Chapter 7 – The Spark Beneath the Skin
The forest had grown quiet.
No birdsong. No breeze. Just the sound of Wei Lian's shallow breathing and the faint crackle of a dying fire behind him. His body was a mess of bruises and shallow cuts. His legs trembled from stillness, and blood dried in the folds of his robe.
But he didn't stop.
He sat cross-legged, hunched over a dull, cracked Qi stone in his palm.
He focused.
Not on thoughts. Not on pain.
On silence.
He waited for the world to speak again—for that faint warmth he'd felt two nights ago, just once, like the breath of something ancient brushing against his skin.
But the world remained cold.
He tried everything.
He struck his arms with a stick until the nerves sang. He dug his fingers into the calluses on his hands. He pressed the stone against the old scar on his chest, the one from the beating that nearly killed him.
Nothing.
Still too shallow, he thought. Still not enough.
And then, as the sky turned crimson with dawn—
It came.
Not with thunder. Not with light.
A flicker.
Barely a ripple beneath his skin.
Like warm rain touching bone.
His heart jumped. His breath caught.
The stone in his hand no longer felt empty. It buzzed—quietly, almost imperceptibly—like something inside it had noticed him.
He wasn't imagining it. He couldn't be.
He had touched it again.
Qi.
Hours later, Shen Beijun returned from wherever he vanished each night. His robe was flecked with dirt, his sword clean. He tossed Lian a strip of dried meat and a flask of bitter-smelling tea.
"You look like a corpse."
Lian didn't respond immediately. He was staring at his hand.
"I felt it."
Shen raised an eyebrow.
"Describe it."
"A tremor. A thread. I couldn't hold it, but I knew it was there."
Shen sat across from him, arms folded.
"Then the silence is breaking. Slowly. You're not cultivating yet—not truly—but you're close. Close enough that your body's starting to remember what it never knew."
"Is that how it begins?" Lian asked.
"No. It begins when you force that thread to obey."
"And how?"
"You breathe. You endure. You draw the Qi through your flesh and force it to stay. Fail, and you tear yourself apart. Succeed, and you enter the First Layer of Qi Refinement."
He leaned forward slightly.
"And then the path truly starts."
That night, Shen stared into the fire while Lian tried again.
No pain this time.
Just breath. Just stillness.
He let the stone rest against his chest and sank deeper into the sensation of emptiness. Into the world's rhythm.
For a moment, he felt as if he were falling—not physically, but inward. Deeper than blood. Deeper than thought.
And in that place, he felt it again.
Stronger now.
Qi flowed not just into him, but around him. A tide, indifferent and vast. A sea he couldn't hope to command… yet.
But he could feel its edge.
And that was enough.
"Tomorrow," Shen said, "we head east. Xuandao Sect trials are in two weeks."
"And you want me to join?" Lian asked.
"I want you to survive."
"I'll enter."
Shen looked at him, amused.
"They'll mock you."
"Let them."
"They might beat you."
"They won't be the first."
"And if they try to kill you?"
Lian didn't blink.
"Then I'll learn what I need to kill them back."
Later, long after Shen had laid down to sleep beneath the trees, Wei Lian stayed awake, staring at the stars.
He clenched the Qi stone.
He had no spirit root. No awakened meridians. No future, if the world had its way.
But now, he had one thing no one could take from him.
The beginning.