By the time Yan Shen was four years old, he had mastered a skill more complex than any cultivation technique: the art of being perfectly, completely ordinary.
He was a ghost living a carefully constructed life inside a child's skin. He laughed when the other children found something funny, making sure the sound was just a little too loud and not quite right, the way a real child's would be. He deliberately stumbled over roots he could easily avoid and made sure to skin his knee just often enough to be believable. He played stick-fighting games with the village boys, always holding back, always letting the other boy land the winning "blow" with a triumphant shout.
He was quiet, polite, and perhaps a little too observant for his age, but not so much that it raised alarm. To everyone in Qinghe Village, he was just Yan Shen, the herbalist's quiet boy. A harmless face in the crowd.
Beneath the surface, the consciousness of Dren was a coiled spring. He was a watcher, a listener, a mind that remembered the taste of lightning and the voice of a god. His childhood was a disguise, and he wore it every waking moment.
His practice of sensing Qi had become as natural as breathing. Even while running through the village playing tag, a part of his mind was counting the rhythm of his own footfalls, syncing them with the pulse of the earth beneath the mud. While crouched with other children, poking at insects in the dirt, his eyes would track the way the leaves on the trees above swayed not just from the wind, but from the gentle, invisible currents of energy that flowed through them.
He could feel Qi more clearly now. It was no longer a distant mystery but a constant presence, a symphony he was slowly learning to hear. It was still slippery, still refusing to be grasped, but it was undeniably there.
Sometimes, he would sit alone beneath the gnarled old pine tree at the village's edge. He would mimic the postures of the traveling monks he'd seen once, back straight, hands resting on his knees. The other children who saw him thought he was just playing a game, pretending to meditate. They would laugh and run off, and he was glad for it.
He was not playing. He was working. Breathing. Listening.
And sometimes, the Qi answered. It didn't flow into him, but it drew closer, like a curious animal sniffing at a hand that holds no food. It was a thread of energy testing his presence, brushing against the edges of his awareness with more frequency than before.
He knew that sensing Qi was only half the battle. His body, this four-year-old vessel, was still weak. A pot with cracks cannot hold water. A frail body cannot channel power.
So, he began to train his body in the only way he could: through play.
He turned every game into a exercise. When they raced, he pushed himself to run harder and longer than the others, but always slowed at the finish line to let another win. He would hold deep squats while pretending to examine a interesting bug on the ground, strengthening his legs. A fall during a game was an opportunity to practice a tuck and roll, minimizing impact and turning his body into a weapon that could absorb punishment.
He learned his own anatomy through these secret drills. He learned which muscles burned after a long run, which foods his stomach could digest easily to give him lasting energy, and how to control his breathing to calm a racing heart after exertion.
The village saw a active, healthy boy. They did not see the foundation of a warrior being laid, one secret rep at a time.
His social circle was small. Most of the village children were loud, simple, and concerned only with the immediate joy of play.
There was Wei Lu, a boy with a loud mouth who always had to be the leader of every game. Yan Shen found him useful; Wei Lu's need for attention drew all eyes away from him.
There was Min, a girl who found endless fascination in throwing the largest rock she could lift into the stream just to hear the splash. Yan Shen thought her mind was as dull as the rocks she threw.
And then there was Lanlan. She was different. She was quiet, like him. She didn't feel the need to fill every silence with noise. She often followed him around, not demanding anything, just watching him with her large, dark eyes. She had a habit of copying how he moved, the way he sat, even if she didn't understand why he did it.
He tolerated her presence more than the others. Her silence was comfortable.
One afternoon, they were sitting under the old pine tree. The village was quiet, the only sound the rustling of the needles above them. Lanlan looked at him, her head tilted.
"Are you scared of the dark?" she asked suddenly, her voice clear and direct.
Yan Shen shook his head without hesitation. The dark was just an absence of light. It held no terrors compared to what he had seen and remembered.
Lanlan nodded, as if his answer confirmed something she already knew. "I think you're scary to the dark," she stated plainly.
Her words caught him off guard. It was a child's logic, but it held an unexpected edge of truth. He was something that didn't belong, a foreign presence in a natural order. Perhaps the dark should be scared.
The wind picked up, swirling dried pine needles around their feet. He looked at her properly: her unkempt hair, the smudge of dirt on her cheek, the serious expression in her eyes that seemed too old for her face.
Finally, he spoke, his voice low.
"Not yet," he said. "But I will be."
Lanlan blinked, processing his words. Then, a slow grin spread across her face, not one of joy, but of understanding. She didn't ask what he meant. She just nodded again, and the matter was settled.
She saw a glimpse of the blade inside him, and instead of running, she had smiled. Yan Shen filed that information away for later. Even in this remote village, there were things worth noticing.