Day nine began with a question.
Li Yuan woke up with a strange sensation—as if someone had gently touched his thoughts. Not a physical or even spiritual touch in the sense he knew, but something more subtle.
He sat on the edge of his bed, looking at the plants still arranged in a circle in the yard. In the faint dawn light, they appeared unchanged. But there was something different in the way they "breathed"—the rhythm of their energy exchange with the environment.
Li Yuan got up and approached the circle of plants. As his feet stepped onto the ground within a one-meter radius of the formation, he felt a tangible vibration.
Not a physical vibration. A vibration of a question.
"You want to ask something," Li Yuan realized, his voice low in the morning air.
He knelt in the middle of the formation and placed both hands on the ground. His Understanding of Water in the Wenjing domain flowed carefully, like someone trying to hear a whisper in the distance.
What he "heard" left him silent.
Not words, but concepts. Images that formed in his consciousness in a way he had never experienced before.
He saw himself—but from a low vantage point, as the plants would see him. A tall figure that radiated something warm and familiar, yet also foreign. Something that made them vibrate in a way they had never experienced in their thousands of years of evolution.
Then, the true question emerged in the form of a pure sensation:
What are you?
Li Yuan gave a small smile. "You want to know what I am."
He closed his eyes and began to answer—not with words, but in the same way they had asked. Through his Understanding of Water, he sent simple concepts.
He showed them an image of water flowing—from a spring to a river, from a river to the sea, from the sea to the clouds, from the clouds back to the earth. A never-ending cycle, always changing yet always the same.
I am like water, he conveyed. I flow from one form to another, but my essence remains the same.
The plants vibrated in a different way now. Was it something like... understanding? Or perhaps acceptance?
Then they sent a new concept.
Li Yuan saw an image of a seed growing in the darkness of the soil, slowly finding its way toward the light. Years of slow growth. Roots spreading deep. Leaves reaching high. Flowers blooming and withering and blooming again.
We are like this, their message reached him. We grow slowly, but we grow.
"Yes," Li Yuan whispered. "You grow. And in your growth, there is wisdom."
He sent a concept of appreciation—a respect for their patience, their perseverance, their ability to find balance with the environment for thousands of years without damaging it or being overwhelmed by excessive desire.
What happened next captivated him.
One by one, the plants in the formation began to send their "stories." Not in the form of words or even images, but in the form of sensations and vibrations that entered his consciousness directly.
The silver moss told of thousands of years clinging to damp rocks, filtering rainwater and storing it for dry times. It told of how it learned to sense changes in the weather long before they happened, and how it learned to share moisture with other plants when needed.
The purple vine told of learning to live in the deep silence of the forest, of how it discovered that the best growth happens in stillness, far from disturbance and noise.
Each plant had a story about its life's lessons, about how it found its place and role in the larger ecosystem.
Li Yuan listened with the patience he had learned over thousands of years of cultivation. And in listening, he began to realize something surprising.
They were teaching him.
These simple plants, which had evolved in isolation for thousands of years, had learned things that even he, with all his experience and spiritual understanding, had not fully mastered.
They had learned to live without ego. They didn't compete in a destructive sense—they competed for survival, yes, but they also collaborated in subtle and complex ways. They shared resources. They communicated danger. They even shared genetic information through root networks and spores.
They had achieved something he was still struggling to fully grasp: harmony without losing individuality.
"You are the true teachers," Li Yuan realized with deep respect.
He spent the rest of the morning in "conversation" with the plants. It wasn't a conversation in the human sense, but a slow and profound exchange of concepts and experiences.
From them, he learned about true patience—not just waiting, but growing with purpose while waiting. About how to accept limitations without giving up on growth. About how to give without expecting anything in return.
From him, they learned about more abstract concepts—about self-awareness, about the ability to contemplate existence, about questions that have no simple answers.
As the sun reached its peak, Li Yuan finally rose from his kneeling position. The plants in the formation looked different now—not physically, but in the way they "were." There was a new depth to their spiritual vibrations.
"Thank you," he said in a low but sincere voice.
The plants vibrated in a way he could interpret as a mutual sense of gratitude.
Li Yuan walked to the edge of the forest, thinking about what he had just experienced. In his fifteen thousand years of life, he had learned from ancient books, from deep meditation, from countless life experiences. But this was the first time he had learned from teachers who had no ego at all.
There was a purity in their lessons that he couldn't find elsewhere. There was no hidden agenda, no desire to be respected or recognized. They taught because it was their natural inclination—to share for the survival of the community.
"Perhaps," he mused, observing the broader forest, "this is why I was brought to this island."
Not to hide from the world or escape responsibility. But to learn something that couldn't be learned anywhere else—about life that lives in perfect harmony with the Dao without even realizing they're doing it.
The afternoon passed with Li Yuan exploring parts of the island he hadn't yet visited, but in a different way now. He was no longer just observing or collecting. He was listening.
With his Understanding of Water in the Wenjing domain, he began to pick up the subtle conversations taking place throughout the island's ecosystem. The large trees sharing nutrients through their root networks. The bushes warning about changes in the weather. The flowers coordinating to maximize pollination.
The entire island was one large organism composed of millions of small organisms, all working in a harmony he had never witnessed anywhere else.
"This is like my Zhenjing," he realized with awe. "But a natural version."
His Zhenjing, the inner world formed from his understandings, had various elements that worked in harmony. But that was a harmony he had consciously created, through thousands of years of cultivation and reflection.
Narau Island had the same harmony, but one that had formed naturally through slow evolution and adaptation. Without conscious intervention, without intentional design—just life finding its best way to thrive together.
Night came with a sea breeze carrying the scent of salt and life. Li Yuan sat in the yard of his house, surrounded by plants that now felt like old friends.
In the silence of the night, he began to hear something new again. Not the individual conversations between plants, but something larger. A rhythm that encompassed the entire island—the collective breath of the living ecosystem.
And in that rhythm, he heard an invitation.
Not an invitation to leave or to come, but an invitation to be a part of it. To not just observe this harmony from the outside, but to join in its rhythm.
Li Yuan closed his eyes and began to adjust his breathing to the island's rhythm. Slowly, the heartbeat of his consciousness body began to sync with the pulse of life around him.
For the first time in thousands of years, he felt truly a part of something bigger than himself. Not as a leader or a protector, but as a participant in a symphony of life that had been going on far longer than his existence.
In that silence, a new understanding began to form at the edge of his consciousness. It wasn't clear yet, couldn't be put into words. But it was there—moving like a seed that had just been planted, waiting for the right conditions to sprout.
Perhaps, he thought, as he allowed himself to drift in the island's collective rhythm, this is what true cultivation means. Not to become stronger or wiser than others, but to become more aligned with life itself.