The morning came with a chill that settled deep into the bone.
Shen An woke before the sun broke the treeline.
For a moment, he did not move.
He listened.
The forest exhaled mist. Insects softened their night chorus. Somewhere distant, a bird called once and fell silent.
He was still alive.
That realization no longer arrived with shock.
It arrived with assessment.
He flexed his fingers.
The cut on his left index finger had dried. The strip of cloth was stiff with blood but clean enough. No swelling. No fever.
Good.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the canopy overhead. Pale light filtered between branches.
His stomach did not gnaw with immediate desperation.
Better.
He sat up slowly.
The cracked bowl rested where he had left it.
Nothing unusual.
The iron staples along its seam looked ordinary again—dull, practical, unremarkable.
He reached for it, turning it slightly in his hands.
Still ugly.
Still broken.
Still usable.
He set it down.
He did not know that something had settled into him the night before—something so faint it did not stir even the smallest ripple in his consciousness.
He only knew he felt… steadier.
The sensation was not strength.
It was not energy.
It was the absence of shaking.
He extinguished the last of the embers, scattering ash carefully. No need to invite attention.
He packed what little he had and began walking again.
By midday, the forest thinned into rocky terrain.
He walked without direction beyond survival.
The sect was far behind him now.
The boy who had once stood beneath carved stone gates no longer existed.
Or so he believed.
The sun climbed.
Heat replaced the morning frost.
He rationed the remaining roasted meat carefully.
Every bite required calculation.
When thirst returned, he searched for water.
He found it in a shallow stream winding between stone outcroppings.
He knelt and washed his hands first.
Cold.
Clear.
He filled the cracked bowl and let the water sit for a moment.
There was a habit forming now.
A pause before drinking.
He did not know why.
He lifted it and drank.
The water felt… full.
Not flavored.
Not warmer.
But it settled deeper than expected.
He frowned faintly.
Perhaps hunger had sharpened his senses too much.
He washed the bowl again and stood.
Toward late afternoon, clouds gathered without warning.
Wind shifted direction abruptly.
Storm.
He scanned the terrain.
Open rock offered little protection.
He moved quickly toward a small cluster of trees leaning against a low cliff face.
Rain began in scattered drops.
Then heavier.
Within minutes, it became relentless.
He wedged himself between the cliff and the roots of a large tree, using his body to shield the bowl and small bundle.
Cold seeped into his clothes rapidly.
His teeth clenched.
This was not sect rain—filtered by formations, softened by protective arrays.
This was an indifferent sky.
Lightning cracked in the distance.
He counted breaths between flash and thunder.
Closer than comfortable.
Water streamed along the cliff face and pooled near his feet.
He shifted position.
Slipped—
And slammed hard onto his side as mud gave way beneath him.
Pain exploded along his ribs.
He gasped sharply, struggling to pull air back into his lungs.
The rain did not pause.
He forced himself upright, leaning heavily against stone.
He pressed his fingers against his ribs.
No sharp instability.
Bruised.
He exhaled slowly through his nose.
He had fallen twice in two days.
Once, such clumsiness would have been unthinkable.
Without qi, the body was merely flesh.
And flesh was unreliable.
He endured the storm without further movement.
Time blurred under the gray sky.
When the rain finally softened to a drizzle, the world felt colder than before.
He was soaked through.
Shivering began soon after.
He gathered fallen branches with stiff fingers and attempted to build a fire again.
Everything was wet.
Sparks died repeatedly.
His hands trembled harder now—not from hunger.
From cold.
He crouched lower, shielding the tiny ember he managed to coax alive.
It sputtered.
Nearly vanished.
He leaned closer, breathing gently.
"Not yet," he muttered.
The ember caught a thin strand.
Flame wavered weakly.
He fed it patiently, slowly, carefully.
It grew.
Not strong.
But enough.
He extended both hands toward it.
Heat touched his skin.
He closed his eyes briefly.
His breathing steadied again.
The trembling lessened faster than expected.
He noticed that.
Again.
His frown deepened slightly.
The recovery felt disproportionate.
He should have been colder.
Weaker.
But warmth seemed to settle inside him more deeply than mere surface heat allowed.
He glanced at the cracked bowl beside him.
Rainwater still clung to its rim.
He lifted it.
Drank.
Warmth expanded outward from his chest again—subtle but undeniable.
He stared into the bowl.
His reflection looked back at him—mud-streaked, thinner, older than his years.
He shook his head faintly.
"Imagination," he said quietly.
He needed no miracles.
He needed fire.
He leaned back against the cliff and watched the small flames.
Night would come soon.
He would have to endure another cold stretch.
He chewed a small portion of meat.
Slowly.
Every movement measured.
Darkness settled heavily after the storm.
Clouds obscured the stars.
The forest felt closer.
More intimate.
He kept the fire small.
The crackling sound became a companion to his breathing.
For the first time since leaving the sect, a thought pressed at him without bitterness.
He missed conversation.
Not praise.
Not competition.
Just voices.
He had not realized how loud silence could be.
He listened to his own breath.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Simple.
Unadorned.
Without qi, there was no internal current to drown out the sound.
Just air moving in and out of his lungs.
He focused on it.
Breathing was survival.
Breathing required no cultivation manual.
Breathing did not care about spiritual roots.
It continued whether one was a genius or a castaway.
He leaned his head back against the stone.
The cracked bowl rested near his knee.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep came slower this night.
Not from discomfort.
From awareness.
He was beginning to understand something he had never been forced to understand before.
Strength without foundation was fragile.
Qi without a body was hollow.
When he had first attempted the third circulation, he believed will alone could force a breakthrough.
He had been wrong.
Here, in cold and mud, will meant little without practical action.
Fire required patience.
Food required traps.
Shelter required positioning.
Each small survival demanded observation.
He wondered, briefly—
If cultivation had always been like this.
And he had simply ignored the mortal part of it.
Wind passed overhead.
He tightened his cloak.
His breathing remained steady.
No dream came.
But somewhere beneath conscious thought, something within him continued adjusting.
Not expanding.
Not flaring.
Settling.
Like sediment finding its place at the bottom of still water.
The night passed quietly.
And Shen An endured it without complaint.
The third morning arrived without ceremony.
Shen An woke to damp earth and the faint ache in his ribs reminding him of yesterday's fall.
He did not curse it.
Pain was confirmation.
Confirmation meant awareness.
He rose slowly, stretching his arms above his head. Muscles protested but obeyed.
The forest felt different after rain.
Quieter.
Tracks would show more clearly now.
He extinguished the embers and scanned the ground nearby.
Footprints.
Not his.
Small.
Cloven.
He crouched lower.
Deer.
Recent.
He studied the spacing.
One animal. Not running. Moving cautiously.
His stomach tightened.
He had been reacting to hunger until now.
It was time to act before hunger dictated him.
He followed.
Not directly on the tracks—parallel.
The forest sloped downward gradually. He moved with patience, stepping where leaf litter was thickest.
Every snapped twig echoed too loudly in his ears.
Without qi to soften movement, he was loud.
He slowed further.
Breathing steady.
Listening.
A rustle ahead.
He froze.
There.
Between two trees, a young deer grazed, its ears twitching.
Too far to rush.
Too alert for a clumsy approach.
He did not possess a bow.
Only a small knife—barely more than a utility blade.
This would not be clean.
He crouched behind a fallen trunk and waited.
Minutes stretched.
He controlled his breathing the way he once controlled circulation.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Patience.
The deer shifted closer, drawn by fresh growth near a low bush.
Ten steps.
Eight.
Five.
Shen An did not think.
He moved.
A burst of speed.
The deer startled, bolting sideways—
He lunged and grabbed at its hind leg.
They both crashed to the ground in a violent tangle.
Hooves kicked.
One struck his shoulder hard enough to numb his arm.
He clung anyway.
The knife flashed in his hand.
He hesitated.
One breath too long.
The deer twisted.
Its eye met his.
Fear.
Wild and pure.
His grip tightened.
He drove the blade down.
Hot blood spilled over his hand.
The animal convulsed violently beneath him.
He held on.
He did not look away this time.
When it stopped moving, silence rushed in.
His chest heaved.
Not from exertion alone.
He rolled off and lay on his back, staring at the canopy.
Rainwater dripped from leaves.
He could feel the warmth of blood soaking into his sleeve.
His heart pounded slower.
Then slower still.
He sat up.
The deer lay still.
Small.
Younger than he expected.
He swallowed once.
Survival had weight.
He cleaned the blade carefully on the grass.
Then began the work.
Skinning took longer than expected.
His fingers slipped more than once.
He cut himself lightly near the thumb.
A shallow slice.
He ignored it.
The smell of blood thickened the air.
He worked methodically.
Not wasting meat.
Not wasting effort.
By midday, he had secured what he could carry.
The rest he buried beneath stones.
Scavengers would find it.
That was acceptable.
He built a small fire and began roasting a portion.
Fat dripped into the flame, crackling.
The smell made his stomach twist painfully.
He waited.
Raw hunger had taught him patience.
When he finally ate, he forced himself to chew slowly.
Energy returned like a distant tide.
Subtle.
But real.
He reached for the cracked bowl and filled it with stream water again.
His thumb still bled faintly.
A single drop fell into the bowl unnoticed.
He lifted it and drank.
Warmth unfurled once more from within.
More distinct this time.
Not heat.
Not qi.
Something quieter.
Like roots extending through soil.
He paused.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
There was no surge.
No power.
Only… depth.
He exhaled slowly.
"Strange."
He set the bowl down and continued eating.
Afternoon passed without incident.
With food secured for several days, clarity returned.
He needed direction.
Wandering would not sustain him long-term.
The sect lands lay north.
He would not return.
Not yet.
East held mountains.
West, according to maps he faintly remembered, led toward scattered villages beyond the outer territories.
Villages meant people.
People meant danger.
Or opportunity.
He weighed both.
He could not cultivate openly.
He could not reveal weakness either.
He was fifteen.
Old enough to pass as an apprentice.
Young enough to be underestimated.
He gathered what meat he could carry and began moving west.
Near dusk, he heard voices.
Faint.
Carried by the wind.
He stopped immediately and lowered himself into the brush.
Two men.
Laughing.
Travelers.
Their clothes were rough-spun, patched.
One carried a spear.
The other, a bow.
Hunters.
Not cultivators.
Shen An watched from the shadows.
They spoke of poor catches, of storms ruining traps.
Of debts owed in a nearby village.
Ordinary concerns.
The words felt distant.
He had once debated cultivation theories with disciples who argued about the nature of spiritual resonance.
These men argued about drying firewood.
He felt no superiority.
Only distance.
The hunters passed without noticing him.
When they were gone, Shen An remained still for several breaths.
His heartbeat had quickened more than necessary.
Not fear.
Instinct.
He was no longer protected by identity.
If discovered alone in the forest with blood on his sleeves—
Questions would follow.
He moved only when silence returned fully.
Night found him near a low ridge overlooking a faint dirt path.
He chose elevation for safety.
Built a small, concealed fire.
He ate sparingly.
The cracked bowl rested beside him again.
He turned it in his hands under the firelight.
The fractures caught the flame's reflections like faint veins.
When he ran his thumb over one seam, he felt… a pulse?
No.
He stilled.
Nothing.
Imagination.
Fatigue.
He shook his head.
He drank.
The familiar warmth came.
Stronger now.
Not enough to call it power.
But enough that he no longer dismissed it entirely.
He sat cross-legged without thinking.
Spine straight.
Breath slow.
He did not attempt to circulate qi.
He could not.
But he observed.
Inside.
There was quiet.
Where once spiritual pathways had hummed faintly, now there was emptiness.
Yet beneath that emptiness, something like soil existed.
Ground.
He had never felt ground before.
Only flow.
Flow was gone.
Ground remained.
He opened his eyes.
Firelight flickered.
Wind passed softly across the ridge.
For the first time since his expulsion, he did not feel like something broken.
He felt unfinished.
There was a difference.
He lay down slowly, his cloak wrapped tight.
Above him, clouds had parted enough to reveal a handful of stars.
He did not recognize their arrangement.
Or perhaps he had never looked long enough to memorize them.
His breathing deepened.
Sleep approached.
Before it took him fully, a thought brushed his mind lightly—
If strength must be rebuilt,
Perhaps it would not resemble what he lost.
Darkness claimed him.
And somewhere, far beyond conscious reach,
The cracked bowl cooled quietly beside him,
As if listening.