Bai Feng washed his hands in the Jing–Hang Canal until the water turned murky. His face still bore the splashes from the night before — but his eyes were clear, deep as a bottomless well. He returned to the orphanage before the first crow could sing.
He passed through the creaking gate and stepped onto the hard-packed dirt floor where he had grown like a weed. He entered silently. Aunt Ru snored, buried beneath worn blankets. The children slept piled together, breathing softly, dreaming dreams he could no longer have.
He went to the corner where he kept his bundle — an old blanket, two spare sets of clothes, the root tea Fa Xian had given him, and a knife with a splintered handle. He paused for a moment, listening to the wood in the ceiling groan, the sigh of someone turning in their sleep.
He ran his hand over the crates that served as a wardrobe, grabbed a piece of charcoal, and discreetly scratched a single word on the wall: "Root."
At the orphanage gate, he stopped. He turned, looking inside — at the muck that was home. He whispered to the wind:"If the wind cannot carry stone... let it learn to carve it."
He turned his back and disappeared into the mist before the sun could rise.
The cave lay beyond the slopes of the Golden Temple, hidden in a cliffside where moss devoured everything. It was damp, cold, smelled of mildew — but inside, the wind could not reach him so easily. And that was what he wanted: silence. Stone. Darkness.
Bai Feng lit the clay lamp Fa Xian had given him, sat on the hard floor, crossed his legs, and drew a deep breath.
Meanwhile, far away, thunder rattled through the jade corridors of the Blood Lotus Sect. Qiu Xian, clad in a purple robe, cultivated in his bamboo courtyard when a messenger knelt in the snow.
"Lord Qiu Xian... Magistrate Luo Niejin calls for your presence. He says an old favor must be repaid."
Qiu Xian opened his eyes — two shards of liquid jade, deep and indifferent."And why does he disturb me?" he asked, his voice never rising.
The servant trembled."It is... about his son. The young master... was killed."
A heavy silence settled over the bamboo grove.
Qiu Xian sighed, rising as if he stood taller than the hills."Ready my horse," he said simply. "The valley wind will carry a debt tonight."
Two days later, Qiu Xian stood before Luo Niejin. The mansion's hall was dark, candles burned low, shadows danced across walls painted with carp and dead flowers.
Luo Niejin held a cup of wine but did not drink. His eyes were red, his voice restrained — like lava trapped in a volcano."Master Qiu..." he rasped. "My son rots on a pyre, while the cur who killed him breathes the same air I do."
Qiu Xian watched the man from behind half-closed lids."A cur," he repeated, in a neutral tone. "And you wish me to sacrifice him to soothe your grief?"
Luo Niejin slammed the cup onto the table, spilling the crimson wine."I want his head," he growled. "I want his root torn out. His seed crushed into the mud that birthed him. If you do this... my debt turns to dust."
Qiu Xian turned, looking at the darkened lanterns. His lips curved in a smile so thin it seemed like a cut."If he still breathes, I will find him," he said. "But stones can hide seeds for a while. The wind, though... always finds a crack."
He left without waiting for an answer. The sound of his sandals echoed through the cold corridors of the mansion.
In the cave, Bai Feng's chest pulsed like a buried ember. Every day, Bai Feng breathed the wind, absorbed the mountain's mist, and drank water from the spring dripping through the rock. His body sharpened, his muscles turned to living cords, and his bones seemed like dry wood soaking up sap.
Yet no matter how deep he dug inside himself, the breath struck an invisible wall. Day after day. Night after night.
Time left its marks. The stone wall became covered in charcoal scratches — Bai Feng, on nights when his mind burned, scribbled crooked ideograms: "Wind," "Root," "Flower," "Sky." Each word was a knot in his chest — each breath, a blade carving the same hole without breaking the final rock.
His hands, once steady, now bore cracked calluses from bracing his body in meditation. Sometimes, he would stand, strike the air, shape postures he had learned watching monks at the Golden Temple.
The wind within him swirled — vibrated, but did not break through.
One dawn, exhausted from trying, Bai Feng leaned back against the damp wall. He stared at the nearly spent lamp, the flame that stubbornly refused to die. He murmured to the emptiness:"What is the wind... if it finds no passage?"
He closed his eyes. And, for the first time, he dreamed awake:
In the dream, he stood in a field of bamboo bent by a raging gale. At the center of the storm — a stone, unmoving.
He understood, dimly, that the wind does not destroy the stone by pushing. The wind hollows it out, curves around it, dances until, one day, the stone is no longer stone — but dust.
He woke to the cold breeze on his forehead, but the revelation did not come whole. He still did not know how to turn breath into the blade that pierces his own limit.
Meanwhile, not far away, Qiu Xian prowled like a night lynx. He did not mingle with the mercenaries — they were too noisy. He preferred to hunt alone, feel the wind, and read invisible tracks.
Sometimes he perched on a high branch, looking down at the valley — and, deep inside, he knew the boy still breathed.
Months passed.
And neither Qiu Xian, nor the guards, nor the scouts found a trace of the mist-haired boy.
The Magistrate pounded his fists on scattered maps, scratching trails, burning useless reports."Search the sewers, the temples, the mountains!" he roared. "Bring me every beggar, every alley rat who's seen a boy with eyes of wind!"
When the guards failed, came the mercenaries — men without honor, willing to sell blades for the echo of a coin. They swept through taverns, inns, caves around Xīwàng — but always found only wind.
Each lead ended in nothing, each rumor died with sunrise.
One night, Qiu Xian approached the Luo Mansion, unannounced. He found Magistrate Luo Niejin hunched over a pile of heads — bandits, beggars, informants who brought nothing.
"Master Qiu," Luo greeted him without looking up. His voice was raw, his beard unshaven."See what they bring me? Wind. Dust. Rats. But not the rat I want."
Qiu Xian said nothing. He simply swirled a finger in a cup of wine, contemplating the moon.
Luo Niejin slammed the table. Wine splashed, spotting the papers."I want him rotting in a pit!" he spat. "I want every worm of the Jing–Hang Canal to eat what's left of him!"
His voice trembled — not with fear, but with pure hatred, boiled drop by drop.
Qiu Xian drew a slow breath."The stone is patient," he said neutrally. "The wind is treacherous."
"He is not wind!" Luo snarled. "He is filthy mud that dared touch my blood!"
For a moment, Qiu Xian smiled — slight, cold."Then let me sweep him away," he whispered. "But to sweep the wind, you must know where it blows."
He turned, the purple folds of his robe drifting like mist.
Behind him, Luo Niejin murmured:"Bring me his heart, Master Qiu. Bring me his head. Bring me the seed that cur dares to call a root."
By the end of the third month, the sky weighed heavy. Cold rains fell on the slopes, washing moss and dead animal bones near the cave.
Inside, Bai Feng opened his eyes — sunken, but clearer than ever. Outside, the wind howled — inside, he felt only the same invisible wall.
He pressed his forehead to the cold rock, murmured:"Something's missing. A whisper. A crack in the stone."
He drew a deep breath, feeling each heartbeat spread warmth down to his navel, where the Celestial Seed glowed, restless.
He knew — it was no longer a matter of strength, but of understanding how breath becomes a bridge.
Outside, raindrops dripped, marking time. The mercenary net tightened. The Magistrate lost sleep. Qiu Xian watched from afar, patient as a coiled viper.
And the wind, inside the cave, breathed with Bai Feng — waiting for the moment it would become more than breath.
Outside the cave, the world breathed thunder. Lightning split the valley sky, illuminating bare trees, black rocks like gravestones.
Inside, Bai Feng heard each crash like his own heart trying to break the stone.
For three months, the wind was his only companion. For three months, the Celestial Seed fattened on silence — but refused to bloom.
One moonless night, Bai Feng left the cave. He descended to a shallow stream, washed his gaunt face, and stared at the rippling reflection.
He murmured, hoarse:"The wind hollows... but hollowing alone is not enough, is it?"
Drops fell from his chin like cold dew.
He closed his eyes.
In his mind, he saw the Jing–Hang Canal — wide, muddy, but now turned into an endless current.
He saw the stone in the middle of the flow, intact, indifferent.
And a question throbbed like a drum:"How does the wind open a path without breaking? What is the Tao but the void between breath and boulder?"
He drew a deep breath, letting his chest ache from so much air."Am I only wind... or am I the crack?" he whispered.
But the answer did not come.
Behind him, thunder tore through the valley — a flash revealed, for an instant, a figure on a distant rock. A shadow in a purple robe.
Qiu Xian, crouched like a crow, watching in silence.
When the lightning vanished, Bai Feng felt a chill at the nape of his neck — but saw nothing.
He returned to the cave.
On the way, he spotted fresh tracks — wide footprints, heavy boots.
Mercenaries prowled, sniffing like starving dogs.
Re-entering the damp hole, Bai Feng realized the net was too close to ignore. He had to break through — not only to survive, but to prove the wind does not die in the swamp.
He sat, legs crossed, back straight despite his exhausted body.
He drew a deep breath.
Let his mind sink into the inner breath.
For the first time, a flicker:
A memory of Abbot Mingxu, his voice echoing like a distant drum:"The wind is void. The void is bridge. The bridge links what is stone to what is dust."
Bai Feng opened his eyes. He smiled — a small smile, cracked, but alive."Almost there," he whispered, to the wind, to the rock, to himself. "Almost there."
Outside, mercenaries lit torches on the slope. Qiu Xian moved like a shadow. And Magistrate Luo, in his mansion, crushed the armrest of his chair until he bled.
The whole cave seemed to pulse, as if it held the first breath of a greater storm.
In Bai Feng's chest, the Celestial Seed flickered — hungry, ready to bite through the veil of what comes next.
The warm breath of torches flickered like a serpent of fire along the slope. Mercenaries prowled the cliff, sniffing for traces, stepping on damp branches that snapped like old bones.
Above them, atop a dew-soaked rock, Qiu Xian watched. Heavy purple robe, wide sleeves gathering the wind as if it were part of him. His half-closed eyes — two shards of jade, unyielding.
Deep in the cave, Bai Feng was a living stone. Seated, legs crossed, his chest heaved in a rhythm that was not fear — but waiting.
The Celestial Seed burned in spirals, digging deeper, hungrier. But it was not yet a bridge — not yet a blade.
Outside, the wind drummed the stones, announcing distant thunder.
Qiu Xian stepped down from the rock, one step at a time — his purple robe streaming night and silence.
When he stepped into the mud beside the mercenaries, none dared speak. They merely parted, their dirty hands trembling around their torches.
He stopped at the mouth of the cave — the damp breath inside drifted out like a beast's exhale.
Qiu Xian drew a slow breath, as if savoring the scent of a newly sprouted seed.
Inside, Bai Feng felt the air change color — a pressure not of the flesh.
It was a lineage he did not yet fully grasp — a root buried in a sky too large for earth.
Even wounded, exhausted, the breath within him was no longer merely mortal.
Not just a boy fleeing — but something deeper, something that had yet no name.
Abbot Mingxu's memory flickered again:"The wind is void. The void is bridge. The bridge binds stone and dust."
Bai Feng opened his eyes — no longer the same eyes the orphanage had known.
They were deep, silent, but carried a gleam that cut. A glimmer of a spring unseen — but breathing there, caged in thin flesh.
Qiu Xian entered the cave. Ran his fingers along the damp wall, feeling the cold moss, the warm breath.
Stopped a few steps from Bai Feng. Looked at him as one observes a crack opening in an ancient rock.
"Bai Feng," he said, his voice low, rough as a winter wind."You run like wind. But wind that grows no root is breath that is lost."
Bai Feng breathed. His chest rose slowly — as if it were larger than himself."And stone that does not listen to the wind..." he returned, his voice hoarse but clear. "Turns to dust alone."
For a moment, they were motionless — only the trembling lamp bore witness.
The breath inside Bai Feng spun — gnawed, curved, struck the wall.
But something deeper than the wall was there — something the wind could not push, but could open.
Qiu Xian raised his hand.
The purple sleeve fell back, revealing a jade bracelet.
His fingers opened — and the air seemed to gather around him.
"The Magistrate wants your head," he said, without hatred. "I want to see if your root is mere weed or tree."
Bai Feng did not move.
But the air around him vibrated — a cold heat, a breath that seemed alive.
Same level. Same thin body.
But Qiu Xian felt it — an invisible lightning between stone and breath.
Something that did not belong to a mud-born orphan.
Something that came from afar — too high for this ground.
Qiu Xian smiled — a thin cut at his lips.
"Then let's see," he whispered. "If the wind learns to cut stone... or turns to dust."
And he stepped forward.
Bai Feng tilted his body, drew in the cave's damp air —
In his chest, the Celestial Seed crackled like coal on the ember.
The breath within him spun — spun deeper, gnawing at the limit.
Outside, thunder cracked the valley — a flash lit the cliff, showing mercenaries clustered like vultures at the pit's edge.
Inside, the air quivered.
Bai Feng's eyes shone for an instant — a dull gleam, buried, but Qiu Xian saw it.
A flicker —A warning:
Same wind, same realm — but not the same sky.
Qiu Xian smiled again — and drew the short blade from his belt.
His first step rang on the wet stone.
The breath within Bai Feng answered — a crack, a cut, a hungry void.
The stone would feel the wind.
In the next instant, the world would explode.