The days after the creek incident passed like drifting snow—without sound, without urgency. The village continued its rhythm: hunters rose before dawn, smiths hammered metal late into the evening, and children trained in the dusty courtyard of the Verdant Blade Hall under the watchful eyes of elders who had long since stopped expecting miracles from their students.
Li Shen returned to his routines as though nothing had changed. He rose before sunrise, lit the hearth for the old couple who had taken him in, fetched water, chopped wood, and swept the courtyard. Yet something fundamental had shifted—not outwardly, but in the way the world moved around him.
The cold no longer bit his skin.
The hunger in his stomach no longer pressed like a dull ache.
The exhaustion of training no longer sent him collapsing into sleep.
There was a quiet, steady distance between him and the world now—
a kind of subtle separation, like a thin layer of frost over still water.
Not numbness.
Not detachment.
Equilibrium.
He stood barefoot in the courtyard, the morning air biting enough to frost the eaves of every roof, yet his breath neither trembled nor rose in visible plumes. The villagers who passed him whispered, unsure when exactly he had changed—but they all sensed it.
Some called it discipline.
Others called it stubbornness.
A few, with fear in their eyes, called it unnatural.
But Li Shen didn't care.
The creek had taught him the first principle:
Do not force the world. Let the world settle into you.
So each morning, instead of sitting cross-legged like the others to force qi into their meridians, Li Shen simply stood still.
His feet rested flat against the frozen earth.
His spine rose like a young pine tree.
His arms hung loosely at his sides.
No breathing patterns.
No internal circulation.
No eager forcing of progress.
He simply stood—
and listened.
He listened to the wind brushing snow across stone.
To the groaning wood beams of old houses waking to the cold.
To the faint, subtle pulse of life in the earth beneath him.
Not qi as cultivators recognized.
Something older. Slower. Deeper.
The Stillness Qi of the Yuan Realm—
the energy of a world too starved to nourish rapid cultivation, but abundant in the quiet strength of survival.
Days blurred. Then weeks.
His body changed slowly—too slowly for most to notice.
The wiry boyish thinness remained, but his movements gained weight, grounding. When he walked, his feet made no sound. When he lifted firewood, the strain no longer etched itself across his features. When Kael and his lackeys crossed his path, their steps faltered before they even recognized him.
He no longer looked weak.
He no longer felt weak.
Yet no one could explain what he was becoming.
—
Winter thawed into spring.
Verdant flowers began to push through slush. Birds returned to the fields. The village awakened with renewed purpose—the annual Coming of Blades Tournament approached.
For most villages of the Yuan Realm, such events were celebration. A chance to send their top youth to greater sects in the region. Glory, pride, honor.
In Verdant Blade Village, it was everything.
Winning meant escape.
Losing meant another year trapped in the mud and snow.
Boys trained until their hands bled. Girls drilled stances until their legs shook. Even Kael, growing stronger each month, practiced until his breath came ragged and wet.
Li Shen practiced too.
Not with wooden swords or stances.
He practiced watching.
He observed how their feet shifted weight.
How their shoulders telegraphed intent.
How momentum betrayed impatience.
In his past life, he would have laughed at these crude movements. Now, he watched them carefully. His strength was no longer built on the arrogance of mastery—it was built on the patience of understanding.
One evening, Elder Han—once a traveling cultivator of modest achievement—watched him from the training hall steps.
"You do not train with the others," the old man rasped, his voice rough as winter pine bark.
Li Shen bowed respectfully. "My path is different, Elder."
A humorless chuckle escaped Han's cracked lips. "So every failed student says."
He expected Li Shen to flinch. To lower his head in shame.
Instead, Li Shen simply met his eyes. Calm. Unmoved.
Han frowned.
"Show me your stance."
Li Shen stepped forward. Bare feet on packed dirt. Spine straight. Arms loose.
Han's brows lifted. Not because the stance was correct—but because it was complete. No wasted strength. No tension. No fear.
"Hold."
One minute.
Five minutes.
Ten.
The courtyard had fallen silent. Students who had been practicing slowly turned to watch. Even Kael paused mid-strike.
The stance did not waver.
Snowflakes began to drift from the evening sky. They landed on Li Shen's shoulders, clung to his hair, and did not melt.
Han's eyes widened.
Stillness Body Refinement?
At twelve?
In this starving realm?
No—impossible.
Not without a master.
Not without a scripture.
But there it was.
Undeniable. Unshaken. Silent as stone.
Han swallowed. His voice was quieter now.
"…Who taught you this?"
Li Shen's gaze softened, distant.
"A promise."
He didn't say her name.
He didn't say sister.
He didn't say friend.
He didn't say the one I failed.
He simply continued standing.
Han dismissed the class without another word.
Kael left quickly, face unreadable.
That night, Han sat by his hearth long past dusk, cup of bitter tea cooling untouched. He stared at nothing, the memory of Li Shen's stance replaying again and again.
"This boy…" he whispered, voice caught between awe and dread.
"…is walking a path meant for the dead."
—
At fourteen, Li Shen's growth accelerated—not outwardly, but inwardly. His meridians no longer felt like sealed iron walls. They were cold glass, slowly absorbing the resonance of the world.
He awakened the Stillness Meridian, the first foundation of his unique cultivation.
Not a surge of power.
Not a breakthrough to celebrate.
Just a shift so subtle most would fail to notice.
But Li Shen noticed.
The world felt quieter.
Sharper.
More real.
And in that clarity came memory.
Not of battles.
Not of glory.
Not of killing the Bone Lantern Master.
But of two faces:
A girl with quiet eyes and a laugh like falling water.
A boy with a blade too big for his hands and courage too large for his body.
He remembered their warmth.
Then he remembered the cold hole left behind.
Sometimes he stood beneath the old willow tree outside the village and whispered into the branches:
"…Are you alive?"
The wind never answered.
But the Stillness within him did.
Become strong.
Become steady.
Walk the long path.
Time will answer what the world does not.
So he trained.
Every day.
Without complaint.
Without rush.
Not to win a tournament.
Not to impress elders.
Not to prove Kael wrong.
But because the world was vast.
And beyond the Yuan Realm—
beyond Linghua Planet—
beyond the boundaries of this quiet, forgotten corner of existence—
they were somewhere.
Whether living or dust, it did not matter.
He would reach them.
Even if it took fifty years.
Even if it took a hundred.
Even if he had to die once more.
He would walk.
And the world…
would learn to be still before him.
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