Li Yuan slowly opened his eyes.
Absolute darkness greeted him—the darkness of the ocean at a depth of thirty thousand meters, a place where sunlight never touched. The water around him moved with a very slow current, calm yet carrying a pressure that could crush a mountain.
But for Li Yuan, that pressure meant nothing.
A Sense of Time
Four thousand years.
The number appeared in his consciousness with startling clarity. Although he didn't need to count time—even though time in spiritual cultivation often becomes irrelevant—knowing was different from needing.
Four thousand years had passed since he began this deep meditation.
I am now around fifteen thousand six hundred ninety-three years old.
Li Yuan felt a slight amusement at his own precise calculation. From a baby born in a small village to a cultivator sitting at the bottom of the deepest sea, it was an incredibly long journey, yet it felt like it had only started yesterday.
And I did not use time manipulation from the Realm of Questions.
During these four thousand years, Li Yuan let time flow naturally, in sync with the rhythm of the outside world. He could have used the subjective effect of his Silence Understanding to make four thousand years feel like four days, or vice versa.
But he chose not to.
There is value in letting time flow authentically.
Four thousand years of real cultivation was different from four thousand years of compressed cultivation. The experience gained, the depth achieved, the maturity formed—all of it was of a different quality.
A Human Experience
Li Yuan moved his consciousness body slowly. Although he had been sitting in the same position for thousands of years, he felt no stiffness or soreness. A consciousness body doesn't follow the limitations of an ordinary physical body.
But it still has familiar properties.
Li Yuan touched his own arm, feeling a familiar texture like human skin. The consciousness body he had formed with his Body and Existence Understandings was designed to provide an experience as human as possible.
If he were to be injured—for example, by a knife—there would be something like blood flowing. Not real biological blood, but a manifestation of his Existence Understanding that created a sensory illusion to maintain his connection to the human experience.
So that when I am with humans, I can still relate to their experiences.
Without this sensory simulation, Li Yuan might lose touch with the basic aspects of human existence—pain, fatigue, physical vulnerability—which are essential for understanding and empathy.
But now, in these depths, I don't have to pretend to be vulnerable.
The water around him moved with a familiar pattern. And with his Water Understanding, which was now in the Wenjing realm, Li Yuan didn't just feel the movement—he heard the conversation carried by every current.
"Welcome back," the water whispered in a familiar, voiceless language. "We have been waiting for your awakening."
"Four thousand years is not a long time for us," a deeper current said. "But we know that for you, it has been a significant journey."
The Journey Continues
Li Yuan smiled at the warm welcome. The water around him brought news from various places—rain that fell on distant mountain peaks, rivers that flowed through forests he had never seen, tears shed by people on different continents.
The world kept moving while I meditated.
And now, with a deeper understanding of his internal structure, with the spiritual tree that organized his seventeen understandings, with awareness of the Universal Consciousness sleeping in his Sea of Souls, Li Yuan felt ready to re-engage with the external world.
But first, let me feel the changes within myself.
Li Yuan focused his attention on his Water Understanding. The difference between Ganjing and Wenjing was very clear now. In Ganjing, he only felt the presence of water. In Wenjing, he could hear the stories carried by the water, communicate with the water consciousness, and understand the meaning behind every movement.
Sixteen other understandings are still in Ganjing.
But Li Yuan didn't feel frustrated or impatient. Four thousand years for one understanding to reach Wenjing was a reasonable timeline, given the complexity of the spiritual cultivation he had developed.
Depth is more important than speed.
Li Yuan slowly began to rise from his meditation position. His movement created small currents in the water, and each current carried a message of awakening that spread in a wide radius.
It's time to return to the surface.
Not because he needed air to breathe—a consciousness body doesn't require oxygen. But because he felt a calling to reconnect with the world he had left behind four thousand years ago.
The world has probably changed significantly.
Four thousand years is a very long time in human terms. Civilizations may have risen and fallen. Generations may have been born and died. The people he knew—if any were still alive from the previous era—might have become very different.
But change is the nature of existence.
Li Yuan did not feel sad or nostalgic about this. Change is part of life's beauty. Stagnation is death; movement is life.
Li Yuan began his ascent, leaving behind the thirty-thousand-meter depth that had been his home for cultivation. The water around him moved to facilitate his journey, creating a gentle yet powerful current to assist his ascent.
"Thank you," Li Yuan whispered to the water. "For the protection, for the companionship, for the lessons you have given me."
"We will always be with you," the water replied with an encompassing warmth. "Wherever there is water, we are there. And water is everywhere."
With a new understanding of interconnectedness through water, with deeper wisdom about his own spiritual structure, with seventeen understandings organized in an elegant cosmic tree, Li Yuan began his ascent to the surface world.
The new journey had just begun. And this time, he carried a much more solid foundation for whatever adventures awaited him up there.
Ready to dance between inner wisdom and outer reality once again.