Chapter 106: The Letter

Yang sat at the desk and wrote.

He had not written many letters either in this or his first life. The one to Li San had not counted in any formal sense. Li San was his brother and illiterate when it was sent he would have likely gotten someone to read it for him, and Yang had written it the way he would have spoken to him, without ceremony, because it was never a thing between them. This was different. Senior Brother Lin Yi was an inner sect senior who had extended generosity and genuine interest without being asked to, and the letter needed to reflect that without being stiff or overly formal about it.

He wrote:

----

Senior Brother Lin Yi,

Chen Yang

---

He read it through twice. His first instinct had been to be more deferential throughout, but Senior Brother Lin Yi was not that kind of person and excess formality would read as awkward rather than respectful. The letter said what it needed to say. He folded and sealed it and placed it on the corner of the table where he would not forget to take it to the outer sect hall in the morning.

Then he moved to the meditation platform and settled into position.

He drew qi into the lower dantian and let it build before beginning the Heavenly Diversion. The familiar sequence now. Qi rising, the Ren meridian, the crown of the head, the Du meridian descending along the spine, and at the diversion points the redirect, seventy percent inward toward the Sea of Consciousness.

The headache came later than it had a week ago. The channels had widened, the qi moving with less resistance at each point. He still needed to maintain conscious effort throughout the entire process, still had to actively hold the diversion rather than simply initiating it and letting the body carry it. The goal was the opposite of that, full automaticity, the body redirecting qi to the Sea of Consciousness as naturally as it cycled it through the meridians in normal cultivation. Until that threshold was crossed the next stage of the Heaven-Refining Soul Sutra remained out of reach.

He held it until the headache became too strong and then released it, letting the qi settle back into its natural pattern. He took a few slow breaths.

Then, on an impulse he turned his attention inward.

He descended into the Sea of Consciousness.

The space opened around him vast and dark.

He looked at the web of light threads extending through the surrounding space. They were denser than he remembered from the last time he had looked. More concentrated and reaching further than before.

If the pattern continued, the entire Sea of Consciousness would eventually be filled with this web, threaded through with light in all directions. He did not know what that meant or what it signified about the state of his soul cultivation.

His soul's luminescence also looked different. He had noticed it before and struggled then to find the words for it, and even now he was unable to put into words what felt different about it.

It was not brighter exactly. Just different, something had changed in the texture of the light itself since the bar had reached one hundred in the Cardwright World. He did not know what it meant. He filed it alongside the growing collection of things about himself that he could observe but not yet explain.

He turned his attention to the bud he had noted before, still attached to the web, pulsing with a thrum he could feel even without touching it. Brighter than the threads around it. The Cardwright World door, the awareness of that name arriving as soon as his attention settled on it. The pull was still there, so he did not go closer.

He looked away from it and let his attention drift across the webbing.

And found something he had not seen before.

Further from the Cardwright bud, attached to the web was another bud.

It was much smaller than the Cardwright bud. Considerably dimmer, its light barely distinguishable from the threads it clung to until he focused on it directly. Where the Cardwright bud pulsed like a heartbeat, this one was still. He could feel no pulse or pull from it. It was just sitting attached to the web, dim and quiet, like an unripe fruit, or rather something that had not yet been activated.

Yang stilled.

He looked around the rest of the webbing carefully, searching for any others.

There were none.

Just this one, small and dim, attached to a thread farther from the Cardwright bud.

He was afraid to go near it.

He stayed where he was for a long moment, watching it from a distance, then tentatively let his consciousness drift carefully closer. Not touching it. Just close enough to look.

No pull. No thrum. No sense of something on the other side waiting. The Cardwright bud, since he discovered it had always carried a faint pressure. This one had none of that. It sat in the web quietly, giving nothing to get his attention.

He is not sure if it was here before and he missed it due to its dull appearance, or if it is a new addition.

He tried to peer deeper into it, but hit a wall.

A limit. The bud did not open to his inspection. It sat there, dim and closed.

He backed away from it.

Looking at the dim bud and then at the brighter Cardwright one, the difference was clear. This one was locked. Or perhaps more accurately, it was not yet ready. Like a fruit that had formed but not ripened.

The Cardwright bud is fully formed, glowing, pulling, accessible enough that contact would send him through. This one was none of those things. Whatever world or space or path it represented had not yet developed to the point where it could open.

He did not know whether to be comforted or not.

He retreated back to the surface of his consciousness and let his eyes open to the cave.

He sat quietly for a moment.

Before arriving at this sect, he had known he was physically different, the beast core consumption and the constitution that did not respond the way an ordinary person's should was indicator enough.

But since beginning cultivation, he had found that his soul was different as well.

He had come to this sect with many questions, and instead of getting them answered, he was ending each day with more of them.

He sighed quietly.

Then he straightened, closed his eyes, and began another round of the Heavenly Diversion.