The next morning, Yù Qíng woke before him.
Zhì Yuǎn felt her move, the light slide of her body against his, and opened his eyes. She was already sitting on the edge of the bed, her hair loose over her shoulders, her fingers touching her own chest as if searching for something.
"It's still there," she said without turning. "The light you put inside me. It's still there."
He sat up beside her.
"It will stay. And it will grow."
She turned her face, and her eyes were so bright they seemed to reflect the morning sun.
"Teach me."
---
The first days were filled with frustration.
Zhì Yuǎn took her to the back veranda at dawn, sat her facing the rising sun, and explained the rhythm he had discovered. Inhale as the light grows. Hold at the peak. Exhale as it pours over the world.
Yù Qíng closed her eyes and tried.
And tried.
And tried.
"I don't feel anything," she said at the end of the first morning, her voice carrying an impatience he rarely saw in her. "Just the air."
"It took me a whole day to feel it," he answered. "And it was by accident."
She did not reply, but her fingers clenched against her thighs, and he knew the word "accident" did not comfort her.
---
On the second morning, he tried a different approach.
"Don't think about the Qi," he said as the sun rose. "Think about the rhythm. Feel the sun climbing. Feel your breath following. Let your body find the way on its own."
She closed her eyes again, and he used his inner vision to watch her.
The Qi points inside her were scattered, but there was something different since the previous night. The small light he had transferred into her receptacle pulsed softly, like a secondary heart. It was weak, almost imperceptible, but it was there.
And as she breathed, trying to follow the rhythm, that small light moved. Not much—just a tremor, a hesitation. But it was movement.
At the end of the morning, he spoke.
"Did you feel anything?"
She opened her eyes, and frustration was in them, but also a spark of hope.
"Almost. As if something were there, but I couldn't reach it."
"Because you can't yet. But you will."
---
On the third morning, she did not want to go to the veranda.
"It's not working," she said, sitting at the kitchen table, arms crossed. "Maybe I can't do what you do."
"I thought that too," he answered, sitting across from her. "Until it happened."
"What if it doesn't happen?"
He took her hands, uncurled her fingers, and wrapped them in his.
"It will happen. You already have Qi inside you. The light I put there. That's more than I had when I started."
She looked at him, and something in her face softened.
"You really believe that?"
"I know it."
---
On the fourth morning, something changed.
Zhì Yuǎn watched her from the veranda, sitting behind her as the sun began to break over the mountain line. Her breathing was calm, calmer than the previous days. There was no tension of forcing, only the surrender of someone who had finally stopped trying.
And then he saw it.
The Qi points inside her trembled. Not one or two, but dozens of them, like leaves in the wind. And the small receptacle in her chest, where the light he had transferred still pulsed, seemed to expand for an instant.
She inhaled.
The points moved. Only a little, only a step toward the center. But it was movement.
"Yù Qíng," he called, his voice low.
She opened her eyes. There were tears in them.
"I felt it," she whispered. "I felt something entering."
---
On the fifth morning, she absorbed her first point of Qi on her own.
It was one of the smallest, almost invisible, located in her left arm. It detached from where it was and flowed toward the receptacle in her chest, slowly, like a leaf falling from a distant tree.
When it touched the edge of the empty chamber, Yù Qíng let out a sob.
"It's inside me," she said, her hands pressed to her chest. "Your Qi, and now mine."
Zhì Yuǎn wrapped his arms around her, and felt her shoulders tremble against him.
"You did it," he murmured. "On your own."
She lifted her face, eyes brimming, and smiled.
"Not on my own."
---
On the sixth night, after the sun had set and the moon was already high, Yù Qíng came to him.
There were no words. She simply entered the room where he had already lain down, put out the lamp, and nestled beside him. Her fingers found his, interlaced, and she pressed herself against his chest.
"Teach me more," she whispered. "The way you taught me the other night."
He felt her warmth, the scent of her hair, the pulse of her heart against his. And he felt too, with the inner vision that now never dimmed, the small receptacle in her chest, now holding not only the light he had transferred but the first points she had absorbed on her own.
She still did not know how to temper her meridians. Did not know how to expand or consolidate. But the Qi was there, waiting.
"Do you want me to put more into you?" he asked, his voice low.
"Yes."
"And then?"
She lifted her face, her eyes shining in the darkness.
"Then you show me what to do with it."
---
She moved over him, her hair falling like a curtain around their faces. And as their lips met, Zhì Yuǎn felt the rhythm establish itself again—that ebb and flow he was beginning to recognize as something more than pleasure.
This time, he consciously directed the Yang. He did not simply let it flow; he guided it through his meridians, through his skin, into her.
She arched her back, a moan escaping her lips, and he felt her Qi—still weak, still nascent—respond to his. The points she had absorbed on her own trembled, moving toward the receptacle, and the receptacle itself seemed to expand, like a flower opening.
When they finished, she was breathless, her hair spread across the pillow, her body still trembling with the echo of what they had done.
"How much did you put into me?" she asked, her voice shaky.
"Enough," he answered. "Tomorrow, we'll use it."
---
On the seventh day, he sat her on the veranda at dawn.
"Sit facing the sun," he said, positioning himself behind her. "I'll help."
She obeyed, crossing her legs on the bamboo mat. Zhì Yuǎn sat behind her, so close his knees touched her back, and rested his hands on her shoulders.
"Close your eyes. Breathe in the rhythm of the sun."
She closed her eyes. Her breathing began slow, hesitant, and he matched it, inhaling and exhaling in the same rhythm, letting her feel the movement of his chest against her back.
"Now," he whispered, sliding his hands from her shoulders to her upper back. "Feel where I touch. The Qi will follow the path my hands trace."
He could not manipulate Qi outside his body—he knew that. But he could use contact, pressure, the skin itself as a bridge. When his fingers pressed a point on her back, he sent a small current of his own Qi through the touch, not to control hers, but to invite it.
His hands descended slowly, following her spine. She shivered under his touch but did not move. Her breathing changed, growing deeper, slower.
"Inhale," he said, pressing his thumbs into two points near the base of her neck. "Now hold."
She obeyed. And in that instant, he felt the Qi inside her respond. The small receptacle in her chest pulsed, and the points accumulated there shifted—not inward, but toward the meridians he was touching.
"Exhale," he whispered, sliding his hands down, following the line of her spine to the middle of her back.
The Qi followed. It flowed from the receptacle into the main meridian, the one descending from chest to abdomen, pushed by her breath and guided by his touch. When it reached the narrow walls of the channel, she shuddered again.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"A little." Her voice was steady. "Keep going."
He continued. His hands traced her back in slow, circular motions, pressing the points where the meridians opened. With each press, he sent a thread of his own Qi, and her Qi responded, pushing against the meridian walls, expanding them.
It was not like the pain he had felt in his own body. It was gentler, as if her Qi, nourished by the Yang he had transferred and the points she had absorbed on her own, met less resistance. Perhaps because he was already there, serving as an anchor, a guide.
The meridian widened. And when the Qi finally flowed through it, free and steady, Yù Qíng let out a long sigh, as if she had been holding her breath her whole life.
"It's done," he said, removing his hands.
She opened her eyes, and there was something in them he had never seen before: a light of her own.
"Now the other," she said.
He smiled.
"Tomorrow. Yin needs to consolidate what Yang has expanded."
She turned, kneeling before him, and touched his face with both hands.
"Tomorrow," she repeated, and there was promise in the word.
---
That night, it was different.
She came to him again, but this time not merely to receive. As their bodies joined, Zhì Yuǎn felt something shift. The Qi inside her, now stronger, more present, did not only absorb the Yang he offered—she also gave something back.
It was Yin. The cool, deep flow he had learned to absorb from the moon. She did not know she had it, did not know how to use it, but her body knew the rhythm. And at the most intense moment of their intimacy, that Yin flowed from her to him, like a river meeting the sea.
Zhì Yuǎn arched his back, feeling the coolness spread through his meridians, consolidating what Yang had expanded, balancing what had before tilted to one side.
"Zhì Yuǎn?" Her voice was confused, sensing that something had happened. "What was that?"
"You," he answered, still breathless. "You gave me something."
She frowned, and then something in her face lit up.
"The Qi you gave me… it came back?"
"No. Yours. Your Yin. You gave me your Yin."
She was silent for a moment, and then she smiled—a slow, satisfied smile.
"So now we are both inside each other."
He could not deny it. And lying there, with her body nestled against his and the two flows—Yang and Yin—circulating between them like a current with no beginning and no end, Zhì Yuǎn understood that the path they had found was not his alone, nor hers alone.
It was theirs. Forever.
---
End of Chapter 5