The village square was a living tapestry of hope and dread.
Bodies pressed together under the wide, cloudless sky—children clutched their parents' hands, elders leaned on staffs with solemn eyes, young men and women hovered at the edges, curiosity and envy sharp in their gazes. The air was a soup of whispers, nervous coughs, and the thick, baked scent of too many people standing on sun-scorched earth. Dust hung in the still afternoon light, gilding every anxious face.
At the very center, calm as deep water, sat the reason for the gathering.
He looked to be in his seventies, but it was the agelessness of ancient trees and weathered stone. His hair was the pale grey of morning ash, swept back from a forehead lined with deep, thoughtful grooves. He sat in a simple wooden chair as if it were a mountain peak, his posture relaxed yet radiating an unmovable stillness. Before him stood a table of rough, unvarnished pine.
And upon that table rested a single, colorless crystal.
It was unremarkable—pale, slightly milky, the size of a closed fist. It held no glimmer, no inner fire. Yet it commanded the silence of hundreds. Every eye, whether openly or from the corner, was drawn back to its inert form.
Whispers coiled through the crowd.
"Who do you think it'll be?"
"Wang Han.His family eats well—maybe that matters."
A mother's soft murmur:"My child, please…"
From the back,a cynical voice: "This is just theater. He's already chosen someone from beyond the hills."
Han Li stood between his parents, their presence a wall against the rising tide of speculation. Yet with each dismissive word, a cold, heavy stone seemed to settle deeper in his chest. He touched the wooden bead on his wrist—its familiar, smooth surface a silent comfort.
Then, a voice.
It did not shout. It did not need to. It was calm, quiet, yet it cut through the whispers like a blade through silk, landing in every ear with the weight of settled law.
"Everyone."
Physician Lu's eyes—a cool, piercing grey that missed nothing—swept across the sea of faces. The crowd stilled as one.
"I am Physician Lu. I have walked thousands of miles to stand here today, with a purpose. I trust you all know what that is."
A sea of heads nodded, a rustle of fabric and held breath.
"So. Today, I am here to select my final—and only—disciple." He paused, letting the finality of the words sink into the very dirt beneath their feet. "If you are chosen, you will not only learn the arts of medicine that can pull life from the jaws of death… but other miracles await. Paths beyond your current imagination."
A collective inhalation swept the square. Dreams, fragile and fierce, flickered in hundreds of eyes.
"Without further delay, let us begin."
He gestured a thin, steady hand toward the crystal. "This is a Spirit Resonance Crystal. Any child between ten and sixteen summers may come forward and place a hand upon it. If you possess the spark it seeks… it will glow. And you will be selected."
He leaned back, the chair creaking softly. "Come forward now."
A thick, palpable hesitation followed. No one dared to be first. The risk of public failure was a cliff edge they all saw clearly.
Finally, a heavy-set boy shoved his way through the front rank. Wang Han, son of the village's most prosperous farmer. His round face was flushed with determination. He bowed, his gesture awkward but bold.
"Greetings, Physician Lu. This one is Wang Han."
Murmurs rippled in his wake.
Wang Han placed a broad, calloused palm squarely on the crystal.
Nothing.
The stone remained a lifeless lump. Not a flicker, not a pulse. Physician Lu's expression did not alter, but a faint shadow—something akin to weary disappointment—seemed to settle in the stillness around his eyes.
"Next."
Wang Han's face darkened to a ripe plum color. He snatched his hand back as if burned and retreated, his earlier bravado dissolving into the dust.
A slender girl, Ling Yu, stepped up next. Her movements were delicate, her voice a shy murmur as she gave her name. She laid her slender fingers upon the crystal.
Nothing.
She withdrew, head bowed, melting back into the anonymity of the crowd.
One by one, they came. Boys with scraped knees, girls with hopeful smiles. Each touched the colorless stone. Each was met with the same silent, stone-cold rejection. The collective hope in the square began to sputter. Whispers twisted: "Useless." "A waste."
Then, a girl named Ming Xu approached. She was willow-thin, her clothes hanging loose, her eyes holding a quiet exhaustion that belonged to someone much older. She placed her hand.
For a single, heart-stopping moment—the crystal flickered. A faint, wan glow, like the last ember in a dead fire, pulsed once weakly and died.
Physician Lu's gaze sharpened, pinning the girl. He leaned forward a fraction, his discerning eyes seeing not just the girl, but the story written in her frail frame. He sighed, a sound so soft it was lost to all but his own ears, and muttered words meant for the winds of fate alone:
"A Spirit Root… present at birth, but left to starve in barren soil. The heavens scribbled your potential, then turned the page."
Aloud, he merely said, "Step back."
Ming Xu blinked, a flicker of confusion in her tired eyes, but obeyed.
"It seems almost every eligible child has come," Physician Lu announced, his tone giving nothing away. "Is there anyone else?"
The square was steeped in a defeated silence. Parents drew their children closer, shoulders slumping. It was over. The miracle was not for them.
Then, a voice, clear and steady as a bell in the stillness.
"Physician Lu. I have not yet checked."
Every head swiveled.
Han Li stepped out from the shelter of his parents.
A snort, then a loud, derisive laugh ripped through the tension. It was Wang Han, his shame now curdled into spite. "Look! The air-headed dreamer from the Han house! He thinks his pretty face will make the crystal light up!"
Jeers followed. Han Li let them wash over him. His focus was a tunnel—the old man, the stone, and the silent vow in his own heart.
He bowed, clean and deep. "Han Li greets Physician Lu."
He placed his hand on the crystal.
Nothing happened.
A wave of relieved mockery rustled through the crowd. Wang Han grinned, crossing his arms.
But Han Li did not pull away. He closed his eyes. He did not think of immortal glory, of silver, of escaping the dust. He thought of the hollow, gnawing ache in his belly that had been his childhood companion. He thought of his mother's hands—thin, scarred, eternally moving. He thought of the vow he had whispered to the uncaring sky.
If fate does not choose me… then I will choose myself.
He pressed his palm down, not with force, but with a focused, desperate will. He poured into that stone every silent hunger, every quiet observation of the clouds, every dream spun from deprivation, every ounce of his stubborn, unyielding hope.
And as he did—the wooden bead on his wrist warmed. Not from the sun. Not from the crystal. From him.
The world erupted.
The colorless crystal did not simply glow—it screamed in light.
Five torrential beams of pure, blazing color—emerald green, sapphire blue, fiery crimson, sunlight gold, and profound violet—exploded from its core. They were not rays but solid lances of energy, shooting out in all directions, painting the stunned, upturned faces of the crowd in surreal, shifting hues. They struck the ground, causing the earth to tremble; they lanced into the sky, challenging the sun itself. The dusty village square was transformed in an instant into a sudden, dazzling cathedral of impossible radiance. The air itself hummed, vibrated, sang with a released power that raised the hair on every arm.
Villagers cried out, stumbling back, shielding their eyes from the glorious assault. Children whimpered, burying faces in legs.
Physician Lu shot to his feet.
The timeless, unflappable cultivator vanished. In his place was a man seized by pure, unvarnished shock. His eyes were wide, reflecting the cataclysm of color. His hands gripped the edge of the table so tightly the wood groaned in protest. For several long, breathless seconds, he simply stared at Han Li as if seeing a phantom, a celestial sign, a myth stumbled out of legend and into his dusty reality.
Inside his chest, a tempest of triumph roared, shaking decades of quiet desperation.
Finally. After thirty years of searching… after sifting through mountains of ordinary, wasted, talentless children… I have found it. A diamond. Not just in the rough… but buried deep in the mud.
With a visible, physical effort, he mastered himself. The storm in his eyes banked, smoothed into a lake of profound, simmering satisfaction. The spectacular lights faded, dying down like a sunset in reverse, leaving the crystal on the table. It was no longer colorless. It pulsed gently from within, holding a soft, persistent luminescence, like a captured star.
The square was utterly, profoundly silent. Hundreds of people stared, mouths agape, minds broken and reassembled by what they had witnessed.
Physician Lu's voice, when it finally came, was deceptively calm, almost mild. It was a tone so at odds with the earth-shaking display that it bred deep, universal confusion.
"Who are this boy's parents? Step forward."
Han Li's father and mother moved as if in a dream. They stepped out, their faces pale as parchment, eyes wide with a mixture of terror and dawning, disbelieving joy. They bowed so deeply they seemed to fold in half.
"Earlier," Physician Lu said, his gaze lingering on the pouch at his belt before sweeping the crowd, "I stated the family of the chosen would receive one hundred taels of silver." He let the number hang. "Today, my… satisfaction is considerable. I will give you two hundred taels."
A sound like a wounded beast swept through the crowd—a collective gasp of pure, staggering avarice and shock. Two hundred taels. It was a fortune that could buy the entire village. It was freedom from fear, from hunger, for generations.
Han Li, his senses still ringing from the light, his fingertips tingling where they had touched power, found his voice. It was hoarse. "Physician Lu… you mean… I am selected?"
Lu turned to him. A faint, genuine smile—the first anyone had seen—touched his ancient lips. It held warmth, amusement, and immense, immeasurable approval. "What 'Physician Lu'?" he chided gently, the tease clear. "Call me Master."
The words were not just an acceptance. They were a coronation.
Han Li's eyes swam instantly. A hot tear traced a path through the dust on his cheek. His parents clung to each other, their own tears flowing freely, silent sobs shaking their frames. Han Li sank to his knees in the dirt, pressing his forehead to the warm earth in a deep, formal kowtow.
"This unworthy one… Han Li… greets Master."
"Rise, disciple."
As Han Li stood, Physician Lu's eyes held his for a heartbeat longer—and in them, just for an instant, was something raw and unguarded. Not just triumph, but a profound, weary relief. The look of a man who had waited too long, and had almost given up hope.
Then it was gone, sealed away beneath layers of authority and grace.
He stepped forward, grasped Han Li's arm, and drew him up, guiding him to stand beside the chair—a place of honor. From within his simple robe, he produced a heavy, clinking cloth pouch. He placed it deliberately into the trembling, work-roughened hands of Han Li's father. The weight of it pulled the man's arms down, a tangible anchor of a changed world.
"My good disciple," Master Lu said, his voice pitched to carry to the edges of the silent square. "You will be my disciple. But understand: the path you now walk requires you to cut the cords of mortal life. You will become someone… above the world you know. Your struggles will be different. Your burdens will be of another kind."
His gaze shifted to the family, holding them with an intensity that promised both ruthlessness and care. "I grant you one night. One night only. To speak. To decide. To say all that must be said. I will rest at Old Zhong's house." He looked back at Han Li, his eyes unyielding. "Go home. Discuss. At dawn tomorrow, I depart. With… or without you."
Han Li bowed again, his heart a thunderous drum. "Understood, Master."
With a final, sweeping glance that seemed to imprint the scene upon his memory, Master Lu turned. The crowd parted before him like reeds before a slow, inevitable river current. He walked away, his figure growing smaller, leaving behind a square vibrating with shock, envy, and deafening chatter.
But Han Li was deaf to it. His parents, the impossible pouch held between them like a sacred relic, guided him through the gauntlet of stares—some awed, some bitter, many utterly bewildered—back toward the lane that led home.
Once inside their humble dwelling, his father closed the wooden door with a solid, final thud. His mother rushed to the single window, shuttering it, plunging the room into a dim, twilight stillness. The only light seeped through the cracks in the wood, painting thin golden lines on the packed-earth floor.
The three of them stood in the sudden, profound quiet. The only sounds were their own unsteady breathing and the heavy, metallic whisper of fortune from the pouch on the table.
His father turned. In the half-light, his weathered face was etched with a gravity Han Li had never seen before—a deep, painful love, and something else… a fearful secret, long buried.
"Li'er," his father said, the word cracking with emotion. "Sit down."
Han Li sank onto the familiar stool, his body humming with spent adrenaline, his mind reeling from the lights, the title, the weight of the future.
His mother approached. She knelt before him, taking his hands in hers. Her fingers were trembling. Her eyes, when they met his, were pools of unbearable tenderness and a sorrow so deep it stole his breath.
"We…" she began, her voice a fragile thread. She stopped, swallowing hard, looking at her husband for strength. When she looked back, tears were streaming freely down her face. "Oh, my son. Our Li'er. We have a secret to tell you."