The days passed, yet within Li Yuan, time began to shed its shape. The steps he took in the outer world began to echo, forming a path within himself.
"This path… leads nowhere," whispered Li Yuan, "but inward."
He called it: The Bridge Inward.
Not a bridge built of stone, but of understanding, each insight a stepping stone.
Understanding of fear: the first pillar.
Understanding of water: the arc that connects two ends.
Understanding of silence: the mist that veils, but does not block.
Understanding of formless movement: allowing him to walk upon uncertainty.
Li Yuan began to realize: Zhenjing was not just a place, but a map of his journey of understanding. Each time he understood, the realm within him responded by creating something.
And this time… a bridge slowly began to form, stretching from the lake's edge toward a mist he had not yet passed through.
"I don't yet know what lies beyond," he said softly. "But this bridge… it is not for walking swiftly, but for understanding each step."
He sat at the edge of the bridge.
One breath.
One vibration.
One stillness.
And Zhenjing responded: the mist began to move.
Not parted… but permitted.
His Zhenjing grew. Not through strength… but because Li Yuan was willing to listen and to wait.
"The journey inward… is not one to be chased, but always to be found."
The mist no longer stood still. It moved slowly, as if in welcome, or perhaps in recognition.
Li Yuan's steps moved across the Bridge of Understanding, gently crossing an invisible boundary.
"This mist…" he murmured, "...is not just a veil. It feels like… memory."
Within his Zhenjing, the mist did not obscure, it returned.
All the understandings he had once passed through, all the feelings he had once buried, every breath he had drawn in silence, began to echo again.
"What is this…?"
"Memories… of the world?"
But they were not his memories, they were the memories of the world itself.
The mist held ancient echoes: of the first creature who became aware of its breath, of the first stone that remained still for a million seasons, of the first drop of water that fell from the sky and became a lake.
"The world remembers," whispered Li Yuan, "and I now walk among its memories."
Each breath he took created a resonance, and each resonance stirred something within the mist. Leaves shimmered like blinking eyes. Roots brushed his feet like longing hands. The air carried a voice, yet it did not come from outside, but from within.
Zhenjing—the inner realm—opened something: the Door of Remembering.
"To understand what lies ahead, sometimes one must walk through what the world has forgotten."
And as he stepped deeper… he saw a figure.
Not a human, not a creature, but a shadow, a shape of understanding not yet named.
"You are not ready to name me," said the figure. "But I will remain with you… until your understanding grows enough to recognize what you have already passed."
Li Yuan sat in the heart of the mist. He drew a breath. He listened to the voice of the world. And for the first time, the world answered.
The mist still lingered, but this time… it was no longer unfamiliar. Li Yuan sat in silence, surrounded by a subtle echo that could not be described by sound. It was not a voice. It was not a shadow. It was… a breath.
"Whose breath is this?"
"Or… what breath?"
He began to realize that this world, both within him and beyond, was always breathing. Not in the sense of air flowing in and out, but like an inhalation that connected origin and direction, stillness and motion, emptiness and form.
Within his Zhenjing, Li Yuan followed that subtle vibration. He no longer breathed from the body, but from the world itself.
"If I can feel the eldest breath… I may know when the world first became aware."
Suddenly, his inner realm shifted.
The sky of Zhenjing turned dark, the ground vanished, and only one thing remained:
A heartbeat unheard, and a breath without form.
A voice not a voice, a presence with no shape, whispered into the void:
"Before there was Dao, before there were laws, even before understanding, there was Me, the Eldest Breath."
Li Yuan did not answer. He simply sat, aligning all of himself.
His body, his mind, his Zhenjing, all became a single, long inhalation.
And in that one breath, he felt:
The first stone warmed by the sun. The first water that rippled. The first leaf that fell and touched the earth. And the first understanding born of silence.
He did not gain strength. He did not learn a technique. He did not reach a new realm.
But… he remembered. And that ran deeper than anything else.
"They call you Dao. They call you Heaven. But you… are the Eldest Breath."
Li Yuan opened his eyes. There was no light. No mist. No sound.
Yet the world around him… trembled softly.