The first thing Qin Wumian felt was cold.
Not divine cold.
Not the vacuum between stars.
Just ordinary mountain air cutting into his lungs.
Then came the pain.
It wasn't dramatic. It wasn't a roar or an explosion inside his body.
It was dull.
Deep.
Everywhere.
He was still falling when he realized he could no longer feel the River.
Note: the River = The River of Time
For the first time in longer than he could remember, there was no hum behind his thoughts. No layered whispers of possible futures. No subtle tug of moments aligning under his will.
Just wind screaming past his ears.
He opened his eyes.
Darkness.
"Right... The blindfold..." Qin Wumian remebered that he had sealed his sight himself. Sealed more than sight.
He tried to circulate spiritual power instinctively.
Nothing responded the way it used to.
Instead of an ocean beneath his control, he found a cracked basin with a thin puddle at the bottom.
His dantian felt… small.
Painfully small.
- - -
He lay on his back.
Breathing.
If breathing could be called this uneven drag of air.
His ribs hurt.
His left shoulder burned.
His meridians felt like glass threads shoved through his flesh.
"This is mortal body huh..," he murmured.
The word felt strange in his mouth.
- - -
The forest did not roar.
It breathed.
No banners burned across the heavens.
No celestial arrays carved into the earth beneath him.
No sky splitting open in judgment.
Only wind—moving patiently through leaves.
Qin Wumian lay still for a long moment, listening to that small, mortal sound.
Then he turned onto his side.
The motion was careful, almost reluctant. Something in his chest tightened and flared—sharp enough to steal the air from his lungs.
He closed his eyes.
Good.
Pain was proof.
Pain meant this body was real.
Pain meant he had not dissolved into the long corridor of broken timelines.
He pressed his palm against the forest floor and pushed himself upright.
The world tilted.
Not violently—just enough to remind him how fragile gravity felt after descending through fractured layers of time. His vision thinned at the edges. He steadied himself, fingers digging into damp soil, breathing slow and deliberate until the dizziness ebbed.
Leaves whispered overhead.
No one was watching.
Inside him, the seal remained.
Not raging. Not straining.
Waiting.
Deep within his spiritual sea, the Time-Space Dao lay compressed beyond recognition—like a fallen star crushed into stone, its light forced inward until even radiance forgot how to shine. He could sense it there: dense, immense, silent.
Accessible?
Yes.
It would answer if he called.
Usable?
His jaw tightened.
Power was never the question. Consequence was.
If he reached for it—if he allowed even a fracture of that star to bloom—it would not simply bend time.
It would remember.
And remembrance would tear open everything he had just chosen to preserve.
He swallowed.
The air tasted of pine sap and damp earth. Cool. Unremarkable. Honest.
No divine aura.
No drifting embers of war.
No echoes of screaming skies.
Just forest.
Ordinary.
Real.
And for the first time in what felt like several lifetimes, that was enough.
- - -
And then it struck him.
Not a blow.
Not a wound.
Absence.
A hollow so vast it had shape.
Without thinking, he reached inward—past muscle, past bone, past the sealed star buried in his spiritual sea. He searched for the thread that had once existed beside his own. A presence woven into his fate so tightly that even silence used to carry her echo.
There was nothing.
No lingering resonance.
No fading imprint.
No distant branch of possibility where she still stood beneath another sky.
Mu Lian.
He did not allow the name to leave his lips.
The forest felt too mortal to hold it. As if speaking it might tear something fragile and unfinished.
Instead, he pressed his palm against the earth.
Cold.
Solid.
Unmoving.
She had stepped into that light without hesitation.
He had completed the ritual.
He had sealed the fracture.
He had retaliated.
He had shattered clans until their legacies turned to ash.
But he had not saved her.
Because if he had stopped—
if he had chosen her over the ritual—
everything would have burned.
He closed his hand into the soil until dirt filled the crescents beneath his nails. The sting grounded him. Then, slowly, he released it.
He stood.
It felt like climbing a mountain with broken ribs.
His knees trembled. His balance wavered. He steadied himself through breath alone.
Inhale.
Exhale.
He attempted to circulate qi.
The response was faint. Uneven. Almost humiliating.
He had sealed himself too well.
Good.
It meant he would not cheat.
—
A sharp gasp cut through the forest.
Close.
Another breath followed—strained, irregular.
Qi backlash.
He stilled.
Even weakened, he could recognize that rhythm. Someone was forcing circulation beyond their capacity. Too fast. Too violently.
He exhaled, almost amused.
Of course.
He descends into the mortal realm, and within moments someone is about to rupture their own meridians.
He walked toward the sound.
Each step was deliberate. Roots snagged his feet once; he adjusted without irritation. Blindness was inconvenient, but not crippling. Though dulled, his spiritual perception still mapped heat, breath, subtle disturbances in air.
He reached a clearing.
Two heartbeats.
One erratic.
One steady—and faintly smug.
The erratic one lay on the ground. Young. Breath splintered into uneven pulls. Qi twisted inside him like a trapped serpent.
Three breaths from rupture.
The steady heartbeat belonged to a man standing nearby, laughter threaded through his tone.
"Idiot," the man said. "I told you not to attempt a full circulation cycle."
The youth groaned. Qi surged again, dangerously.
Qin Wumian stepped into the clearing.
The standing cultivator noticed immediately.
"Who are you?"
No answer.
Qin Wumian walked past him and knelt beside the fallen youth.
Two fingers to the wrist.
The pulse was chaos.
He adjusted the youth's shoulders by a fraction.
"Slow down," he said quietly. "Breathe on the fourth count."
The youth struggled—but obeyed.
The standing cultivator stepped closer. "Hey. I'm talking to you."
Ignored.
Qin Wumian pressed lightly at a key meridian below the ribs.
The youth gasped.
Then steadied.
One breath.
Two.
Three.
The violent twisting of qi softened. Stabilized.
The standing cultivator scowled. "What are you doing?"
"Saving him from his own impatience," Qin Wumian replied calmly.
Irritation flared in the man's aura—crude and unrefined, but in Qin Wumian's current condition, dangerous enough.
The strike came without warning.
A palm aimed for his chest.
He sensed it a fraction before impact.
His instincts screamed.
Bend time.
Just slightly.
Just enough for the blow to miss.
No one would know.
The palm struck his shoulder.
Pain detonated down his arm, bright and immediate.
He clenched his teeth but did not fall.
The cultivator blinked.
Confusion flickered across his face. That strike should have flattened a blind man.
Qin Wumian rose slowly.
"You circulate through your right lung channel incorrectly," he said evenly.
The cultivator froze.
"What?"
"It is constricted. Continue forcing qi through it, and it will collapse within months."
The man inhaled instinctively.
He felt it—the faint resistance he had ignored for years.
Uncertainty crossed his features.
"How would you know that?"
Qin Wumian tilted his head.
"You both lack discipline."
Silence settled over the clearing.
The youth on the ground now breathed normally.
Alive.
The standing cultivator clicked his tongue, irritation masking unease. "Crazy blind man."
But he did not strike again.
He hauled the youth to his feet, grip rough but no longer mocking.
They left—not in anger.
In discomfort.
Qin Wumian remained where he stood.
His shoulder throbbed.
Good.
Let it ache.
Let this body remember it was mortal.
He turned his face slightly toward the faint sound of running water he had noticed earlier.
A village would be nearby.
Shelter.
Information.
Food.
Herbs.
He would rebuild from the foundation.
No sovereign techniques.
No hidden advantages.
No bending of time.
He took a step.
Then another.
The forest no longer felt like a battlefield.
It felt like a beginning.
Behind the seal in his chest, the River of Time lay silent.
Not gone.
Waiting.
And for the first time since Mu Lian stepped into that light—
he was not a sovereign.
He was only a man walking downhill.