CHAPTER 228
### What The Nineteen Year Old Knew
On the thirtieth day west of Jing He he turned twenty.
He noticed while walking.
He had been nineteen for all of it.
The combination. The growing season. The formation site. The hollow. The undocumented stage. The grey blade. The ancient layer. The twenty-three breaths becoming twenty-four.
Nineteen.
He had been nineteen when he sat in the refuse pile outside Eagle Sect's gate.
He was twenty now.
He stopped on the road.
Lin Mei stopped beside him.
"What," she said.
"Twenty," he said.
She looked at him.
"I am twenty years old today," he said.
She was quiet.
She looked at him with the expression he could not read.
He looked at her face without trying.
He looked at the grey blade.
At the domain at twenty-four breaths.
At the western sections in the unified reading.
At the ancient layer at the hollow's depth.
At the one continuous project.
At fourteen months of road.
He was twenty.
He thought about the nineteen-year-old sitting in the refuse pile.
He thought about what the nineteen-year-old had known.
He had known three things.
One: Master Feng was dead.
Two: The sword had found him.
Three: Don't waste it.
Those three things had been sufficient.
He looked at the grey blade.
The nineteen-year-old had not known the archive would exist. Had not known the growing season was possible. Had not known the hollow was there. Had not known the ancient layer or the twenty-four breaths or the one continuous project or the distributed resonance.
He had known: don't waste it.
That was the beginning.
Everything else was what happened when you did not waste it.
He looked at the road.
He looked at Lin Mei.
"Happy birthday," she said.
He said nothing.
She said: "You did not expect me to say that."
"No," he said.
"You are twenty years old," she said. "It is your birthday. People say happy birthday."
"Yes," he said.
"I am saying it," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She looked at him.
He could not read her expression.
He did not try.
"Thank you," he said.
She picked up her pack.
"The road continues," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"The work continues," she said.
"Yes," he said.
She walked.
He walked beside her.
Bing Xi fell in behind.
He looked at the grey blade.
He committed.
He was twenty years old.
The road was long.
The work was large.
He had been at this since the vault.
He would be at this for a long time yet.
Don't waste it.
He had not wasted a single day.
He would not waste a single one.
He walked.
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