Formed...
After successfully creating the Body of Water Existence, something unexpected began to happen within Li Yuan's Zhenjing. His understanding of Body, which had always stood as a single, complete unit within his spiritual landscape, started to... branch.
It wasn't a split or a crack, but an evolution—like a tree that grows new limbs when it finds the right nutrients and space to expand. The original understanding of Body remained intact as the main trunk, but now there was a new shoot growing from it: Body+Existence+Water.
"An understanding can branch," Li Yuan observed this phenomenon with calm awe. This was something he had never experienced in his ten thousand-year journey—an understanding that didn't just develop linearly but grew... organically. It was like a root system spreading, or a river delta dividing into many streams.
This new branch was not a separate, 17th understanding but a specialization of the existing Body understanding. It carried all the fundamental qualities of the Body—the concept of a vessel, healing resonance, projection—but with unique characteristics born from its integration with Existence and Water.
Li Yuan felt how this branch vibrated at a different frequency from the main Body understanding, yet remained connected within a single harmonious system. It was like a fundamental note and its overtones in music—different yet harmonious, independent yet related.
Position and Movement
In his pure soul state, Li Yuan hovered above a sea of clouds floating about 50 kilometers from the earth's surface. From this height, the world looked like a living map—continents lay like large islands in an ocean of white clouds, mountains appeared as fine wrinkles, and rivers as winding silver lines.
For four thousand years of total stillness, he had been silent in a spiritual space unbound by physical location. But now, with his consciousness active again and new insights into the possibilities of a pure soul, he felt an urge to... move.
His first movement was forward—crossing thousands of kilometers in a time that could not be measured by physical standards. A pure soul is not bound by the speed of light or conventional laws of physics. Li Yuan moved with the speed of understanding, the speed of intention, with a spiritual velocity that followed a path of meaning rather than a geometric one.
The thousands of kilometers he traveled took him across different continents, various civilizations, and diverse spiritual ecosystems that had formed on the planet over the last ten thousand years. And in that movement, he began to realize something profound.
A Reflection on Humanity
"Water flows to the lowest point," he whispered, quoting the principle that had guided him since childhood in Ziran Village. "Now it's time to walk again."
But that statement carried a deeper reflection on the nature of his journey. In his ten thousand years of life, how long had he actually lived as—or with—humans in the conventional sense?
A rough calculation in his consciousness revealed a surprising number: about sixty years. Thirty years as Li Qingshan in Hexin, and about thirty years from his early life as Li Yuan before becoming a pure soul—his childhood in Ziran, adolescence at the Qinglong Academy, and early adulthood as a wanderer.
The rest—nine thousand nine hundred and forty years—was spent in spiritual search and understanding that transcended conventional human context.
"Sixty years out of ten thousand," he mused with a unique perspective. "Less than one percent of my existence was spent in direct interaction with normal human life."
This realization brought a deep question about his connection to humanity. Could he still understand the perspective of an ordinary human? Was his spiritual wisdom still relevant for souls struggling with worldly problems?
But then he remembered the global resonance he had once performed—five seconds that had touched every soul on the planet. And he remembered the souls now scattered across the world, carrying echoes of that touch without even realizing it.
"Perhaps," the thought flowed like water finding its level, "interaction with humanity doesn't always have to be in a physical or conventional form. Maybe there are other ways to connect, to serve, to understand."
A New Direction
The forward movement he undertook was not a purposeless journey. Something was drawing him—not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual one. Like a compass pointing to magnetic north, his consciousness felt attracted to... something.
Perhaps one of the souls he had touched with his resonance. Perhaps a place where his spiritual trace had settled in a unique way. Perhaps a situation that required the presence—or at least the observation—of the perspective he had developed.
Li Yuan did not explore other understandings for now. The experiment with Body+Existence+Water had opened a door to a complexity that he needed to fully comprehend before moving on to other combinations. Like a scientist who focuses on one experiment until completion before starting the next.
But the new branch in his understanding of Body had proven that spiritual growth does not always have to be linear or predictable. An understanding can evolve, can specialize, and can develop new aspects that were previously unimaginable.
Implications for the Future
If the understanding of Body can branch into Body+Existence+Water, could other understandings also undergo a similar evolution? Could Water evolve into Water+Stillness? Could Soul evolve into Soul+Oldest Breath?
The possibilities flowed in his consciousness like an increasingly complex network of rivers—each branch opening up the potential for new branches, each specialization paving the way for further specializations.
"The Daojing," Li Yuan realized with a new sense of awe, "is not a static system. The Daojing is a living organism, constantly evolving, constantly finding new ways to express and understand the Dao."
And he, as the discoverer—not the creator—of that system, was now witnessing an evolution that would likely continue far beyond his current understanding or prediction.
The movement of thousands of kilometers forward took him not only to a new geographical location but to a new phase in his understanding of the unlimited potential of the spiritual journey.
Water flows to the lowest point, and now Li Yuan—with his branching understandings and ever-evolving possibilities—was ready to flow wherever spiritual evolution required his presence.