Descend...
After traveling tens of thousands of kilometers across the continent in his pure soul form, Li Yuan felt an urge to... descend. It wasn't because of exhaustion or a need for rest—a pure soul doesn't know the concept of fatigue—but because something was drawing his attention from a spiritual distance.
A presence that was familiar yet alien. Something that vibrated at a frequency he recognized, but with a quality that was... different.
Li Yuan decided to descend from his spiritual height, leaving the thin layer of atmosphere where he usually floated, and approached the planet's surface. His first choice was a dense forest—a place isolated from human disturbance, where he could observe without worrying about causing unwanted phenomena.
As he neared the ground, Li Yuan decided to take on a more stable form for observation. With a ease he had mastered over thousands of years, he began to form a consciousness body using a combination of Body and Existence Understanding.
It wasn't the Body of Water Existence he had recently experimented with, but the basic combination he had used as Li Qingshan—a human-like form, solid but made of spiritual substance, capable of interacting with the physical world but not bound by biological limitations.
The consciousness body formed slowly, starting from lines of energy and then becoming a figure that could stand on the forest floor. The appearance he chose was simple—a middle-aged man with familiar black hair and gray eyes, wearing a simple gray robe.
And then... he saw it.
The First Clump
Among the dense trees, about twenty meters from where he stood, there was something floating at chest height from the ground. A fist-sized clump of light, emitting a soft, greenish-white luminescence.
Li Yuan approached cautiously, even though he knew the clump wouldn't react to his presence. With his long-mastered Soul Understanding, he could sense the true nature of the object before him.
A soul.
A human soul that had been touched by his global resonance four thousand years ago, which should have dissolved into nothingness but persisted in this form—without consciousness, without thought, without the ability to feel or react. Only... the pure existence remaining of someone who once lived.
"So this is what you look like," Li Yuan whispered, his voice echoing subtly in the forest's silence. Nothing answered—the clump remained floating serenely, its light flickering slowly like a very slow breath.
Deep Analysis
Li Yuan activated his Soul Understanding to its fullest, focusing all his analytical abilities on the clump before him. What he found was both surprising and worrying.
This soul was not just a passive remnant of existence. There was a structure within it—complex energy patterns, traces of the life that once was. Locked memories, frozen emotions, and even fragments of personality stored in a dormant state.
But everything was inactive. It was like a pitch-black library—all the books were still in their places, all the knowledge was stored intact, but no one was reading it. There was no consciousness accessing that information, no "I" remembering or feeling.
"You are still whole," Li Yuan said to the clump that couldn't hear, "but you... are not here. Everything that makes you is still stored, but no one is experiencing it."
This condition was more complex than he had imagined. The Soul Understanding resonance four thousand years ago had not only prevented these souls from dissolving—it had frozen them in a perfect state of spiritual suspended animation.
Interaction Experiment
Li Yuan tried various approaches to interact with the soul clump. He projected a subtle resonance from his Soul Understanding, hoping it might awaken the dormant consciousness.
There was no response.
He tried a stronger resonance, almost like calling the name of someone in a deep sleep.
Still no response.
Even when he focused the full power of his Soul Understanding in an attempt to "re-light" the consciousness within the clump, the result was the same—no reaction, no sign of active spiritual life.
"You truly are just... a clump," Li Yuan concluded with a mix of relief and concern. "Not suffering, not afraid, not feeling anything. But also... not living in the true sense of the word."
Pattern Discovery
As Li Yuan expanded the range of his Soul Understanding, he began to detect the presence of other clumps in the surrounding area. One behind a large tree about fifty meters to the north. Two more near the small river flowing at the edge of the forest. Another one on a low hill visible from his position.
They were all identical in their basic nature—unconscious green-white soul clumps, floating in the locations where their original owners had died four thousand years ago.
"How many are there in the whole world?" the question flowed through his mind with horrifying implications. If in a forest area of just a few square kilometers there were already five clumps, what was the total number on the entire planet?
Hundreds of thousands? Millions?
A Critical Decision
Li Yuan stood in the forest's silence, staring at the first soul clump he had encountered directly. In that soft, green-white light, he saw the consequences of the actions he had taken four thousand years ago—consequences he had never anticipated or wanted.
Millions of souls that should have rested in nothingness were now trapped in an endless spiritual limbo. Not suffering, but also not free. Not living, but also not dead in the true sense.
"This is my responsibility," he spoke with deep conviction. "I caused this to happen, even if not intentionally. I have to deal with it."
Three options were available to him: let these millions of clumps remain scattered throughout the world until the natural 5,000-year limit expires, try to find a way to release them into nothingness, or...
Gather them all.
The third option felt the most logical. By collecting all the soul clumps into his Zhenjing, specifically within his Soul Understanding space, he could ensure they were safe from external disturbance and... perhaps find a better way to handle this situation.
"I will gather all of you," Li Yuan decided, speaking to the clump that couldn't hear but might, in an inexplicable way, sense his decision. "You will be safe within me. And perhaps... one day, I will find a way to give you true peace."
The decision had been made. Li Yuan would begin a global collection operation—a task that would fundamentally change the nature of his existence and give him a responsibility he would carry forever.
The first clump floated calmly, unaware that its fate—and the fate of millions of other clumps worldwide—had just been decided by the only being on the planet who could see and understand their existence.
A new journey had begun. A journey to gather the consequences of the past and carry them toward an uncertain future.