That day, the sky looked ordinary,
but the birds did not sing too early.
The streets of Qinlu were beginning to fill with sound—
footsteps, wooden wheels, conversations,
and the hum of a city that had never truly been silent since the dawn of creation.
But there was one sound that did not come from the mouth.
And it did not enter through the ears.
Qin Su stood on the second-floor balcony, gazing toward the courtyard where Li Yuan sat every morning.
She held a pen and a sheet of paper now almost filled with notes—
notes that didn't know to whom they should be sent.
"Each morning, he just sits.
But each sitting is something entirely different…"
Qin Su stopped writing.
Her hand trembled—not from fatigue,
but from the realization:
She had changed.
Without instruction.
Without a teacher.
Without anyone speaking.
The night before, she had dreamed.
But it was no ordinary dream.
She saw herself walking through familiar streets,
but everything was silent.
Even her thoughts were silent.
And in the middle of that silence,
she heard something:
A question.
Not from outside.
Not from within.
But as if from a place untouched by human thought:
"Do you understand what you believe?"
She woke up in a sweat.
But it wasn't fear.
It was a strange sensation—
as if something had asked her a question
that had long been buried deep inside her.
Elsewhere in the city, a young man from the slums,
a charcoal cart puller, stopped in his tracks
as he passed the courtyard.
Li Yuan sat as always—still.
But the stillness felt like a cliff calling to him.
The young man stood there, confused.
His legs wanted to leave,
but something in his chest pulled him in.
He didn't know why,
but he felt dirty—
not from dust or sweat—
but because he had lived all this time
without ever asking.
"What am I actually living through...?"
The thought came like a fog.
Vague.
But real.
He left, quickly.
But from that day on, his sleep was never deep again.
In that small courtyard,
the once-scattered stones had now formed a circle.
Not by Li Yuan's hands.
But also not by anyone in particular.
The circle had been shaped by the steps of those who came,
who stood,
who sat,
and who returned the next day.
No plan.
No intention.
They didn't realize they were creating something.
Yet something was created.
The circle held silence.
And from that silence, slowly—
doubt began to grow.
Not the kind of doubt that frightens.
But the kind that awakens.
Doubt that does not weaken belief—
but opens it.
For the first time in their lives,
some began to reconsider
what they had never thought to question.
Li Yuan did not speak.
He never called out.
But each morning,
that courtyard was never truly empty again.
At the edge of the city,
an old gatekeeper—
a man who had long considered himself
just part of a door—
suddenly turned toward the sun.
"Why have I always let the light pass,
but never thought about where it goes?"
The question arrived without a voice.
But he could not ignore it.
And the wind held its breath once again—
for a sound had begun to grow...
Without tongue.
Without letters.
Without master.
A sound born of understanding
that had not yet found a name.
And doubt was no longer weakness.
It was the first field
from which understanding could grow.
"If a person never shakes what they believe,
then all they hold is inheritance,
not understanding."
– Qin Su's Fourth Note