Li Yuan's feet touched the forest floor with perfect silence. His consciousness body—formed from his Body and Existence Understanding—gave him the familiar sensation of physical contact without the accompanying biological burdens. There was no heartbeat, no lungs expanding and contracting, just... a solid yet spiritual presence.
The greenish-white soul clump floated serenely before him, unresponsive to his arrival. Its light flickered at an incredibly slow rhythm—once every few minutes—like a heart that had almost stopped but refused to completely go out.
Li Yuan observed intently, using his Soul Understanding to analyze the phenomenon before him. What he found made him have to sit on a large tree root to process the implications of his discovery.
"You..." he spoke to the clump that couldn't hear, his voice quiet but echoing with the weight of four thousand years of reflection, "you are a consequence I never imagined."
Normal Death vs. Touched Death Cycle
Li Yuan began to explain—to himself, to the silence of the forest, to the unresponsive soul clump—the fundamental difference between what should have happened and what actually did.
"In the natural cycle," he said with the tone of a teacher explaining to an invisible student, "when a human or another sentient being dies, their soul immediately returns to nothingness. Like a drop of water falling back into the ocean, like a final breath exhaled—they return to the source, dissolve into universal harmony, and leave no individual trace."
He stood and walked slowly around the soul clump, observing it from various angles.
"But you..." his voice trembled with a mix of awe and guilt, "you were touched by my Soul Understanding four thousand years ago. Five seconds of global resonance that changed everything."
The Effect of Soul Understanding
"Soul Understanding," Li Yuan explained while extending his hand near the clump—not touching, just feeling the energy field around it, "is about appreciating the uniqueness of every soul, about recognizing that every consciousness is unique and valuable. When this understanding touched you..."
He paused for a moment, feeling the weight of what he was about to say.
"This understanding gave you... a resistance to nothingness. Like a vaccine that provides protection against a disease, this understanding gave your soul protection against natural spiritual decay."
The soul clump continued to flicker calmly, unaware that its fate was being explained.
"Under normal conditions," Li Yuan continued, "a human soul will dissolve within a few days or weeks after death. Like ice melting when the weather warms, the soul will lose its individual cohesion and return to being part of the universal energy."
"But you..." he looked at the clump with deep, understanding gray eyes, "you have persisted for a very long time. For four thousand years you have remained here, at the place of your death, without dissolving, without changing, without... leaving."
Duration and Persistence
Li Yuan walked to another soul clump he sensed near the river. With his tireless consciousness body, he moved through the bushes with ease and found two more clumps floating on the surface of the calm, flowing water.
"You should only last for a maximum of five thousand years," he spoke to the trio of unresponsive clumps, "but because you are now in direct resonance with my Soul Understanding, you will continue to exist. As long as I exist, as long as my Soul Understanding remains active, you will continue to... persist."
This realization brought with it an immense burden of responsibility. Every soul clump on the planet was now tied to his existence. If he chose to dissolve back into the universal Dao, these millions of souls would dissolve with him. If he continued to exist, they would continue to exist—in a state of endless suspended animation.
"I have altered the natural cycle of death," the admission came out with profound heaviness, "unintentionally, without permission, without understanding the consequences."
Their Current Condition
Li Yuan returned to the first clump and sat cross-legged before it, like a doctor examining an unresponsive patient.
"You are not suffering," he observed with his full, focused Soul Understanding. "There is no pain, no fear, no longing or regret. Your consciousness has completely faded. All that remains is... the pure essence of existence."
"But you also do not experience true peace. You do not return to the cosmic home as you should. You are... trapped in an in-between state, neither alive nor dead, neither conscious nor dissolved."
The soul clump flickered once, its light slightly brighter for a moment before returning to its normal intensity. Li Yuan did not know if it was a reaction to his words or just a natural fluctuation in soul energy.
The Final Decision
"I will gather all of you," Li Yuan announced his decision with a voice full of conviction and gentleness. "You will be safe within my Zhenjing, in the Soul Understanding space I have built over thousands of years. There, you will be protected from the disturbances of the outside world."
He stood, looking at the five clumps he could detect in this forest area.
"And perhaps," he continued with cautious hope, "one day, when my understanding deepens, I will find a way to give you a choice—to continue in this state, or to finally find peace in true nothingness."
The global operation to collect millions of touched souls was about to begin.
And with that operation, Li Yuan would transform from a seeker of individual understanding into an eternal guardian for the unexpected consequences of his own spiritual journey.