The fifth day since Li Yuan blinded himself began with rain.
He did not see the low-hanging clouds or the sky turning dark. He only felt the first drops touch his skin—cold, sudden, carrying the aroma of soil that would soon be wet.
Within seconds, the rain turned from drops into a downpour—not a violent storm, but a steady, consistent one, carrying a dampness that seeped into his clothes and skin.
Li Yuan sat under a tree that offered minimal protection, the bamboo staff on his lap, and he let the rain happen without trying to run away or protect himself more than he already was.
This reminded him of Chen Ming—of the day they sat together under the old tree while the rain fell, when Chen Ming said that rain was not sadness but the generosity of the sky.
Now, without sight, Li Yuan understood those words in a deeper way.
Rain does not need eyes to be experienced. It speaks in the language of touch—every drop is a small conversation with the skin, every stream of water on the face is a reminder that the world is still moving, still alive, still giving without asking for anything in return.
The sound of the rain also carried information he usually missed when his eyes provided too many visual distractions.
Rain hitting leaves made a different sound from rain hitting the ground. Rain hitting a stone made a different sound again. And by listening to those differences—by truly listening, not just hearing them as background—Li Yuan could build a mental map of his surroundings.
A tree was there. A large stone was there. Open ground was in that direction.
All of this without seeing. Just by listening to the language the rain used to speak to the world.
The Understanding of the Body sang softly within his Zhenjing—not with words but with a resonance that carried contentment, with a vibration that said: Yes, you are beginning to understand. You are beginning to feel the world not with your eyes but with your body, with your presence, with an undivided attention.
When the rain finally stopped—Li Yuan knew because the sound of the drops slowly lessened and the air temperature changed slightly—he stood up carefully and continued his journey.
The ground was now slippery. The bamboo staff found a different surface—no longer dry and stable, but wet and unpredictable. Every step required extra caution because the risk of slipping was greater.
Li Yuan stepped slowly, his body weight carefully distributed, the staff tapping and feeling before his foot followed.
He slipped once—his right foot lost traction on the muddy ground and his body fell sideways. He landed hard, his hands outstretched to brace himself, cold mud touching his palms and cheek.
For a few seconds, he just lay there—not seriously hurt, but startled, a little frustrated, and very wet.
Then he began to get up.
Carefully, with the staff as a prop, with the sticky mud on his clothes and skin, he stood back up and continued walking.
No one saw his fall. No one laughed at him or offered help. There was only him and the darkness and the mud and the choice to get up or stay down.
He chose to get up.
Just as Chen Ming must have fallen thousands of times in his life and always chose to get up again.
On the eighth day, Li Yuan began to learn a new language—the language of vibration.
Without sight, every step carried information that was usually ignored. Hard ground carried a different vibration from soft ground. A solid stone carried a different echo from a hollow piece of wood.
By walking more slowly, with more attention to the sensation in his feet, Li Yuan began to "read" the ground like a person reading a text—every texture was a word, every change was a sentence, every pattern was a story about what was beneath the surface.
He could feel when he walked from soft forest ground to rocky ground. He could feel when he was approaching water because the ground became damper, more giving. He could feel when he was passing a large root protruding from the ground because the vibration changed—from smooth to broken, from consistent to irregular.
This was a form of perception he had never developed when his eyes provided faster and clearer information. But now, with his eyes non-functional, his feet became a new set of eyes—not seeing in the traditional sense, but sensing in a way that provided equally valuable information.
His Wenjing within the two-meter radius helped—providing an abstract perception of existence and presence—but the physical sensation in his feet was what carried the details that made the difference between walking with confidence and walking with a constant fear of falling.
On the tenth day, Li Yuan met a human for the first time since he had blinded himself.
He heard their voices before his Wenjing detected their presence—a muted conversation, low laughter, the sound of feet walking on the ground.
Li Yuan stopped, the bamboo staff in his hand, his body tense with a mix of anticipation and apprehension.
This would be the first test—how people would treat him as a blind person, how he would navigate a social interaction without the ability to read facial expressions or visual cues.
The sound of feet approached, and then one of them spoke—a man's voice that carried a tone that was not hostile but also not friendly, just neutral.
"Are you lost, young man?"
Li Yuan turned his head toward the voice—a motion he had learned to do even though he could not see, because people expected eye contact even though his eyes could not provide it.
"Not lost," Li Yuan replied in a calm tone. "Just walking."
There was a pause, then a second voice—a woman's voice that carried a more genuine concern.
"Are you... are you blind?"
The question came with a hesitation, as if she wasn't sure if it was rude to ask or ruder not to.
"Yes," Li Yuan said simply, no shame or defensiveness in his voice, just a statement of fact. "I am blind."
"Alone?" the man's voice asked in a tone that now carried concern as well. "In this forest? That's dangerous. There are wild animals, there are ravines, there are—"
"I know," Li Yuan cut in gently. "But I am learning to navigate. I... I chose to walk."
There was a long pause—Li Yuan could feel with his Wenjing that they were looking at each other, communicating without words in a way he could not access without sight.
Finally, the woman's voice spoke again.
"There is a village not far from here. About an hour's walk to the west. If you need a place to rest, some food, or shelter, they will welcome you. The people there are kind."
"Thank you," Li Yuan said sincerely. "I will remember that."
The man's voice spoke again, this time with a warmer tone.
"Be careful, young man. This world is not always kind to those who are... different."
There was something in the way he said "different" that carried the weight of experience—as if he were speaking from a personal knowledge of how the world treats those who do not fit the norm.
"I will be careful," Li Yuan replied. "And thank you for your kindness."
They parted ways—the sound of feet walking away, the conversation resuming in a lower tone, perhaps talking about the blind young man they had met in the forest.
Li Yuan stood there for a while after they were gone, feeling the weight of that first interaction.
They did not mock him. They did not treat him with cruelty or with condescending pity. They just... cared. In a simple way, in a way that showed that humanity still existed even in a world that could be harsh.
But he also heard a warning in their words—that not everyone would be kind, that not every place would be safe, that being blind in this world put him in a category of the vulnerable, who might be exploited or ignored.
This was a reality that Chen Ming must have faced as well—the reality that blindness brings not only physical challenges but also social challenges, that the world is not always designed for those who cannot see, that he had to learn not only how to move through physical space but also how to navigate the perceptions and prejudices of others.
On the fourteenth day, Li Yuan found something unexpected—beauty in the darkness.
He was walking through the forest when he heard a sound that made him stop abruptly—the singing of a bird that was so complex, so layered, so beautiful that he could barely believe he had ever heard a sound like this before.
Of course, he had heard birds sing. Thousands of times. But when his eyes were working, the sound was always a background—something beautiful but never given full attention because there were too many other things to see.
Now, in the darkness, that sound became the center of the world.
Li Yuan sat on a stone—which he found with his staff and checked with his hand before sitting—and he just listened.
Not trying to do anything. Not trying to go anywhere. Just listening with an undivided attention.
The bird sang with incredible variations—high and low notes, fast trills and long notes, repeated patterns and unexpected improvisations.
And in listening—truly listening, with his entire being—Li Yuan felt something he had never felt before.
A beauty that needed no eyes.
A beauty that came not from seeing but from hearing, from feeling, from allowing the sound to enter him and change something inside.
This is what Chen Ming meant, Li Yuan thought with a new awe. When he said that life was beautiful enough to remember without having to see it, he was not speaking abstractly. He was speaking from a direct experience of a kind of beauty that could only be experienced when sight did not distract from the wonder that was happening in other dimensions of experience.
The Understanding of the Body sang with a powerful resonance—not with words but with a vibration that carried joy, with the feeling that yes, this was the important lesson, this was the understanding that could not be achieved without darkness, without vulnerability, without the willingness to let go of the familiar.
Li Yuan sat there until the bird finished singing and flew away, until silence returned—but a silence that now felt different, that felt richer because he had heard the beauty that had filled it.
And in that moment, for the first time since he had blinded himself, Li Yuan felt not just acceptance or resolve, but something like gratitude.
Gratitude that he had made this choice.
Gratitude that the darkness—though difficult, though terrifying—had opened a door to a kind of beauty he had never accessed when his eyes provided too much information that distracted from the wonders happening in other dimensions of experience.
On the fourteenth night, Li Yuan sat on the bank of a small river—he had found it by following the sound, by letting his ears guide his feet—and he contemplated these first two weeks.
It was still hard. Every day brought new challenges. Every interaction brought uncertainty.
But he was also beginning to understand something that Chen Ming understood—that a limitation does not have to be a prison, that the loss of one way of sensing the world can open up other ways that are just as valuable, maybe more valuable because they require a deeper attention, a greater patience, a fuller presence.
He was beginning to speak a new language—the language of vibration and touch, the language of sound and aroma, a language that needed no words or images but spoke directly to the body, to the being, to the consciousness that did not depend on eyes to know that it was alive, that the world was alive, that connection was still possible even when unseen.
This was the beginning—only the beginning—of a journey that would last decades.
But it was a good beginning.
A beginning full of difficulty but also with learning.
A beginning that brought frustration but also with unexpected beauty.
A beginning that taught that life—though unseen—was still beautiful enough to live, to experience, to appreciate in a way that needed no eyes but only an open heart and a present body.
As Chen Ming had always known.
As Li Yuan was now learning.
Step by step.
Day by day.
In a darkness that was slowly becoming home.