Breath.
Not merely air flowing in and out.Not simply the boundary between life and death.
To Li Yuan, breath was the bridge—between awareness and the world.
He sat cross-legged in the stone garden, surrounded by perfect stillness.Leaves swayed in the wind,but his body remained calm.
Only one thing moved:his breath.
His breath flowed like water—gentle on the surface, calm and serene,yet within it ran a hidden current:powerful and unseen.
Like an underground river that wears away stone—without making a sound.
A student tried to imitate him.
He mirrored Li Yuan's posture.Matched the rhythm of breath he observed.
But…
"Why does my breath feel shallow?""Why can't my body melt into the silence like his?"
Behind a bamboo wall, Wen Zhi watched.A faint smile touched his lips as he whispered:
"That kind of breath… can't be taught.""It's not a technique. It's the result of understanding.""He has understood flow.Understood stillness.Understood presence—and absence."
Li Yuan's breath could not be imitated.Not because it was complex—but because he was breathing with his soul.
It was no longer the chest that rose and fell—but his awareness,flowing into everything around him.
"This breath is not mine," he thought."I'm only borrowing it… from the world."
When he inhaled—nature responded.When he exhaled—everything returned to stillness.
The other students slowly stepped back,moved by an unspoken reverence.
They didn't fully understand—but they felt something.
Something that pulled them into silence.Something beyond form.
That day, many tried to imitate Li Yuan's breath.
Not one succeeded.
Because that breath…was not meant to be copied.
It was meant to beunderstood.