Li Yuan sat in silence.
The air did not move, as if the world was waiting for something he had yet to realize.
Within his Zhenjing—the inner realm shaped by understanding and stillness—he witnessed something that had never grown there before. Not water, not circles, not a sheltering mist, nor clarity. But something unnamed.
It was not a space he had created.
It was a space that had formed on its own.
Like a hollow in the ground unintentionally shaped by uninvited rain, then quietly collecting water. But this water was not water. It was an unfinished feeling.
Doubt.
The space—if it could even be called that—expanded slowly, reluctant to introduce itself. It made no sound, no motion. Yet its presence stirred the entire Zhenjing.
Li Yuan walked toward it.
His steps made no echo, for the ground in Zhenjing was not ordinary earth. It was the soil of understanding. And understanding did not always echo under uncertain feet.
Before him, the space appeared like a dense mist—shapeless, lightless. But it was not darkness.
It was more like a question suspended, a wonder not yet brave enough to reach the lips.
He stopped one step short of entering.
And asked in silence:
"Did I create this?"
No answer came.
But the question did not vanish.
It hung in the air, then dissolved into the space—as if it had been absorbed.
Doubt does not answer with words.
It answers with presence.
Li Yuan sat at the edge of the space.
A wind from nowhere brushed his cheek.
But it brought no chill.
It carried… uncertainty.
And for the first time in his journey, Li Yuan did not try to understand.
He did not enter.
He did not resist.
He simply… witnessed.
Within him, every previous space had possessed form.
The Water Realm—clear and flowing.
The Shroud—soft and protective.
The Circle—ordered harmony of stone and intention.
But this space had no lines.
No beginning. No edge.
It continued to expand, quietly consuming every clarity that approached.
And strangely, Li Yuan did not feel fear.
Because he understood:
Doubt is a form of understanding that has not yet found language.
And sometimes, silence is the only way to embrace it.
Days passed in the city of Qinlu. Outside, people began to speak. But inside him, Li Yuan remained quiet.
Because when the world craved certainty, he welcomed what was uncertain.
The space grew.
It did not attack.
It did not demand.
But it was not still.
It was present as something that could not be named, yet insisted on occupying space as surely as anything real.
And in that stillness, Li Yuan realized something.
That understanding does not grow from answers—
But from the sincerity to receive questions that never end.
This space asked nothing of him.
But because of that, it became the most demanding space of all.
Every previous understanding had arrived through form:
Water flowed.
Circles embraced.
Stones aligned.
Even Silence echoed awareness.
But Doubt?
It did not align.
It did not embrace.
It did not flow.
It simply… hung there.
And in that suspension, every form began to tremble.
Li Yuan leaned deeper into the threshold of the space.
He closed his eyes.
But in Zhenjing, closing one's eyes does not bring darkness.
It opens another eye—the one that sees not with retina, but with a heart that has passed through layers of understanding.
The Realm of Doubt touched him, slowly, without permission, without intent to harm.
But the touch eroded.
Eroded certainty.
Not to erase it,
but to ask where it came from.
Li Yuan began to feel—Zhenjing was shifting.
The Water no longer flowed in straight lines.
The Circle was no longer perfect.
The Shroud no longer soft.
They all remained,
but no longer felt convincing.
And he understood.
This was not a new space, separate and distinct.
It was not an addition.
It was a mirror.
A mirror of all the spaces that had come before.
And like a mirror that reverses the image, the Realm of Doubt revealed that not a single understanding was fully whole.
Even Water, clear as it was, could carry silt at the bottom.
Even the Shroud, soft as it was, could hide wounds.
Doubt opened, without dismantling.
It revealed, without shaming.
It unveiled, without teaching.
Li Yuan took a breath in Zhenjing—not with lungs, but with his spirit.
A breath of the soul.
And when he exhaled, a resonance rose from the Realm of Doubt.
Not a word.
Not a sound.
But a vibration—thin, almost undetectable, like a flicker of awareness refusing to be explained.
That space offered him something.
Not knowledge,
Not form,
Not new understanding—
But the willingness to not know.
That was Doubt's first gift.
And only when he accepted that not-knowing, his inner world settled.
Not because he understood.
But because he no longer resisted the unknown.
That day, when he opened his eyes to the outer world, the evening had already painted the face of Qinlu in copper light.
He sat in his circle of stones, now visited more often by passersby.
But this time, he did not arrange the stones.
He simply sat.
Became one with it.
And among those who passed by, some slowed their steps.
Not because they saw something.
But because they felt something.
And just like the Realm of Doubt that had touched his Zhenjing, a small doubt began to touch their hearts—without name, without teaching, without recognition.
That is the seed of understanding.
And Li Yuan smiled faintly.
Because perhaps, the earliest form of understanding is not "knowing."
But having the courage to admit not knowing—
and letting that not-knowing grow on its own.