Inside the Zhenjing, time did not move as it did in the outside world.
Li Yuan did not know how long he had been sitting here—at the meeting point between the Core of Awareness and the Space of Questions, the place where the roots of the Tree of Meaning met the trunk that carried all questions.
Maybe days. Maybe weeks. In the inner world, duration was not measured in hours but by the depth one reached.
And he had only just begun.
He felt the Core of Awareness—the Understanding of Water that served as the anchor for his entire Zhenjing—and allowed his awareness to seep into its most fundamental essence.
Water.
Not water as a physical substance but water as a principle. As a resonance. As the way the Dao expressed itself through a softness that could erode stone, a flexibility that never lost its true form, an ability to flow without resistance but with constant power.
This is what I have understood about water for fifteen thousand years, he mused, feeling the depth of the Core of Awareness. But what I learned on the ice continent suggests something more fundamental.
Water is not just liquid. Water is three phases—solid, liquid, gas. Ice, water, steam.
And if I only understand the liquid phase, then I only understand one-third of the truth.
He opened his awareness wider—not outward but inward, into the depths of the Core of Awareness that he had never reached with such intensity before.
And he began to feel something new.
The Core of Awareness was not a static point. It was… a pulsation. A vibration. A rhythm so subtle that Li Yuan had never fully noticed it until now, when he focused with total intensity.
The rhythm was like a breath.
Inhale—contraction. Exhale—expansion. Rest—in between.
Three breaths, Li Yuan realized with a sudden, clear awareness. My own Core of Awareness is already breathing with a three-phase rhythm. I just never listened deeply enough.
He focused on the contraction—the moment when spiritual energy gathered, when structure was reinforced, when stability was affirmed.
This was the solid state. The nature of ice. A contraction that stores, that maintains form, that provides structure.
Then he focused on the expansion—the moment when spiritual energy dispersed, when boundaries softened, when consciousness expanded beyond a defined form.
This was the gaseous state. The nature of steam. An expansion that disperses, that releases form, that becomes part of something greater.
And in between—a moment of rest that was not an absence but a different kind of presence.
This was the liquid state. The nature of water. A flow that neither contracts nor expands but that moves, that connects, that carries.
Three breaths. Three phases. And it is all happening within my own Core of Awareness—I just never realized that this is what was occurring.
Li Yuan felt a quiet sense of awe—an awareness that he had lived with this rhythm for thousands of years but was only now truly listening to it.
Cultivation is not about creating something new, he reminded himself with a discipline honed over countless years. Cultivation is about becoming aware of what already exists, what is already happening, but which we have not yet listened to deeply enough.
My Core of Awareness is already breathing with three phases. Now my task is to make that breath conscious—to bring that natural rhythm to a level where it doesn't just happen but where I understand, where I resonate, where I become a conscious participant in the process itself.
Days passed—or what felt like days in the internal time of the Zhenjing.
Li Yuan did not move from his position at the center. He simply focused, with a patience born from fifteen thousand years of cultivation, on the rhythm of the three breaths within his Core of Awareness.
Contraction. Expansion. Flow.
Solid. Gas. Liquid.
Ice. Steam. Water.
Every cycle—which lasted perhaps a few seconds in normal time but felt like an eternity in his expanded awareness—brought a slightly deeper understanding.
He began to feel not just the rhythm but the transitions.
The moment when contraction turned into flow. The moment when flow turned into expansion. The moment when expansion returned to contraction.
The transitions are the key, he realized with sudden clarity. Not the phases themselves but the change from one phase to another. That is where true transformation happens.
Ice becoming water—not two separate states but one continuous process. The crystalline structure breaking apart, the molecules suddenly free, an instant transformation that required energy accumulated slowly.
Water becoming steam—releasing its bonds with other molecules, rising because it is lighter, becoming invisible but not ceasing to exist.
Steam becoming water—cooling, condensing, returning to a denser form, but with a memory of the freedom it once experienced.
Three transitions. Three moments of transformation. And they are all part of one complete breath.
Li Yuan felt this awareness seep deeper—not as an intellectual concept but as a visceral feeling that he felt with his entire spiritual being.
And then something began to change in the Core of Awareness.
The change was very subtle at first. Almost unnoticeable. But it became clearer with each cycle of the breath.
Contraction no longer felt separate from expansion. Flow no longer felt like a transition between two different states.
The three began to… overlap. To occur simultaneously. Not alternately but concurrently, in varying degrees, but all present at the same time.
This is integration, Li Yuan realized with a spiritual bated breath. Not three alternating phases but three phases that breathe together. That coexist. That become a single unity without losing their individualities.
He felt the Core of Awareness begin to vibrate in a new way—not a single vibration but a complex chord with three harmonious notes.
The first note: solid, stable, storing. Ice.
The second note: liquid, flowing, connecting. Water.
The third note: gas, dispersed, expanding. Steam.
And these three notes—when played simultaneously, not alternately—created a harmony that Li Yuan had never heard before.
This is no longer the water I know, he mused with a profound sense of awe. This is… something more fundamental. Water that can be solid, liquid, and gas all at once without losing its balance.
It needed a name—not to claim ownership, but to mark the understanding.
Li Yuan was silent for a long time, feeling the harmony of the three phases, allowing the resonance to fill his consciousness until the right name emerged—not created but discovered, like finding the perfect word to describe something that already existed but had never been spoken.
真水 (Zhēn Shuǐ), he whispered with a spiritual resonance that made his entire Zhenjing vibrate ever so slightly.
True Water.
Not ordinary water—not just the liquid phase—but a breathing wholeness. An essence that could be solid, liquid, or gas according to what the Dao required, but which never lost its fundamental identity.
This is what true water means. Not being stuck in one form but being able to be all forms without losing its essence.
As the name resonated in his consciousness, something profound happened in the structure of the Core of Awareness.
The color changed.
Previously, the Core of Awareness radiated a steady blue light—the color of water in its liquid form, the softness and flow that had been Li Yuan's spiritual signature for thousands of years.
But now, that color began to shift.
It didn't disappear but evolved. It developed.
A layer of blue remained—the core of the core, the essence of the flow—but new gradations appeared around it.
A layer of crystalline white—the transparency of ice, the structure that stores, a clarity that reflects without distortion.
A layer of subtle gray—the visible absence of steam, a dispersed presence, a freedom that is not bound to a form.
The three layers—blue, white, gray—were not separated by clear lines but overlapped, blending, creating a moving gradation like an inner aurora.
Like an aurora in the polar sky, Li Yuan mused, watching this transformation with awe that never faded. Colors that move, that change, that are never static but are always beautiful in the change itself.
The Core of Awareness no longer radiated a single frequency. It radiated a spectrum—a range that included all manifestations of water, from the most solid to the most subtle.
And from this evolved Core of Awareness, a new resonance began to spread.
Li Yuan felt the vibration move outward—not with speed but with inevitability, like a ripple in calm water, spreading in ever-widening circles.
This vibration touched the Space of Questions that surrounded the Core of Awareness.
And the questions there—the thousands of questions he had collected over fifteen thousand years—began to resonate in a new way.
Questions that were once just about "how does water flow" began to expand into "how does change itself work."
Questions that were once about "why does ice store memory" began to widen into "how do different forms store the same essence."
Questions that were once personal—"what do I understand about water"—began to shift into the universal—"how does the Dao express itself through transformation."
The Space of Questions is evolving, Li Yuan observed with calm awareness. Because when the Core of Awareness changes, everything connected to it also changes. Like when the roots of a tree grow deeper, the entire tree becomes more stable, more able to support heavier branches.
The vibration continued to spread—reaching beyond the Space of Questions, reaching the branches of the Tree of Meaning, touching the eighteen spaces of Understanding scattered in a complex but intuitive pattern.
And in each space, something subtle began to change.
The Understanding of Silence—which was once only about the absence of sound—began to feel a new quality: a silence that could be dense like ice, fluid like water, or dispersed like steam.
The Understanding of Fear—which was once about meaningful shadows—began to feel that fear also has phases: fear that freezes and paralyzes, fear that flows and motivates, fear that disperses and becomes general alertness.
The Understanding of Loss—which was once about love that cannot be held—began to feel that loss is also a transformation: from having (solid) to releasing (liquid) to becoming a memory that spreads throughout one's entire being (gas).
All of my Understandings are beginning to absorb the principle of 真水, Li Yuan realized with a mixture of awe and… something else. Something deeper than awe.
This is not just about the Understanding of Water evolving. This is about my entire Zhenjing evolving. Because Water is the Core of Awareness—the filter through which all other understandings must pass.
When Water changes from understanding one phase to understanding three phases as a unity, all other understandings also begin to understand that they are not single-state but a spectrum of possibilities.
He felt the Tree of Meaning vibrate—not with instability but with new vitality, with energy flowing from the roots that had grown deeper, from a Core of Awareness that had reached new depths.
And Li Yuan sat at the center of all this—not as a controller but as a witness, as a conscious participant in a process greater than himself.
True cultivation, he mused with a clarity honed over thousands of years, is not about me changing the Dao. True cultivation is about allowing the Dao to change me—or more accurately, about realizing that I have always been a part of the Dao, and that the changes happening are the Dao recognizing itself through my consciousness.
I did not create 真水. I only realized that True Water has always existed—in the natural cycles of the world, in the eternal transformation from solid to liquid to gas and back again.
I was just quiet enough to listen. Patient enough to observe. Humble enough to acknowledge that this is not my achievement but my discovery.
The resonance of 真水 continued to spread—slowly but constantly, like water seeping into the ground, not in a hurry but unstoppable.
And Li Yuan knew: this was just the beginning.
The integration of the three phases had just started. There were still depths yet to be reached. Still transformations not yet fully understood.
There was still a long way to go before he truly understood what 真水 meant—True Water that breathes with three phases simultaneously.
But for now, here, at the center of his Zhenjing that had begun to evolve, he felt something he had not expected.
Not satisfaction—because cultivation is never finished.
But… rightness. A feeling that he was on the correct path, that he was moving in the direction he was meant to, that every step—though slow, though requiring an immense amount of time—was a meaningful step.
Depth after depth.
As always.
Without end.
And that—he realized with a quiet peace—was the true Daojing.
Not a destination but a path.
Not an end but a process.
Not a creation but an unending discovery.
真水.
True Water.
A breathing wholeness.