Heng Zhen walked slowly along a narrow crevice on the northern cliff, a place no one in the valley ever visited. Not because the terrain was difficult, but because there was simply no reason to go there.
That place seemed forgotten by the world.There was no wind.No animals.Even the wild Chaosqi seemed unwilling to pass through.
"The world rejects this place. But… precisely because of that, I must enter,"murmured Heng Zhen.
He arrived at a stone wall.Tall, gray, featureless.No carvings.No cracks.No sign of life.
Yet as he drew closer,he felt the wall was watching him.
Not with eyes.Not with intention.But with a complete lack of meaning.
Heng Zhen sat down.He did not try to read the wall.He simply sat in front of it.
For a long time.
Time itself seemed to stop moving.Day turned to night.Even the surrounding Chaosqi dared not touch that area.
And in that profound silence,he began to sense something.
Not a sound.Not a form.
But an absence of reaction.As if everything he knew — Qi, Chaosqi, even Yuanqi — was useless before that blank wall.
"This is not a place to understand power," he thought."This is a place to lose everything."
Suddenly...the wall trembled not physically, but it was his spirit that was shaken.
In that deepest quiet, he realized:
"This wall… is not a barrier.It is a reflection of myself,still unable to let go of everything."
Down in the valley, Lao Wen was jolted out of his meditation.He felt something collapse inside him not his awareness, but the grip on what he had always thought was important.
San Lie, who was practicing his breathing, stopped and stared blankly.Li Rou, sitting by the riverbank, began to cry without knowing why.
They all felt something.But could not explain it.
Because nothing had changed.Yet nothing was the same.
Heng Zhen opened his eyes and looked at the wall once more.
Now that wall was no longer empty.Because he was no longer searching for meaning within it.