The days passed like the steady fall of gentle rain.
Lan Wu woke with the sunrise, practicing basic breathing routines before most of the outer disciples were even out of their beds. The Qi-restoring pills helped his small reserves grow ever so slightly each day. His meridians, fragile but cleansed, slowly strengthened under constant use.
His progress wasn't dramatic.
But it was steady.
And Mei Lian… was watching.
Though not outwardly affectionate, she found herself correcting his posture, adjusting his fingers when forming Qi seals, and—when he wasn't looking—bringing him slightly better medicinal food from the inner disciple kitchens.
"Why?" she muttered to herself. "What are you trying to prove?"
Outside of training, Lan Wu developed an unexpected reputation—not for his cultivation—but for his kindness.
One day, when passing by the Spirit Gardens, Lan Wu saw senior disciples struggling to clear a batch of spirit weeds (plants infused with chaotic Qi that disrupted cultivation). Without hesitation, he stepped forward, rolled up his sleeves, and knelt to help them by hand, without Qi.
When meals were served in the Outer Disciple Dining Hall, Lan Wu volunteered to wash the plates, carry food for others, even though others thought it beneath a disciple.
When Yun Qiao sprained her wrist during a stance exercise, it was Lan Wu who fetched the medicine quickly.
Slowly, the mocking whispers began to turn into confused comments.
"What's wrong with him?"
"He's too nice… is he trying to curry favor?"
"No… I think he's just like that…"
Even Zhang Feiyu, who once sneered at him, found himself accepting Lan Wu's help begrudgingly when asked to spar in the evenings.
"Tch… you're weird, stray. I'll give you that."
Nights by himself were always peaceful,gave him time to reflect on things.
Yet, even with all of this… alone, Lan Wu still fidgeted with his sleeves.
Words still hurt, even kind ones tinged with disbelief. He couldn't understand what he was trying to prove either—not fully. He had this unknown drive to be better, to be kind, it felt like his nature, but for one with no past was this truly who he has always been?.
But under the pale moon, each night, he knelt on his mat in quiet meditation. The world fell silent save for the soft rustle of distant clouds.
"I… don't know who I am. But I'll become someone worthy of this kindness."
His Qi pool was like a shallow spring—small, faint—but perfectly controlled.
Qi flowing through his meridians felt natural, almost reflexive, though he didn't know why.
"Strange," Mei Lian had said once when checking his posture. "It's like your body has done this before… even if your mind hasn't."
Within the Soul :
Beneath this gentle progress, in the depths of his soulscape, Wuxie watched, chained and furious.
His golden eyes burned under the thick heavenly seals, but there was a fracture in that fury. Confusion. Vulnerability. Anger mixed with something else.
"I should be killing… burning… What is this… bowing, smiling, obeying?!"
"What are you doing with my body, child…?"
" So this is heavens way of treating me? Not only giving me a destiny paved with blood, but favouring this weakling? Condemning me to this prison within my own soul, making a mere copy, a pest live the life that I should have gotten... How righteous you all are"
The Devouring Moon Beast remained chained at the far edge of that rocky landscape, its voice low and ancient. Lazily there as if it had no care in the world.
"Your body remembers cultivation. Your bones remember slaughter. Your flesh remembers technique."
"But your soul… has been torn. Half cleansed by that divine blow. The rest of you is a garden… waiting to grow again. Which flower blooms first?… depends."
Wuxie snarled, fists bleeding against the seals.
" If it must be, I'll use this child, one day I'll break out of my prison, let him learn, let him grow, he will be another stepping stone for me to grow, another way for me to take revenge ".
One night, Mei Lian found him in the garden again, practicing meridian tracing by himself. His eyes were tired but determined.
"I don't get you," she finally said, arms folded.
Lan Wu looked up and smiled gently.
"I don't get me either," he whispered. "But I'll find out. I owe it to the people here. And… to myself."
For the first time since meeting him, Mei Lian's sharp gaze softened by the smallest margin.
And above them, through drifting clouds, the faint outline of the Azure Dragon constellation glittered faintly, almost unseen.
A month later:
It had been a full month since Lan Wu had first stepped out into the training grounds as a lost child with trembling sleeves. That nervous boy still lingered—but beneath him was a foundation of quiet resolve.
His Qi pool had grown, still modest but clear. His body moved smoother, his posture cleaner.
While others boasted of breaking through to the later stages of First Awakening, Lan Wu was just now at mid-stage—but every strand of Qi within him was under precise control, like the threads of a master weaver guiding a fragile loom.
What he lacked in quantity of cultivation, he made up in clarity of flow.
But it wasn't just cultivation that changed—his relationships shifted too.
One afternoon, Yun Qiao—the quiet girl who once sprained her wrist—came up beside him while they carried meal baskets to the Elder Pavilion.
"Senior Brother Lan," she called softly. The others called him by title now, if only because of his relationship to the Grand Elder. "We're starting morning practice earlier tomorrow. Will you… join us?"
Lan Wu blinked, then smiled warmly.
"I would be honored."
Even Zhang Feiyu, the once-mocking senior disciple, now only nodded gruffly in his direction when passing.
Respect wasn't won through victory or brute strength. Lan Wu earned it the slow way—through work, kindness, and presence.
"It's hard to hate someone who bows and thanks you even when you scold him…" Zhang muttered one evening to his peers.
Then came the summon.
Standing before the Jade Flow Pavilion, Lan Wu waited respectfully until the interior spiritual curtain shifted, revealing the Grand Elder herself.
She was, as always, a vision of dignified grace. Draped in flowing white-and-jade silks, long black hair pinned with emerald combs, eyes sharp as spring rain over still ponds. She did not move—she glided, every step a silent assertion of centuries of practiced grace.
"Come," she commanded, voice not unkind but never soft.
Lan Wu followed, head slightly bowed, eyes respectfully on the polished stone floor until they reached the Inner Jade Court, where an ancient scroll lay sealed upon a carved obsidian stand.
"Lan Wu," she said finally, studying him not like a boy, but like a painting, an artifact to be appraised. "You have walked these grounds for a month now, and from all reports—particularly from Mei Lian—you have done well to learn what patience and virtue mean."
She paused.
"But virtue is not passiveness. It is action guided by principle."
She motioned to the scroll.
"This is the Wind Spiral Art—a foundational outer disciple technique for controlling air currents around the blade. It is not given lightly. You are not the strongest. Your cultivation is modest. And yet I give this to you as a test—not of strength, but of spirit."
Lan Wu's brows furrowed deeply, eyes lowering.
"Grand Elder… I… I cannot accept such a gift. I have done nothing to deserve it. Surely others—"
> "Enough," she interrupted, gently but firmly. "It is precisely because you think so that you deserve it."
She smiled faintly—a small but genuine curve of her lips.
"Besides… it will not be easy. I have given your instruction over to Mei Lian."
That smile deepened into something closer to mischief.
"She will not be gentle."
Mei Lian was waiting at the northern training courts by the time Lan Wu arrived that afternoon. Her sleeves were rolled up, her outer robe hanging neatly from a nearby bench, exposing the layered wraps beneath.
Her sword? A narrow, pale azure blade with a soft ripple pattern along the edge.
"Kneel," she commanded flatly.
Lan Wu obeyed.
"We start with stance. If your legs collapse before Qi moves, the technique is useless."
The Wind Spiral Art was deceptively named. It wasn't graceful at first—it was exhaustion incarnate. Horse stance until the thighs trembled, wrists rotating in awkward spirals with dull wooden practice swords until his palms blistered.
When he collapsed? She said nothing. Just watched him breathe, then pointed at his posture again.
"Wrong. Again."
Night fell. He barely made it back to his quarters before falling asleep still sitting cross-legged.
And yet—not once did he complain.
"Good," Mei Lian murmured one evening, watching from a distance while pretending not to care. "At least you don't whine."
At night, Lan Wu often found himself beneath the clouds again, alone with the wind whispering gently over the tiled roofs.
"I don't deserve this yet," he whispered to himself. "But I will."
"Virtue is action guided by principle," he repeated softly.
Within the Soul – Watching and Waiting
Deep beneath in the soulscape, Wuxie sat coiled in chains, golden eyes narrowed as he watched this pitiful, determined version of himself try to master Qi forms and swordwork.
"Pathetic. Bowing to that woman. To all of them."
But behind that hatred… there was a flicker of confusion again.
"Why can't I stop watching…?"
" I am disgusted by him but yet... his knack for curiosity and self improvement is interesting...for a pest you do show some promise ".
The Devouring Moon Beast said nothing. It only watched too, ancient hunger curling in on itself, still chained, still waiting.
By the end of that week, Lan Wu could feel it. Not mastery, but the first breath of something different—a faint swirling current rising around his wrists as he guided Qi through his limbs.
Not yet a spiral. Not yet a blade of wind. But the beginning of a foundation.
He bowed each time to Mei Lian after their sessions, voice calm:
"Thank you for your teaching."
And under the early stars, the wind moved slightly in response to his hand for the first time.