Li Yuan opened his non-existent eyes.
Ten years had passed in the outside world, and the consciousness that had been tightly sealed was now slowly flowing back to the surface. Like water rising from the depths of a well, his consciousness carefully touched the physical world.
The first thing he felt was… change.
Where there was once blood, there is now greenery.
Where there were once screams, there are now whispers of the wind.
Where there was once a battlefield, there is now a grassy field.
Li Yuan—in the form of an invisible soul—floated in the same spot where his body was destroyed ten years ago. The land that was once wet with the blood of thousands of soldiers was now covered in soft grass. Small shoots had emerged everywhere, as if the earth itself was healing its wounds.
Ten years, he thought in amazement. Nature doesn't need long to turn a field of death into a garden of life.
But I… I am still here. Still… confused.
Li Yuan felt a strange emptiness.
As a pure soul, he no longer had eyes to see the world clearly. No ears to hear human conversations. No legs to walk and see how the world had changed.
I just… exist.
But for what purpose?
What is a soul without a purpose supposed to do?
He tried to sense the traces of the people his understanding had once touched. Wen Zhi, Mu Yi, Fan Tu—where were they now? How had they developed? Had the seeds of understanding that were scattered grown?
But as a bodiless soul, he couldn't step out of this place. He couldn't explore the world. He couldn't see the results of what he had sown.
Perhaps… perhaps I must accept this limitation.
Li Yuan slowly closed his consciousness to the outside world.
If he couldn't see how the world had changed, perhaps it was time to look inward again. To return to Zhenjing, to the inner world unbounded by space and time.
Five hundred years of internal time for ten years in the outside world, he decided. Perhaps in that long silence, I will find what I am supposed to do next.
Returning to the Depths of Zhenjing
Li Yuan dove into his inner space, feeling the eleven understandings vibrate with familiarity around him.
Water, Sheath, Doubt, Existence, Breath, Sky, Body, Loss, Silence, Fear, and Soul—they were all still there, still alive, still evolving in the stillness.
Eleven understandings that have entered the Ganjing Realm, Li Yuan mused. Eleven spaces of meaning that have touched something bigger than myself.
But… are there only eleven?
Does understanding end at this number?
Or… is there something even deeper?
Li Yuan recalled his long journey. How each understanding was born from experience, from observation, from accepting different aspects of life.
Water was born from curiosity about flow.
Silence was born from a love for tranquility.
Breath was born from the awareness that he was connected to the world.
Soul was born from a deep loneliness and the discovery of the uniqueness of every existence.
But is there an even more fundamental understanding?
An understanding that is the root of all other understandings?
A Vibration from the Depth
In the profound silence of Zhenjing, Li Yuan felt something familiar yet long forgotten.
A vibration.
A very subtle, very deep vibration, as if coming from the very foundation of the universe itself.
The Eldest Breath.
I have felt it before, Li Yuan remembered with a jolt. Years ago, when I still had a body. When I first felt the World's Breath, there was something even deeper.
The Eldest Breath.
The breath that existed before all breaths.
The vibration that was the origin of all vibrations.
And now, as a pure soul without physical limitations, that vibration felt clearer than ever. Like a call from a very distant place, or a very deep one—Li Yuan couldn't distinguish.
This is not just a vibration, he realized in awe. This is… a call.
The Eldest Breath is calling to me.
The Nagging Questions
Li Yuan felt a resonance between the Eldest Breath and the existing understanding of Breath in his Ganjing.
Is the Eldest Breath… a branch of the understanding of Breath?
Or is it the other way around—is the understanding of Breath merely a small echo of the Eldest Breath?
Like a tree growing from a root, or a river flowing from a spring?
He remembered how each of his understandings seemed unique and separate at first. But the deeper he delved, the more he realized they were all interconnected.
Water and Breath complemented each other in their flow.
Silence and Emptiness shared a void.
The Soul became the conductor that harmonized them all.
Perhaps… perhaps understanding does grow like a tree, Li Yuan mused. One understanding gives birth to two. Two gives birth to four. Four becomes many.
But if so… is there an ultimate root?
Is there one understanding that is the source of all understandings?
And is the Eldest Breath… that root?
The Decision to Explore
The vibration of the Eldest Breath grew stronger, more urgent. Like a sea calling a river to return home.
Li Yuan felt something he had never felt before: the desire to go.
Not to go in a physical sense—he no longer had a body to travel. But to go in a more fundamental sense. To follow this vibration to its source. To the place where everything began.
As a pure soul, I am not bound by space and time as I once was, he realized. I can follow this vibration. I can trace the Eldest Breath to its origin.
Perhaps that is what I am meant to do.
Perhaps that is the purpose of being a pure soul—to be able to explore things that those with bodies cannot.
To see the beginning of all beginnings.
To understand… the true beginning.
Li Yuan felt his eleven understandings vibrate with a new harmony. It was as if they all recognized the call of the Eldest Breath and wanted to explore their source as well.
Perhaps this journey will provide answers to questions I have never even asked, he thought with a calm excitement.
Questions about why understanding exists.
Questions about the purpose of existence itself.
Questions about… what was there before everything that is.
And perhaps, on that journey, I will find not just the origin of understanding…
But the origin of myself.
Who was Li Yuan before Li Yuan existed?
What was there before the name, before the identity, before the soul itself?
The Eldest Breath knows the answer.
And now, the Eldest Breath is inviting me to find out.
With a calm but deeply anticipated decision, Li Yuan began to follow the vibration of the Eldest Breath.
Not by moving physically—but by allowing his consciousness to flow along the primordial current that had been flowing since before time began.
A journey to a home I have never seen.
But one I have known since before I knew that I knew it.
A journey to… the beginning.
And in the profound silence, Li Yuan began to take a step—if it could be called a step towards the greatest mystery that ever was.
The mystery from which all mysteries originated.