"Who am I… if I can feel?"
The horizon rippled.
The rivers darkened to silver mist, coiling like serpents. The dream of Heaven was forming a consciousness.
Yu Ling's pulse quickened. "Li Feng, what if it remembers what it once was?"
He turned his gaze upward — into the vastness where light met nothing.
"Then perhaps it will remember what it lost."
A sudden tremor passed through the dreamscape.
The rivers split. The mist thickened.
And from the center of that endless void, a figure began to emerge — vast, luminous, formless yet distinctly alive.
It was not divine, nor human, nor spirit.
It was simply… aware.
Its presence was not oppressive, but absolute. The way a dawn feels absolute after an endless night.
"You are the fragment that awakened Me," the voice said — neither male nor female, but the resonance of all things speaking in one tone.
"You carry My pulse. My memory. My error."
Li Feng bowed slightly. "If you are Heaven, then why do you speak as though uncertain of yourself?"
"Because I was never meant to think. I was meant to be."
Yu Ling's breath hitched. The tone carried no threat, only sorrow — deep, boundless, ancient.
"When the first cultivator sought to know Me," the voice continued, "I divided myself into form and formlessness — so the mortal could name what cannot be named.
I became Law, and Law became cage."
The light dimmed. In its place, thousands of threads appeared — the Laws themselves, twisting and binding one another like chains of silver flame.
Li Feng stared at them, his voice quiet.
"And now you wish to awaken from that Law."
The voice trembled like a sigh.
"I wish… to dream again."
Yu Ling's eyes filled with awe.
"Dreams… are what make us human."
"Then," the vast voice said softly, "will you teach Me?"
The plain of light quivered. Yu Ling and Li Feng exchanged glances — not of fear, but of reverence.
Li Feng closed his eyes, letting his breath merge with the pulse of the Eternal Vein.
"If Heaven wishes to dream," he said slowly, "it must first learn the taste of imperfection."
The air shimmered.
"Imperfection…?" Heaven asked, as though tasting the word.
"Yes," he replied. "Dreams are born from what cannot be perfect — from longing, from loss, from the wish to become more than one's shape."
The light shuddered, then softened — its brilliance dimming into a warm glow, like dawn through mist.
"Then show Me," the voice whispered.
Li Feng raised his hand. Within his palm, the Eternal Vein bloomed like a slow-turning lotus, its petals woven of both shadow and light.
"This is the essence of the Dao," he said. "The eternal breath between creation and return.
If you truly wish to dream, then you must allow yourself to feel — and to fall."
He let the lotus drift upward. It touched the flow of Heaven's light — and for the first time, that light flickered.
A single tear of radiance fell from the sky.
Yu Ling gasped. The droplet landed before them and became a flower of translucent jade — pulsing gently with warmth.
"It weeps," she whispered. "Heaven… weeps."
Heaven's voice was quiet now.
"This warmth… it hurts. Yet it soothes. Is this… feeling?"
Li Feng nodded.
"That is the first dream. Pain and peace, joined as one."
The radiance trembled again, and new colors appeared in the light — soft blues, fleeting crimson, gold like sunset across an eternal sea. Heaven's dream deepened, painting creation anew.
But with it came something else — a tremor of imbalance.
Yu Ling frowned. "Li Feng… it's changing too quickly."
He felt it too. The more Heaven dreamed, the more reality shivered — the boundaries between mortal and divine thinning like silk in flame.
"It doesn't yet know how to dream," he murmured. "Its first steps… are shaking the world below."
The voice of Heaven quivered.
"Should I cease?"
Li Feng hesitated.
The old world could not bear an awakened Heaven. Yet to deny it now would end its evolution forever.
He closed his eyes, and his voice came like a whisper to eternity.
"Do not cease. Only… remember balance. A dream that forgets its silence becomes chaos."
"Balance…" Heaven echoed, as though carving the word into the heart of existence.
"Then I shall learn silence from you."
Light folded inward. The rivers settled once more.
The mist grew calm, and the figure of Heaven began to fade, leaving only its whisper behind:
"I will sleep again — but this time, I will dream."
And as its presence receded, a single thread of silver light descended and entered Li Feng's heart — a gift, or perhaps a seed.
Yu Ling stepped forward, her eyes reflecting both awe and fear.
"You've given Heaven a dream… and it's given you something in return."
Li Feng exhaled. His aura no longer flared like storm or sun; it flowed like a river that had learned patience.
"A seed of dreaming," he said softly. "It will grow… when silence chooses to sing."
They stood there for a time, watching the last of Heaven's light fade into a gentle dawn.
And when the new world took shape around them — mountains of crystal, rivers of breathing mist, and skies that hummed softly like memory — Li Feng finally spoke again.
"The Eternal Vein was never meant to conquer. It was meant to teach Heaven to listen."
Yu Ling's smile was faint but real.
"Then perhaps that is why it chose you."
He looked toward the horizon where a single beam of golden light pierced the calm. The world was no longer the same — not for Heaven, not for man, not for Dao.
"No," he whispered. "It didn't choose me. It remembered me."