Morning sunlight spread across the Thanh Van River, breaking into small shards of light over the flowing water. A breeze came down from the foothills, carrying the last trace of the night's chill and the faint scent of fresh river mud.
Tieu Lan was busy at the bow.
Hearing the door open, she turned around. The moment she saw Hao Nhien step outside, her eyes brightened.
"Young Master is awake."
She looked him over from head to toe, visibly relieved.
"You look much better today."
Hao Nhien gave a slight nod.
After a full night of breathing cultivation, his body truly did feel lighter. The wounds on his skin were still there, but the heaviness of the previous days had eased considerably, and his breathing felt deeper.
His gaze fell on the small table beside Tieu Lan.
Two carefully wrapped food bundles sat there, one larger and one smaller. Beside them was the small gathering basket she usually carried when collecting herbs.
Hao Nhien raised an eyebrow.
"You prepared two portions?"
Tieu Lan lowered her head.
"Yes."
"I only told you to prepare one for me to take."
"I know."
Her voice was soft, but she did not back down.
"But Young Master plans to go into the mountains to practice the fist art. You've only just recovered. I won't feel at ease if you go alone."
She looked up again, her voice still gentle but firmer now.
"I'm not going just to follow behind you. There are more medicinal herbs near the foothills than around town, so I can gather some along the way. If you get hurt, I can treat it first. And if… if something really happens, at least I can run back and get help."
She paused.
Her eyes briefly moved toward the old boat behind them before returning to him.
"I also don't want to stay here alone, waiting without knowing whether Young Master is safe."
Hao Nhien fell silent.
From the memories of the former Quan Hao Nhien, he knew Tieu Lan had also been taught a few oral formulas and some basic fist forms by Quan Bach for self-defense.
But her meridians were weak. After years of practice, she had only barely touched the first layer of Qi Condensation.
Later, she stopped forcing herself along the cultivation path and turned instead toward medicine, something she was genuinely far better at than he was.
But not forcing herself did not mean she had no desire to become stronger.
At the very least, she still wanted to one day be strong enough to protect the people beside her.
Hao Nhien glanced at the basket on her back.
"You know going into the mountains isn't the same as staying in town. If we run into wild beasts or the wrong kind of people, I may not be able to protect you right now."
"I know."
"You still want to go?"
"Yes."
She did not avoid his gaze.
"I'm not strong. But I know herbs, I know how to stop bleeding, and I know a little fist work for self-defense. I won't wander off or make Young Master worry about me. I just want to go with you."
Hao Nhien looked at her for a while.
Purely from a logical standpoint, leaving Tieu Lan on the boat might have been safer.
But over the past few days, he had already seen that she was not merely a burden waiting to be protected.
She adapted faster than he did.
She knew how to ask questions without drawing suspicion.
She knew medicine.
She knew how to treat injuries.
And somehow, she also knew how to keep the old boat from feeling quite so cold.
She was weak.
But weak did not mean useless.
Hao Nhien exhaled lightly.
"All right."
Tieu Lan's eyes immediately widened.
"You'll really let me come?"
"On one condition."
She nodded quickly.
Hao Nhien said,
"Don't wander off. Don't gather anything you aren't certain about. If you see strangers, wild beasts, or anything unusual, retreat immediately. And if I tell you to go back, you go back."
"I remember."
"Then let's go."
Tieu Lan immediately slung the basket over her shoulder and picked up her smaller food bundle.
Hao Nhien took the other one, then stepped off the boat.
The ground along the river was still damp from the night mist. Ahead, a narrow path curved around Thanh Van Town and followed the foothills.
Behind them, the old boat remained quietly moored beneath the willows, its hull tapping softly against the water.
Tieu Lan walked beside him, neither too close nor falling behind.
Hao Nhien looked toward Thanh Van Mountain.
After one night of breathing cultivation, he was still nothing more than a weak cultivator at the first layer of Qi Condensation.
But at least today, he could leave the boat and step outside.
To see how far this body could actually go.
The first step was very small.
Only from the riverbank toward the foothills.
But no matter how long the road ahead might be, it still had to begin with a step like this.
Hao Nhien deliberately avoided anywhere too close to town.
Thanh Van Town was small, but the closer one was to people, the more eyes there were.
He had little strength and still understood very little about this place. It was best not to let others know what he practiced, how weak he was, or how quickly he was improving.
He needed somewhere open.
Flat.
Quiet.
Somewhere he could practice without interruption, while still seeing far enough around him to react if a stranger or wild beast approached.
Beautiful scenery and dense spiritual qi were not priorities right now.
He needed somewhere he could train.
Somewhere he could avoid trouble.
Somewhere he could run.
Fortunately, after a little more than two hours following the foothills, they found a place that suited him well.
At this stretch, the Thanh Van River curved around a low cliff and split into a smaller branch that passed through sparse woodland.
A waterfall dropped from a cliff about ten zhang high into a clear pool below, white water scattering into foam before settling across the surface.
Beside the pool stretched a patch of fine white sand, broad enough to practice fist forms, advance, retreat, and turn without worrying about sharp stones underfoot.
Farther out stood a sparse forest, open enough that visibility remained good.
There were no fresh human footprints in the sand.
Only a few small tracks left by birds and animals.
The waterfall fell with a steady roar.
Birdcalls occasionally drifted from far away.
Other than that, there was almost no sound at all.
Hao Nhien looked around once, then nodded.
"Good. This will do."
Tieu Lan set her basket beside a tree, her eyes brightening.
"Young Master, this place is beautiful."
She looked toward the waterfall, then the clear pool shining in the morning light.
"The waterfall, the lake, the white sand… it looks like a painting."
Hao Nhien glanced at her.
To Tieu Lan, the place was beautiful.
To him, it was useful.
Two different ways of seeing the same place.
Neither was wrong.
"Don't go far. If you want to gather herbs, stay near this side of the forest. Don't cross the pool, and don't enter anywhere too dense."
"I know."
Hao Nhien set down the food bundle and sat on a large rock beside the pool.
He did not begin practicing immediately.
Last night had been the first time he had successfully completed breathing cultivation. His body felt lighter, but its foundation was still weak.
Quan Bach had once taught that before practicing the fist art, the body had to be stable, the qi had to be stable, and the mind had to be stable.
If those three were not steady, every fist would be nothing more than empty movement.
Hao Nhien closed his eyes.
Inhale.
Exhale.
At first, the waterfall sounded loud.
After several breaths, it faded into a steady layer of sound behind everything else.
The morning wind brushed his skin.
Mist from the waterfall carried a cool touch.
He brought his awareness down toward his lower abdomen.
The thread of true qi formed during the previous night was still there.
Weak.
But not dispersed.
Hao Nhien did not try to force it to grow.
He simply let his breathing move through his body and checked each lingering pain, each tense muscle, each place where the meridians still felt slightly obstructed.
After a while, he opened his eyes.
Stood.
And slowly walked onto the white sand.
The fist forms of the Body-Soul Fist Art began to surface from memory.
Not clearly enough to feel as though someone were standing beside him and teaching them again.
More like old brushstrokes blurred by water.
Some were still sharp.
Others indistinct.
With certain forms, the moment he remembered them, the body itself seemed to know where his feet should go.
With others, he had to stop and wait for the old memories, the present sensation of his muscles, and his own breathing to gradually fit together.
He did not hurry.
He began with the basic Iron Body Fist.
It was the introductory set of the Body-Soul Fist Art.
Nothing elaborate.
Nothing elegant.
Each movement was direct.
Plant the feet.
Lower the shoulders.
Turn the hips.
Release force.
Retract the fist.
From the outside, it looked more like a body-conditioning routine than a true combat art.
But when Hao Nhien threw the first punch, he immediately realized it was not as simple as it appeared.
His fist drove forward.
His feet gripped the sand.
Force rose from his legs, passed through his hips, back, and shoulder, then entered his arm.
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At the same time, the thin thread of true qi within his meridians stirred faintly, like an invisible cord drawing the separate parts of his body into a single rhythm.
A punch did not rely only on muscle.
Nor only on true qi.
What mattered was the two meeting at the right moment.
The body generated force.
True qi guided it.
If the timing slipped, the punch became hollow.
If he tensed too much, the true qi scattered.
If he relied only on true qi while the body failed to keep up, his chest immediately tightened and his shoulder began to ache.
Hao Nhien practiced slowly.
First punch.
Second.
Third.
He did not chase speed.
He did not try to create imposing momentum.
He only wanted to know whether the force traveled correctly, whether his stance remained stable, whether the fist form disrupted his breathing, and how far the thread of true qi in his lower abdomen could follow the movement.
By the seventh punch, his left shoulder began to sting.
He stopped.
Did not force it.
He stood still and breathed slowly until the pain eased, then continued.
On the second sequence, by the twelfth punch, a thin layer of sweat had already soaked the back of his clothes.
But his breathing still had not fallen into disorder.
That surprised him slightly.
The body was still weak.
Its muscles lacked strength.
Its meridians remained partly obstructed.
Its injuries had not fully healed.
Yet after that first successful night of breathing cultivation, it could now endure more than ten slow fist forms without immediately collapsing.
More importantly, Hao Nhien had begun to understand the value of the art itself.
The Body-Soul Fist Art truly linked the body and true qi.
If practiced correctly, it could gradually accustom the body to true qi and allow physical force to gain support from within rather than relying only on flesh and bone.
For someone with his current foundation, that was already extremely valuable.
"Not bad."
Hao Nhien spoke softly.
"This art really does have value."
He did not become excited.
Nor did he begin imagining himself sweeping across the world with it.
But at least one thing was now clear.
Quan Bach had not passed down something useless to his son.
This branch of the Quan family might have declined.
Its inheritance might have been fragmented.
But what remained was still enough to lay the first stone of a foundation.
Beside the pool, Tieu Lan sat on a low rock and quietly watched him.
After a while, she called,
"Young Master."
Hao Nhien had just withdrawn his fist and turned toward her.
"I'm going to look for medicinal herbs around the edge of the forest. I won't go far. I'll stay where you can still see me."
He followed the direction she pointed.
It was the sparse woodland beside the pool, open enough that he would still be able to see her moving among the trees.
Hao Nhien nodded.
"Stay near the edge. If you see anything strange, come back immediately."
"Yes."
Tieu Lan carried her basket toward the trees.
Hao Nhien watched until he was sure she had not gone far, then returned to the sand.
He continued practicing.
This time, he did not string many forms together.
He separated them.
One form, ten repetitions.
If ten were not enough, twenty.
He did not care whether the movements looked graceful.
He only cared whether his body remained stable, whether force moved along the correct path, whether his breathing broke, and whether his true qi scattered.
Sometimes he knew the instant he punched that something was wrong.
Sometimes he only realized afterward that his breath had broken midway.
Sometimes his muscles tensed before the true qi arrived, causing pressure to build in his chest.
For the former young man, mistakes like these might only have made him more discouraged.
For Hao Nhien, they were information.
Where it was wrong, know that it was wrong.
Once he knew, correct it.
The sun gradually climbed higher.
Light poured over the white sand, and a faint heat began rising from the ground.
Sweat ran from Hao Nhien's forehead to his chin, then dropped into the sand and disappeared almost at once.
His shoulders had begun to ache.
His legs trembled faintly.
The thread of true qi in his lower abdomen had also weakened considerably, no longer enough to support each punch as it had at the beginning.
He stopped at the right moment.
Sat down on the rock beside the pool.
And regulated his breathing.
No greed.
This body had only just begun responding to him.
Forcing it beyond its limit now would not be diligence.
It would be stupidity.
The waterfall continued to fall beside him.
Hao Nhien allowed his breath to slow.
After a while, he opened his eyes and looked toward the edge of the forest.
Tieu Lan was crouched beside a low patch of grass, carefully using a small knife to dig out the roots.
She did not gather blindly.
Every time she found something, she examined it carefully. Sometimes she even smelled it before placing it into the basket.
Hao Nhien watched for a moment, then gave a slight nod.
Everyone had their own path.
At least for now, both of them were doing what they could.
Near midday, Tieu Lan returned to the pool.
The basket on her back was slightly heavier now.
She set it down beside the rock, then took out the two food bundles she had prepared that morning.
"Young Master, rest for a while."
Her voice sounded light and clear against the roar of the waterfall.
"We have meat buns and wild greens for lunch. I also found a few ripe wild apples."
Hao Nhien withdrew from the final fist form and let out a long breath.
After a full morning of training, his entire body was hot.
The back of his clothes was soaked.
His left shoulder ached faintly.
His legs had begun to feel heavy.
But this was different from the exhaustion of the first days after waking.
It was not the fatigue of a body being depleted.
It was the fatigue of a body slowly being awakened.
He wiped the sweat from his forehead and walked over to sit down.
Tieu Lan opened the larger food bundle and handed it to him.
Inside were several buns that were still slightly warm, a few washed wild apples, and a bamboo tube filled with cool spring water.
Her smaller bundle contained the same things, only less.
Hao Nhien looked at how neatly she had arranged everything and nodded.
"You prepared this carefully."
Tieu Lan lowered her head with a smile.
"I was just worried Young Master would get hungry after practicing for so long."
"Thank you."
She paused slightly.
Even though she had heard him say those words several times over the past few days, she still did not seem entirely used to the seriousness with which he said them.
But she quickly smiled again and held the bamboo tube closer to him.
"Drink some water first. You just finished training, so don't eat immediately."
Hao Nhien accepted it and took a sip.
The spring water was cold and clean, cooling his throat and easing the heat in his chest.
Tieu Lan sat beside him, picked up a wild apple, and said,
"This area is better than I expected. There are several patches of spirit herbs beyond the waterfall, growing very evenly. I didn't dare go deeper, so I only gathered around the outer edge. If we come back tomorrow, I want to look for a little more. I can boil them for a medicinal bath or soak your feet. It should help your body recover faster."
Hao Nhien listened while eating and nodded.
"Mm. But don't get so focused on gathering herbs that you forget to stay alert."
"Yes."
Tieu Lan pointed toward the other side of the pool.
"There's also a wide meadow over there. So many wildflowers are blooming—white, purple, yellow. From there, the waterfall looks beautiful. Almost like a painting."
Her eyes brightened as she spoke.
In Tieu Lan's telling, the waterfall was not merely somewhere to train.
The sparse forest was not merely a place to gather medicine.
There were also the colors of flowers.
The scent of grass.
Sunlight falling through leaves.
Listening to her, Hao Nhien suddenly felt that this world was not made only of danger and cultivation.
It also held smaller things.
A patch of wildflowers.
A beautiful afternoon.
A seventeen-year-old girl trying to tell a few cheerful stories so that the silence beside the pool would not feel too heavy.
Hao Nhien gradually understood that Tieu Lan had not wanted to come merely to gather herbs.
At the very least, she wanted to stay close to him.
To share the things she saw.
To use those small, ordinary things to keep the weight of their lives from pressing down quite so heavily.
Hao Nhien finished one bun and set the rest on a clean leaf.
"This afternoon, I'm going to try training beneath the waterfall."
Tieu Lan had just raised the apple toward her mouth.
Her head snapped up.
"Under the waterfall?"
"Mm."
She turned to look at the white torrent crashing into the pool.
Worry immediately showed on her face.
"The water is very strong, Young Master."
"That's exactly why it may be useful."
Tieu Lan pressed her lips together.
She clearly wanted to argue further, but after looking at Hao Nhien's expression, she only said quietly,
"Then you have to be careful. If you can't endure it, come out immediately."
Hao Nhien nodded.
"I know. I'll be careful."