On a silent night,
Li Yuan sat still upon a flat stone,
surrounded by the shadows of voiceless trees.
No breeze stirred. No sound of night creatures.
Only silence.
And within that silence,
Li Yuan did not breathe.
Not because he held his breath.
But because he had surpassed it.
"What is form?"
"Does it rely on breath?"
Once, the body moved because of breath.
The mind was clear because of breath.
Energy flowed because of breath.
But now, his body was still,
not out of weariness.
He was still…
because movement was no longer needed.
A form without breath is not alive—yet not dead.
It exists in between,
between awareness and oblivion.
Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
His gaze did not reflect the firelight.
No emotion could be read.
"If I can continue to exist without breath,
then I am no longer bound by life."
He felt the pulse of the world,
not through his skin,
not through his ears,
but through a deep inner awareness
that relied on no senses.
Form without breath is like a shadow dancing on water,
like the echo of a voice never spoken,
like a presence untethered to the body.
And at that moment,
Li Yuan understood something:
"This body is merely a vessel."
"If understanding has surpassed the limits of the body…"
"…then I can continue to be, without needing to 'be'."
Elsewhere,
an old teacher of the academy closed his eyes in meditation,
suddenly breaking into cold sweat.
"Who… what is this dread I sense?"
"…who… has brushed against my presence?"
The night remained silent.
But one point in the world—
had shifted.
Li Yuan stood in the middle of an empty training ground.
Night had long fallen. The wind only occasionally skimmed the earth.
He stood without sound,
yet the ground around him trembled faintly,
as though something was flowing from him into the soil.
"This earth is not just a footing…"
"…but a mirror of what lies within."
His steps were light,
yet each breath seemed to fall to the ground.
Not like the wind...
but like heavy dew filling every crack in the soil.
Beneath his stillness, something was happening.
Li Yuan's breath—once only moving within his body,
now seemed to touch the earth.
"What does it mean for breath to touch the ground?"
It was not about technique.
Not about knowledge.
But about connection.
Li Yuan closed his eyes.
In his mind, he returned to when he first understood water—
about flowing and accepting any form.
Now, the earth was present within him.
The earth was still. But it held everything.
He remembered the rice fields in his village,
the wet soil absorbing rain,
cradling seeds and giving life in silence.
"Earth is not just the support of the body…"
"…it also preserves the trace of every step ever taken."
Li Yuan exhaled…
slowly…
And that breath did not stop in the air.
It fell.
Then touched the surface of the earth.
And… sank.
As if it became part of the world's pulse.
Silence.
But within that stillness, the earth began to respond.
Not with sound.
Not with tremors.
But with feeling.
A new understanding grew within Li Yuan:
"If I wish to walk without leaving sound, I must speak with the earth."
"If I wish to stand firm, I must recognize the breath of the earth."
As he opened his eyes,
something had changed.
His steps were no longer ordinary.
It was as if he could walk upon the earth without being noticed by it.
That night, beneath the dark sky and moist soil,
a new bond was forged.
Not between man and the world,
but between breath and earth.