Li Yuan walked away from the Tianshan capital as dusk began to creep in from the east. His steps were calm, unhurried, like someone who had been walking for thousands of years and no longer felt the need to rush.
Behind him, the tiered city slowly disappeared on the horizon, its lights beginning to flicker one by one as night approached. Through his Wenjing Realm, which he allowed to extend towards the city one last time, he heard a symphony of intentions that were still churning: fragile hope, lingering fear, a growing resolve, and here and there, an anger that had not yet subsided.
They will be fine, he mused with a quiet certainty. Or they won't be fine. But that is no longer my decision to make or my responsibility to bear.
He had done what he came to do—not with a deliberate plan, but in a way that had always been characteristic of his journey: observe, understand, show a mirror, and then let the people choose their own path.
The mountain path stretched out before him, winding through dense forests and steep cliffs. The air grew colder as he ascended higher, but his consciousness body did not feel the cold like a normal flesh body. He only felt a deepening silence—a silence he had longed for after the intensity of the last few weeks.
Through his Wenjing Realm, he began to hear other voices—not human intentions, but the resonance of nature itself. The water flowing in small rivers whispered stories of their journey from the mountaintop to the valley below. The trees that were hundreds of years old sang with the slow and steady rhythm of growth. Nocturnal animals began to awaken, their intentions simple and honest: seek food, avoid danger, live another day.
This is so much calmer, Li Yuan thought with deep satisfaction. The human world is always so loud with the chaos of colliding intentions. But here, in a nature untouched by politics and ambition, there is a simpler harmony.
He found a small cave on the side of a cliff—deep enough to provide protection from the wind, open enough to see the night sky that was beginning to fill with stars. He sat in front of the cave, his legs dangling over the edge, and allowed his mind to contemplate all that had happened.
The Kingdom of Tianshan was... what? The what-numbered one in his long journey that he had forgotten to count? How many communities, how many kingdoms, how many civilizations had he witnessed rise and fall?
But each one felt unique in its own way. Each one taught him something different about human nature—their capacity for cruelty and compassion, for foolishness and wisdom, for repeating past mistakes and sometimes, just sometimes, for learning.
King Tianlong chose arrogance, Li Yuan mused with a quiet sadness. Even after I showed him a mirror, even after he felt the fear of his own emptiness, he chose to bury that truth under increased arrogance and cruelty.
It was a foolish choice. But it was his choice to make.
He remembered the faces of the common people—Uncle Wu teaching children with fragile hope, Mei selling soup with trembling hands, all the people who had dared to show compassion only to be massacred as an "example."
And they did not die in vain, he reminded himself. Their deaths became the catalyst that finally made the people say 'enough.' Without that massacre—however tragic—there might not have been the collective courage to overthrow a system that had oppressed them for generations.
But that knowledge did not make their deaths any less painful to remember.
He remembered the night of the execution—not the graphic details, but the emotional weight he felt through his Wenjing Realm. The people moving forward with a resolve born from a suffering that was too long. The shock and realization after the act was done. The tears that were not of victory but from souls that had crossed the point of no return.
They will carry that burden forever, Li Yuan thought with profound understanding. As they should. Taking a life—even a life that deserves to be punished—should leave a mark. Otherwise, we become no different from those who kill without remorse.
And then there was Lian—the noble boy who trembled with fear but spoke with raw honesty. In all his thousands of years of experience, Li Yuan had learned that the best leaders are often those who do not want power, who are afraid of the responsibility, who are aware of their own weaknesses.
That boy might succeed, he mused. Or he might fail. Or, most likely, he will succeed in some things and fail in others. But at least he starts with the right foundation: an awareness that he is not perfect, a willingness to listen, and a commitment to serve rather than command.
That is more than can be said about most rulers I have ever met.
The night deepened, and the sky above became a black expanse filled with countless stars. Li Yuan looked up, allowing the majesty of the cosmos to remind him of the wider scale.
Fifteen thousand years.
That was how long he had lived—or at least, how long his consciousness had existed since he first understood the Dao and his physical body disintegrated, turning him into a pure soul.
Fifteen thousand years of observing humanity in all its variations. Fifteen thousand years of witnessing the same cycles repeat: oppression that leads to rebellion, reforms that slowly harden into new rigid structures, idealism that is compromised by reality, power that corrupts even the purest intentions.
But also: individual acts of compassion that are never recorded in history books, the courage of ordinary people who stand against injustice at great personal cost, the incredible human ability to continue hoping even after repeated disappointments.
That is what keeps me going, Li Yuan realized with new clarity. Not because I believe that humans will achieve perfection—they never will. Not because I think suffering can be completely eliminated—it cannot. But because in the midst of all the chaos and cruelty, there are still moments when humans choose to be better than they have to be.
And those moments, however rare, make it all worthwhile.
He closed his eyes and directed his attention inward, to his Zhenjing—the inner world he had developed over thousands of years. At its center flowed the Understanding of Water, the Core Consciousness that was the foundation of all his other understandings. From there grew the branches: Silence, Fear, Loss, Soul, and fifteen other understandings that had fully matured.
And in a distant corner, still very faint, still almost invisible—the sprout of a new understanding that had begun to grow during his cultivation in the mountains a year ago.
Li Yuan focused his gentle attention on that sprout. In the year since he first noticed it, the sprout had grown... a little. Very little. Like a plant growing in nutrient-poor soil, its growth was almost imperceptible.
But it was still there. Still alive.
The vague fragments of understanding were still the same as before:
A seed falling to the ground.
Roots penetrating the darkness.
Leaves opening to the light.
A cycle that never ends.
From the small to the great.
From the invisible to the tangible.
An understanding of... growth? Transformation? Potential? Li Yuan still didn't know. And he still didn't try to name or force the understanding to take on a more definite form.
This is a mortal Dao, he reminded himself. An understanding that does not yet have a fixed form. It might take dozens more years to mature. Maybe hundreds. Maybe thousands. Or maybe it will never fully mature, and will remain as something that exists on the threshold, always almost but never fully materialized.
And that is okay. Not all understandings need to be finalized. Not all questions need to be answered.
He opened his eyes and looked back up at the starry sky.
The Kingdom of Tianshan has taught me something, he realized with quiet satisfaction. About patience. About letting things grow in their own time. About not forcing an outcome but creating the right conditions and then stepping back.
I gave them a mirror. I gave them a chance. And then I let them choose. That is all anyone can do—even someone who has lived for fifteen thousand years.
Dawn began to break on the eastern horizon, its first light touching the distant mountain peaks and slowly creeping down toward the tiered city. Li Yuan stood, stretching his consciousness body in a ritual that was more about a mental transition than a physical need.
It was time to continue the journey.
Through his Wenjing Realm, he felt the presence of life around him—not just trees and animals, but also the small villages scattered in the valleys and on the mountain slopes. Hundreds of thousands of humans, each with their own story, their own struggles, their own hopes and fears.
And somewhere out there, in a part of the world he had not yet visited, there would be another community that needed a mirror, another conflict that needed resolution, another lesson that needed to be taught or learned.
The journey never truly ends, Li Yuan mused as he began walking down the mountain path that would lead him to an unknown region. As long as there are humans, there will always be injustice that needs to be faced, suffering that needs to be overcome, and opportunities for growth that need to be facilitated.
And I will continue walking, observing, understanding, and sometimes—just sometimes—intervening when injustice becomes too extreme to be ignored.
Not because I see myself as a savior. Not because I think I have all the answers. But because after fifteen thousand years, I have learned that silence in the face of cruelty is its own form of participation.
And I have chosen not to be silent.
The sun continued to rise, driving away the shadows of the night and bringing new light to the world. Li Yuan walked with a steady pace, carrying with him the memory of the Tianshan Kingdom—the faces he had met, the choices he had witnessed, and the lessons he had learned.
In his Zhenjing, the eighteen understandings continued to resonate in a complex harmony. Seventeen had fully matured in the Ganjing Realm, and one—the Understanding of Water—had reached the Wenjing Realm. And in a distant corner, the small sprout of the nineteenth understanding continued to grow at an almost imperceptible pace, waiting for its time to blossom—or perhaps never to blossom, and that was okay too.
Because cultivation, like life itself, is not about reaching a final destination. It is about the journey, about the process of becoming, about the willingness to continue growing and changing even after thousands of years.
And Li Yuan, who had walked for fifteen thousand years and would walk for thousands more, continued to step forward into the vast world—a world full of different races and nations, diverse languages and cultures, conflict and harmony, cruelty and compassion.
A world that always had new lessons to teach, even to someone who had lived long enough to see the cycles of history repeat themselves many times over.
And behind the trail he left, in the Tianshan Kingdom that was slowly disappearing on the horizon, the people he had met continued to write their own story—a story that might end in victory or tragedy, with wisdom or destruction, with meaningful transformation or a return to old patterns.
But it was their story to write.
And Li Yuan, the wanderer who had seen too much to stop believing in the possibility of change but was too wise to expect perfection, continued his endless journey.
One step at a time.
One community at a time.
One lesson at a time.
Forever.