"To live without being noticed is not the same as being forgotten."
---
The second week after Li Wei's return began like the first—quiet, steady, and soaked in routine.
He woke before dawn. Washed in cold water from the stone basin. Opened the stall's shutters, cleaned the cleavers, and sharpened the blades. When the sun rose, he began butchering. When noon came, he practiced. When dusk fell, he breathed.
No fanfare. No breakthroughs. Just the repetition of hands, breath, and thought.
---
Green Mulberry Town, nestled near the forested foot of Mount Jing, was small but not poor. It was a trading post more than a cultivation hub—a place where farmers, merchants, and old cultivators retired to forget about the wider world. But it had its watchmen, its order, its way of knowing who belonged and who didn't.
Li Wei kept to himself.
He sold meat at fair prices. Spoke when spoken to. Never smiled too much, never frowned too deeply.
But in a world ruled by strength, even quietness could breed suspicion.
---
It was on the ninth day that someone new entered the stall.
He came near closing time—just as Li Wei was cleaning the butcher's block. The last scraps had been sold, the blade washed twice and hung to dry. Li Wei was wiping down the counter when the man stepped inside.
He wore dark green robes, unadorned but well-kept, and a leather badge on his belt shaped like a crescent moon—the mark of the Town Enforcers.
He was tall, lean, with a faint scar along his jaw and eyes like still water. Not sharp, not dull—just watchful.
"You're Old Wen's boy?" the man asked casually.
Li Wei paused for half a breath, then nodded. "I took over the stall."
"Mm." The man stepped inside, fingers brushing the empty meat hooks. "You've been quiet."
"I cut meat. Not stories."
That earned a faint smile. "Good answer. Name's Han Shu. I handle reports, border movement, and checking who's alive when they shouldn't be."
Li Wei met his gaze evenly. "You're checking me?"
"I'm checking the stall." He stepped around the counter, walking slowly. "Old Wen dies quietly. No word sent to the Registry. The shop reopens three days later. New owner. New breath. Same name."
He stopped before the chopping block.
"And I hear you've been… healthier lately."
---
Li Wei didn't react outwardly.
He'd known someone would come eventually. Small towns remembered routines. When routines changed, questions followed.
But he hadn't expected them this soon.
"I eat well. Sleep early," Li Wei said calmly.
"That's not what Aunt Shu says. She bought bones from you last week. Said you looked different."
Li Wei shrugged. "Maybe her eyes changed."
Han Shu smirked at that, but it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm not here to cause trouble. I just like to know what's moving under my feet."
He tapped the cleaver hanging on the rack.
"You any good with this?"
"Good enough to cut meat. Not bone."
"Mm." He stepped back, gaze lingering for a moment. "Well. Let me know if you remember anything… strange. Old Wen wasn't just a butcher. He used to work for a roaming cultivator sect. Long ago. Some think he retired. Others think he ran."
Li Wei didn't respond.
Han Shu gave him a final look, then turned to leave.
"Be well, Li Wei. Keep cutting. It's honest work."
The wind stirred the shutters as he left.
---
After Han Shu's departure, Li Wei sat at the low table in the back, eyes closed, breath deep.
He didn't panic. But he didn't ignore the danger either.
This world didn't forgive oddities. Even mild cultivation without proper registration could be seen as illegal. Practicing a technique—even one as mild as the Longevity Technique—could bring questions, especially if your name appeared on no sect lists.
And yet… he had no choice.
He exhaled and resumed the cycle.
Slow breath. Guided qi. Silent flow.
> Longevity Technique – Proficiency: (14/100) – Beginner
---
The next morning, Li Wei adjusted.
He kept his cuts less efficient. Made conversation with two customers he normally wouldn't. Burned some meat on purpose and gave it away for free to the town orphanage. These weren't acts of fear. They were layers of smoke.
He didn't want to be invisible.
He wanted to be unimportant.
There was a difference.
---
Later that afternoon, he practiced a new cut for bone meat—a split strike that required more force and control. He failed the first three times. Bone fragments scattered across the block.
On the fourth try, he succeeded.
> Butchering – Proficiency: (14/100) – Beginner
That night, he added wood to the fire and read the scroll of the Longevity Technique again. There were no diagrams. Just words. Instructions like poetry, built to be memorized.
"Flow like breath through hollow reed. Still the heart, soften the bones. What lasts is what bends."
He followed the lines again.
> Longevity Technique – Proficiency: (16/100) – Beginner
---
Three days passed without another visit from Han Shu, but word of Li Wei's "return to health" seemed to drift more often through the town like smoke through old rafters.
One merchant asked if he'd taken any pills. Another wondered if Old Wen had left him secret recipes.
Li Wei answered with vague shrugs and jokes about cooking bones longer.
Let them think what they want.
He would not grow faster.
He would grow steadier.
---
On the twelfth day, something changed.
While sweeping the front stones of the stall, he noticed a thin scrap of talisman paper tucked under the wooden counter. A small charm—used for warding off illness or pests. Harmless.
Except this one had been burned at the edges—half-erased, like someone had tried to destroy it after use.
He touched it briefly.
The faintest warmth remained. Someone had placed it there recently. Possibly within a day.
Not a cultivator. But someone who'd bought from him, watched him, and left it behind.
He burned it fully and swept the ashes into the trash.
The panel remained unchanged.
> Longevity Technique – Proficiency: (17/100) – Beginner
Butchering – Proficiency: (16/100) – Beginner
---
That night, Li Wei didn't sit to cultivate immediately.
He walked to the well near the edge of town—the one Old Wen used to visit. It was deeper, less used than the others. Beside it stood a flat stone and a wooden marker with no name. Old Wen's grave.
He bowed once.
Then sat beside it.
"I didn't ask for this," he murmured. "But I'll walk it."
The wind rustled the dry grass. The stars watched in silence.
He began his breathing once more.
---
> [Experience Panel]
Name: Li Wei
Age: 22
Cultivation: Martial Dao – Acquired Realm (Early Stage)
Skills:
• Longevity Technique – Proficiency: (20/100) – Beginner
• Butchering – Proficiency: (18/100) – Beginner
---
The next day, he prepared something new—bone broth, simmered slowly and offered for free to those with injuries or illness. A quiet act of kindness. But also… a gesture to remind the town:
He was a butcher.
Nothing more.
If he healed faster, it was because he ate well. If he stood straighter, it was from rest. And if he looked calmer, it was grief fading—not power rising.
---
Still, when Han Shu returned five days later, Li Wei was ready.
The enforcer stepped in, looked around, and sniffed the air.
"You've been busy," he said.
Li Wei ladled broth into a clay bowl. "Keeps me warm."
Han Shu accepted the bowl and drank. He said nothing for a long time.
Then: "If someone offered you a chance to join a sect—one of the minor ones on Mount Jing—would you go?"
Li Wei looked up, surprised.
"I thought my spirit root was too scattered."
"It is," Han Shu said bluntly. "But sometimes, they take in people to fill quotas. Cannon fodder. You'd get a uniform. A cave. And a short life."
Li Wei returned to the broth.
"Then I'll stay here."
Han Shu studied him for a long moment. Then nodded.
"Good answer. Just stay boring, Li Wei. You'll live longer."
He left.
---
Li Wei continued cooking broth.
The fire crackled. The cleaver hung on its rack.
And in his chest, the breath flowed warm and sure.
---