Chapter 63
The old man did not begin with words.
He began with weight.
The moment Shenping settled onto the stone platform, gravity shifted. Not stronger—deeper. The space pressed inward, as if the air itself demanded justification for his presence.
Shenping's breath hitched.
His knees buckled, stone cracking beneath them as he fought to remain upright.
The old man watched without moving, eyes sharp and merciless.
"Good," he muttered. "You didn't fall."
Shenping clenched his teeth, muscles trembling as the pressure increased. It was not physical force alone. Memory, possibility, consequence—everything he carried pressed down at once.
"This place," Shenping rasped, "is rejecting me."
"No," the old man corrected. "It's asking what you're worth."
The pressure spiked.
Shenping's vision blurred, edges darkening. His thoughts scattered, dragged outward by unseen currents. For a moment, he felt himself splitting—past and future tugging in opposite directions.
He roared and forced himself still.
He stopped resisting.
The pressure changed.
It no longer crushed. It weighed.
The stone beneath him stabilized.
The old man's staff tapped once against the ground.
"Hm," he said. "Acceptable."
The weight eased slightly, enough for Shenping to breathe properly again. Sweat soaked his clothes despite the cool air.
"You train like this?" Shenping asked between breaths.
"I train like this," the old man replied, "because shortcuts are how the world ended the first time."
Shenping looked up sharply. "You were there."
The old man snorted. "Everyone worth remembering was."
He rose slowly and walked toward the central formation. As he approached, symbols brightened, lines of light threading together into patterns too complex to follow.
"This place," the old man said, "exists outside the agreements."
"Agreements?" Shenping echoed.
"The ones that decide what is allowed to exist," the old man replied. "Machines call them protocols. Cultivators call them heavens. Gods call them order."
He glanced back. "They are all lies."
Shenping pushed himself to his feet and followed, each step heavy but manageable now. "Then what is cultivation here?"
The old man smiled thinly. "Disobedience."
He struck the formation with his staff.
The world lurched.
Shenping staggered as the space unfolded outward, layers peeling back to reveal countless overlapping scenes—battlefields, laboratories, ruined cities, temples burning under artificial suns.
Each image flickered briefly before collapsing into the next.
"You see?" the old man said calmly. "Every era tried to dominate time differently. All of them failed."
Shenping's gaze locked onto one scene—a city of steel collapsing inward as black shapes tore through its core. He felt a familiar chill.
"The hunter," he said.
"Yes," the old man replied. "And others like it."
The images shifted again.
This time, Shenping saw cultivators—ancient, powerful—standing together in a vast formation. They were not fighting an enemy.
They were sealing something.
"The first mistake," the old man continued. "They tried to bury what they didn't understand instead of changing themselves."
The vision shattered.
Silence returned.
Shenping clenched his fists. "Then teach me how to fight it."
The old man turned slowly. "You still think this is about fighting."
Shenping met his gaze stubbornly. "It's killed entire eras."
"And you think punching it harder will help?" the old man snapped.
The pressure surged again, slamming Shenping backward. He hit the stone platform hard, ribs screaming.
The old man loomed over him. "Listen carefully, boy who should not exist."
He pointed the staff at Shenping's chest.
"That thing doesn't kill because it hates," he said. "It kills because continuity demands it. You are not prey to it."
Shenping coughed, forcing himself up onto one elbow. "Then what am I?"
The old man's eyes burned.
"You are noise."
The word struck deeper than any blow.
"You carry futures that contradict themselves," the old man continued. "You create outcomes without permission. To systems, to heavens, to hunters—you are a fault."
He straightened. "That is why you survived."
Shenping sat up slowly. "Then cultivation here teaches me how to become worse."
The old man laughed, sharp and genuine. "Now you're learning."
He turned and walked toward a smaller platform off to the side. "Stand."
Shenping obeyed, stepping onto the platform.
The moment both his feet touched the stone, the world vanished.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Then—
Sound.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
Thousands of them.
Shenping gasped as awareness slammed into him. He stood in the middle of a village—alive, warm, ordinary. Children ran past him laughing. Smoke rose from cooking fires. Life moved without fear.
Then the sky darkened.
Machines descended.
Screams erupted.
Shenping felt it all—not as observer, but as everyone at once. The terror, the pain, the desperate hope that someone, anyone, would stop it.
He tried to move.
He couldn't.
Time rewound violently.
The village rebuilt itself.
Again.
And again.
Each cycle ended worse than the last.
Shenping screamed.
"Enough!"
The vision shattered.
He collapsed to his knees back in the training hall, gasping, hands clawing at the stone.
The old man watched impassively. "That was one village."
Shenping's voice shook. "You showed me that to break me."
"No," the old man replied. "I showed you that to strip excuses."
He leaned closer. "You don't get to pretend this is personal."
Shenping looked up slowly, eyes burning. "Then what do I do?"
The old man straightened and raised his staff.
"You learn to cultivate absence."
The words echoed unnaturally.
"Power leaves marks," the old man said. "Techniques leave traces. Even erasure leaves scars."
He struck the ground once.
The central formation dimmed, its light collapsing inward until only a thin, hollow outline remained.
"This," the old man continued, "is unrecorded action."
Shenping stared. "You're saying… do nothing?"
The old man smirked. "I'm saying do something that cannot be counted."
He gestured sharply.
Shenping was thrown.
Not backward—elsewhere.
He found himself standing in a narrow stone corridor. At the far end, a door pulsed faintly with light.
"Walk," the old man's voice echoed from nowhere. "Without intention."
Shenping frowned and took a step.
The corridor stretched.
He took another.
It twisted.
Frustration flared. He tried to force his way forward.
The corridor shattered, reforming instantly.
The old man's voice cut in, sharp. "Wrong."
Shenping stopped.
He exhaled slowly, letting go of the urge to arrive.
He walked again.
This time, the corridor shortened.
The door drew closer.
Step by step, the space adjusted—not in response to effort, but to lack of demand.
Shenping felt it click.
He reached the door and touched it.
It dissolved.
He stood once more in the training hall.
The old man nodded once. "That is the foundation."
Shenping's heart pounded. "How long will this training take?"
The old man's smile faded.
"As long as the hunter needs to remember you," he said.
The air shifted.
Far away—far beyond this hidden place—something stirred.
A familiar pressure brushed the edge of existence.
The old man's eyes narrowed. "It's closer than I expected."
Shenping clenched his fists. "Then we don't have time."
The old man planted his staff firmly into the stone.
"No," he said. "You don't have permission to rush."
The formations flared again, harsher this time.
"Lesson two begins now," the old man said coldly.
"And this one hurts."