That morning came with a thin mist that hung in the valley like a transparent cloth covering the world with a softness—not concealing, but smoothing, making everything feel like it was between two states, on the boundary between what had passed and what was to come.
Li Yuan stood at the edge of Chen Ming's garden, his eyes—eyes the color of a chasm's depth, eyes that had made many people feel something like fascination or fear or awe when they looked into them—observing the rows of plants that were still neat even though no one had tended them for the past few days.
The seeds that Chen Ming had given him were in a small pouch hanging on his belt—cabbage seeds, carrot seeds, spinach seeds, all waiting to be planted, to continue the cycle that Chen Ming had started.
But Li Yuan would not plant them himself.
There was a farewell ritual that needed to be done first. There were people who needed to be told. There were responsibilities that needed to be handed over.
Auntie Zhou was the first person he met.
The old woman was cooking porridge in her simple kitchen when Li Yuan knocked gently. Her face still carried traces of sadness—slightly swollen eyes, lines a little deeper—but there was also something calmer now, something like an acceptance that was slowly settling after a storm of emotions.
"Li Yuan," she greeted him with a weak smile, wiping her hands on the cloth covering her waist. "Come in. I just made porridge. You have to eat before... before you go."
She stopped, her eyes searching Li Yuan's face with an unspoken concern.
"You're going, aren't you? I can feel it. There's something different in the way you move, in the way you look at this place. Like someone who is saying goodbye."
Li Yuan nodded gently, sitting on the wooden chair Auntie Zhou offered.
"Yes," he said with a quiet honesty. "I am going. But before I go, there is something I want to ask of you."
He took out the small pouch of seeds from his belt and placed it on the table carefully, as if the object were the most precious treasure.
"Chen Ming gave me this," he explained, his voice carrying the warmth of memory. "Seeds for the next season. He asked me to make sure they are planted, to make sure the garden is not empty."
"But I cannot do it myself. I must continue my journey. So I want to hand this responsibility over to you, Auntie Zhou. Will you take care of Chen Ming's garden? Will you plant these seeds and make sure life continues to grow there?"
Auntie Zhou looked at the pouch of seeds with eyes that began to moisten, her hands trembling as she took it with a gentleness that carried reverence.
"Of course," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion. "Of course I will take care of it. I will make sure Chen Ming's garden is never empty. I will... I will do this for him."
She stopped, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Thank you, Li Yuan. Thank you for coming to this valley. Thank you for making Chen Ming's last days not lonely. I don't know who you truly are—I know you are not just an ordinary wanderer—but I know you are kind. And I... I am grateful for that."
Li Yuan felt something tighten in his chest, but he only smiled gently.
"I am the one who is grateful," he said simply. "Chen Ming taught me more than he realized. And this community... this community showed me that kindness still exists, even in a small and forgotten place."
They sat together for a few more minutes, sharing porridge in a comfortable silence, and when Li Yuan finally stood to leave, Auntie Zhou gave him a brief hug—an awkward but sincere hug, one that carried all the gratitude that could not be spoken in words.
Mr. Wu and Wei were waiting for him near the old tree, as if they knew he would come there to say goodbye.
Wei stood with a straighter posture than before, his eyes—which once carried a thoughtless cruelty—now carried a seriousness that was beyond his age, carrying an awareness that he had learned something important, something he would carry for the rest of his life.
"Uncle Li Yuan," Wei greeted him with sincere respect. "Are you really going?"
"Yes," Li Yuan replied with gentleness. "My journey is not yet finished. There are things I still need to learn, places I still need to visit."
"But I want you to remember something, Wei," he continued, kneeling slightly so his eyes were level with the boy's. "What Chen Ming taught you—about kindness, about patience, about empathy—that is not just for now. It is something you need to carry for your whole life, something you need to teach your children someday."
"Chen Ming did not have children of his own. But he had a student. And you... you are one of his students. So Chen Ming's legacy lives through you, through how you choose to live, how you choose to treat others."
Wei nodded seriously, his eyes moist but not crying.
"I will remember, Uncle Li Yuan," he said in a voice that carried a sincere promise. "I will make Uncle Chen proud. I promise."
Mr. Wu placed his hand on Wei's shoulder with a gentleness, then he looked at Li Yuan with a gaze that carried a deep respect.
"Safe travels, Li Yuan," he said with simplicity. "Wherever you go, whatever you seek, I hope you find it. And if your journey ever brings you back to this valley someday, you will always be welcome."
Li Yuan felt the warmth of those words in a way that went beyond their literal meaning. This was a blessing, an acknowledgment, a way for this small community to say that he had become a part of them, even if only for a short time.
"Thank you," he said sincerely. "Thank you for everything."
He turned to leave, but before he took the first step, Wei ran forward and handed him something—a simple woven cord made of dry grass, made with unskilled hands but full of intention.
"This... this is for Uncle," Wei said shyly. "So Uncle remembers us. Remembers Uncle Chen. Remembers that... that people can change. That kindness is stronger than cruelty."
Li Yuan accepted the woven cord with both hands, his fingers touching the rough texture with a gentleness that carried reverence.
"I will carry it," he said in a voice choked with emotions he couldn't fully contain. "I will remember it always."
When Li Yuan left the valley, the sun had risen higher, burning away the morning mist and bringing clarity to the new day.
He walked with a steady but unhurried pace, Chen Ming's bamboo staff in his hand, Wei's woven cord tied to his wrist, the pouch of food that Auntie Zhou had forced him to take on his back.
He walked for a long time—past the valley, past the river, past the low hills and then the higher hills, until the valley became a memory behind him, until he arrived at a place that was far enough, quiet enough, isolated enough for what needed to be done.
A small forest at the foot of a mountain, with tall, lush trees, with sunlight filtering through the leaves with a gentleness that brought peace.
He found a large, flat stone in the middle of that forest, a place that felt right for a moment that would change everything.
Li Yuan sat with his back leaning against a thick tree trunk, his breath coming out slowly, his hands resting on his lap.
It was time.
He began with the body.
The consciousness body he had been projecting all this time had taken the form of a man in his thirties—a form that carried a certain maturity, a quiet authority, a steady presence. This was the form he had used for most of his journey, a form that made people treat him with respect without questioning too much.
But for this journey—for this life as a blind person who would learn to see in a new way—he needed something different.
Something younger. Something more vulnerable. Something that did not carry the assumption of power or authority.
He closed his eyes and felt the structure of his consciousness body—the resonance of the Understanding of the Body, Water, and Existence that formed it, that gave it substance and presence.
With extreme care, with an attention that carried a precision born from thousands of years of experience, he began to alter that resonance.
Not dramatically. Not with violence or pain.
Only with a gentleness that carried a transformation like water shaping a stone—slowly, consistently, inevitably.
His body began to change.
His height decreased slightly. His shoulders became a little narrower. His face became a little younger, losing the lines that carried age and experience, gaining a softness that came with youth.
When the transformation was complete, he looked like a young man of seventeen—still carrying a strange serenity for that age, but with a vulnerability that was absent in his older form, with a quality that made people want to protect rather than fear or respect from a distance.
Then, he raised his hand to his head.
The red headband—the simple cloth he had worn all this time, a cloth that carried the subtle but constant resonance of the Understanding of Existence, which gave an extra stability to his consciousness body projection—rested there like an unspoken identifier.
With a slow and deliberate motion, he removed the headband.
His black hair fell free, no longer tied, no longer constrained.
And by removing the headband, he released the resonance of the Understanding of Existence that had been instilled in it—not completely letting go of that Understanding from himself, but no longer using it as an extra anchor for his consciousness body.
He folded the red headband carefully and put it into the small pouch on his belt—stored, but not used, waiting for a time when he might need it again.
Now, he relied only on the core resonance—Body and Water—to maintain this projection. And that was enough. It was more than enough.
Finally, he was ready for the last step.
The most significant step. The step that could not be simply reversed.
Li Yuan opened his eyes—the deep gray eyes like a chasm, eyes that had seen sixteen thousand years of life, eyes that carried a depth that made many people feel something like fascination or discomfort when they looked into them for too long.
Eyes that had been his primary window to the world for so long that he could barely imagine living without them.
He closed his eyes once more and reached inside himself—not into his Zhenjing, but into the resonance that formed this consciousness body, into the structure that gave this projection its form.
With extreme caution, with an intention that carried unwavering certainty, he began to alter these eyes.
Not destroying. Not damaging.
Just... closing. Closing the visual pathway. Severing the connection between these physical eyes and the ability to see.
The process was not painful—a consciousness body does not feel pain like a physical body—but there was something that felt like a loss, like a door slowly being closed, like a light slowly being extinguished.
And then... darkness.
Complete darkness. Absolute darkness.
No light. No shapes. No colors.
Just an endless expanse of darkness that carried nothing but visual absence.
Li Yuan opened his eyes—or tried to open them—but there was no difference. His eyelids moved, but what he "saw" remained the same: perfect darkness.
He raised his hand in front of his face. Nothing. He could not see it.
He looked in the direction where he knew the sun was shining through the leaves. Nothing. He could not see the light.
He tried turning his head, searching for anything that might still be visible. Nothing. Just a consistent, unchanging darkness.
His eyes—he could feel them with his touch—had changed. The deep gray color had faded to a pale, almost transparent white. His pupils were empty, unfocused, not reflecting light as living eyes normally do.
He was now truly blind.
Just like Chen Ming.
Just as he had chosen to be.
For the first few minutes, there was something like panic that tried to rise—a primitive instinct screaming that something was wrong, that he needed to fix this, that this darkness was a threat that needed to be fought.
But Li Yuan soothed that instinct with a deep and steady breath, with a reminder that this was a choice, not a curse, that this darkness was a path to understanding, not a prison.
Slowly, very slowly, he began to feel the world in other ways.
Sound became clearer—the singing of birds that had previously been background noise now became a living presence, each note carrying information about direction and distance. The wind blowing through the leaves made a sound he could track, one that carried a story of where it came from and what it touched on its way.
Touch became more meaningful—the texture of the stone beneath him, the softness of the moss growing on its side, the warmth of the sunlight touching his skin even though he could not see its light.
Smell became a map—the aroma of wet soil, the scent of resin from the pine trees, the perfume of wild flowers blooming somewhere not far away.
And the Wenjing—which he had tightly wrapped, which he had reduced to a five-centimeter radius—he now released a little wider.
Two meters, as he had planned.
Not enough to "see" the world in the way he was used to, but enough to feel presence and intention within an intimate range, within a conversational range, within the range where life happens.
In that two-meter radius, he could "hear" with his Wenjing—not sight, but a different kind of perception, one that carried information about existence without providing the visual details he had relied on for so long.
This was a compromise—a way not to be completely disconnected from the world but also not to have an overwhelming advantage, a way to allow himself to be vulnerable but not completely defenseless.
Li Yuan took Chen Ming's bamboo staff—the staff he had made with so much care, which would now become an extension of himself, his new eyes, a way to read the ground and navigate the world without sight.
He stood up carefully, the staff in his hand, and he began to walk.
The first step was wobbly. He didn't know exactly where he was stepping, didn't know if there was a root or a stone or a hole.
The staff tapped the ground in front of him—tap, tap, tap—a sound that carried information about the surface, about the texture, about what awaited his next step.
The second step was a little steadier. The third was even better.
He walked slowly through the forest, each step a negotiation with a world he could not see but could feel in a different way—with his ears, with his skin, with the tapping staff, with the Wenjing whispering about existence within a two-meter radius.
He stumbled a few times. He bumped into a tree once. He almost fell into a small stream he didn't hear until it was too late.
But every mistake was a lesson. Every difficulty was a teacher.
And slowly, very slowly, he began to understand what Chen Ming understood—that the world does not need eyes to be experienced, that there is a richness in touch and sound and vibration that the eyes often ignore because they are too busy seeing.
When night arrived—though he would not have known it was night except from the declining temperature and the changed songs of the birds to the chirping of insects—Li Yuan found a place to rest under a large tree.
He sat with his back leaning against the trunk, the bamboo staff by his side, and he felt the weight of what he had done with a clarity that carried a mix of fear and anticipation.
He was now blind.
Truly blind.
Just as Chen Ming had lived.
And the journey—the long journey that would span decades, that would take him through lands he did not know, that would teach him lessons that could never be learned with open eyes—had begun.
There was no easy way back. There was no quick way to reverse this choice.
Only the path forward—a path that was dark but full of possibilities, a path that was terrifying but also liberating, a path that would teach him the true meaning of living fully in the body, fully in vulnerability, fully in the trust that life would be beautiful without having to see.
Just as Chen Ming believed.
Just as Li Yuan now chose to believe.
And in that belief, in that darkness, in that vulnerability, a new journey began—a journey that would not be easy, that would not be fast, but one that would bring growth that could not be achieved in any other way.
A journey to see without eyes.
A journey to live fully in the body.
A journey to understand what Chen Ming understood: that life is beautiful enough to remember without having to see.
And in the darkness of a night he could not see but could feel—in the cold that touched his skin, in the sound of the insects singing, in the aroma of soil and leaves—Li Yuan closed his eyes that could no longer see and let this new world take him into its embrace.
Like water flowing to the unknown.
Like a seed planted in the darkness of the earth.
Like a beginning born from an end.
With the courage to let go of the familiar.
With the trust that what was to come—though unseen—would be beautiful enough to live.