The first light of dawn found the valley washed in hues of rose and gold, the air clean and cold, scrubbed free of the lingering stench of smoke and fear. It was a peace that felt earned, fragile, and profound.
Mei guided the last of the freed prisoners—a straggling line of hollow-eyed, grateful people—to a hidden cove upstream from Lao's clearing. Here, the scattered survivors of the valley began to trickle in, summoned by Lao's quiet network of trust. There were tearful reunions, the shared, shell-shocked silence of those who have looked into the abyss, and a dawning, cautious relief. The immediate threat was over.
Lao returned as the sun crested the peaks, his face grim but satisfied. He had lost two of his makeshift militia to crossbow bolts, a bitter price, but the distraction had worked. He nodded to Mei, a look of deep, unspoken pride passing between them. She had been more than just eyes and ears; she had been the steady hand that turned the lock.
But one piece was missing from their victory.
They found him at the mouth of the Canyon of the Whispering Stones. Li was sitting on a rock, his spear across his knees, staring at the massive slab of stone that sealed the gorge. He looked up as they approached. The fierce, jade-touched light was gone from his eyes, replaced by a deep, weary stillness. He looked older. The boy was now a memory.
"Jiao?" Lao asked, his voice quiet.
"Alive," Li said, his tone flat. "Trapped in there with what's left of his men. They are broken. The mountain will hold them until we decide their fate." He looked at the freed villagers huddling together in the clearing. "It is not my decision alone."
The humility in his words struck Lao. The power that had unmade an army had not corrupted him; it had tempered him.
The following days were a time of recovery and reckoning. The villagers, under Lao's direction, began the slow process of rebuilding their lives. The charred remains of Reedfoot Village were cleared. Shelters were built in safer, hidden locations. The valley, though scarred, was healing.
The fate of Jiao and his soldiers was decided by council. There was no taste for more blood. The valley had seen enough. A week after their entrapment, the villagers, led by Li, moved the great stone just enough to create a narrow exit. They watched as a ragged, broken column of men stumbled out. They were stripped of their armor and weapons, given enough food and water to reach the lowlands, and sent on their way with a single, final warning.
"Tell your Dragon Master," Li said, his voice carrying the quiet authority of the land itself, "that the Heart of the Mountain has a Guardian. Tell him this valley is protected. If he returns, he will not find soldiers. He will find the wrath of the earth itself."
The defeated soldiers, their spirit shattered, did not look back. They shuffled away, a living message of failure.
With the immediate crisis past, Lao turned his attention fully to Li. The boy had passed his trial by fire, but the true test was just beginning. The jade was no longer a secret to be protected; it was a power to be understood.
"You have learned to speak to the mountain in its own language—the language of stone and force," Lao said one evening as they sat by the fire. "But you have only learned to shout. Now, you must learn to whisper. You must learn to listen."
He began Li's true training. It was no longer about stances or spear drills. It was about refinement. Control.
Lao had him sit for hours, the jade in his hand, and feel the individual grains of sand on the riverbank. He had him try to encourage a single leaf to fall from a tree, not by shaking the branch, but by asking it. He had him practice creating a tiny, perfect sphere of water from the dew on a spiderweb, holding it in the air through focus alone.
It was maddeningly difficult. The vast, tectonic power Li had channeled in the canyon was useless here. It was like trying to perform surgery with a sledgehammer. He failed, over and over. The leaf would not fall. The water droplet would splatter. The jade would remain cool and silent in his hand, as if mocking his clumsy efforts.
"The power is not a flood to be unleashed," Lao chided gently. "It is a breath. You must learn the difference between a gale that uproots trees and the breeze that carries a seed. The Dragon Master will not be defeated by another avalanche. He will be defeated by a power he cannot comprehend, a precision he cannot match."
Li understood. The display in the canyon had been a declaration of war. What came next had to be an execution. He had to become not just a force of nature, but its master.
Weeks turned into a month. Slowly, painstakingly, Li began to make progress. He could now feel the life force in a single blade of grass, a tiny, bright spark of green energy. He could encourage a bud to open, not by forcing it, but by sharing with it the jade's energy, a gentle coaxing. He learned to extend his senses not in a wide, overwhelming wave, but in a fine, focused thread, touching the mind of a bird on a branch, seeing through its eyes for a fleeting second.
He was learning the poetry of power, and with each small success, his connection to the jade deepened. It was no longer a separate entity, a tool he wielded. It was becoming a part of his consciousness, a second, quieter heart beating in time with his own.
One evening, as the first stars emerged, Li sat with the jade and reached for a pebble ten paces away. He didn't try to move it. He simply focused on its existence, its weight, its place in the world. He poured a thread of intent, fine as a spider's silk, from the jade to the stone.
The pebble trembled. Then, with infinite slowness, it lifted from the ground, hovering an inch in the air. Li held it there, his breath caught in his chest, his entire being focused on that single, small stone. He held it for a full minute, feeling the minute feedback of its weight through the jade, a perfect, delicate balance.
Then, gently, he let it go. It settled back into its place in the dirt as if it had never moved.
He opened his eyes. Lao was watching him, a genuine smile on his weathered face.
"Good," the old man said. "Now you are ready."
"Ready for what?" Li asked, though he already knew the answer.
Lao's smile faded. "To stop practicing on pebbles and leaves. The Dragon Master will not wait forever. Your control is sufficient. Your power is growing. It is time to ascend. It is time to leave this valley and begin the true hunt."