Turns out it wasn't just me, Mu Yi, and Fan Tu.
There were eighteen others—children from other villages, from hidden mountains and valleys, from quiet plains and coastal lands rarely touched by the steps of civilization. We were all brought to Qinglong Academy on different days, but for the same purpose. We became part of twenty children considered… "potential."
They called us the generation of silence.
There was no grand announcement when we arrived. No festive welcome, no promise of glory. Only training, silence, and time flowing like a river that never looks back.
Three years have passed.
And now, I begin to see it.
It wasn't only me who changed.
Li Qian from Stone Mountain Village, who used to always look down when speaking, now his eyes are sharp like a sword kept in a velvet sheath.
Han Ke from South Village, who once could only mimic the trainer's moves slowly, now his body moves like a shadow behind moonlight—real, but hard to grasp.
They say nothing. No one boasts of their changes. Even Mu Yi, who always used to tell stories, now sits more often in silence, staring at the sky. As if trying to understand the direction of clouds, of time, and of himself.
We all changed.
Slowly, in silence.
As if time itself was teaching us, not with words, but with experience carved into our breath and bodies.
I can feel it.
When I walk among them, there is a resonance—faint but strong. Like a bell ringing softly in the depths of the heart. Each of us carries something that cannot be seen, but can be felt.
An understanding.
Something that came not from books, not from teachers, but from the nature within. From a world we discovered when we became silent, when we stopped asking, when we began to accept and observe.
Of the twenty, not all developed in the same way.
Some drowned in their own fear. Some tried to resist the change and became hard like stone, only to crack from within. But some… some began to shine, though in different forms.
And I begin to understand.
Qinglong Academy is not a place for training weapons. But a place to sharpen awareness.
Not to create an army of killers.
But to create humans who understand themselves.
And I… I am only part of that long flow. I am just a breath that passes through the night, a step that leaves no trace, a voice that can only be heard by those silent enough to listen.
Time keeps moving.
And we all keep walking, without rushing.