In the midst of untouched land, Li Yuan sat cross-legged.
Stones were scattered around him. A soft breeze whispered through the tall grass. But all of it vanished. No sound. No time. All that remained... was breath.
He inhaled slowly. Held it. Released it.
As if the earth itself adjusted to his rhythm.
Each inhale drew him deeper. Each exhale released all form. And between the two, he became aware of something new:
That the world... also breathes.
His breath was no longer just for life. It became a bridge between himself and the world. The wind on his skin was no longer a distraction, but an answer. The falling leaf did not move only by gravity, but by resonance.
Li Yuan began to feel the world's breath. Slow. Deep. Unrushed.
He descended into the breath of the earth which continues even when mountains fall. He descended into the breath of the sky which remains steady even as storms rise and fade.
"This is Daojing... "
"Not to take from the world, but to become one with it."
And within him, Zhenjing began to grow. No light. No thunder. Only a depth. An empty space now filled with...
true breath.
Inside his inner world, a single point of light appeared. Not fire. Not qi. But a single awareness flowing with each breath.
It was the beginning of the World's Breath.
Li Yuan did not cultivate to become powerful. He meditated to understand.
And that understanding...
would change everything.
Li Yuan drew in another breath. But this time... the world answered.
The air around him quivered softly, like a still pond touched by morning dew. Leaves that had been still began to move, each one in rhythm with his breath.
Birds in the distance, once flying in random paths, now spiraled through the sky in patterns. Tree roots sank deeper into the earth, as if welcoming a new kind of life.
One inhale. As if tugging on a delicate thread connected to all things. The vibration spread to grass, to air, to sound, even to light.
Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
And before him a stone that had not moved in hundreds of years… cracked.
Not from force. But from harmony. From a breath aligned with something deeper than energy, the underlying order of the world.
"Is this what the ancients meant... by one breath, a thousand ripples?"
There was no explosion of qi. No eruption of aura. Yet everything... adjusted.
The sky grew calmer. The wind slowed. Even the lizard on the branch stopped moving.
In silence, the world watched. In stillness, the world trembled.
Within his Zhenjing, a nameless lake emerged, its waters formed from understanding. Its surface was perfectly still... yet anyone who gazed into it could lose their way, for it reflected the deepest truths.
Li Yuan understood, this was not the end. This was only one breath.
If one breath could send a thousand ripples, then what of ten? Or a hundred thousand?
The next step was not a step at all. It was to breathe... deeper.
And continue understanding.
After the lake formed within his Zhenjing, Li Yuan began to notice something he had never perceived before.
Not sounds that could be heard... but the sounds that were never spoken.
As he walked, the stones beneath his feet seemed to murmur with quiet complaint, not from being stepped on, but from being forgotten.
The wind that passed was no longer merely wind... but a message never fully written.
A falling leaf seemed to sing a long farewell that no one had ever truly understood.
"They all speak..." Li Yuan whispered. "Yet none of them speak in words."
In the outer world, it would be called silence. But to Li Yuan, it had become the deepest kind of conversation.
He sat beneath an old tree and allowed the silence to enter through his breath.
Not through his ears but through his understanding.
And within his Zhenjing, the still lake began to ripple, then gently sent streams of water in every direction.
From those waters... voices emerged. Yet they were not voices in the ordinary sense.
They were:
The decision of an ant choosing a path. The nervous flutter of a flower about to bloom. The regret of evening light arriving too late to touch a shadow. The silence of night not yet fallen... but already missed.
"Is sound only what enters through the ear? Or is true sound what appears when we are quiet enough to understand?"
Li Yuan's Zhenjing received a new insight: that sound does not need to come from the mouth.
Because the world itself speaks without ever uttering a word.
In the distance, a lone crow stared at Li Yuan. It did not call out. But Li Yuan understood.
"You watch me, not because you want to know who I am... but to know whether I, too, can hear your silence."
The crow took flight. But Li Yuan smiled.
Because the meeting… had already happened.