In the seventh spring of Yan Shen's life, the sky over Qinghe turned a bruised, iron grey. Thunder rumbled continuously, a deep-throated growl that promised a storm it never delivered. The air grew heavy and still, charged with a tension that had nothing to do with the weather.
The village elders, their faces etched with a lifetime of reading omens in cloud shapes and bird flights, declared it a sign. Not of doom or blessing, but of significance. A change was coming.
The news spread through the village like wildfire: the Sect of the Verdant Willow was sending an emissary. Once every couple of years, they descended from their mist-shrouded mountain to backwaters like Qinghe. Their purpose was not charity, nor was it to recruit. It was an inventory. They came to measure the children who had reached their seventh year, to see if any contained the faint, precious spark of a spiritual root. It was the day of the Spiritual Root Evaluation.
For the children of Qinghe, it was the most important day of their young lives.
The village square was cleaned, a formality that did little to erase the ingrained poverty of the place. The children were scrubbed raw and dressed in their least-patched clothing. A nervous energy buzzed in the air, a mix of parental hope and childish anxiety.
Yan Shen watched it all with the detached calm of a strategist surveying a battlefield. He was a seven-year-old vessel containing a soul that had demanded power from a god. This provincial test was a mere stepping stone, but it was a necessary one. It was his first chance to gauge the measuring stick of this world.
The other children were bundles of raw nerves. Wei Lu, ever the boaster, puffed out his chest. "I'll have a golden root! The strongest! They'll take me to their palace on a cloud!"
Min, her eyes wide, shook her head. "No, fire! I'll have a fire root so strong I'll make the stone explode!"
Even Lanlan, usually a pillar of quiet composure, stood a little straighter, her usual serene expression touched by a faint, unfamiliar hope. She glanced at the empty space in the square where the testing would happen, a flicker of yearning in her dark eyes.
Yan Shen said nothing. He simply observed. But inside, the consciousness of Dren was acutely alert.
Would their crude stone see what I have spent years conversing with? he wondered. The Qi he had learned to feel was subtle, deep, and silent. It was the breath between breaths, the pulse beneath the pulse. These sect men, he suspected, looked for something louder. They sought a bonfire, not the steady, hidden heat of the earth's core. He doubted their instrument was refined enough to detect the nature of his existence.
Still, he would stand for the test. He would not hide. He needed to see their reaction.
The emissary arrived not with a flourish, but with a dismissive silence. He was a man of middling years, his robes a dull green, his face sharp and unreadable. He offered no greetings, no words of encouragement. His name, someone whispered, was Elder Yun. He carried a single object: a stone tablet, about the size of a large ledger, its surface grey and unremarkable save for a series of faint, silvery veins that traced through it like frozen lightning. This was the Testing Stone, embedded with a low-grade Qi-sensing formation.
The ceremony was brutally efficient. Elder Yun placed the stone on a simple wooden stand and gestured for the first child to approach.
One by one, they stepped forward.
Min went first, her earlier bravado gone, replaced by trembling hands. She placed her palm on the cold stone. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a faint, muddy yellow light glowed from within the stone's veins. "Earth root. Unstable. Low potential," Elder Yun stated, his voice flat. Min's shoulders slumped as she shuffled away.
Wei Lu was next, his face pale. He slammed his hand onto the tablet with false confidence. A weak, sickly green light flickered hesitantly. "Wood root. Unstable. Low potential." The pronouncement broke Wei Lu's bluster completely. He looked like he'd been struck.
Most children showed no reaction at all. The stone remained dark and inert, and they were waved away with a dismissive flick of Elder Yun's wrist.
Then, it was Lanlan's turn. She walked forward calmly, her quiet dignity a stark contrast to the others. She placed her hand on the stone with a gentle certainty.
The reaction was immediate and different. The stone didn't just glow; it shimmered. A soft, white-blue light emanated from within, clean and clear, like sunlight through deep water. It pulsed gently, rhythmically, a soothing, harmonious energy.
Elder Yun's eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. It was the first hint of emotion he had shown. "Water root. Very good harmony. Stable. Not bad at all." It was high praise, coming from him. A murmur of awe ran through the crowd. Lanlan withdrew her hand, a small, genuine smile touching her lips for the first time that day.
Finally, it was Yan Shen's turn. He stepped forward, his movements economical and precise. His heart was a steady drumbeat in his chest, his mind clear and focused. He placed his palm flat on the stone's surface.
It was cold.
For a long moment, absolutely nothing happened. The stone was dead under his touch. Elder Yun began to look bored, ready to wave him away as another null.
But then, Yan Shen felt it. A deep, internal shiver that traveled from the stone up through his arm. It wasn't a visible vibration, but a sensation in his spirit. The stone was trying to pull, to draw out the energy within him, but it was like trying to siphon an ocean through a straw. The formation inside the stone was completely overwhelmed.
A flicker of light sparked erratically across the surface: a stuttering, chaotic burst. The silvery veins lit up, but not with a single color. Gold, green, blue, red, silver- a scrambled mess of conflicting hues bled into one another, twisting and merging in a violent, silent struggle. The tablet itself gave a single, sharp, painful pulse of energy that Yan Shen felt in his teeth.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.
Everything went dark. The stone was just a cold, grey rock again. A faint wisp of smoke curled from its surface.
Silence hung over the square, thicker than the storm-threatened air.
Elder Yun leaned forward, his narrow eyes sharp with genuine confusion. He brushed his fingers over the stone's surface, checking for heat or damage.
"…That's… unusual," he muttered, more to himself than to anyone. He looked at Yan Shen for the first time, not with interest, but with the look of a man who has encountered a puzzling technical fault. He cleared his throat, straightening his robes, and reverted to his official tone.
"Spiritual presence unstable. No discernible affinity detected. Null."
He motioned sharply for Yan Shen to move on, his attention already moving past him, as if the boy were a corrupted data point to be discarded.
Yan Shen withdrew his hand. There was no disappointment on his face, only a deep, analytical coldness. The result was not a rejection; it was an indictment. Their tool was too primitive. It was designed to measure single, simple elements. It could not comprehend what he was, what the entity had forged him into. He was not a single note; he was the entire symphony, and their stone had shattered trying to hear it.
As the evening drew in, the evaluations concluded. The villagers dispersed, their chatter a mix of excitement for Lanlan and pity for the others. The children drifted back to their homes, their futures seemingly decided.
Yan Shen remained under the old pine tree, watching. He saw Elder Yun gesture for Lanlan to remain behind. He saw the man's demeanor shift from bored official to something more considering.
The Elder waited until the last of the villagers had drifted away before he spoke, his voice low, meant only for her. "Girl. Come here."
Lanlan approached him again, her head respectfully bowed.
"Your root is stable. Pure Water. A good foundation," Elder Yun said, his tone no longer dismissive, but direct and instructional. "But a root is just a seed. It means nothing without the right method to grow it." From within his sleeve, he withdrew a plain scroll tied with a faded green ribbon. "This is a foundational Qi-gathering technique. It is neutral. It will not empower you quickly, but it will not lead you astray. It teaches stability, not strength. Boring, but essential."
Lanlan accepted the scroll with both hands, her grip careful. "Thank you, Immortal Elder."
Elder Yun studied her for a long moment, his gaze sharp. "I am Lu Yun, an Outer Hall Elder of the Verdant Willow Sect. My duty is to identify talent that might otherwise be… overlooked." He paused, letting the title and its implication hang in the air. "I have marked your name. If you cultivate with this method and show satisfactory progress within three years, a disciple-recruiting team will return. You will be tested for direct entry as an inner sect disciple."
Lanlan's breath caught. An inner sect disciple? That was beyond any hope anyone in Qinghe had ever dared to have.
Lu Yun's expression hardened slightly. "Do not mistake this for a guarantee. I have merely opened a door. The one who comes will test you themselves. They will not care about my recommendation if your foundation is weak. You must cultivate cleanly. Train properly. Endure quietly. No excuses. No help. Do you understand?"
Lanlan bowed deeply, her forehead nearly touching the ground. "This one understands, Elder. I will not waste this opportunity."
"See that you don't," Lu Yun said. Then he turned and walked away, his figure soon swallowed by the twilight shadows of the mountain path.
Lanlan stood alone for a long moment, the scroll clutched tightly to her chest. The weight of his words was immense. Then, she turned and her eyes found Yan Shen's under the pine tree. There was no gloating in her gaze, only a shared understanding of the day's gravity, now mixed with a deep, sober responsibility.
She walked over and sat beside him, the way she always did. She didn't speak at first, just held the scroll in her lap.
"He told me to stay," she began, her voice soft. "He said my root was stable. Pure Water." She repeated Elder Yun's words almost verbatim, her memory sharp. "He gave me this. He said it's a foundational method. That it's boring, but it won't lead me astray."
Yan Shen listened, his expression unchanged, taking in every detail.
"His name is Lu Yun. He's an Outer Hall Elder. He… he marked my name." Her voice held a note of awe. "He said if I use this and make progress in three years, they'll come back for me. To test me for… for the inner sect."
She finally looked at him, the full weight of it in her eyes. "He said there are no excuses. No help. I have to do it on my own."
There was a long silence. Then, she extended the scroll toward him. "I'll share it with you," she said, her voice firm. She meant it. It was her key to everything, and her first instinct was to offer him a copy.
Yan Shen didn't look at the scroll. His gaze was on the path the Elder had taken. "No," he said, his voice quiet but absolute. "It's yours."
A small frown creased her brow. "But why? We can both learn from it. We can..."
"You'll need it more than I do," he interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "He gave you a timeline. A path. You can't deviate from it."
She studied his face, her head tilted. "Why? What will you do?"
He finally looked at her, his expression unreadable. "Because someone is coming for you," he stated. "No one is coming for me. My path will be different."
The truth of it hung in the air between them. She had been given a map. He would have to draw his own.
Lanlan was silent, absorbing his words. She looked down at the foundational Qi-gathering method in her hands, its simplicity suddenly seeming vast and intimidating. Her voice was a hesitant whisper. "…What if I get stuck?"
Yan Shen didn't even pause. "Then I'll take a look."
She blinked, surprised by the immediate, certain offer. "You will?"
He gave a single, short nod. "Only if you're stuck."
A slow, relieved smile touched her lips. It was a pact. "Okay."
And so they sat together as dusk deepened into night, two children under an ancient tree. One held a scroll that was her ticket to a destined future within the sect's walls. The other held nothing but the silent, unmeasured potential within himself, and the first embers of a plan to seize a future no one was going to give him.