That day, the wind blew more gently than usual. The sun hung shyly behind the clouds, and the students returned to the training courtyard.
Li Yuan, as always, practiced the basics. He wasn't drawn to grand styles or complex movements. He repeated simple punches and steps a hundred times, a thousand times. He breathed in rhythm, and every strike was more than physical—it was a meditation.
But that day was different.
As Li Yuan prepared to begin his third movement, his body paused. His breath shifted. Someone was watching.
But it wasn't just eyes. It was pressure, like a soft wind piercing through the pores. He didn't feel fear, only alertness. Something was out of tune with the world around him.
Without showing a reaction, Li Yuan continued his movements. But now, he was listening.
From behind an old building across the training yard, a man in black robes stood silently. He was no ordinary instructor, he was a direct envoy of Wen Zhi, sent not to teach, but to test, without being noticed.
His task was simple: disrupt the flow of Li Yuan's breath and balance without using overt force. If the boy faltered, he was nothing special. But if he didn't, Wen Zhi would know his suspicion was correct.
The envoy employed the Subtle Shadow Technique, a rare art that manipulated the space and airflow around the target. It wasn't magic, nor qi, but a refined art of breath rhythm disturbance.
Each of Li Yuan's movements was now accompanied by faint currents of air nudging sensitive points on his body, on the soles of his feet, the backs of his hands, even his ears.
Yet Li Yuan did not falter.
He began to adjust his breathing, flowing like water adapting to the shape of its container.
He didn't resist the disturbance. He embraced it.
Hidden in the shadows, the envoy narrowed his eyes.
"He… adapts?"
It made no sense, for someone of Li Yuan's age, and especially without formal training in breath-defense techniques, to be capable of such a response. But the boy wasn't merely enduring, he was transforming the interference into rhythm.
After training, Li Yuan sat beneath the large tree in the eastern courtyard. His eyes were closed, and his spirit sank into reflection.
"The world… felt different today. Was this a test?"
"Or… is this the world's way of asking how deeply I understand its breath?"
He didn't know that far above, in the tower's peak, Wen Zhi was quietly receiving a whispered report from the shadows.
Wen Zhi said little. He only nodded slowly, his eyes gazing at the overcast sky.
"Understanding that cannot be taught… can only be discovered."
The next day, training continued as usual. Nothing appeared to have changed.
But from that day on, all the elders of the academy were silently instructed to observe the boy named Li Yuan.
And Li Yuan…
He continued training his fists, continued refining his breath, continued listening to the world...
Unaware that the world… had begun listening to him in return.
"One who understands nature… will be quietly watched by the heavens."
Sunlight could not pierce the gaps between the trees on the northern edge of Qinglong Academy. It was in that secluded place they gathered, young people not from cities, nor of noble blood. They came from remote villages, brought together in secret.
Mu Yi Fan Tu, one of them, sat cross-legged, his sharp eyes fixed on the ground. His body bore the marks of relentless training, yet his gaze showed no weakness. Beside him sat a youth from another village, uncertainty written all over his face.
"Mu Yi Fan Tu," the young man whispered. "You heard it too, right? They're turning us… into a secret force? Killers?"
Mu Yi Fan Tu didn't answer immediately.
The boy continued in a hushed voice, "Our training… it's too brutal. Every night someone collapses. Every day we're pushed to master lethal techniques. They say we're not ordinary students… but machines. Machines made to kill…"
The air grew heavy. Even the crickets seemed to fall silent.
Mu Yi Fan Tu slowly opened his eyes.
"Then what do you think we should do? Run away?"
"Do you think the world outside is any different? They arm us because the world itself is unjust."
The young man looked down.
"But… I don't want to kill anyone…"
Mu Yi Fan Tu rose to his feet, his back straight.
"You're too weak to say that. Only those strong enough not to fear death… can choose not to kill."
Not far away, Bei Zhang, one of the most gifted and deadly among them, sat beneath the pale moonlight. Blood still dripped from the tip of his training blade.
He didn't speak. But his thoughts surged violently.
"I've already killed…"
"But for what?"
"Who did I kill? Evil men? Innocents?"
"Or just fellow pawns in someone else's game…"
In silence, Bei Zhang stared at his hands.
"If I keep walking this path… I'll lose myself. But if I stop… I'll be killed."
He was no coward. But he wasn't stone either.
That night, some of the children wept quietly. Some slept from exhaustion. Others simply stared at the sky and wondered…
"Will I become someone I can no longer recognize?"
And from the darkness behind the trees… someone was watching them.
Elsewhere, Li Yuan sat in stillness. He didn't know that a force was being forged in the academy's shadows. That students from villages like his own were being shaped into secret blades.
But in time…
Their worlds would collide.
"If the world shapes someone into a killer… then the soul will ask: who am I living for?"