The morning sky was veiled in gold and shadow.
Mists coiled over the ridges like living thoughts, heavy with unsaid words.
Li Feng walked alone upon a narrow path, where stone met silence and silence met the soul.
He had left the mortal village behind, but its warmth clung faintly to him — a fragile echo of laughter, the cry of a child, the scent of burning cedar. Though he had walked countless lifetimes, that simple moment of human gratitude now pulsed through his meridians like a forbidden current.
"Even purity trembles when touched by warmth…" he murmured.
The Eternal Vein within him pulsed softly — no longer cold and distant, but alive, resonant. It sang in tones neither divine nor mortal.
As the wind shifted, the clouds above tore open. From the breach descended a silver mist, brighter than dawn, bearing the scent of lightning and law.
Li Feng halted.
The heavens stirred.
From within the mist stepped a figure robed in translucent white, its face veiled by shifting symbols of celestial authority. No breath, no emotion, only the stillness of pure order.
It was not a god, nor a man — but an Envoy of the Heavenly Mandate, one of the silent arbiters that ensured the balance between compassion and indifference never faltered.
The Envoy's voice was neither male nor female. It simply was.
"Warden of the Forgotten Vein," it intoned. "Your resonance has breached the mortal equilibrium. The Vein of Heaven has trembled."
Li Feng's eyes narrowed slightly.
"A child's breath cannot unmake Heaven."
"It was not the breath that unmade it," the Envoy replied. "It was your intent."
The wind ceased to move. Even the mountains bowed beneath the stillness that followed.
"Heaven observes," the Envoy continued. "Compassion, when unbound by decree, disturbs the flow of eternity. Why do you stray from silence?"
Li Feng's gaze softened — not in defiance, but in remembrance.
"Because silence once served balance," he said quietly. "Now it only serves forgetfulness."
The Envoy tilted its head slightly, as though the words themselves distorted its understanding.
"The Dao does not remember. It simply is."
"Then what am I," Li Feng asked, "if not the Dao's attempt to remember?"
The question lingered like thunder that refused to fade.
For the first time in millennia, the Envoy's light flickered. It looked upon Li Feng — not as anomaly, but as reflection.
From the depths of the sky, a single thread of lightning descended, striking the path between them. The mountains shuddered, rivers trembled, and the very air split with divine command.
"Li Feng of the Eternal Vein," the Envoy declared, "you walk between Heaven and Heart. Your steps alter both. Choose now — sever your mortal tether, or bear Heaven's gaze forever."
Li Feng closed his eyes.
In the darkness behind them, he saw two worlds:
— One of crystalline light, cold, eternal, untouched by emotion.
— One of dust and laughter, fleeting yet alive.
He opened his palm. Upon it rested a single crumb of mortal bread — what the boy had given him.
A warmth rose from it — small, stubborn, unyielding.
"I have chosen already," he said.
He scattered the crumb into the wind. The simple gesture broke Heaven's stillness.
The silver mist trembled. The Envoy stepped back, as if struck by the unseen pulse that rippled outward — a resonance that defied law, defied hierarchy, defied perfection itself.
"You would merge Heaven and Heart?" the Envoy whispered, its tone finally uncertain.
"Not merge," Li Feng replied softly. "Remind."
He turned his gaze upward. The clouds above swirled into a vortex of shifting light, a mirror of both serenity and defiance.
"The Dao does not fear balance," he continued. "Only understanding."
The Envoy's veil cracked — faintly, like the first fracture of dawn through stone.
Within the shimmer of divine symbols, a pair of eyes appeared — ancient, sorrowful, almost human.
"Then understand this," it said. "The Heavens remember what they destroy."
The mist folded inward and vanished.
Only silence remained.
Li Feng stood alone once more. But this time, the stillness did not comfort him.
High above, the celestial flow pulsed irregularly, as though Heaven itself had drawn breath — uncertain, wary.
He exhaled, feeling the resonance ripple through his veins. The Eternal Vein no longer pulsed in perfect rhythm; it beat in harmony with something older, something gentler.
He knelt, pressed his palm against the ground, and whispered to the earth:
"The Dao of Heaven is vast… yet it cannot hold the heart."
From beneath his hand, faint golden roots spread — living qi, drawn from both Heaven's purity and mortal soil. The land beneath him healed, the balance restored not through order, but through empathy.
Above, thunder murmured softly — not in warning, but in thought.
Far beyond the mortal realm, within the Heavenly Court of Still Waters, the Elder of Judging Light watched the disturbance unfold through ripples of starlit mirrors.
He frowned.
"A resonance born of mortal emotion," he said. "Impossible."
From the darkness beside him, another voice spoke — cold and luminous.
"Not impossible," it said. "Merely forgotten."
"You mean—?"
"Yes," the second voice replied. "The Eternal Vein has begun to awaken its true nature. The cycle of memory approaches."
The Elder's hand tightened on his scepter.
"If memory returns to the Dao," he whispered, "then even Heaven will learn regret."
Back upon the mortal mountain, Li Feng continued walking. The air felt lighter now, though the world above whispered with quiet unease.
He paused before a stream and watched his reflection ripple across the water. For an instant, it was not his face that stared back, but countless others — lives he had touched, souls he had mended, fates he had unknowingly altered.
He touched the surface, and the reflections merged into one.
"So many fragments…" he murmured. "And yet all return to one vein."
The water stilled. A faint echo drifted from beneath — a voice, distant but familiar.
"The path you walk will make Heaven bleed."
Li Feng smiled faintly.
"Then let Heaven bleed. Only through pain does understanding take root."
The wind carried his words upward, scattering them into the endless sky.
And somewhere beyond the constellations, the stars trembled — as if trying to remember how to feel.