The first thing he remembered clearly was the sound of the wind.
It slipped over the low hills and across the patchwork of fields, carrying the smell of dry earth and leftover straw. It rattled the crooked shutters, hissed through the thatched roofs, and made the old wooden bell at the roadside shrine clack against its frame in slow, irregular beats.
In the Pale Wind region, even the wind sounded tired.
A boy sat on the edge of a narrow irrigation ditch, bare feet dangling above the thin strip of sluggish water. His trousers were rolled up to the knee, patched twice over by hands that knew how to make old cloth last one more season. Mud streaked his shins. In his hand, a thin stick traced lines in the damp soil.
A circle.
A cross inside.
Four small marks around it.
He didn't know what it meant. Sun. Wheel. Seed. Gate. It just felt like it should mean something.
"Shen! If you fall in that ditch again, I'll let the frogs adopt you."
The shout cut through the wind. He turned his head.
A woman stood at the edge of the field, one hand on her hip, the other shading her eyes. Her hair was tied back with a faded strip of cloth, a few loose strands plastered to her forehead with sweat. The apron around her waist bore stains of soy, flour, and smoke. Her expression was half stern, half amused—the exact mixture that always made his chest feel oddly light.
"I won't fall," the boy answered.
"You say that every time." She snorted. "Last week you 'didn't fall' either, but somehow your clothes had to be washed twice."
"That's because Da Niu pushed me."
"Mm. And you, you didn't push him first, of course."
He opened his mouth, closed it, and looked back down at the mud. The stick kept moving.
The woman watched him for a moment longer, then sighed.
"Lunch is ready. Your father will be back from the upper field soon. If he smells food and doesn't see you in the house…" She tilted her head. "I'll let him eat your portion too."
That finally got him moving.
He hopped to his feet, wiped his hand on his already dirty shirt, and trotted toward her. Behind her, the village sprawled in a loose cluster of houses and sheds, all wood and packed earth. Smoke rose from a handful of chimneys before flattening as the wind caught it and smeared it toward the horizon.
"Did you help with the firewood?" she asked, falling into step beside him.
"Yes."
"Did you spread straw for the chickens?"
"Yes."
"Did you wash your hands?"
He hesitated. "…I wiped them."
She stopped. He took two more steps before realizing, then turned back.
She extended her hand, palm up.
"Come," she said.
His small, muddy fingers disappeared in her calloused grip as she towed him toward the stone basin by the house. Water sloshed gently inside—a precious thing in a place where the well rope never rested and no one wasted a drop without a reason.
She dipped a gourd, poured water over his hands.
"Again," she said. "And use the soap this time. Not like last month, when you only made bubbles and tried to eat them."
"That was when I was little."
"You're still little."
He scrubbed obediently. The water turned brown, then slowly cleared. When his hands emerged, reddened but reasonably clean, she inspected them with exaggerated seriousness.
Then she flicked a single drop of water at his forehead.
He scrunched up his face. "Ma…"
"That's what you get for testing my patience. Inside."
---
The house was small, but it felt full.
The main room held a low table, two stools, a chest against the far wall, and a faded hanging scroll showing a pine tree clinging to a cliffside. The ink strokes had bled over the years, but the tree still looked stubborn.
He liked that tree.
His father sat by the table, broad back straight, posture almost military despite the dirt smeared across his clothes. Dust traced the lines of worn fabric over solid muscle. His face was plain—sun-browned skin, rough stubble, eyes the color of dry soil—but there was a solidity to him, as if someone had carved him out of the land rather than born him from a womb.
"You're back early," the boy said.
"Clouds rolled in," his father replied. "If the rain is coming, it'll come whether we finish the row or not."
"It won't rain," his mother said, setting bowls on the table. "The wind's wrong."
"The wind has been wrong all year," his father answered, but he let the subject drop.
They sat.
The meal was simple: rice, a thin topping of greens, and a few slivers of dried meat. The boy's bowl held a slightly larger portion. He tried not to look at it, as if ignoring the extra would make it less obvious.
His mother's chopsticks moved with quiet efficiency. His father ate like a man finishing a job—steady, without hurry or indulgence.
"Old Wu is hiring boys for his lower field," his father said, pausing between bites. "Says he'll pay in grain, not coin."
"Of course he pays in grain," his mother muttered. "What coin? If that man ever sees silver, it probably makes him dizzy."
The boy smiled around his chopsticks.
His father's gaze shifted to him.
"You're almost big enough to carry sacks," he said. "Almost."
"I can carry them," the boy said quickly. "I'm strong."
"Mm." His father looked him over in silence, as if weighing not the boy's arms but his bones, the way he stood, the set of his shoulders. "Fields don't care whether you think you're strong. They only care whether the work is done."
His mother nudged him in the ribs with an elbow. "Stop trying to plant him early. He's still a child."
"And the fields won't wait for him to grow up," his father replied. His voice stayed calm, but it softened at the edges. "We'll see."
The boy bent his head over his bowl.
He didn't fully grasp the details of their exchange, but he felt the weight in it. It lodged somewhere between his chest and his throat, like a stone too big to swallow and too small to spit out.
He finished every last grain of rice, scraping the bowl clean.
---
After lunch, the village slipped back into its rhythms.
Men returned to the fields or to small workshops. Women washed, mended, chopped, bartered. Older children drifted toward chores, younger ones scattered like sparrows, running where they shouldn't and pretending not to hear when called.
The boy hovered near the threshing ground, watching.
Da Niu—broad-shouldered, heavier than any boy his age had a right to be—was trying to lift a sack of grain alone. The sack won. Da Niu staggered, nearly tipping backward.
"Careful!" someone shouted.
Laughter followed.
Da Niu clenched his jaw and forced the sack upright again. When he noticed the boy watching, his eyes narrowed.
"What are you looking at?" Da Niu snapped.
"Making sure you don't fall," the boy said.
"I wasn't going to fall."
"Of course."
The tone was mild. Too mild.
Da Niu bristled. "You think you're better than me?"
"No," the boy said. "You're stronger."
That was true. It still didn't help.
"Then why are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?"
"Like you're… thinking."
The boy blinked. "I'm just looking."
"Well, stop. It's annoying."
Before the mood could sour further, another voice slipped into the space between them.
"If Da Niu falls," Zhou Liang declared, "the whole Vent Pâle will think it's an earthquake."
The skinny, sharp-eyed boy trotted over, ash smeared on his cheek from his father's kiln.
"Shut up, Zhou Liang," Da Niu growled.
"I would," Zhou Liang said, "but then who would speak the truth in this village?"
A few nearby children snickered. Da Niu's scowl shifted targets.
"You want to try lifting this yourself?"
"Me?" Zhou Liang clutched at his chest dramatically. "I'm a future scholar. My hands are meant for brushes, not sacks."
"You can't even read," the boy pointed out.
"That's not the point, Shen," Zhou Liang sniffed. "Greatness isn't about details."
Da Niu lunged.
Zhou Liang yelped and bolted, dragging the boy with him. They weaved between stacks of straw and tools until Da Niu gave up, sweating and swearing vengeance.
"You two are dead!" Da Niu shouted. "Next time I catch you—dead!"
"See?" Zhou Liang panted, bent double, hands on his knees. "He cares about us deeply."
The boy shook his head, but the corners of his mouth betrayed him.
A short while later, Qian Mei appeared, a woven basket hooked over her arm. Her hair was tied neatly, her clothes plain but tidy. She handed each of them a dried date without a word.
"You always bring food at the right time," Zhou Liang mumbled around his mouthful. "Are you sure you're not secretly a deity?"
"I'm sure," she said. "You'd be dead already if I were."
He choked. The boy smiled.
"You heard about the man Old He brought in?" Qian Mei asked.
"What man?" Zhou Liang's head snapped up. "A merchant? A bandit? A cultivator?"
"Travelers came through this morning," she said. "A small caravan. They said one of their guards fell behind on the road, hurt. Old He went with them. They came back with him on a cart."
"Guard?" Zhou Liang wrinkled his nose. "Just a guard?"
"He had a sword," Qian Mei added.
That changed everything in Zhou Liang's mind.
"A sword," he breathed. "So he is a cultivator."
The boy felt something coil tight in his chest at the word.
Cultivator.
He'd heard it before, in stories and muttered curses. Always distant. Always above. Like the mountains beyond the fields—there, but unreachable.
"What did he look like?" the boy asked.
"Tired," Qian Mei said. She thought a moment. "Wrong, somehow. Like something inside him doesn't match what's outside."
"Did he glow?" Zhou Liang pressed. "Did his eyes shine? Did the ground tremble when he walked? Did he ride a sword through the air?"
"He was lying on a cart," Qian Mei said flatly. "Breathing like every breath hurt."
"Maybe it was an injury from a great battle," Zhou Liang said. "Escorting a caravan through a beast-infested forest. Or fighting bandits. Or—"
"Or he's a low-level guard who was unlucky," Qian Mei cut in. "Old He said his Qi is thin. The caravan master called him 'barely better than a strong farmer'."
The boy filed that phrase away.
Barely better than a strong farmer.
"Where is he now?" he asked.
"At Old He's," Qian Mei said. "She told the caravan to move on. Said if they dragged him any farther, he'd die on the road."
Zhou Liang was already edging in that direction.
"Let's go see," he said.
"We shouldn't bother them," Qian Mei protested.
But the boys were moving, and she followed, sighing.
---
Old He's hut leaned against a crooked tree at the edge of the village, as if the two had grown together over the years. The door stood half-open. The smell of herbs and smoke seeped into the air.
The boy paused at the threshold, bare toes curling against the cold stone.
Inside, Old He stood by a small fire, stirring something in a clay pot. Her hair—once black, now more snow than night—was braided loosely down her back. The lines on her face had been carved slowly, by time and by watching other people's pain.
On a straw mat in the corner lay the man.
He was younger than the boy had imagined—not old, but worn. His hair was tangled, his skin waxy, his lips cracked. His robe, once thicker and sturdier than anything the villagers wore, was stained and torn along one sleeve. Sweat clung to his brow despite the chill.
A sword lay beside him, half-wrapped in plain cloth. Its hilt was functional, not ornate, a tool rather than a treasure.
He did not look like the heroes in stories.
He looked like someone who had been given a heavier load than he could carry, and then left in a ditch when he fell.
Old He glanced back and saw them.
"You three," she said. "You're about as subtle as a cow in a pottery shop."
Zhou Liang coughed. "We were just… passing by."
"Mm. Then pass by more quietly." She jerked her chin at the man. "He's hanging on to his breath by threads. No need to cut them quicker."
"Is he really a cultivator?" Zhou Liang blurted.
Old He considered the question. She wiped her hands on a cloth and stepped aside, giving them a clearer view.
"Yes," she said at last. "A low one."
"How low?" the boy asked.
"At best," Old He said, "he's at the first or second step of Qi Condensation. A little Qi trickling through his veins. Enough to be stronger than you lot, faster to heal from cuts and bruises. Not enough to matter to any sect worth its name."
"So… he's weak?" Zhou Liang said, disappointment thick in his voice.
"He's weak compared to the people above him," Old He said. "Compared to you, he's still standing on another floor entirely."
The man's chest rose and fell shallowly. Up close, the boy saw the faint tremor under his skin, as if something inside his body was misaligned.
"What happened to him?" Qian Mei asked quietly.
"Road happened," Old He said. "Bandits, probably. Maybe beasts. The caravan master didn't say much. Only that their guard got hit, spent too much energy, fell behind. They couldn't wait."
"They left him?" Zhou Liang said, scandalized.
Old He's mouth tightened. "They brought him as far as the village. That already stretched their kindness. If he weren't a cultivator, he'd be dead in a ditch halfway here."
Her eyes moved to the sword.
"He's alive because that little bit of Qi in him is still fighting," she said. "And because I can stop him from bleeding out too fast. That's all."
"Can you… heal him?" the boy asked before he could stop himself.
"I can keep his body from collapsing right away," Old He replied. "But I can't fix his cultivation. His meridians are strained. He pushed too hard, for too long, with too little." She shrugged. "Whether he walks again is between him and the bit of Heaven that still remembers him."
The boy looked at the man's face.
This was a cultivator. Someone who had stepped onto the path that, in stories, led to power and freedom above the heads of ordinary people. Someone who could gather Qi, reinforce his flesh, survive blows that would kill a farmer.
And this was where that path had left him: on a mat in a poor hut, breathing like each inhale was a struggle, abandoned by the people who had hired him because he was "barely better than a strong farmer."
Old He caught the boy's expression.
"Don't get lost in your stories, child," she said. "Most cultivators you'll ever meet, if you meet any at all, are like him."
"Like him?" Zhou Liang said. "But the storytellers in the bourgade—"
"The storytellers have to earn wine money," Old He cut in dryly. "No one pays to hear about caravan guards who collapse by the roadside."
She turned back to the pot.
"Go home. Your parents will want to know where you are."
They retreated, the doorway swallowing the smell of herbs behind them. Outside, the wind greeted them again, tugging at their sleeves, tugging at their thoughts.
Zhou Liang tried to salvage the moment.
"Maybe he used to be stronger," he said. "Maybe he—"
"He's a guard who got left behind," Qian Mei said. "That's all."
The boy said nothing.
He kept seeing the man's hand clenched weakly on the edge of the mat, as if he were still trying to hold on to something—even if that something was only the right to keep breathing a little longer.
---
That night, the wind was louder than usual.
The boy lay on his straw mat in the corner of the house, blanket pulled up to his chin. Moonlight squeezed through the gaps in the shutters, drawing pale lines across the packed earth floor.
From the main room came the low murmur of his parents' voices.
"…Wu says the soil's tired," his father's rumble drifted through the door. "Fields gave less this year. If next year is worse—"
"We had worse years," his mother replied softly.
"We had fewer mouths then."
Silence. The soft clack of chopsticks being stacked. A sigh.
"We'll manage," she said.
"We always say that," his father answered. "One day the land will stop believing us."
The boy stared at the dark ceiling. The thatch above him rustled as the wind forced its way through.
Cultivator.
Guard.
Barely better than a strong farmer.
Left behind.
He turned onto his side.
"Ma?" he called, voice small in the wind's growl.
The murmurs stopped. Footsteps padded closer. The door-panel slid aside with a soft scrape.
His mother's silhouette filled the doorway. "You're not asleep?"
"The wind is loud," he said.
"It's the same wind as yesterday."
"It feels heavier," he insisted.
She came in and sat on the edge of his mat. The straw dipped under her weight. In the dim light, her features softened, the lines of work and worry hidden in shadow.
"You went to see Old He," she said. It wasn't a question.
He hesitated. "…Yes."
"And?"
"He looked…" The boy searched for the right word. "…wrong. Like his body wanted to stop, but something inside wouldn't let it yet."
She was quiet for a moment.
"Old He said he's a cultivator," the boy continued. "But she also said he's weak. That he's barely better than a strong farmer. The caravan left him because they couldn't wait."
Her hand found his hair, smoothing it back from his forehead.
"The world doesn't stop for us," she said. "Not for farmers. Not for guards. Not for anyone."
"Are cultivators really stronger than us?" he asked.
"Yes," she said simply. "Even a weak one can do things you and I cannot."
"Then why was he like that? Why couldn't he just… get up and walk?"
"Because strength isn't a story," she replied. "It's a number. A measure. There's always someone above, someone below. He's above you. Others are above him. And the road doesn't care which side you're on when you hit it."
He tried to picture that. A ladder too tall to see the top, most people never placing their foot even on the first rung. This man had climbed a step or two, only to be kicked sideways and left where he fell.
"It doesn't look fair," the boy murmured.
"It isn't," she said. "Fairness is something people talk about when they're not hungry."
Her words weren't cruel. They were just… steady.
Her hand pressed briefly against his chest.
"What matters for us," she said, "is that you're here, your father is here, there is food on the table today, and we still have seed for tomorrow. The rest is smoke."
He swallowed. The question rose before he could choke it down.
"Do you think someone like me could ever become… like him?"
It wasn't what he had meant to say.
He had wanted to ask about sects, about swords, about the clouds. Instead, the image that came was of a man on a mat, caught between life and death, with just enough cultivation to still be fighting.
Her hand stilled in his hair.
For a long moment, she didn't speak. He heard only the wind outside, the quiet creak of wood settling.
"I think," she said at last, "that most people will live and die in this village without ever touching Qi, without ever seeing even the first step of that path. The world doesn't owe any of us a chance at it."
The boy's throat tightened. That was not the comforting lie the stories promised.
"But," she added quietly, "if such a chance ever appears in front of you—no matter how small, no matter how narrow—I know you." She tapped his forehead lightly. "You won't pretend not to see it."
"That doesn't make me stronger," he whispered.
"No," she agreed. "It just means you'll walk until your legs give out, if you decide it matters."
Her hand lifted from his chest. The blanket rose back over his shoulders, tucking him in like a shield against the night.
"Sleep, Shen."
She slid the door-panel closed behind her.
The murmur of voices resumed in the other room, low as the river at the edge of the fields.
He lay in the dark, eyes open, listening to the wind claw at the walls.
Somewhere at the edge of the village, a half-broken cultivator clung to life because of a trickle of Qi no sect would ever consider worth grooming. Somewhere beyond the hills, in cities he had never seen, people with far more power than that guard chose who to raise and who to abandon.
He knew none of the details.
All he knew was this:
The world was large.
His house was small.
His parents were still in the next room.
And on a mat in a crooked hut, a man who had climbed the first step of a great path lay closer to death than anyone in this house tonight.
His eyes closed slowly.
Sleep came—not gentle, but heavy, like a door pushed shut on a room full of questions he had only just learned how to ask.
Outside, beneath the pale wind, the village endured.