The morning after the guard left, the village woke up as if nothing extraordinary had ever happened.
Roosters screamed at the sky. Someone cursed them for existing. Smoke rose from low chimneys in crooked lines. The Pale Wind moved over the roofs, dry as always, as if it had never brushed past a man who bled Qi onto its dust.
Inside the Li house, the world was small and warm.
"Shen. Up."
Li Shen groaned and pulled the blanket over his head. The blanket did not cooperate. It vanished.
Cold air hit his face. He blinked into the dim light and saw his mother standing over him, holding his blanket hostage.
Her hair was tied up in a loose knot, already escaping at the edges. She had one hand on her hip, the blanket hooked casually over her shoulder like a defeated enemy.
"The sun is thinking about getting out of bed," she said. "You're losing a race to something that doesn't even have legs."
"I was awake," he muttered.
"Mm." Her mouth curved. "I could hear how awake you were."
She flicked the blanket at his feet.
"Get up. Your father's eating. That means the field is already thinking about him."
Li Shen sat up, rubbing his eyes. The house smelled of porridge and the sharp, clean tang of pickle brine. His stomach remembered that he was very much alive and complained loudly.
"See?" Li Mei said. "Your belly was awake before your head. That's normal."
He got to his feet and padded into the main room.
Li Heng sat on a low stool by the table, hunched over a bowl. Steam blurred his face. His shoulders looked even broader in the narrow space, like someone had put a rock in a clay room and told the walls to deal with it.
"Morning," Li Shen said.
Li Heng grunted without looking up. It could have meant anything from Good morning, my son to The field will kill me before old age does. With him, sound was a flexible tool.
Li Mei placed a bowl in front of Li Shen. The porridge inside was thin enough to reflect the ceiling, thick enough that his spoon didn't sink outright. On top floated a tiny island of chopped pickled radish. A treasure.
"Eat," she said. "Then you can decide which part of the world you want to carry today."
He shoveled a spoonful into his mouth, burned his tongue, and tried not to show it.
His mother caught the tiny flinch anyway.
"Still pretending heat doesn't hurt, I see," she murmured.
"Hot food means we're lucky," he said, parroting something his father had said once.
Li Heng snorted.
"Hot food means someone got up before you," he said. "Luck is when the field doesn't eat you and the taxes don't double."
Li Mei reached over and tapped his forearm.
"Eat," she told him. "If you start lecturing before you finish your bowl, you'll collapse halfway to the field and I'll have to explain to the ancestors that I married a man who tried to out-argue dirt on an empty stomach."
A rare, faint smile tugged at the corner of Li Heng's mouth. Barely there, but Li Shen saw it.
He liked that almost-smile. It was like seeing the sun slip through a crack in the clouds for just a heartbeat.
He glanced between them—his father, solid and silent; his mother, warm and sharp—and felt that quiet, steady feeling again. The one he didn't have a word for yet. The one that said: This is mine. This is where I start.
---
Later, when Li Heng had left with his hoe and his lunch tied in cloth at his belt, the house thinned out.
Li Mei moved through it with quick, purposeful grace, turning the chaos of three people living in a too-small space into something that looked almost ordered.
She shoved the sleeping mats against the wall. She shook out the blanket and hung it on the line outside, clapping dust from it like an enemy she refused to let inside. She scraped the pot clean, saving every grain. She set aside a small bowl of porridge.
"For Old He?" Li Shen guessed.
"For Old He," she confirmed. "She used half her herbs on that guard. People will come to her for help anyway when their backs give out, and they'll complain if she asks for more than thanks."
"So we give her food," Li Shen said.
"So we give her food," Li Mei echoed. "What we can spare. If we're clever, we spare before we're forced. That way it still feels like a choice."
She wrapped the bowl with cloth, tied it neatly.
"Take this to her," she told Li Shen. "Don't spill. If you do, you'll lick it off the ground."
He made a face. She raised an eyebrow.
"Food that hits the ground doesn't become less food," she said. "It just comes with more chewing. Go."
He took the bowl carefully, feeling its warmth through the cloth, and stepped out into the village.
---
The world outside their door was tiny and endless at the same time.
Tiny, because Li Shen could walk from one end to the other in less time than it took a pot to boil. Endless, because each house, each person, each patch of dirt contained more story than he could ever finish asking about.
He passed the Wu house first. Its roof sat slightly higher than the others, as if it were trying to look down on them.
Old Wu was in the yard, shouting at his eldest son about a broken fence post.
"You hit things with the hammer, not with your stupidity," Wu barked. "If your brain was as hard as your head, we'd be rich."
The son flinched, then straightened, jaw tight.
Old Wu saw Li Shen pass and did a quick, casual sweep with his eyes: bowl, cloth, direction. He didn't say anything, but the calculation was obvious. Who had enough to spare? Who owed who what? Which way was the wind blowing today?
Li Shen dipped his head respectfully and kept walking.
"Li brat's family must have had a good harvest," he heard Wu mutter behind him. "They're still sending food away."
"Or they're just stupid," the son replied.
"Stupid people die slower," Wu said. "Because they don't know when to lie down and stop working. Remember that."
Li Shen's shoulders twitched, but he didn't stop. He'd heard worse from Wu before. The man snapped at everyone. It was like being barked at by a very loud, slightly drunk dog.
Further down, outside a low house patched with scrap wood, Da Niu was trying to lift a stone nearly as big as his head.
"I can do it," he grunted, veins standing out on his neck. "I can—"
The stone tipped, wobbled, and thumped back down, nearly crushing his toes. He yelped and hopped backward.
A smaller boy laughed. "You can't even lift a rock. How are you going to lift a sword?"
"I'll lift it in pieces," Da Niu snapped. "One piece at a time."
He spotted Li Shen and immediately puffed up.
"Hey!" he yelled. "I almost lifted it."
"I saw," Li Shen said. "If the rock had been just a bit lighter, you'd have thrown it at the sky."
Da Niu blinked, processed that, and then grinned, pleased.
"Next time," he said. "Next time I'll throw it all the way to the guard's caravan."
"He'd probably throw it back," Li Shen replied. "Rocks are heavy. Guards are lazy."
Da Niu laughed, big and loud, and the smaller boy laughed with him.
The rock stayed where it was. For now.
---
Old He's hut crouched near the edge of the village like a cat that had decided to live with humans but not really belong to them.
Li Shen nudged the door curtain aside with his shoulder and stepped in carefully, making sure the bowl stayed level.
Old He sat by the small, smoky stove, sorting dried roots into piles. Her hands moved fast, more precise than her age promised.
"You again," she said without looking up. "What are you bringing me this time? Questions or something useful?"
"Both," he said automatically, then winced. "I mean—porridge. From my mother."
"Good. At least one of you is useful."
She took the bowl, peeled back the cloth, sniffed.
"Smells like she put more grain than water in it," Old He said. "She must be in a generous mood."
She set the bowl aside and jerked her chin toward the corner where the guard's mat had been.
The mat was rolled up now. The armor and sword were gone. Only a faint, rusty shadow on the floor remained where blood had soaked into the packed earth before Old He had scrubbed it.
Li Shen stared at that shadow.
"You could throw dirt over it," he said. "Make it disappear."
"I could," Old He said. "But then I'd forget exactly how much of my work he took with him. I prefer remembering."
She eyed him.
"You're disappointed," she noted. "You thought a man with Qi would leave more behind than a stain."
He hesitated. "Maybe."
"Get used to it," she said. "People die. Qi doesn't stop that. Sometimes it just makes the stain bigger."
He swallowed.
"Why did you help him if you think like that?" he asked.
She snorted.
"Because he was there," she said. "Because I could. Because I'd rather have the world owe me one than owe it one corpse I didn't bother to keep breathing."
She tapped his forehead with a knuckle.
"Don't think too hard about it," she said. "You're too young to be arguing with the road. Go run with the other rats while you still have knees."
He should have left at that. Instead, he blurted:
"Do you think I could… ever…?"
He didn't finish. Didn't say reach Qi Condensation. Didn't say hold a sword like that. Didn't say matter to the road.
Old He's eyes sharpened.
"With your veins?" she asked. "With what I've seen of your bones and breath? No."
The word hit him hard.
Then she added, almost lazily, "But I've been wrong before. Life likes making fools of people who speak too clearly."
Her mouth twitched.
"If you want to test it," she said, "start by being useful where you are. Bring your mother's bowls back empty. Carry heavy things without dropping them. See if you can out-stubborn a rock. Qi likes stubborn people. Sometimes."
Li Shen nodded, throat tight.
On the way out, he touched the doorframe with his fingertips, a habit he'd picked up from his mother. A small gesture, like saying I'm here, I'm leaving, I might come back.
The doorframe didn't answer.
---
By midday, the village heat had crept up on them. Not the wet, heavy heat of southern stories, but a dry, clinging warmth that turned sweat into a tacky second skin.
Li Shen helped his mother with the laundry near the shallow stream that pretended it was a river when it rained.
He scrubbed at a shirt until his fingers went numb, then rinsed it in the clear water. It swirled around his wrists, cold and clean, tickling the tiny hairs on his skin.
"Not like that," Li Mei said. "You're just moving the dirt around. You need to rub the cloth against itself, see? Make it fight."
She took the shirt, demonstrated. The fabric squeaked as it slid over itself.
"Cloth is like people," she said. "If you don't give it something to push against, it never gets really clean."
He copied her. His arms ached quickly. She watched, then nodded.
"Better," she said. "You'll make a decent washer-wife one day."
He made a face. "I don't want to be a washer-wife."
"What do you want to be?" she asked.
He opened his mouth.
A trader with a cart. A guard with a sword. A cultivator with Qi. A man whose steps made roads remember him.
"I don't know," he said instead. "Something that… doesn't just wait."
She dipped her hands into the water, lifting it and letting it fall. Droplets caught the light, then vanished.
"The world needs people who wait," she said. "If everyone walked, who would be there when they came back?"
"What if they never come back?" he asked.
"Then the people who waited will learn to walk," she said simply. "That's how it's always been."
She smiled at him, small but real.
"When I was your age," she said, "I wanted to be a singer in a big city. I wanted to stand in front of people who had never worked a field and make them cry just with my voice."
"You can still sing," he said. "You sing when you cook."
"That's different," she said. "Here I sing so the pot doesn't get bored. There I wanted to sing so strangers would remember me."
"Why didn't you go?" he asked.
She glanced at the water, then at him.
"Because I met a man whose silence was worth more to me than any applause," she said. "Because someone had to be here when he came home muddy and offended at the field. Because wanting something doesn't always mean you chase it."
She wrung out the shirt, her hands strong and sure.
"Do you regret it?" he asked.
She thought.
"Sometimes, when the wind carries another village's song," she said. "Sometimes, when my back hurts so much I want to throw the whole house into the river. But then your father snores, and you ask me too many questions, and I remember that I chose this. Choosing is worth something."
She flicked a handful of water at him.
"Besides," she added, "if I'd left, who would be here to keep you from falling face-first into the stream because you're thinking instead of looking?"
He laughed and splashed her back. The cold hit her neck; she shrieked, then laughed too, eyes bright.
For a breath, nothing existed except sun, water, and the sound of them.
---
In the afternoon, he ran with the other children.
They chased each other between houses, stole unripe fruit from a tree they all swore they'd never touch again and always did, argued over who had to be the bandits this time.
"Not me," Da Niu said firmly. "I was a bandit yesterday."
"You were a bad bandit yesterday," Zhou Liang said. "You died too fast. Bandits are supposed to be scary."
"You're scary," Qian Mei told him. "You talk too much."
She pointed at Li Shen.
"He can be the cultivator," she decided. "He saw one."
"I don't want to be the cultivator," Li Shen said instinctively.
The others stared.
"Why not?" a little boy asked, wide-eyed. "Cultivators win."
"Not always," Li Shen said. "Sometimes they fall over near ditches."
Silence, brief but sharp.
"Fine," Zhou Liang cut in, eager not to lose momentum. "I'll be the cultivator. I'll have a sword and Qi and a cloak that doesn't exist yet. Who's my enemy?"
"The taxes," Qian Mei said. "You can fight those. I'll watch."
They reassembled the game. Zhou Liang became the guard-hero, Da Niu the ferocious beast, the little ones the screaming villagers. Li Shen ended up as the person who tried to pull everyone out of the way before they got trampled.
He didn't mind.
It felt… right, somehow. To be the one pushing and pulling rather than the one standing in the middle swinging something sharp.
Later, when the game dissolved into dust and sweat and bad acting, he lay on his back in a patch of shade with Zhou Liang and Qian Mei.
The sky above them was a pale, washed-out blue.
"Do you think sect people ever look up and see the same sky as us?" Zhou Liang asked suddenly.
"They'd see more of it," Da Niu said from nearby. "They're taller."
"That's not how the sky works," Qian Mei sighed.
"I don't know," Li Shen said. "If the sky is big enough, maybe it's different everywhere."
He thought of the guard again, spear in hand, sword at his hip, walking into mist. The world above their fields had felt very far before. Now it had edges he could almost touch.
"I want to see it," Zhou Liang said. "All of it. I don't want to die in a place that can fit inside a morning's run."
Qian Mei was quiet for a long moment.
"I just don't want to die stupid," she said finally.
Da Niu, eyes half-closed, mumbled, "I don't want to die hungry."
Li Shen didn't say what he didn't want to die as.
He didn't have the word yet.
---
Evening brought his father back, as it always did.
Li Heng stepped through the door with dirt on his boots and the particular stiffness that meant his back would hurt more tomorrow. He set his hoe in its corner, the wood worn smooth where his hands always gripped it.
Li Mei moved around him like water around a rock, untying the cloth lunch bundle, checking how much he'd eaten, clucking softly at the amount of dust he'd brought in.
"You fought the field again," she said. "Who won?"
"It hasn't killed me yet," he said. "So I call it a draw."
She snorted and handed him a cup of warm water.
Li Shen watched them with an attentiveness that would have embarrassed him if he'd been aware of it.
He saw the way his mother's fingers brushed his father's wrist for a heartbeat longer than necessary. He saw the way his father's shoulders dropped half an inch when he stepped inside the house, as if the walls themselves took some of the weight.
He sat at the table while his parents moved in their small orbit, familiar and solid. Porridge for dinner again. A bit of pickled vegetable. Li Mei had saved one small, wrinkled fruit and sliced it into thin pieces so all three of them could have some.
"This is because your father didn't fall into the field today," she told Li Shen solemnly, dropping a slice into his bowl. "It's a celebration."
Li Heng rolled his eyes.
"If I fall," he said, "you'll just sell my hoe and buy salt."
"Don't tempt me," she shot back.
Li Shen laughed, the sound bubbling up easily.
He ate his fruit slice slowly, trying to stretch its sweetness as far as it would go.
At some point, his parents' conversation slipped into quieter channels: murmurs about seed stores, about Wu's latest attempt to buy someone's land cheap, about Old He's herbs, about whether the roof would survive another season without repairs.
Their words blurred into background noise.
The important part, for Li Shen, was not what they said.
It was that they said it here. Together. With him in the room.
---
That night, when he lay down on his mat, he was full—not just in his stomach, but in that other, nameless place where warmth pooled.
He could hear his father's breathing through the wall. Slow, heavy, reliable. He could hear his mother turning once, twice, then settling, her breath a softer thread in the dark.
He stared up at the ceiling, tracing cracks he'd memorized long ago.
In his mind, the village stretched out like a map: Wu's too-tall roof, Da Niu's stubborn rock, Old He's hut with its fading stain, the stream where his mother had splashed him, the field where his father fought the earth daily and came back undefeated so far.
Beyond that, the road wound away into places he couldn't draw yet.
One day, he knew, he would have to walk it.
Not because of a sect's decree. Not because of a caravan's coins. Because something in him wouldn't let him stay small forever.
Tonight, though, his world was exactly the size it needed to be.
A house that didn't leak too much. A father who came home every evening. A mother whose hands smelled like soap and smoke and grain, who told him he was enough.
He rolled onto his side, facing the thin wall that separated his mat from theirs. His hand twitched, almost reaching out.
He didn't touch the wall.
He didn't need to.
He could feel them there, solid as the earth under the village.
Outside, the Pale Wind slipped over the roofs, indifferent to the lives curled beneath them.
Inside, in this small square of warmth and breath, a boy fell asleep believing—truly, deeply—that this was how the world would always feel.
He didn't know that these were the days his memory would later cling to like a starving man to crumbs.
For now, they were just days.
Simple. Bright. Unbroken.