Chapter 6 – To Touch the Flow
The path to Willow Hollow was little more than twisted roots and scattered rocks. Pines loomed on both sides, dark and silent. The sky was a bleak grey.
Wei Lian limped behind Shen Beijun.
No words passed between them. Shen walked as if weightless, steps quiet, blade across his back. Lian followed, every step a jolt of pain through his ribs.
He didn't complain.
He didn't ask.
He remembered the names Shen had etched into the dirt.
Qi Refinement. Foundation Establishment. Golden Core…
But all of it might as well have been sky and stars. Distant. Untouchable.
By midday, they reached a clearing overlooking a half-collapsed bridge. Beyond it: smoke drifted from thatched rooftops. Distant screams cracked the air.
Willow Hollow.
Shen didn't hesitate.
"Stay here," he said.
"No," Wei Lian said.
Shen gave him a brief look, unreadable. Then turned and vanished into the treeline.
Moments later — chaos.
Screams. Steel clashing. Shouts turned to gurgles. It wasn't a fight. It was a slaughter.
When Shen returned, he wiped his blade with a rag.
"Weak," he muttered. "Leader was at the Fourth Layer of Foundation Establishment. The rest barely made it past Qi Condensation."
He sat by a stump and glanced at Lian.
"You still can't feel anything, can you?"
"No."
"That's normal. Until you reach the First Layer of Qi Refinement, you're deaf to the world."
He tossed over a small cloth pouch. Lian opened it — inside were three dull stones.
"Low-grade Qi stones. Trash to most. But enough to begin."
Lian held one.
It felt like… nothing. Cold. Lifeless.
"The first step isn't channeling Qi," Shen said. "It's feeling it. Sensing the world breathing around you."
"How?"
"Pain."
He stood and pointed to a nearby patch of ground — thorny bramble, sharp rocks, no shelter from the wind.
"Sit there. Hold the stone. Let the world tear at you. When your body breaks and your mind quiets, Qi might answer."
"If it doesn't?"
"Then break again."
Wei Lian sat among the thorns.
Day turned to night. Blood soaked his robe. Insects bit. The stone in his palm remained cold.
He didn't move.
He didn't sleep.
He waited.
The second day passed.
Still nothing.
No warmth. No flow. Just numbness, hunger, pain.
But he didn't stop.
On the third night—something changed.
A whisper.
Not a voice. Not a sound.
A sensation.
A thrum in the air. A faint warmth under his skin. Not his breath. Not his blood.
Qi.
It was everywhere.
Subtle. Shifting. Indifferent.
But it was there.
His eyes snapped open.
He had felt it.
For the first time, Wei Lian wasn't just a body in the dirt.
He had touched the world.
Shen Beijun stood watching from the shadows.
"Three days," he murmured. "Longer than I expected."
"What now?" Lian rasped, barely able to speak.
Shen smirked.
"Now, you bleed until it answers you back."