Chapter 410

On the third day after returning from Return to the Ruins, Wang Ping began closed-door cultivation.

He told no one. At dawn, before the sky lightened, he sat up from the bed, not disturbing Cangxuan next door, not disturbing Yuliuli and Yingying who lived at the other end of the courtyard. He put on his clothes, folded the quilt neatly, neat and square like a block of tofu. This was a habit he had formed at the Ninth Dao Institute, not required by the institute, but something he felt: the day's affairs must be started well; if the beginning is not right, everything after will go awry. He walked to the door, rested his hand on the door panel, paused for a moment. The door panel was old wood, full of worm holes, dark stains from rainwater, and a dent he had made the first day he moved in by accidentally bumping it. His fingers touched that dent, as if saying farewell to this door. Then he pulled open the door and stepped out.

The sky was still dark. The Spirit Realm's sky differs from the mortal world: mortal night is true black, the kind where you can't see your hand in front of your face. The Spirit Realm's sky is deep blue, very deep blue, blue to the point of appearing black yet not black. It is like a silk cloth soaked in ink—the ink has seeped in, but the silk remains silk; if you look closely you can see its texture. Stars are few, not because the Spirit Realm has few stars, but because the formation above the Ninth Dao Institute blocks most starlight. The institute's formation is like an inverted pot covering the whole institute; its walls are covered with immortal runes that glow faintly at night, a light so faint you won't notice unless you look closely. Those lights resemble fireflies, but they do not flicker; they shine steadily, like lamps that never go out. If the lamps go out, it means the institute has been breached; for thirty thousand years the lamps have never gone out.

He knew the path behind the mountain well. Leaving his residence, he crossed the training field, went around the dining hall, and took the small path behind the Scripture Pavilion up the mountain. The path was paved with crushed stone, making a squeak-squeak with each step; in the quiet night the sound seemed especially loud. Wang Ping walked slowly, each step light, trying to make no noise. Not because he feared being discovered, but because he did not want to disturb this night. The night was already old, old enough to have witnessed too many people and events, old enough that it wanted to hear nothing. Wang Ping's footsteps sounded like a stranger's knock at the door; the night did not welcome him, yet he came anyway.

He walked for about a quarter hour and arrived at that abandoned training field.

Standing at the edge of the training field, he smelled a damp, rotting scent with a hint of sweetness—the smell of moss and rotting wood mixed together, like a cellar that had not been opened in ages, filled with rotten apples and moldy planks. He drew a deep breath; the scent entered his nostrils, swirled in his lungs, then exhaled from his mouth. His body remembered this scent; whenever he smelled it later, he would recall that night, that back mountain, and those broken stone figures and stone beasts.

The training field was more ruined than when he had last visited. It was not being destroyed by anyone; time was gnawing at it. Time was like a worm, nibbling bit by bit, so slowly that you could not see it moving. But after a while you would notice a piece missing, a corner chipped, another crack appearing. Wang Ping had last been here three months ago; in those three months the time-worm had nibbled off a small piece of the stone person's shoulder, a small section of the stone beast's tail, and a small patch of moss on the ground. The amount was small, but it had indeed been nibbled away.

He walked to the center of the training field and sat cross-legged.

The ground was cold; coolness seeped up from the stone slabs, passed through his trousers, and clung to his skin. This coolness was not icy, but a damp, sticky chill that wrapped around him like a snake. His buttocks quickly became damp, not because there was really water on the slabs, but because the stone was so cold that his body heat condensed into droplets on it. He did not move, shift, or put anything under his buttocks. This was exactly what he wanted. He wanted his body to be uncomfortable, for discomfort brings clarity, and clarity enables thought. Too much comfort leads to sleep, and sleep yields no progress in cultivation.

Before him stood a ruined stone person.

Wang Ping stared at it for a long time. The stone person had no head; above the shoulders it was bald, the break surface rough, not cut by sword or blade but smashed by something. Perhaps a disciple's spell had lost control long ago, a bolt of lightning striking down and blasting off the stone person's head. Or perhaps, through years of neglect, the head had first cracked, then split enough to fall, shattering on the ground into many fragments, which the wind blew away, the rain washed away, people trampled, until nothing remained. The stone person stood there headless, yet seemed indifferent. It did not care whether it had a head, whether it had a sword, or whether the cracks on its body multiplied. It simply stood there, stood there, stood there, standing until the earth grew old and the heavens aged.

Before closing his eyes, Wang Ping said in his heart: 'Sorry, the next thing to break will be you.'

Not cruelty, but fate.

Day One.

Wang Ping closed his eyes, yet his mind was full of things—not because he was thinking of them, but because they came to him on their own. The darkness in Return to the Ruins, that crumpled‑paper‑like mass, the touch at the bottom of the pit, that silence upon returning to the Spirit Realm—these things swirled around his head like flies, buzzing, buzzing, impossible to drive away or kill. He tried not to think of them, but they did not need his thought; they simply existed there. Like a scar on your body: you may not think of it, yet it is there; you see it when you bathe, feel it when you change clothes, catch a glimpse in the mirror. It does not require your thought; it resides in your body, it is part of you.

He tried to circulate the Chaos Power.

The Chaos Power in his dantian was very still, still as a dead pool. Since returning from Return to the Ruins it had become still. Before, it was always moving, like a snake weaving through his meridians, sometimes fast, sometimes slow, but never stopping. Now it had stopped. Not because it was gone, but because it had found something and, having found it, no longer wished to move—like someone who has walked a long road, finally reached the destination, set down his pack, sat down, and no longer wants to walk. Wang Ping could sense its presence, but it did not move. He called to it; it did not answer. He urged it; it did not budge. He cursed it; it ignored him. It simply lay there, like a stone, like a puddle, like a corpse. It was alive, yet unmoving.

He began to panic.

Not the panicked shouting kind, but a silent, voiceless panic—like waking alone in the deep night to find your legs won't move; you want to shout, but your throat won't move either. You lie there, eyes open, staring at the ceiling, while a voice in your heart cries—'Save me, save me, save me.' Yet only you can hear that voice. Wang Ping sat there, the Chaos Power in his dantian utterly still; he tried to draw it out, it would not come. He tried to compress it, it would not compress. He tried to transform it, it would not transform. It just lay there, like a pig that has fallen into a deep sleep—no matter how you kick it, it will not wake.

His palms began to sweat—not from heat, but from nervousness. The sweat seeped out of the pores on his palms, fine and dense, like a layer of dew. He turned his hand over and watched the beads of sweat on his palm, rolling back and forth like tiny transparent pearls. He closed his hand; the beads were squeezed together into a patch of water that flowed between his fingers, dripping onto his trousers, wetting a small patch that darkened like a drop of ink falling on xuan paper.

He took a deep breath and tried again.

Still no.

He opened his eyes; the sun had already risen. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, falling on the training ground like countless golden swords planted in the earth. The light was bright, bright enough to make him squint. He stared at those golden specks; they left an imprint on his retina. He closed his eyes, yet the specks remained, like tiny golden flowers blooming on his eyelids. Among those golden flowers he saw a shadow—not a person's shadow, but his own. The shadow was long, stretching from his body all the way to the edge of the training ground, like a black river. The river ceased flowing; it stopped.

He closed his eyes again.

This time he did not stir the chaotic power again; he let it sleep. Let it sleep as long as it wanted, for as long as it wished. He no longer thought of the chaotic immortal thunder, of cultivation, of anything at all. He simply sat there, feeling the coolness of the stone slabs, the dampness beneath his buttocks, the warmth of sunlight on his face, the itch when wind brushed the back of his neck. His breathing grew slow and slow, until he took only two or three breaths per minute. Each inhale drew air through his nostrils, cool and silky, carrying the scent of moss, of earth, of dust on the stones. Each exhale released warm air from his mouth, condensing in the air into a faint white mist; the mist dispersed, turning into invisible particles that drifted in the air, floating far away.

He was breathing, he was existing, he was doing nothing.

Time passed. He did not know how long. The sun moved from his left to his right, and the light patches shifted from his right to his left. His shadow shrank from a long river into a small lump, then began to stretch again, growing longer and thinner, like a kneaded dough pulled by an invisible hand into a noodle. The noodle became ever finer, almost to the point of breaking. The sun set, the shadow vanished, and darkness fell.

The second day.

He opened his eyes, then closed them again.

The third day.

A rain fell.

The rain came without warning. The sky was still bright, the sun still there, but a small gray‑white cloud drifted over, like a cotton ball. It hovered above the training ground, paused, then the rain began. Not a torrential downpour, but a fine, dense drizzle, as if countless needles were pricking down from the sky. The rain threads were so fine you could not see them, yet you could feel them. They landed on your face, cool and itchy, like someone lightly tapping your skin with a fingertip. They landed on your hands, making them wet. They landed on your clothes, making them wet. They landed on the ground, and the moss on the stone slabs drank deeply, turning greener, a green so dark it seemed black.

Wang Ping did not move.

When a raindrop fell into his palm, he sensed something—not cool, not wet, but a sense of "arrival." The drop had fallen from heaven, traveling a long, long way, passing through cloud layers, through air, through the formation, through the gaps in the leaves, and finally landed in his palm. It had arrived. Its journey ended. It was no longer a raindrop; it became a small pool of water in his palm. That pool swayed to and fro in his palm like a tiny lake, its surface bearing his reflection—so small, so small that his features could not be made out, only a blurred outline visible.

Raindrops fell and flowed away, fell again and flowed away. Each drop was different—some large, some small, some landing dead center in his palm, some slipping between his fingers, some round as they fell, others bent by the wind into ovals. Yet they were the same: all came from the sky, all were destined to depart, coming and going, going and coming. Wang Ping's hand remained open, neither clenched nor withdrawn, neither catching nor blocking. He simply kept it open. When the rain came, he let it come; when it left, he let it leave. He held nothing back, nor did he drive it away.

The rain stopped.

The sun came out again. Sunlight shone on his wet hands, drying the water and leaving a thin film. The film glittered like salt, yet it was not salt. Salt is white; the film is transparent, but in sunlight it reflects, producing iridescent colors like an oil slick. Wang Ping watched the film; as he watched, it dried and vanished, as if it had never existed. His hands were left completely clean and dry.

He laughed.

It was not because he thought of something funny, nor because he had mastered the chaotic immortal thunder, nor because his chaotic power had awakened. It was his body laughing on its own. His body told him—you understand. Not the mind, but the body understands. The mind still wonders "what is to become," while the body already knows. To become is not to act, not to train, not to think. To become is to keep your hands open and wait—wait for the rain to fall, wait for the water to flow away, wait for the sun to dry. Do nothing, think nothing, seek nothing. When it comes, it comes; when it does not come, no amount of pleading will bring it. If you beg for it, it leaves; if you do not beg, it arrives. It is just that lowly.

Wang Ping's hand remained open.

Then, the thunderlight came.

It was not summoned by him, not stirred by him, not begged for by him. It came of its own accord, like a raindrop falling from the sky. It grew from his palm as a flower sprouts from soil, as a leaf unfurls from a branch, as a word is spoken from the heart. No effort, no deliberate intent—it simply was there. It was part of him, just like his fingers, his palm, his arm. He need not think "I want to move a finger," and the finger moves. He need not think "I want the thunderlight to appear," and it appears.

The thunderlight was bright—not the blinding glare of lightning, but a soft, warm glow like candlelight. It throbbed in his palm, not flickering on and off but steadily lit, though its brightness varied. Sometimes it shone like a small sun, sometimes dimmed like a star about to go out. It breathed, just as he did. When he inhaled, the light dimmed; when he exhaled, it brightened. Between them there was a connection—not of divine sense, not of meridians, but like the bond between a person and his own shadow: you move, the shadow moves; you stop, the shadow stops. The shadow is not you, yet it cannot be parted from you. Can you be parted from it? No, you cannot. A person without a shadow is not a person but a ghost.

Wang Ping gazed at the thunderlight in his palm for a long time. The light gazed back—not with real eyes, but its radiance reflected on his face, casting its shadow there. He looked at it, and it looked into his eyes. They regarded each other like old friends who recognize one another in a crowd. No words needed, no greeting, no embrace—just looking was enough.

He stood up.

His legs were numb. After sitting for three days, circulation had ceased. Both legs felt like wooden posts—no sensation, no feeling; pinching them elicited no pain. He braced his hands on the ground and slowly rose, his knees emitting a creaking, rusty-hinge sound. He steadied himself, but his legs trembled violently, like bamboo stalks bent by wind. He stomped his feet; the numbness on the soles felt like countless needles pricking, making him grit his teeth and twist his facial muscles. He did not wait for the numbness to fade before acting; he could wait no longer. Three days had passed, he had waited three days, and he refused to wait any further.

He raised his hand toward the shattered stone statue.

The stone figure stood there, headless, swordless, its body covered in cracks. Moss clung to it from shoulders to waist to feet, like a green garment. Wild grass sprouted from its feet, growing tall enough to reach its knees. A vine dangled from a nearby tree, winding around its arms in coil after coil, like a snake. The stone figure spoke not, moved not, complained not. It simply stood, having stood for who knows how many years. Wind blew over it, rain drenched it, sun baked it, snow blanketed it—it endured all. It did not dodge, flinch, or resist; it merely stood.

Wang Ping looked at it, his heart again murmuring sorry—this time it would truly shatter.

The thunderlight shot forth from his palm.

It was not the sudden "swish" of lightning; it was slow, very slow—slow enough that you could see it crawl out of his palm like a snake, inching forward. It moved so slowly that Wang Ping thought it would die out midway, but it did not fade; it kept crawling, over his palm, over his fingers, over his fingertips, into the air. Its color shifted—from white to blue, blue to purple, purple to an indescribable hue. That was not a color; it was chaos. Chaos has no color; it is the sum of all colors, something you see but cannot name. It is like looking at a white sheet covered with every hue, yet none stands alone—they blend into a shade you have never seen before.

The moment it left his fingertips, its speed changed.

It did not become faster; it lost speed altogether. It did not move through space; it moved through "being." From one point to another, there was no distance. It was here, then it was there. Wang Ping's eyes could not trace its path, nor could his divine sense. When his divine sense reached out, the thunderlight was no longer in his hand; it continued forward, reaching the stone figure's location, where the light already was. The intervening stretch was empty—not blocked by anything, but truly empty. The thunderlight did not traverse that space; it leapt across it, like flipping a book from the first page straight to the third, leaving the second page nonexistent.

The thunderlight struck the stone figure.

There was no sound.

It was not that the sound was too faint to hear; there was simply no sound. At the instant the thunderlight struck the stone figure, the world fell silent—not the emptiness of the abyss, which is void, lacking anything, dead still. This silence was—as if your ears were plugged, not with cotton, but with sound itself. The noise was so immense that your ears could not process it; they could only register "there is sound" before they went blank, unable to decide what to do, ceasing to function. You stood there, mouth agape, eyes wide, your mind a blank. You knew something had happened, but you did not know what. Your eyes saw the stone figure shatter, your skin felt the air vibrate, your nose caught a whiff of burnt scent. Yet your ears told you nothing.

Then sound arrived.

It did not come from outside; it came from within—from your bones, your muscles, your organs. When the air vibrated, the vibration passed into your body; your body vibrated, your bones vibrated, your marrow vibrated, your teeth vibrated, your eyeballs vibrated. Vibration is sound. Your body listened for you. Your bones said—loud. Your muscles said—painful. Your teeth said—numb. Your eyeballs said—bright. They all spoke, but not the same words; each spoke its own, clamoring together until your mind buzzed, as if a swarm of bees had built a hive inside your skull.

Wang Ping stood there, his body trembling, not from fear but because the vibrations hadn't stopped. His body still rang, like a bell that had been struck; the sound wouldn't stop immediately, it would keep ringing, ringing for a long time, ringing until you grew tired of it and it was still ringing. He wanted to cover his ears with his hands, but his hands stopped halfway up, because his ears didn't hurt and he couldn't hear anything. What hurt were his bones, his muscles, his organs. What good would covering his ears do? The ears weren't the problem; his whole body was.

The stone person shattered.

It wasn't a crack, it wasn't a collapse, it was shattered. Cracks spread from the top like lightning—no, not like lightning, but faster, denser, finer. Lightning is a single bolt, at most a few forks. These cracks numbered in the hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, thick and dense like a spiderweb, like leaf veins, like rivers on a map. Each crack was extremely fine, as thin as a hair, as thin as spider silk, so thin you could barely see it with the naked eye. Yet they were there, covering the stone person's entire body from head to toe, left to right, front to back. The stone person became something made of cracks, still in the shape of a stone person but no longer stone; it was an aggregate of cracks.

Then the stone person began to shed debris.

It wasn't falling in chunks; it fell grain by grain. Starting at the edges of the cracks, those tiny stone particles slipped off the stone person's body like sand, pattering down slowly and lightly, like snowflakes drifting, like willow fluff dancing. The particles were tiny—like dust, visible only in sunlight. They floated in the air for a long time before settling to the ground. When they landed, they made a very soft sound, shush‑shush, shush‑shush, like someone turning the pages of an extremely old, brittle book that crumbles at a touch.

The stone person grew smaller and shorter as it shed. First the head—no, it never had a head. It started with the shoulders: the stone particles on the shoulders fell away, revealing the stone inside, which was grayish‑white, much lighter than the outer blue stone, like bone. Then the bone itself fell, breaking into even finer particles, the grayish‑white mixing with the blue bits like salt mixed with pepper. Then the chest, then the waist, then the legs, then the feet. The stone person dwindled bit by bit, shrinking, shortening, disappearing—like a melting snowman under the sun, unwilling to go but having no choice. It moved slowly, reluctantly, but it moved.

Finally, the stone person turned into a pile of powder.

The powder lay on the ground, not high, about up to Wang Ping's ankle. It was extremely fine—like flour, like dust, so fine that if you pinched it between your fingers you couldn't feel any grains, only a smooth, silky, silk‑like sensation. The powder wasn't a single color; it had blue from the stone person's outer skin, gray‑white from its core, dark green from the moss scorched by lightning, and brown from the vines charred by lightning and ground into powder. All these colors mixed together like an overturned palette—red, green, blue, yellow, every hue present but none pure, each tinged with the others.

Wang Ping crouched and flicked the powder with his finger.

The powder was soft and slick, like fine sand yet not like fine sand. Fine sand has a gritty feel; when you brush it with your finger you can sense each grain rolling between your fingertips. The powder had no graininess—it behaved like a sheet of water: your finger parts it, and it closes again, like water split by a bow and then reuniting in the wake. It felt less like a solid, more like a liquid, though powder should be solid. Wang Ping looked at his finger, now coated with a thin layer of powder like frost. He brought it to his lips and blew; the powder lifted, floated in the air a moment, then settled back onto the pile. It was as if nothing had happened.

He had flicked something.

Hard and round, deep in the powder pile, buried under the powder. He pinched it out with his fingers — it was the hilt of a stone person's sword. The hilt remained, with half a broken blade still on it. The broken blade was very short, only as long as a finger, its break irregular, not cut by lightning but broken long ago. A layer of rust covered the break, reddish-brown like dried blood. Patterns were carved on the hilt, not immortal markings, just ordinary decorative rings, like tree rings. The patterns had been worn smooth over time, not by people but by wind, rain, and sand. Thirty thousand years had passed, and every pattern had been worn smooth.

Wang Ping placed the hilt on the powder pile, where it stood like a tombstone.

He stood up, stepped back two paces, and looked at the pile of powder and the hilt on it. He wanted to say something but didn't know what. He had already said sorry, he had already said thank you. What else could he say? Nothing needed to be said. The stone person wouldn't hear; even if it heard, it wouldn't respond, and even if it responded, it wouldn't understand. Between people and stone, no words are needed. He stood there a while, then turned and walked back to the center of the training field, and sat down again.

Not to continue training, but to wait. Wait for someone to come.

He knew someone would come.

When Cang Xuan arrived, it was the morning of the fourth day.

The sky had just begun to lighten; a pale fish‑belly white appeared in the eastern sky, so faint it looked as if it had been washed in water. The tree shadows on the rear mountain were still deep black, black as cut‑out paper, pasted onto the white sky, unmoving. Cang Xuan stepped out from the shadows, wearing a long gray‑white robe, his hair loose and falling over his shoulders, fluttering slightly in the morning breeze. His sword hung at his waist; the scabbard was black, old, with several nicks from fights he'd had. He didn't want to replace it, not because he was poor, but because those nicks were his memory. Memory cannot be replaced.

He walked to the edge of the training field and stopped.

He saw the pile of powder, saw the hilt on it, saw Wang Ping sitting in the center of the training field with his palms open, facing up, empty. But he knew something was there. His sword trembled slightly in its sheath — not from fear, but excitement. The sword was sensitive to power; it could feel the thunder‑light in Wang Ping's palm, though the light had not flared, it was there like a crouching beast, eyes closed, body curled, breathing slow, heartbeat steady. It was asleep, but it could wake at any moment.

Cang Xuan walked over and sat opposite Wang Ping. He said nothing, did not ask 'Did you succeed?' nor say 'Congratulations.' He stared at the powder pile for a long time, then turned his head to look at Wang Ping. Wang Ping also looked at him. Their gazes met like two stones striking — no spark, no sound, just a brief contact before they parted.

Cang Xuan reached out, drew his sword from his waist, and laid it on the ground between them. The sword lay there, the nicks on its scabbard clear in the morning light like scars. Cang Xuan looked at the sword; it did not move. Cang Xuan said, 'It fears your thunder.' His voice was low, a rustling like sandpaper rubbing. Wang Ping replied, 'It need not fear.' Cang Xuan said, 'It knows. But it still fears. Fear itself is not wrong; the wrong is not daring to fear.' Wang Ping did not respond. He looked at the sword, which lay still. Yet he could feel the sword looking at him — not with eyes, but with its blade. The blade was razor‑sharp, able to cut anything, yet it could not cut fear. Fear is soft, like water; when you cut it, it parts, your blade passes, and it closes again. You cannot kill fear, for it was never alive.

When Yuli Li arrived, the sun had already risen.

She came down from the mountain, holding an ancient zither in her arms, its strings new, seven of them, silver‑white, gleaming in the sunlight. She wore a pale green dress with a long hem that dragged on the ground, damp with dew. Her hair was braided, the braid hanging over her chest, tipped with a red cord that had faded to pink. She walked slowly, each step steady, as if afraid to disturb something. When she reached the edge of the training field, she stopped, glanced at the powder pile, at the hilt on it, and at Wang Ping and Cang Xuan.

She did not walk over; she sat at the edge of the training field, placed the ancient zither on her lap, and rested her hands on the strings without playing. She simply looked. She gazed at the powder pile for a long time. The powder was gray, shimmering faintly in the sunlight like a heap of shattered stars. Within it lay the bones of the stone person, the ash of moss, charcoal from vines, and thirty thousand years of time. Time cannot be seen or touched, yet it has weight, scent, and color. Time is gray, the same gray as this powder.

Yuli Li's right index finger lightly plucked a string.

The string emitted an extremely faint hum, so low that human ears could not hear it. But the powder heard it. In the sound, the powder trembled ever so slightly, like countless tiny ants crawling slowly and aimlessly across the ground. They were not dancing; they were responding. The melody asked, 'Are you still well?' The powder replied, 'We are still here.' The melody asked again, 'Do you hurt?' The powder answered, 'No, not anymore — long since not.' The melody asked once more, 'Do you want to leave?' The powder fell silent. They did not wish to go; they had stood here for thirty thousand years, this place was their home. But they were no longer stone people; they were powder, and powder has no home — only fit to be blown away by the wind.

Yuli Li's finger plucked the string again. This time the sound was different — not a hum, but a soft, gentle tremolo, like someone far away humming a lullaby. The tone was so faint that you could miss it unless you listened closely, yet it was there, steady like a heartbeat, unhurried. In that sound the powder grew still, no longer twitching; it lay quietly on the ground like a group of sleeping children. Yuli Li was singing a requiem for them — not with her voice, but with the zither. She could not sing, but the instrument could.

You Ying stood in the distance.

She did not come over, nor did she sit. She stood beneath a large tree, its trunk so thick that three people could barely encircle it, its canopy so wide it shaded half the sky. Sunlight filtered through the leaves, casting dappled light and shadow on her like a patterned garment. In her hand she held a shard — white base with blue‑flower decoration, a lotus painted on it, its petals shattered except for a single lonely one, like a toothless old man. On the back of the shard was written one character — 'peace'.

She pressed the shard to her chest and closed her eyes.

The character was speaking — not with sound, but with its strokes. The horizontal line was its bones, the vertical its spine, the left‑falling stroke its arms, the right‑falling stroke its legs. It said — peace. What is peace? Peace is a person beneath a house, kneeling on the ground with hands on knees, head bowed, silent. Peace is stillness, silence, absence of thought. Peace is gathering all strength, swallowing all sound, extinguishing every thought. Peace is waiting — waiting for the rain to stop, the wind to cease, for night to fall, for dawn to break, for that person to return. That person will not come back, yet it still waits. It has waited a long time, thirty thousand years, until its strokes blurred, its color faded, its edges worn smooth. It still waits. Waiting is its fate.

You Ying pressed the shard to her chest; her heartbeat passed into it, and the character on the shard beat in time with her pulse — thump, thump, thump. It was saying — I am here. I am here. I am here. The thirty‑thousand‑year utterance of 'peace' was actually saying 'I am here.' Whether peace is safe, comforting, or restful does not matter. What matters is that I still am. I still am here. I have not vanished, decayed, or been forgotten. I lie in a person's palm, pressed to their chest, feeling their heartbeat. I am alive. Not the character itself, but the one who wrote it lives on — he has lived within this character for thirty thousand years. As long as the character endures, he is not dead.

Wang Ping rose, brushed dust from his hands. He looked at his palm — empty, yet he knew the thunder was there. He was there, and the thunder was there. Not that the thunder follows him; he follows the thunder. Thunder is part of him, like his left hand, his right hand. He does not need to think 'I will move my left hand' for it to move; he does not need to think 'I will release the thunder' for it to appear. Thunder is not his tool, his weapon, or his technique. Thunder is him. He is thunder.

He lifted his head and gazed at the sky.

The sky was blue — blue like a cloth washed in water, without a trace of cloud. The sunlight was bright, bright enough to make him squint. He heard the wind, blowing from the rear‑mountain woods, rustling through leaves, branches, trunks, a soft shushing sound, pleasant like light applause. He heard birdcalls — not a single bird, but many, from east, west, south, north. Their voices varied: high or low, long or short, some like singing, some like arguing, some like whispering. Together they formed a chaotic symphony, discordant yet lovely.

He heard the training sounds from the distant sect. Someone shouted slogans, 'one two one, one two one,' loud and uniform, like a single voice. Someone chanted mantras, a buzzing like a swarm of bees. Someone sparred, the clash of weapons ringing like a blacksmith's hammer. Someone laughed, someone shouted, someone cursed, someone wept. All these sounds mixed together, rising from the mountain base, passing through the forest, leaves, air, reaching his ears. Every sound was clear, unmuffled. His hearing had returned — not his ears, but his heart. His heart was no longer in the abyss; it had returned to the spiritual realm.

He drew a deep breath.

That breath carried the scent of grass, which after sun exposure gives off a faint sweetness like freshly cut lawn. There was the smell of soil — damp, with an earthy odor, not fishy, the primal, ancient, heavy scent you get when turning earth. There was the scent of sunlight — sunlight itself has no smell, but when it strikes objects they emit odor. Sunlight on stone slabs yields a dry, warm aroma like baked bread. Sunlight on leaves gives a fresh, astringent note like green apple. Sunlight on the powder produces a scorched, pungent smell like burnt wiring — the residue of the thunder‑light, the flavor of the primordial immortal thunder.

He swallowed, then smiled.

It was not a loud laugh, but a smile — corners of the mouth slightly lifted, eyes slightly narrowed, facial muscles relaxing like a flower slowly opening. His smile was modest, not showy, not glaring. It rested there, like the thunder‑light in his palm — gentle, warm, quiet. It said — I am healed. Not wounds healed, not illness cured, but the heart healed. The heart had returned from the abyss, from the cultivation of primordial immortal thunder, from these three days of waiting. It had returned, bringing the thunder‑light with it. The thunder‑light was its luggage, its gift, the way it lived.

Primordial immortal thunder — accomplished.

His cultivation was at the peak of early Nascent Soul. Only one step away from mid‑stage. Not a step he cannot cross, but a step whose time has not yet come. When will that step be taken? Unknown. No rush. He had waited three days, a long while, yet he was not hurried. He knew that when the moment arrives, it will come of its own accord — like a raindrop falling from the sky, like thunder‑light sprouting from his palm, like a flower pushing up from soil. If it does not come, no pleading will summon it; if it does come, no resistance can stop it.

He stood there, sunlight bathing him, wind brushing past, birds calling overhead, the sect's training sounds rising from the mountain base. In the midst of it all he was neither big nor small, neither heavy nor light. He was Wang Ping, one who had returned from the abyss, mastered primordial immortal thunder, and reached the peak of early Nascent Soul. He was still the Wang Ping who had descended from Qingyun Mountain, walked out of Luoxian Village, and climbed up from the mortal realm. He himself had not changed; his thunder had. His thunder was no longer a false bolt simulated by primordial force, but genuine thunder that had grown from the primordial chaos, sprouted from his own body. It was his child, and it was himself.

Cang Xuan re‑hung his sword at his waist, rose, and brushed dust from his robe. He looked at Wang Ping; Wang Ping looked back. Cang Xuan said, 'Let's go, back to eat.' Wang Ping replied, 'All right.' Yuli Li lifted her ancient zither; the red cord on her braid fluttered in the wind, she pressed it down with her hand and smiled. You Ying took the shard from her chest, turned it over to glance at the 'peace' character — the character was still there, its strokes blurred, its color faded, its edges worn smooth — yet it remained. She said, 'Let's go.' Not speaking to anyone, but to the shard. The shard gave no reply, but its weight in her palm was a little lighter than before. It was not broken; it had put its mind at ease.

The four of them descended from the rear mountain. Sunlight fell on them, their shadows stretching long behind like four black rivers flowing down the slope. The rivers had ceased to flow, for they had reached the sea. The sea was the sect, the spiritual realm, this world. They had returned.