CHAPTER 158
### Wei Han At The Hollow
He sent for Wei Han.
He sent the message on the seventh day when the unnamed color completed its calibration and the reading of the partial attempt frequencies became available.
He sent it because the restoration technique Wei Han was using in the southeastern sections was based on the understanding of concentrated external-source cultivation damage.
The hollow's lower frequency layer was the oldest concentrated source in the archive's documentation.
If Wei Han stood in the hollow with the restoration technique active —
He did not know what would happen.
He sent for him anyway.
Wei Han arrived on the fourth day after the message.
He came over the southeastern ridge with his pack and the journal and the specific quality he had been carrying since the combination valley — the decision made and maintained, the weight correctly distributed, moving in a direction.
He stopped at the hollow's edge.
He looked at Jian Yu.
"You sent for me," he said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"The hollow," he said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"You need me to do something with the restoration technique here," Wei Han said.
"I need to know what happens when you apply it here," Jian Yu said. "I do not know if anything happens. I want to find out."
Wei Han looked at the hollow.
"The frequency in the lower layer," he said. "I can read it from here. Even without the sword."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"It is very old," Wei Han said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"It is the same character as the concentrated damage type the technique addresses," Wei Han said. "But—"
He was quiet.
"Not damage," he said.
"No," Jian Yu said.
"The same concentrated structure but not applied destructively," Wei Han said. "The concentrated structure as the natural state of the frequency here."
"The between quality at its source," Jian Yu said. "Concentrated because it has been accumulating here continuously. Not imposed from outside. Originating here."
Wei Han looked at the hollow.
"If I apply the restoration technique here," he said. "To a frequency that is concentrated but not damaged—"
"I do not know," Jian Yu said. "That is what I want to find out."
Wei Han stepped into the hollow.
He stood at the center.
He activated the restoration technique.
He applied it.
Not toward the pathway structure. Toward the continuous frequency.
The hollow was quiet for four seconds.
Then the lower frequency layer brightened.
Not in the way the unnamed color brightened. In the way water brightened when sunlight reached a depth it had not reached before.
The continuous frequency in the lower layer organized itself slightly differently than it had been organized before Wei Han applied the technique.
Not reorganized. More itself. The way the sword had become more complete at the hollow — not different, the same thing with more of itself in it.
Jian Yu read through the domain.
"It is responding," he said.
"Yes," Wei Han said.
"The frequency is deepening," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Wei Han said. "The technique was built for concentrated damage. In a concentrated non-damaged frequency the same application —"
"Concentrates it further," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Wei Han said. "Not in a harmful direction. In the direction of whatever the frequency naturally tends toward."
Jian Yu held the sword.
The unnamed color was reading the deepened frequency.
He read what the deepening produced.
The between quality in the hollow's lower layer was becoming more accessible.
Not to him specifically.
To the network.
The deepened frequency was conducting outward through the connected pathway structure in the way the combination's seeding frequency had conducted outward from the cleared primary network.
But this was not a seeding event.
This was the source conducting more completely than it had been conducting.
"Li Shan," he said.
Li Shan was already reading. His expression was the specific quality it had when data arrived faster than his documentation capacity.
"The network," Li Shan said. "The between quality propagation through the connected structure. It just increased by—" He was quiet. "Fourteen percent."
Jian Yu looked at Wei Han.
"You increased the propagation rate of the between quality through the full network," he said.
Wei Han held his hands and looked at them.
"By applying the restoration technique to the source of the between quality," he said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"The technique was built from Mo Xuan's concentrated damage application," Wei Han said. "Reversed. I used it in the recovery regions to accelerate clearing."
"And here," Jian Yu said, "you used it on the concentrated but undamaged source and the concentration deepened in a beneficial direction."
Wei Han looked at the hollow.
"Same technique," he said. "Different application. Different result."
"The between finds the between in the technique," Jian Yu said. "The technique's foundational structure has the between in it. When you apply it to the source of the between—"
"They recognize each other," Wei Han said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
Wei Han was quiet.
He looked at his hands.
He looked at the hollow.
He looked at Jian Yu.
"Mo Xuan's technique," he said. "The one he used to crack your dantian. The one I reversed to do the recovery work." He paused. "It came from here."
"I believe so," Jian Yu said. "The concentrated structure. The application methodology. The foundational understanding of how concentrated Qi force works at the vein level." He paused. "I cannot confirm it. But the frequency match between the technique and the hollow's character is—"
"Complete," Wei Han said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
Wei Han stood in the hollow with the morning light on him and the archive's oldest frequency present around him and the journal from Lin Dao in his pack and three words that had been governing both of them for fourteen months.
"He built the technique from this place," Wei Han said. "Mo Xuan."
"Or from something that came from this place," Jian Yu said.
"The technique that cracked your dantian," Wei Han said. "Came from the source of the between quality."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"And the crack," Wei Han said. "Is the between in your dantian."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
Wei Han looked at him.
"Mo Xuan tried to destroy you," he said. "With a technique that came from the source of what the sword chose you for."
He said it with the flat accuracy he brought to things that were precisely true and uncomfortable.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
They were quiet.
The hollow held the frequency.
The network conducted it outward.
Fourteen percent more completely than yesterday.
"Don't waste it," Wei Han said.
He did not say it to Jian Yu.
He said it to the hollow.
To the source.
To the technique that had cracked a dantian and cleared a recovery region and deepened the between quality by fourteen percent depending on the direction you pointed it.
"Don't waste it," Jian Yu agreed.
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