Day Three of the War.
The fire no longer burned—it devoured.
It devoured the earth, the air, and humanity itself.
Li Yuan stood in the heart of chaos that had long surpassed the limits of reason. Screams no longer sounded like human voices. Blood no longer flowed like a river—it surged like a flooding sea.
Where does humanity go when the fire grows too hot? he wondered, feeling the ten understandings within his Ganjing shudder wildly, like water in a bowl shaken by a storm.
From the north, a familiar aura approached.
An aura Li Yuan had known since he was fourteen, back when the world was simple and understanding had not yet been born.
Wen Zhi.
Master of the Qinglong Academy. The pinnacle of martial skill in Qin. The first to notice the oddity in Li Yuan's breath all those years ago.
Now he stood atop a hill, his gaze cutting through the battlefield like a sword. His body was the same—small, thin—but every movement carried the power to crush stone into dust.
Beside him, two others.
Mu Yi.Fan Tu.
Old friends.
Once they studied together at the Academy, once they asked questions about the philosophy of water and wind.
Now their eyes were empty. Not the emptiness of bowls ready to be filled—empty like a well that had run dry.
Li Yuan watched them from a distance.
He did not approach.
He did not call out.
He simply… looked.
The water that once flowed clear in their eyes is now murky, he thought, hiding the sadness that welled up. War changes everything. Even friends.
Wen Zhi descended from the hill with steps that made the earth tremble. Every breath he exhaled formed small vortices in the air.
Peak martial skill without qi—only physical mastery, breath, and deep understanding of movement. In a world without qi, such power was terrifying: pure strength needing no mystical energy to destroy.
The moment his feet touched the battlefield, he sensed Li Yuan's presence.
"Li Yuan," his voice flowed through the roar of battle like water cleaving stone. "Still playing with your shallow philosophy?"
Li Yuan said nothing. The ten understandings in his Ganjing remained wrapped tight.
"The Academy taught you balance," Wen Zhi continued as he walked closer. "But the world is not balanced, Li Yuan. This world is about strength—about who still stands when others have fallen."
Behind Wen Zhi, Mu Yi and Fan Tu followed like shadows. Their once-familiar faces now felt foreign.
"Mu Yi, Fan Tu," Li Yuan greeted softly. His voice was not loud, yet somehow it carried through the noise.
Mu Yi looked at him with hollow eyes. "Li Yuan. You're still here."
"Still dreaming you can change the world just by existing?" Fan Tu added, his tone unrecognizable—cold, bitter. "How many have died while you stood there 'understanding'?"
The words cut—not because they hurt, but because they echoed questions Li Yuan had long asked himself.
How many could I save if I acted, not just existed?
How many have died because I chose not to choose?
Wen Zhi stopped two meters away—just outside the boundary of the Ganjing.
"Show me," he said, his breath shifting. Each exhale pressed against the air like invisible weight. "Show me if your philosophy can stop this."
He raised his right hand.
No wasted movement. No dramatic cry.
One step forward. One simple strike.
But the strike carried decades of understanding about how the human body could become the deadliest weapon.
A great tree to Li Yuan's left—wide enough that five men could not encircle it—exploded into fine splinters.
Not cut. Exploded. As if struck by lightning, though there was no lightning.
Only breath, movement, and the understanding of destruction.
"This is reality, Li Yuan," Wen Zhi said calmly. "Real strength. The kind that changes things. The kind that stops the enemy before they kill more innocents."
Li Yuan looked at the fragments of wood still drifting through the air.
The ten understandings within his Ganjing trembled—Water, Silence, Understanding, Existence—all straining to be unleashed.
But he kept them bound.
"That tree didn't attack you," he said quietly.
"But your enemy will attack the innocent," Wen Zhi replied. "And while you contemplate the meaning of life, they die."
From the distance, a scream rose.
Not the scream of battle—the raw cry of pain. Someone dying, calling for help with the last of their breath.
Li Yuan turned.
A boy—no, a young man barely sixteen. His body trapped under rubble, blood streaming from his head. Beside him, an older soldier—perhaps his father—lay with a deep wound.
Both were dying.
Li Yuan could save them both—if he unleashed Body and Breath without restraint, ignoring the consequences.
But there was only time for one.
Save the boy, and the older soldier would die.
Save the soldier, and the boy would die.
Try to save both without full power, and both would die.
"Well," Wen Zhi said, almost whispering. "Here is the test, Li Yuan. Philosophy versus reality. Choice versus action."
"Who will you save?"
Mu Yi and Fan Tu stared, waiting.
Li Yuan felt something tear inside him.
Not in his flesh—deeper. Pain born when the world forces water to choose where to flow, though water longs to reach every dry place.
Understanding without action is a luxury.
Action without understanding is destruction.
But when there's no time for both…?
The scream weakened. Life was spilling out of two souls while Li Yuan stood in thought.
Wen Zhi raised his hand again.
"Or I will choose for all of us," he said. "By ending the source of the problem."
This time, the strike was aimed not at a tree—
—but at Li Yuan.
When water meets a storm, it has two choices, Li Yuan thought in a stillness that felt eternal. Avoid it and let the storm pass. Or become part of it and lose its nature as water.
But there is a third choice.
Become the sea.
Wide enough to hold the storm, yet calm at its depths.
Li Yuan closed his eyes.
For the first time since forming the Ganjing, he allowed one understanding—just one—to open completely.
Not to strike.
Not to defend.
To save.
The understanding of Existence burst free like water from a shattered dam.
And within fifteen meters, everyone—Wen Zhi, Mu Yi, Fan Tu, the dying boy, the wounded soldier, even Li Yuan himself—saw.
Saw their truest selves.
Saw who they were before war changed them.
Saw the light that still remained beneath the darkness they wore.
Wen Zhi froze midair.
The strike that could turn stone to dust stopped inches from Li Yuan's face.
Not because Li Yuan blocked it.
Because in Li Yuan's open eyes, Wen Zhi saw his own reflection.
A teacher who had lost students to war.
A man tired of endless destruction.
A warrior fighting not out of hatred, but because he knew no other way to protect.
"I…" his voice shook, "I see myself."
Mu Yi and Fan Tu fell to their knees.
In Li Yuan's eyes, they saw who they had been—before emptiness filled them, before their hearts turned to stone.
The boy stopped screaming.
The soldier stopped groaning.
In the sudden calm, they saw—
Father and son who loved each other.
Fighting not because they wanted to, but because they had been given no choice.
Li Yuan moved.
Not fast. Not dramatically.
Like water flowing to where it was most needed.
His hand touched the boy first—just a second. Body flowed, stopping the bleeding, steadying the breath.
Then the soldier—another second. The same.
Neither was fully healed. But neither would die.
Not today.
Li Yuan wrapped Existence once more. Tight.
But something had changed.
In Wen Zhi's eyes, the emptiness of war was gone.
In Mu Yi's and Fan Tu's, clear water began to flow again.
"Li Yuan," Wen Zhi whispered. "What just happened?"
Li Yuan's gaze was heavy with a new weariness.
"Water," he said simply. "Remembering its own nature."
Silence fell.
Not the silence of war, but the silence of understanding.
Where people remembered who they were before the fire burned everything away.
Where strength was measured not by how much one could destroy, but by how much one could heal.
Where water proved it could face the storm without becoming the storm—
By being vast enough to hold it all.
By not losing the calm at its depths.
By flowing to where it was most needed.
Even if, for the first time, it meant choosing whom to save first.
Wise water does not refuse to flow, Li Yuan thought, looking at the darkening sky. But it chooses its course with awareness.
That is the difference between flowing and drifting.
Awareness.
And that night, in the heart of a battlefield still boiling, the water flowed with new awareness.
Awareness of choice.
Awareness of responsibility.
Awareness that sometimes, to save everyone, one must choose one first.
And that did not make water less water.
It made it wise water.