"There are more people here."
Heng Zhen opened his eyes for the first time in what felt like an immeasurable span. He saw young people, elders, even animals sitting in silence. No sounds, no requests. Only a presence slowly adjusting to something unseen.
Lu Wen sat across from him, gazing at the valley that had once been empty but now brimmed with living silence. He tried to speak, but no words could capture the feeling growing in his chest. He did not feel strong, nor weak. He simply felt... present.
"They don't come for power," Heng Zhen continued, his voice barely a whisper like the wind. "They come because the world calls them. Or because they have fought the world for too long."
Lu Wen nodded. "But what is really happening? Is this Qi? But Qi isn't like this..."
"It's not the Qi they chase. This isn't energy for attack or defense. This... is something that arises when we stop taking. When we... absorb."
Heng Zhen closed his eyes again. He began to feel a subtle current flowing beneath the ground, tracing the roots, climbing the bones of the rocks, gently floating among the breaths of the valley's inhabitants.
That was Yuanqi. Qi that does not force the world to submit, but Qi that emerges when the world feels accepted. Not to be dominated, but to be absorbed, understood, and enjoyed like air that is never forcibly drawn.
Yuanqi does not roar. It does not dazzle. It leaves no scars.
It simply exists like dew before dawn.
Like the sound of water dripping between stones.
And like the feeling of silence that feels whole, even without sound.
"Isn't power born from resistance?" Lu Wen asked.
"That's what they teach," Heng Zhen replied. "But true power isn't about winning. True power is when the world no longer needs to be denied. When body, soul, and sky... are in harmony."
Lu Wen fell silent. He didn't fully understand, but for the first time in his life, he felt no need to hurry.
That night, Yuanqi descended for the first time like a soft mist not from the sky, but from within their chests. And everyone breathing in that valley began to feel something they couldn't explain.
Not change. But the return of something long lost to humanity.
The awareness that they... are enough.