Li Yuan woke before dawn with a strange feeling in his chest.
Not from a nightmare, nor from any sound outside the cave.
But from something within his Zhenjing moving in a way he had never felt before—like water suddenly surging faster after a dam upstream had collapsed.
He sat cross-legged on the cold, hard cave floor, letting his awareness sink into his inner world. He needed to understand what was happening.
Inside his Zhenjing, the familiar landscape trembled with a new resonance. The water still flowed calmly, but now its current carried a heavier weight. The sky still stretched wide, but its color was slightly darker. The stillness still protected everything, but there was a faint echo within it—an echo of unfinished weeping.
And in the center of it all, something new was growing.
It was not a new understanding—Li Yuan had long understood loss.
Since his mother died when he was a boy.
Since he first left Ziran Village.
Since he realized that everything he loved would one day be gone.
But now, that understanding… had changed. It was deeper, more universal, and… more painful.
Li Yuan saw himself standing in the middle of a vast field, filled with shadows he recognized.
His mother, Ye Ling, smiling from afar before slowly fading like morning mist.
Then, his father. A face already dim in memory, lying in Li Yuan's lap. His father smiled faintly, holding his son's small hand.
"My son," he said in a trembling voice, "Li Yuan means 'beginning.' Be like water, flowing wherever it is needed… even to the driest places…" And then his spirit left, with a gentle pain—like the roots of a tree being pulled from the soil. Gone. Never to return.
The old village teacher who taught him to read, walking away with steps that grew fainter. Mu Yi and Fan Tu, his childhood friends, waving before melting into the darkness. Doctor Huang, Nurse Jin, the children at the field clinic—each appearing and disappearing, leaving him alone in an ever-expanding field.
And finally: Lao Chen, carrying Chen Ming in his arms. Both looked at Li Yuan with grateful eyes, then too vanished into the stillness.
This was the true nature of loss, Li Yuan realized with painful clarity.
Not only the loss of loved ones through death, but a more fundamental loss—the loss of every bond, every attachment, everything that made life feel like mine.
Everyone he would ever meet would, in the end, go.
Every place he had ever called home would eventually be left behind.
Every moment of happiness would eventually become a memory.
And that was… alright, Li Yuan felt—an odd mixture of sadness and relief.
Loss was love's way of teaching surrender.
The realization did not come as a philosophical concept, but as direct experience.
He felt every loss he had ever endured—from the smallest to the greatest—not as a wound to be healed, but as… a gift.
A gift that taught that true love was never about possession, but about letting go.
His mother had not gone because she did not love him. She had gone because true love teaches that nothing lasts except the ability to love itself.
His father had not left him alone. He had left him with a name that carried a lifelong mission—to be a source of water in a dry world.
His teacher had not left him unprepared. He had left him with the ability to learn for himself—the greatest gift a teacher could give.
Mu Yi and Fan Tu had not parted because their friendship lacked meaning. They had parted because real friendship grants the freedom to grow in different directions.
And now, Li Yuan understood why this understanding of Loss had emerged so strongly tonight.
Tomorrow, he would step onto the battlefield. Tomorrow, he would witness loss on a scale he had never imagined. Thousands would lose their lives; families would lose their children; children would lose their parents.
And Li Yuan—who might also lose his own life—needed to understand that loss was not love's failure, but its culmination.
True love was never afraid of loss, because it knew that what was truly loved could never be lost.
In his Zhenjing, he felt a profound shift.
The understanding of Loss—long held as an intellectual truth—now vibrated with new intensity. Like a song he had always heard with his ears, now felt through his whole body.
The water around him began to flow with a different rhythm—not like a quiet river, but like rain falling to nourish dry earth. Each drop carried loss, but also new life.
The stillness above was no longer empty, but filled with presence—the presence of all that had ever been and would always be, in different forms.
And then, with the softness of dusk turning to night, the understanding of Loss crossed an unseen threshold.
It entered the Ganjing.
Li Yuan opened his eyes in the cold cave. Dawn had not yet broken, but something fundamental had changed—not only in him, but in the way he felt the world around him.
Every whisper of wind sounded like the voices of those gone. Every scent of earth felt like the embrace of a past that would never return. Every touch of cold air was a reminder that all this was temporary—and because it was temporary, it was beautiful.
He stood and walked to the cave mouth. In the distance, the campfires of both armies still burned. In a few hours, the sun would rise. And with it, the war so long anticipated would begin.
Thousands who now breathed might not be breathing by nightfall. Thousands of families who now hoped for safe returns would face losses that would change them forever.
And all of it was part of a greater love, Li Yuan understood—with surprising calm.
With ten understandings now active in his Ganjing, Li Yuan felt a different resonance in his body. Not merely calmness, nor only the ability to heal, but… acceptance. Acceptance so deep that he could embrace all life and death, joy and sorrow, meeting and parting—without distinction.
He realized this was what he had sought all along without knowing it. Not the power to change the world. Not the ability to prevent suffering. Not even the ability to save everyone.
But the ability to be fully present in whatever happens.
To be a space where loss could occur without losing meaning, where death could happen without losing love.
Li Yuan stepped from the cave and resumed his walk toward the battlefield.
His pace was unhurried, but without hesitation—like water that knows where it must flow, even if that flow leads to danger.
As he walked, he felt the effect of this new understanding of Loss within his Ganjing.
Unlike other understandings that worked more actively, this one created… space.
Space to grieve without breaking.
Space to lose without despairing.
Space to let go without ceasing to love.
And that space was not only for himself—it was for anyone near him.
By the time the sun rose, Li Yuan had reached the last ridge before the battlefield. Before him stretched a wide valley where two great forces would soon meet.
To the north, the Qin camp, red banners fluttering.
To the south, the Lu camp, banners of blue.
And between them, an open plain spanning kilometers—ground prepared to be a mass grave.
He could see movement in both camps—soldiers readying themselves, weapons being distributed, horses saddled. But what struck him most was… the sheer number. Thousands. Tens of thousands. More than he had ever imagined.
How many Zhang Weis are among them? he wondered. How many Chen Mings who only want to go home?
From the ridge, he could also sense something else—aura of tremendous power from certain points in both camps.
The commanders, he realized. Those who could turn a tree to dust. Who could make a person vanish with a single touch.
The gap between himself and them was vast. In a direct fight, he might not last a second.
But that was irrelevant. He had not come to fight.
He had come to be present—to be a space where the wounded, from either side, could feel they were not dying alone.
To be someone who saw them not as enemy or ally, but as human—worthy of love until their last breath.
Li Yuan began descending toward the battlefield. With every step, he felt the weight of responsibility grow—not to stop the war, for that was impossible, but to ensure that amid the destruction to come, there was still space for humanity.
The ten understandings within his Ganjing thrummed in a harmony he had never felt before—like an orchestra finally finding the perfect chord, even if the song they played was one of farewell.
Water—ready to flow to the deepest wounds.
Stillness—ready to offer peace amid the screams of war.
Emptiness—ready to accept all without taking sides.
Fear—ready to sit with those afraid to die.
Enclosure—ready to shield the soul from despair.
Doubt—ready to remind that there are choices beyond killing.
Breath—ready to be the last calm breath.
Sky—ready to show that all this will pass.
Body—ready to heal what can still be saved.
And now, Loss—ready to teach that love does not end when life does.
In the distance, he heard the first trumpet. Not yet the trumpet of battle—that was still hours away. This was the call to wake the soldiers for their final preparations.
Li Yuan quickened his pace, though his movements remained steady.
I must be there before the first clash, he thought.
I must be there when the first man falls.
For that is where water is needed most—
at the place of the first loss, where the first love is tested by death,
where humanity first risks drowning in hatred.
Li Yuan walked toward the eye of the coming storm—with a heart full of love for all he would meet, friend or foe, or those who no longer knew the difference.
With the resolve to witness every loss, every last breath, every word of farewell.
And with the understanding that had just reached its full depth—that loss is the purest form of love.
Love that asks for nothing in return—not even to be remembered.
The night before the storm had ended.
Now it was time to face the storm itself.
And Li Yuan—with ten understandings in his Ganjing ready for their ultimate test—walked into the valley where thousands would soon learn about loss in its harshest form.
But they would not learn it alone.
Because water would flow among them.
Water that had learned that flowing to where it was most needed sometimes meant flowing to where all things ended—
but also where true love began.
Love unafraid of loss because it had never truly possessed.
Love that flowed like water
eternal in its impermanence.