Day eight began with a thin mist embracing the surface of the island. Li Yuan woke up before dawn, as was his habit for thousands of years. His consciousness body didn't need sleep, but he maintained this rhythm nonetheless—an anchor to the humanity he once possessed.
He sat on the doorstep of his wooden house, looking at the plants he had collected yesterday. In the faint morning light, they looked different. More alive. As if they were waiting, too.
Li Yuan got up and picked up a piece of silver moss. Yesterday he had felt a small resonance with it. Today, he wanted to understand it more deeply.
He closed his eyes and placed the moss in his left palm. His Understanding of Water in the Wenjing domain flowed slowly, like a cautious stream exploring a new territory.
First, he heard the moisture. Not just the water contained in the moss's tissue, but the memory of that water—where it came from, how long it had been there. Rain from three days ago. Dew from last night. Even traces of sea vapor absorbed from the air.
Then, something deeper.
The moss vibrated. Not physically, but in a spectrum that only a soul that had cultivated for thousands of years could sense. A small vibration that resonated with... something.
"Interesting," Li Yuan whispered. He opened his eyes and examined the moss more closely.
Its cellular structure was not like ordinary moss. There was a faint, almost invisible spiral pattern in the way they were arranged. And even more astonishingly—there were small spaces between the cells, as if designed to hold something more than just water.
Li Yuan put the moss back and picked up a vine with dark purple flowers. The same process—the Understanding of Water flowing, listening, understanding.
This time, he found something different. This plant's vibration was more complex, layered like a musical harmony. And in the deepest layer, there was an echo of something familiar.
Silence.
Not physical silence, but Silence with a capital 'S'—the Understanding of Silence he had developed over millennia. This plant naturally resonated with the concept of silence.
"This island," Li Yuan mused, "is not just an ordinary ecosystem."
He got up and walked to the edge of the forest, carrying several of the plants he had chosen. This time, he wasn't looking for medicinal plants. He was looking for plants with spiritual resonance.
His Understanding of Water became his guide. In the Wenjing domain, he could hear the faint whispers of every life form around him. Most were normal sounds—photosynthesis, growth, reproductive cycles. But some had an extra layer.
An old pine tree with a trunk surrounded by a faint glowing moss. Its vibration was similar to the Understanding of Existence—about stable, long-lasting being.
A bush with star-shaped leaves that seemed to resonate with the Understanding of Sky—about openness and infinite possibilities.
Even the small blades of grass growing in the cracks of rocks had echoes of the Understanding of Body—about adaptation and physical resilience.
Li Yuan spent the morning collecting samples, but not for medicinal purposes. He was mapping a spiritual atlas of Narau Island.
"Four thousand years," he murmured, sitting under the old pine tree. "For four thousand years I meditated at the bottom of the sea, this island evolved in total isolation."
He looked at the samples he had collected. Thirteen plants with clear spiritual resonance. Thirteen of the eighteen Understandings he possessed.
Interestingly, he didn't find any plants that resonated with more complex Understandings like Chaos or Memory. Only the fundamental ones—Water, Silence, Existence, Body, Sky.
"Perhaps," he mused, "spiritual evolution has the same hierarchy as physical evolution. The simple ones evolve first."
Midday arrived with a gentle heat. Li Yuan returned to his house and began to arrange his new samples. This time, he didn't classify them based on their medicinal properties, but on their spiritual resonance.
The Water group: silver moss, small aquatic plants from the river. The Silence group: the purple vine, a fern growing in the shade. The Existence group: the old pine tree, a root that had hardened like stone. The Body group: wild grass, a succulent plant that stores water. The Sky group: the star-leaved bush, a flower that always faced upward.
"The five basic elements of spiritual life," Li Yuan realized. "Water for flow, Silence for tranquility, Existence for foundation, Body for manifestation, Sky for aspiration."
He took one sample from each group and placed them in a circular formation in front of him. Then, carefully, he released a small amount of his corresponding Understandings.
Not to use power, but to communicate.
What happened next captivated Li Yuan.
The plants began to vibrate in harmony. The silver moss glowed with a faint, almost invisible light. The purple vine released a calming scent. The hardened root pulsed like a slow heart. The wild grass swayed even though there was no wind. The upward-facing flower bloomed wider.
They were responding. They were communicating.
"Incredible," Li Yuan whispered in a tone of awe. "They have indeed spiritually evolved."
He sat in a lotus position, focusing on the phenomenon before him. It wasn't just that the plants were responding to his Understandings. They were also responding to each other, creating a small but real network of spiritual communication.
"This is no coincidence," Li Yuan realized. "The island's isolation has allowed for an evolution that would have been impossible elsewhere."
Elsewhere, human activity, imbalanced cultivation, or other spiritual disturbances might have prevented such development. But on Narau Island, life had evolved in a natural balance with the Dao for thousands of years.
Li Yuan released his Understandings and the plants slowly returned to their normal state. But something had changed. He could feel that they now "knew" him in a way that was impossible for ordinary plants.
"My little friends," he smiled, the words feeling foreign on his lips after thousands of years of solitude.
That night, Li Yuan didn't go straight into his house. He sat in the yard, surrounded by the plants he had collected. In the silence of the night, he began to hear something new.
With his Understanding of Water in the Wenjing domain, he didn't just hear the water flowing in the island's small rivers. He heard conversations.
Conversations that were very slow, very subtle, at a frequency that was almost imperceptible. Conversations between trees about the coming change of seasons. Between blades of grass about the quality of the soil. Between flowers about the pattern of stars above them.
"They communicate," Li Yuan realized with a sense of wonder. "Not like animals or humans, but they have their own form of spiritual communication."
And even more astonishingly—they began to include him in that conversation.
Not with words or images, but with sensations. A sense of warmth that meant acceptance. A gentle vibration that meant curiosity. Even something he could interpret as... an invitation.
Li Yuan closed his eyes and let his consciousness flow with the island's spiritual communication network. For the first time in thousands of years, he didn't feel alone.
He had a community. Not a community of humans with their emotional complexities and ambitions. But a community of simple, pure life, connected to the Dao in a way he had been searching for all this time.
"Perhaps," he whispered into the night wind, "this is what true harmony means."
Harmony not with fellow humans who have conflicting egos and desires. But harmony with life itself, in its most fundamental and pure form.
As Li Yuan's eyes slowly opened, he saw that some of the plants around him were gently vibrating, as if responding to his thoughts. And in that vibration, he heard something that felt like a quiet agreement.
They understood. And they accepted.
For the first time in four thousand years, Li Yuan fell asleep with a feeling of perfect peace.