A few days after the tension passed, the valley remained silent but it was no longer a silence of peace. Now, something lingered in the air: hope, uncertainty, and quiet curiosity. Some stayed sitting longer than usual. Others began walking beyond the valley's edges, searching for stillness in solitude.
At night, a small fire flickered. Around it sat Lao Wen, San Lie, Lu Wen, Li Rou, and three new faces young people from beyond the valley who had long watched from afar.
They came without names. Without stories of where they were from. But their faces carried the signs: long-carried doubt, brought all this way for a single answer.
One of them, a young woman, asked softly:
"If there is no path, how do we walk?"
Heng Zhen stepped forward, sitting by the fire and letting its warmth touch his hands. He looked at each of them in turn.
"There is no path... but there is always a step."
The young woman continued,"But we're not you. We don't find Yuanqi in stillness. We only heard that you did. Are we supposed to imitate you?"
Lu Wen answered gently,"Imitation isn't wrong. But it will only take you to the surface."
San Lie added,"I used to chase it. I tried to force it. I failed. But now, I sit... and something begins to speak inside me. Not a voice, not power, but a sense... that I no longer need to force anything."
The visitors fell silent. Each of them carried their own wounds, and their own quiet hopes. One among them, a thin man with eyes like smoldering charcoal, asked:
"If we can't feel what you feel... can we still stay?"
Heng Zhen closed his eyes briefly, then nodded.
"This place does not belong to me. But if you search not to possess, but to understand — then the world will open its own path for you."
Yuanqi is not a path built. It is a space discovered.
That night, some of them began to sit in silence. Others simply stared into the fire, lost in thought. But within that silence... a quiet awareness spread like a passing breeze:
Not all will succeed.But all who walk with honest intent... will be changed.