The first week in Hexin flowed like water finding its river—naturally, without resistance, following the contours of a simple yet meaningful life. Li Yuan felt something he had never imagined before: comfort in repetition, peace in predictability.
Every morning, he woke up when the dew still hung on the tips of the bamboo leaves like small pearls waiting for the first kiss of the sun. No alarm or spiritual call woke him—his consciousness body had learned to follow the natural rhythm of the world, breathing in sync with the change from night to day.
The first ritual was always the same: sitting in the backyard with a cup of warm tea, thin steam curling into the morning air. In the curls of steam, he often saw what looked like delicate writings that disappeared before they could be read—like thoughts too subtle to be captured in words.
"This," he thought, sipping the tea that was simultaneously bitter and sweet, "is a form of meditation I never knew existed."
The walk to the Word House every morning had become a ritual he looked forward to. Not because of the destination, but because of the journey itself. His steps followed the same path—passing by Chen Wei's house, where the sound of his hammer was always heard since dawn, walking in front of Lin Sao's stall, where she was starting to arrange vegetables in her bamboo baskets, greeting Mr. Zhou who was sitting in front of his house sharpening a knife.
Every day, the same sights. Every day, the same greetings. Every day, the same feeling: that he was part of a great dance that was repetitive yet never boring.
Like breathing that is repetitive but each breath brings new life.
At the Word House, his ritual was even calmer. Sitting at the same wooden desk, with the same brush, copying texts that were decades or even hundreds of years old. Every stroke was a conversation with the writers of the past, every dot a trace of a thought that once lived in someone's heart.
Mr. Shen rarely spoke at length, but his presence was like a friendly silence—not empty, but full of space for understanding to grow. Sometimes, when the midday sun entered through the window at just the right angle, Li Yuan saw fine dust particles dancing in the light, like golden letters writing a poem about time.
The afternoon brought a different ritual: a trip to the market. Not because his consciousness body needed a lot of food, but because the market was the heart of Hexin's life—a place where small stories were born and circulated like a stream of water carrying news from upstream to downstream.
"Ah, Qingshan xiong!" Lin Sao always greeted him with a warm smile. "The water spinach is very fresh today. It was just picked this morning from the garden."
Li Yuan learned that buying vegetables was not just a transaction, but a subtle social ritual. Asking about families, hearing light complaints about the weather, sharing news about a sick neighbor or a new birth.
From Mr. Wang, the rice merchant, he heard that the price of grain was good this year because the rain had come at the right time. From Mrs. Chen, the fish seller, he learned that the river to the north was clear and the fish were plump. From Xiao Liu, the young man who sold chickens, he got a story about his hen laying two eggs at once—an event considered a good omen.
Small stories that would never make it into history books, but which were the golden threads that wove the fabric of daily life.
"This," Li Yuan realized as he walked home with his bamboo basket full of vegetables, "is how life entrusts itself to humans who are willing to listen."
The afternoon was the time he cherished the most. After a simple lunch and a short rest, Li Yuan would walk to the small park in the town center—an open area with a few old trees and stone benches that had been smoothed by the touch of thousands of people over the years.
There, he would sit on the same bench, facing the same direction: toward a small pond where koi fish swam in seemingly random patterns that were somehow always soothing.
Sometimes he came alone, sometimes there were others—Mr. Zhang feeding the fish, Mrs. Liu knitting while watching her grandchildren play, or a young couple sitting on a bench opposite, whispering with flushed faces.
There was nothing to talk about. Nothing to achieve. Just sitting, observing, breathing in sync with the rhythm of life flowing around him.
In the silence of the park, Li Yuan often felt a subtle echo from his Zhenjing. The thirteen understandings wrapped in a ball of light in his stomach were not sleeping—they were vibrating gently like a lullaby sung very softly. Not disruptive, not urgent to be used, just... there. Like breath that doesn't need to be thought about but is always present.
He always watched the sunset from different places. Sometimes from the roof of his house, sometimes from the small bridge at the edge of town, sometimes from the small hill where the town's ancestors were buried.
But no matter where he watched it, the sunset always brought the same feeling: simple gratitude for a day that had been well lived.
In the golden light that slowly turned to purple, then dark blue, Li Yuan often contemplated how different this life was from the centuries before. Back then, every day was a search. Every breath was a step toward something higher, deeper, more meaningful.
Now, every day was an acceptance. Every breath was a gratitude for something that was already there, already enough, already perfect in its simplicity.
"Maybe," he thought, watching the first star appear in the sky, "this is a form of cultivation I never knew. Cultivation through an ordinary life."
At night, after a simple dinner and a cold bath from the well, Li Yuan would sit in the backyard of his house with the last cup of tea of the day. Not to meditate or search for a new understanding, but simply to sit with the silence that had become his faithful companion for centuries.
In that silence, he heard the small symphony of the night life: the sound of crickets, the rustling of the wind in the leaves, the sound of distant footsteps of someone coming home late, muffled laughter from a neighbor's house.
Sounds that formed the melody of true life—not grand and heroic, but real and warm and full of simple love for the small things that made life worth living.
And when he finally went into his small house, lay down on the soft bamboo mat, Li Yuan always fell asleep with the same feeling: that today had been perfect not because something extraordinary had happened, but because nothing needed to be extraordinary to make life beautiful.
His dreams were simple: about warm morning tea, about paper waiting to be written on, about Lin Sao's smile at the market, about koi fish swimming in purposeless circles but with perfect peace.
Dreams about the life he was living now.
The most beautiful dreams he had ever had.