Shen Liuyun knelt upon the cold wooden floor of the Hall of Dust, the ink-stained boards beneath him worn by centuries of disciples who had tried and failed before him. The hall was silent, save for the faint rustle of paper hung upon the walls—calligraphy of divine masters, their strokes sharp and alive with a latent Qi that seemed to hum against the air itself. The smell of ink and old wood filled his lungs, yet it brought no comfort, only a biting awareness of his own inadequacy.
He inhaled deeply, feeling the familiar hollow in his chest. Opening one's Qi was said to be like awakening a sleeping dragon within the marrow of the body, but for Liuyun, it was as if he carried a deaf and blind creature that would not stir, no matter how violently he prodded. He visualized the flow, imagined it tracing the veins of his body, but each attempt met the same resistance—unyielding, absolute, and deeply humiliating.
"Again, Liuyun? Must you soil the hall with your failures?"
The voice came sharp and mocking from the far end of the hall. Shen Liuyun's gaze lifted to see Xue Zhiyan, one of the sect's elite disciples, standing with a brush tucked behind his ear, his robes immaculately clean. A faint curl of amusement lifted his lips as his eyes glimmered with disdain. Behind him, a few other disciples snickered, their laughter like the scratching of nails across ancient bamboo.
"I… I will try once more," Liuyun whispered, voice rough, more to himself than to his peers. His hands trembled as he gripped the small jade talisman given to him by the sect's elder—a relic meant to guide the flow of Qi. The talisman was cold against his palm, indifferent to his desperation.
The hall seemed to pulse around him, the sacred calligraphy shimmering faintly as if mocking his inability to awaken his own latent power. The elder had once said, "The brush does not lie, and the ink will only obey the heart that is pure and unyielding." But Liuyun's heart was far from unyielding; it was raw, jagged, and bruised from years of scorn.
He closed his eyes, drawing a slow breath, attempting to feel the faintest pulse of Qi within him. Nothing. Only the empty echo of his own heartbeat.
"Pathetic." The word was spat by another disciple, Li Fang, a thin, hawkish youth who delighted in tormenting the weaker students. "Even a child with half your intelligence could sense the flow better than you."
Liuyun's jaw tightened, but he did not respond. Words from the elite could wound, but they could not break him entirely. At least, he tried to tell himself. His mind returned to the talisman, to the legends carved into the sect's annals, to the countless disciples who had turned their failure into despair, and eventually, into nothing. He would not be nothing—not yet.
He focused again. The first step was not to force the Qi, but to feel it. Let it awaken naturally, like the slow bloom of ink upon absorbent rice paper. Yet, no matter how long he waited, no sensation came, not a twitch in his meridians, not a shimmer beneath his skin. The empty silence mocked him louder than any voice ever could.
Hours passed. The light shifted from the gray dawn to a weak morning, filtering through the papered windows in pale, fractured beams. Sweat ran down his back, staining the robes that had once been crisp and clean. His fingers ached, clutching the talisman, trying to coax a stubborn current that refused to exist.
"Do you ever think, maybe it's not you?" Xue Zhiyan's voice was softer now, almost teasing, but no less cutting. "Maybe you're just… broken."
Liuyun's eyes snapped open, and for a moment, rage flared in him. But the anger quickly dissolved into a familiar, bitter numbness. Broken or not, he had no choice but to endure. And endure he did, bending his knees, pressing his palms to the floor, attempting to trace the flow of Qi as the ancient texts had instructed.
The sect's hierarchy was unyielding. At the top were the Elders, masters whose calligraphy could bend wind, ink that could carve stone, and a mere glance that could unravel a disciple's soul. Below them were the elite disciples, like Xue Zhiyan, polished, talented, arrogant in their innate understanding of the sacred arts. And then there were the lowest—Shen Liuyun among them—disposable, disregarded, expected to falter and fade.
And yet… Liuyun felt a quiet defiance flicker within him, fragile and timid, but real. The words of the elder replayed in his mind: "Even the weakest brush leaves a scar upon Heaven." Perhaps he had not yet found the proper stroke. Perhaps the world had not yet bent to his ink.
He closed his eyes again, letting his thoughts settle. Slowly, deliberately, he directed his focus inward, ignoring the sneers, ignoring the faint chorus of laughter that rose and fell like a tide around him. His consciousness sank into his own body, tracing each tendon, each bone, each pulse of blood, as if mapping a forgotten land.
It was then that he felt it—a whisper. A faint, almost imperceptible vibration beneath the hall's floor. His eyes snapped open. The other disciples were gone now, their laughter having dissipated into the hall's quiet echo. Liuyun's gaze fell to the floorboards beneath him, worn and scuffed by countless disciples, and for the first time, he noticed a fine hairline crack snaking across the center of the hall.
It was subtle, easily overlooked, almost invisible under the layers of dust and ink. And yet… there was something about it that drew him, a pull that resonated deep within his chest. The crack seemed alive, pulsating faintly as if it were breathing, as if the floor itself held its own hidden Qi, ancient and secret.
Liuyun knelt closer, his fingers hovering above the split wood. A shiver ran down his spine—not fear, but recognition. Something old and patient lay beneath this hall, something that had witnessed centuries of ambition, of triumph and ruin alike. It was an abyss, silent and inviting, whispering promises of power to the one bold enough to reach for it.
"Could this… be the path?" he murmured, his voice barely audible, swallowed by the hollow hall. He felt the talisman warm faintly in his palm, responding to the subtle pulse emanating from the crack. It was the first sensation he had felt in years, a thread of hope that trembled at the edges of his consciousness.
Liuyun pressed his forehead to the floor, letting the vibrations seep into him. The inked calligraphy on the walls seemed to shimmer in acknowledgment, the brush strokes writhing with dormant energy, as if the masters themselves were observing, silently judging. His own failures felt distant now, irrelevant against the mysterious cadence of the hall's hidden power.
And yet, with this stirring came a deep, unspoken warning. Power, when hidden and patient, demanded vigilance and sacrifice. To touch the abyss was to risk being consumed by it. But Liuyun did not falter. Not now. Not when he had glimpsed a way forward, however faint.
Hours—or perhaps minutes—passed. Time lost its meaning as he pressed closer to the crack, studying the subtle shimmer of the grain, the faint trace of Qi beneath. He traced the line with his finger, feeling it hum against his skin, vibrating like a secret pulse in the marrow of his hand. His heart beat unevenly, a mixture of fear and exhilaration, doubt and determination.
Finally, he rose, hands trembling, eyes alight with a mix of terror and awe. Around him, the Hall of Dust seemed to breathe, the very air thick with expectancy. The ancient calligraphy glowed faintly, the black ink alive with energy, watching, waiting.
Liuyun took a hesitant step back, then another. The crack had revealed a truth he had not dared imagine: even in his weakness, the world still held mysteries that could elevate him, if he were willing to endure, willing to suffer, willing to persist when all others had abandoned hope.
"Perhaps… I am not meant to awaken like them," he whispered to himself. "Perhaps my path lies elsewhere. But I will awaken. I must."
The shadows in the hall deepened, stretching along the walls, curling around the ancient calligraphy. The crack in the floor pulsed faintly, a heartbeat beneath the wood, silent yet insistent, calling him forward. Shen Liuyun, the lowest disciple, the one everyone had dismissed, felt a spark ignite in the darkness within him—a spark small, fragile, but alive.
For the first time, he did not think of failure. He did not think of mockery. He did not think of the centuries of discarded disciples. He thought only of the pulse beneath his fingers, the hidden power in the Hall of Dust, and the promise of a path that might, at last, answer to him.
And somewhere in the silence, as the wind whispered through the papered windows and the shadows danced along the walls, the crack seemed to widen imperceptibly, as if acknowledging him, inviting him.
Liuyun clenched his fists, the jade talisman pressing into his palm, and bowed his head once more. Not in defeat, but in silent resolve.
The journey had begun.