The days that followed the harvest festival brought a new intensity to the couple's connection. After Yù Qíng's public display and the certainty of mutual belonging, the last barrier of hesitation between them seemed to have dissolved, reflecting directly in their cultivation.
The dual method had ceased to be merely a practice and became a natural extension of their bodies. In the mornings, the Qi flowing between them no longer needed to be guided with effort; it ran freely, fueled by desire and absolute trust.
Thanks to this newfound harmony, their progress was faster than they had anticipated. On the fifth day after the festival, Yù Qíng finally reached the peak of meridian tempering. Zhì Yuǎn had preceded her by two days. Both now felt that their internal channels had expanded and consolidated to the limit of what that stage could offer. Qi flowed through them like a perennial river, without obstacles, without hesitation.
But the river needed a wider bed.
"I'm stuck," Zhì Yuǎn confessed one morning before the sun had broken the mountain line. They sat on the veranda, hands joined, the circuit of Qi pulsing between them. "My meridians won't accept any more expansion. The receptacle is full. But I feel there is more space inside me. Something beyond the channels."
Yù Qíng closed her eyes, concentrating. Her inner vision, now nearly as sharp as his, traced through her own body.
"I feel it too. As if the Qi wants to leave the meridians and go into… the arms. The legs. The bones."
"The tendons," he completed, opening his eyes. "The next stage."
She opened hers, and there was the same flame of discovery in them that he knew well.
"Then let's go."
---
The initial attempt was frustrating.
Zhì Yuǎn sat alone in the clearing at midday, when the sun was directly overhead, and tried to push the Qi from his meridians into the tendons of his arms. The sensation was like trying to force a river to climb a mountain. The Qi recoiled, scattered, returned to where it was already comfortable.
After an hour, he had shifted fewer than a dozen points into his tendons—and all of them flowed back as soon as he relaxed his concentration.
Yù Qíng, watching from the veranda, fared even worse. Her meridians, though expanded, were still more fragile, and the Qi refused to leave them.
"It's not working," she said when he returned. "It's as if the Qi doesn't know where to go."
He sat beside her, thoughtful.
"Maybe it doesn't. Until now, we've only learned to move Qi through the meridians. To leave them, we need a new rhythm."
She looked at him, and a slow smile spread across her lips.
"Then let's find one."
---
It was in the intimacy of the night that the solution appeared.
It was not planned. As their bodies moved together in the rhythm they already knew, Zhì Yuǎn felt something different. The Qi no longer limited itself to circulating between their receptacles and meridians. As if driven by pleasure itself, it began to spread.
First to the shoulders. Then to the arms. Then to the hands.
He arched his back, surprised, and Yù Qíng moaned as she felt the reflection in her own body: her Qi also moved, not only through her meridians, but into her tendons, her muscles, her bones.
"Zhì Yuǎn," she whispered, eyes wide, "it's happening."
She did not need to say what. He felt it. The Qi, which had previously run only through established channels, now seeped into every fiber of his body, every ligament, every bit of cartilage. It was not the aggressive expansion of Yang, nor the slow consolidation of Yin. It was a gentle, constant flow that filled.
The rhythm they had created together—the one that imitated the tide, the wind, the breath of the world—now functioned like a secondary heart, pumping Qi to every extremity.
When they finished, both breathless, Zhì Yuǎn plunged into his inner vision. What he saw made him smile.
The tendons in his arms, once opaque to his perception, now glowed with a faint light. They were not yet tempered—it was only the beginning—but the Qi had found the way.
And the best part: the process had been automatic. They had not needed to force, not needed to guide. The dual rhythm, by itself, had led the Qi where it needed to go.
"That's it," he said, turning to her. "We don't need to push. The rhythm we created does the work. We just need to keep going."
She nestled against him, her fingers tracing circles on his chest.
"So the next stages—tendons, bones, organs—will happen on their own?"
"I think so." He kissed her hair. "The flow spreads like water. When one vessel fills, it overflows into the next. Our meridians are full. Now Qi goes to the tendons. When the tendons are full, it will go to the bones. And so on."
She sighed, satisfied.
"So we just need to keep doing what we're doing."
He laughed, a low laugh that vibrated against her.
"Exactly."
---
It was Yù Chéng who brought the news, three days later.
Zhì Yuǎn and Yù Qíng were on the veranda, catching their breath after another cultivation session, when his father-in-law appeared among the bamboos. His face was ashen, his hands trembling, and he carried a scroll that seemed to weigh more than it should.
"Zhì Yuǎn," he said, sitting on the bench without being invited. "The messenger arrived."
"The tribute?" Yù Qíng sat upright, her fingers digging into Zhì Yuǎn's arm.
"Worse." Yù Chéng opened the scroll, but he did not need to read it. He had memorized every word on the way. "There is a war in the north. The emperor is requisitioning all available resources. This month's tribute will be doubled. And next month, doubled again. If we cannot pay…"
"What?" Yù Qíng squeezed tighter.
"The mines will be confiscated. The lands as well." Yù Chéng rubbed his face, suddenly looking much older. "We will lose everything. The whole village will lose everything."
Zhì Yuǎn was silent. The Wisdom in his mind was already working, not in panic, but with the coldness of someone assessing a game board before moving pieces.
Doubling the tribute means forty thousand kilograms of coal. The mine produces less than twenty-five thousand per month at the current rate. There is a shortfall of at least fifteen thousand.
"How long do we have?" he asked.
"The first shipment is due in three weeks."
"Three weeks." He closed his eyes. "It's short. But not impossible."
Yù Chéng looked up.
"What are you thinking?"
"The mine. The abandoned galleries." He opened his eyes. "I want to see them."
"They've been sealed for fifteen years. Collapsed."
"I know. But if there is coal there, even in small amounts, it could make the difference between paying or not."
His father-in-law hesitated. His eyes searched his son-in-law's face, as if looking there for madness or the wisdom that had always set him apart.
"You would risk yourself for this?"
"I would." The answer was simple, direct. "Not for the village. For your family."
Yù Qíng squeezed his hand, and he felt her Qi flow into him, a silent support.
Yù Chéng looked at them both, and something in his face crumbled and reformed.
"Then go. But come back." His voice cracked at the end. "Come back, son."
---
The next morning, Zhì Yuǎn went to the mine alone.
Yù Qíng wanted to accompany him, but he stopped her.
"I need you to stay here," he said on the veranda as the sun rose. "If something happens, you're the only one who can continue."
"Nothing will happen."
"It won't. But I need to know you are safe."
She stared at him for a long moment, then her arms wrapped around him with a strength he felt in his bones.
"Come back," she whispered against his chest.
"I promise."
She pulled away, and he saw in her eyes the struggle between fear and trust. Trust won.
He turned and walked toward the mountain.
---
The mine greeted him with the smell of damp earth and the distant sound of pickaxes. The workers were laboring in the main galleries, but Zhì Yuǎn did not go to them. Instead, he turned down a side passage, blocked by wooden beams and a sign on which someone had written "DANGER" in charcoal.
He moved the beams aside carefully. The air that escaped through the opening was colder, heavier, and carried a scent of decay that did not come from rotting wood.
He entered.
The oil lamp he carried barely lit the tunnel. The walls were damp, dripping water that gleamed with silvery reflections. Zhì Yuǎn activated his inner vision, and the world around him changed.
The rock walls became transparent. He saw the veins of coal, most of them thin, exhausted, broken. But far ahead, deep within, there was something different: a dark mass, dense, shining in his vision like a blot of ink darker than the rest.
High‑purity coal, he recognized. Enough to cover the shortfall.
The problem was reaching it. The tunnel was unstable, the beams rotted, the ceiling low and cracked. Any sudden movement could bring it all down.
But I don't need to bring the coal out today, he thought. I need to know where it is and how to extract it safely.
The Wisdom showed him the way. Not a physical path, but an understanding: if he used Qi to temporarily reinforce the beams, he could create a safe passage for the workers. And if he mapped the coal veins with his vision, he could direct extraction to the richest points without waste.
It took hours. The lamp burned down until it was nearly out, and he worked in near‑darkness, memorizing every vein, every fissure, every weak point. When he finally emerged from the gallery, the sun was already setting, and his lungs burned from the stale air.
But he had what he needed.
---
On the way back, Zhì Yuǎn found Yù Chéng waiting at the mine entrance. His father-in-law was pale, his hands pressed against his chest.
"Thank the heavens," he murmured when he saw his son-in-law emerge. "Thank the heavens."
"I found it," Zhì Yuǎn said, sitting on a rock to catch his breath. "There is coal. A lot. High purity."
"Where?"
"In the abandoned gallery. There's an intact chamber about two hundred paces from the entrance. The ceiling is unstable, but if we reinforce the beams with new wood, we can extract it."
Yù Chéng stared at him, eyes wide.
"You went in there? Walked two hundred paces in that darkness?"
"I did. And I saw enough to know we can do this." He lifted his eyes to his father-in-law. "You'll need more men. More carts. More working hours. But it's possible."
"And the danger?"
"I'll show the workers where to step, where to dig. With my help, no one will get hurt."
Yù Chéng was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice was rough.
"What did you see in there, Zhì Yuǎn? What do you have that no one else has?"
Zhì Yuǎn thought about his answer. It was not the time to reveal everything—perhaps it never would be. But one truth could be told.
"I see what lies beyond the rock," he answered. "I always have. I only now learned to use it."
His father-in-law nodded slowly, as if that answer explained everything he had always observed in the orphan he had taken in.
"Then use it," he said. "Use it, and save our family."
---
He returned home at dusk. Yù Qíng was on the veranda, her eyes fixed on the trail leading through the bamboo grove. When she saw him, she did not run. She only stood there, still, as if afraid that movement might undo the vision.
He climbed the steps and stopped before her.
"I'm back," he said.
She raised her hand and touched his face, her fingers tracing his jaw, his lips, the dark circles under his eyes.
"You're exhausted."
"I am. But it was worth it."
"Will it work?"
"It will. It will take weeks of work, but it will."
She finally smiled, and that smile was the sun breaking through the clouds.
"Then rest. There's more tomorrow."
He pulled her inside, and that night they did not cultivate. They only held each other, feeling each other's warmth, the rhythm of their hearts synchronizing as they always did.
Outside, the bamboo grove swayed in the wind, and the mountain kept its secrets. But inside the small bamboo house, Zhì Yuǎn and Yù Qíng had everything they needed: each other, and the certainty that together they would face whatever came.
---
End of Chapter 10