The year that followed Ye Caiqian's realization about extraordinary people would quietly become the most pivotal of his life so far.
He had always been thoughtful, quietly ambitious, but now his mind was haunted by stories of men who could kill wild bulls with a stone, girls who outran deer, and elders whose strength seemed to grow rather than fade with age. Ye Caiqian, though still a child by the measure of years, was never one to ignore a mystery—especially one that might hint at a greater world waiting just out of sight.
So, one morning at the break of dawn, Ye Caiqian set himself to a new experiment: he began to exercise. Not the haphazard running and leaping of village children, but a systematic regimen drawn from the deepest memories of his past life. He remembered the slow, deliberate flow of tai chi, the precision and discipline of yoga asanas, the empowering rhythm of Surya Namaskar. In the privacy of his family's backyard, as the rest of the house still slept, he repeated each movement with focused intent, feeling for any sign that the world might respond.
At first, he noticed nothing. His breath steamed in the cool morning air. His limbs ached with unfamiliar effort, and his muscles, unused to such discipline, trembled. But Ye Caiqian was patient. Days passed, then weeks, and he found himself falling into the comfortable meditative flow he had once known so well. The gentle stretches, controlled breathing, and mindful movements became a part of his daily rhythm.
The village paid him little mind. Children watched with curiosity, sometimes mimicking his motions and then running off, giggling. His father smiled, glad to see his youngest pursuing something with such dedication. His mother simply encouraged him to be careful and not neglect his studies or household chores. Ye Xuan and Ye Rong, his brothers, would sometimes challenge him to join their hunts, but otherwise left him to his "strange foreign exercises."
It was at the end of the first month that Ye Caiqian noticed the change. It was subtle—a tingling at the tips of his fingers as he finished his slow sequence, a warmth that began in his palms and then spread through his arms, chest, and down to his feet. The sensation was not pain or discomfort, but an unfamiliar vitality, as though some invisible force were brushing against the surface of his skin.
Curious, Ye Caiqian slowed his movements, experimenting with the pace of his breath, the flow of energy through each motion. He found that, with greater focus, he could feel the tingling grow into a gentle current, entering his body with each inhalation, traveling in gentle waves through his limbs and then pooling near his navel.
For weeks, he experimented, trying to understand the nature of this energy. He remembered stories from his past life—tales of "Qi" in Chinese martial arts, "Prana" in yoga, "life force" in various philosophies. But the sensation was real here, not mere legend. He could sense it entering from the air, through his skin and breath, flowing along invisible channels.
One day, during deep meditation, the sensation sharpened. He visualized the flow, tracing its path through his body—first along his arms, up through his shoulders, down his back, swirling around his navel. And suddenly, as if a curtain had lifted, he "saw"—not with eyes, but with mind—the network of tiny lines crisscrossing his body.
The word floated into his mind, clear as daylight. In his previous life, he had read countless novels and manuals about the meridian system, dantian, and the intricate flows of inner energy. Here, it seemed, these things were not just legend but a latent truth, waiting to be awakened.
He named the pool near his navel "Dantian," borrowing the term from ancient cultivation texts. The energy gathered there was like a gentle spring, swirling and condensing slowly.
He was astonished by the system's complexity. At first, only a few meridians seemed open, allowing energy to flow freely. Many others felt "blocked"—like rivers dammed by debris, or roads obstructed by fallen stones. At times, when he tried to guide the energy along a blocked path, he would feel discomfort, sometimes even sharp pain. He quickly learned to be patient, to coax the energy gently and persistently, gradually clearing each channel.
It became a new quest: to unlock every meridian, one by one.
The months slipped by, each day a quiet dance between outward normalcy and hidden growth. To his family and the village, Ye Caiqian was the diligent child-teacher, the boy whose numbers had changed trade forever. He played with younger children, helped his mother in the garden, and assisted his father at the market. He never spoke of his private discipline, nor the strange warmth that now suffused his body.
Every morning before sunrise, and sometimes late at night, he practiced. Some days he would hold a single pose for an hour, focusing all his attention on the flow within. Other days he moved swiftly through a sequence, channeling the current along as many paths as he could.
As the year wore on, his mastery grew. Each time a new meridian opened, he felt a rush of vitality, as if a great weight had been lifted. His body became stronger, more resilient. Bruises faded faster, small wounds healed with surprising speed, and his senses sharpened. His vision at dusk grew clearer, his hearing keener. Even his memory and ability to concentrate seemed enhanced.
The last few meridians proved the hardest. The blockages were stubborn, requiring weeks of careful effort to dissolve. He tried everything—adjusting his breath, varying his exercises, and even fasting for short periods to sharpen his perception. He meditated for hours, sometimes falling into a trance-like state in which he lost all sense of time.
After nearly a year, Ye Caiqian counted eleven meridians open, with only one remaining. The twelfth, he sensed, lay deep within his body—its entrance subtle, almost hidden. It would, he estimated, take another two weeks of relentless practice to unlock.
If Ye Caiqian's journey inward was one half of his year's work, the other was outward—a relentless quest to bring order and progress to the world around him.
One particular challenge gnawed at him each day: time. The villagers had no way to mark its passing with any accuracy. The flow of daily life was divided only into "morning," "noon," "afternoon," "evening," and "night." For trade, farming, or even teaching, this was maddeningly imprecise.
On more than one occasion, students would miss his lessons because "the sun wasn't high yet," or traders would argue over whose turn it was to use a shared cart. His father's business suffered when customers misunderstood meeting times, and arguments broke out over when debts were to be repaid.
Ye Caiqian's mind, ever analytical, could not accept such chaos. He recalled his previous world's history—how the invention of accurate timekeeping had changed the fate of civilizations. He dreamed of creating a clock, but faced immediate obstacles.
First, he had to confirm if the celestial cycle was the same as Earth's—was there a twenty-four hour day? How many days in a year? Were the seasons similar? Ye Caiqian began keeping careful notes, watching the sunrise and sunset, using a shadow stick to mark the passing of hours, comparing it day after day. He sketched diagrams, measured shadows, and recruited his brothers to help record findings while they were out hunting.
Second, he sought out the village smith, an older man named Tie Lao who had forged bronze tools for years but never attempted such a precise creation. At first, Tie Lao was baffled by Ye Caiqian's plans—wheels within wheels, gears, a moving pointer. But Ye Caiqian's persistence and detailed drawings convinced the smith to try.
Their first attempts were failures—cogs didn't fit, axles wobbled, the pointer stuck or fell off entirely. But each failure brought new understanding. Ye Caiqian remembered simple water clocks, sundials, and hourglasses from his studies and worked with Tie Lao to combine these ideas. Sometimes he experimented with weights, water flow, or burning measured lengths of rope to mark an hour.
It was painstaking, sometimes frustrating work, and more than once Tie Lao threatened to give up entirely. But Ye Caiqian's patience was legendary by now, and his boundless curiosity proved infectious. After nearly a year of tinkering, measuring, and adjusting, they finally produced a simple but working water clock—a large bowl with a tiny hole at the bottom. As the water dripped out, it turned a series of wooden wheels, and a carved pointer tracked the passage of hours on a circular face.
Ye Caiqian was thrilled. Tomorrow, he would test it in the market square, where all could see time's steady march, marked and measured for the first time.
As the sun set on the eve of the first public test, Ye Caiqian sat outside his home, watching the stars slowly emerge in the purple sky. He felt the familiar warmth of energy within him, swirling in his dantian, just as he felt the thrill of anticipation in his chest. The world was changing, both within and without. He was part of it—shaping its path, one discovery at a time.
His family gathered around the evening fire, Ye Shentong discussing tomorrow's market, Ye Qiumei fussing over a small burn on Rong's arm, Xuan quietly carving a new arrow shaft. Ye Caiqian looked at them with quiet pride. They could not know the secrets he carried, nor the destiny that awaited him, but they shared his journey in a thousand small ways.
Tomorrow, he would bring the concept of measured time to the village, just as he had brought numerals. And soon—very soon—he would unlock the last meridian and see what new door that accomplishment would open.
As he drifted to sleep that night, Ye Caiqian smiled, content in the knowledge that change—true change—was a patient journey, made up of countless small steps.