We sat outside the clearing behind my shop. Tianyi and Windy were nowhere to be found.
His robes hung loose around him, sleeves tucked up just enough to show the wiry muscles beneath. No weapon. No cane. Just him, standing still as the evening mist curled around his legs.
“I was thinking,” he said as I approached, “these last few days have been good.”
He didn’t turn to face me, but I could feel his attention sharpen.
“I’ve been thinking about how best to help you.”
I nodded. “And?”
Ren Zhi exhaled slowly, tilting his chin toward the sky. “And this rain is doing us no favors.”
There was a beat of silence.
“It’s got something to do with those cultists, doesn’t it?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes.”
His expression twisted to one of resignation.
“It’s almost identical to the symptoms of the Amethyst Plague,” I continued, “from centuries ago. Meridians begin to wither. Even cultivators get sick. If I’m right, in three weeks’ time, people will start collapsing.”
Ren Zhi was quiet for a moment. Then he nodded, slow and firm. “I figured it was something like that. Even I can feel something, and I didn’t stand in the rain. I’ve barely eaten or drunk anything in the last two days. But there’s still… something wrong.”
“I’m working on a cure.”
He grunted. “Then that’s even more reason for me to train you properly. You’ll need to survive long enough to finish it. How long do we have?”
"Three weeks."
The blind man clicked his tongue. "Very well. I suppose that'll work."
I cracked a faint smile. “You’re going to help me advance the Heavenly Flame Mantra?”
He snorted. “No.”
I blinked. “No?”
“That dance I showed you yesterday wasn’t some secret transmission. It was just a thought I had. Based on what I’ve seen from you. And from your master.”
“You mean Elder Ming?”
He inclined his head. “He’s got good fundamentals. And you picked up his structure well. But structure’s just the skeleton. Movement is the blood.”
I narrowed my eyes. “So you don’t even know the Heavenly Flame Mantra?”
“Nope.”
He said it like it meant nothing. Then moved.
A blur of motion, palms slicing through the air in sweeping arcs, feet sliding with unerring grace. Each motion light, but grounded. The kind of steps I’d only seen when Elder Ming was trying to demonstrate the Mantra’s highest forms. But Ren Zhi did it with ease. No qi. No flame. Just the ghost of the technique, recreated through rhythm and breath and form.
It was eerie.
Like watching a reflection of my own path, but from a mirror I hadn’t realized was there.
“You’re... copying it,” I said slowly. “From watching me?”
“Not copying. Just cleaning up the inefficiencies. Any martial style, properly studied, reveals its truth. The truths are the same across all good forms; control, tempo, angles, centerline discipline. Your style’s good. But it’s not perfect.”
“And you can see that?” I asked, voice quieter now. “When you’re blind?”
Ren Zhi’s smile was faint. “Sight is one way to learn. Not the only way.”
I felt the hairs along my arms rise.
This man was more monstrous than I’d realized. To analyze a style he couldn’t see. To improve it in real time. While carrying himself like a half-retired beggar sipping tea by a fire.
"Your body is what's lacking now. Between your qi reserves and mind, it's the weakest link."
I didn’t ask how he knew. I just nodded.
Ren Zhi stepped toward me, then circled once, as if mapping my presence in the air. “Your problem isn’t strength. It’s not speed. You’re agile enough. Durable enough. But your body hasn’t awakened. Not truly.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means your body reacts like a trained tool. Not an extension of your spirit. And if we want to fix that...” He extended a hand and tapped a finger lightly against the center of my forehead. I recognized exactly what he was pointing at.
The third eye acupoint.
“...we start here.”
The world went black.
I didn’t blink. My eyes were open. But light vanished. I stumbled but didn’t fall.
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Then I heard his voice again.
“This is where your training begins.”
Panic clawed at the edges of my breath.
The sensation of being blind, truly blind, wasn’t something I’d prepared for. It was immediate. Drowning. A sudden stripping away of certainty. No horizon. No ground. No sky.
Just black.
I staggered a step forward, heartbeat thudding louder than it should’ve. My body tensed, every muscle bracing for impact that hadn’t yet come. My ears strained, stretching toward any hint of motion.
“Try to dodge,” Ren Zhi said calmly. “Or parry. Whichever comes first.”
He cocked his head faintly.
“You used yourself. You realized your instinct was always wrong. So you treated it like a tell. Like a liar who could still tell you something useful.”
I blinked. “You knew that?”
He snorted. “Boy, I stepped wrong deliberately, and you still flinched the wrong way. Every time. You kept reacting like the world made sense. But now you’re feeling instead of reacting.”
I shook my head slowly. “You deduced all that—from one parry?”
“You call it one,” he said. “I see the whole pattern behind it. You’re good with structure. Strategy. Better than most.”
He stepped back.
“And that’s why I’m going to break all your patterns. Because strategy’s useless if your instincts can’t carry it.”
Before I could answer, I heard the grass stir behind me. A soft voice.
“Kai?”
Tianyi.
I turned slightly, but the black still covered everything. Windy’s low hiss followed behind her, suspicious and protective.
“I’m okay,” I said, letting the tension bleed from my voice. “Just trai—”
The contract.
The terms carved in intent and Heaven’s Will. If I said too much, if they understood too much, I could be punished.
“I mean,” I started again, hastily, “maybe it’s better if you two—”
“No need,” Ren Zhi cut in, his tone dry. “It won't be a violation of the contract.”
I paused.
“You sure?”
“Unpursued. Unspoken. Accidental discovery. Well, I let them. Could hear them coming a few li away.” He folded his arms. “Seeing how they follow your every step, they’d find out eventually."
He was right. As always. And part of me hated how relieved I was to hear it.
I turned toward the sound of Tianyi’s voice. “Listen carefully, if either of you repeats what you see here… if you even hint at it... I might die. Get struck by celestial lightning. Incinerated on the spot. So don't do it. Okay?”
Tianyi’s voice came through, laced with confusion but firm. “We won’t say anything. But we will stop him if he tries to kill you. Lightning hurts. It almost caught me when I was flying last week.”
“No—he's not—” I sighed. “Sure. Thank you, Tianyi. I appreciate it.”
“Can we join?” she asked, curious now. “We want to help.”
Ren Zhi hummed, almost amused. “Not a bad idea. But I’m not training your pets.”
I turned toward him instinctively. “They’re not pets,” I said. “They’re companions.”
"Then you’ll forgive me for using them as tools.”
“Depends how you use them.”
He stepped around me again, slow and deliberate. “Speed. Agility. Stealth. All traits you’ll need to react to. And they’re excellent sparring material for that. But for now—”
His hand touched the side of my head again. Something shifted.
Sound muffled. Like cotton had been stuffed in my ears. I could hear Tianyi say something, but it came through warped, like a voice underwater.
“I’ve reduced your hearing,” Ren Zhi’s voice came, clearer than hers, but even that felt like it was traveling through fog. “Not all the way. Just enough to challenge you. Time to train your other senses. You'll have to learn how to maximize your sense of smell and touch.”
My heart beat louder now. Not because I was scared. But because it was louder. I could hear the blood in my own veins. The scrape of my breath against the back of my throat.
Then came the smell.
Damp wood. Morning dew. Tianyi’s faint floral scent mixed with Windy’s sharper, muskier presence. The soil underfoot had a tinge of metallic dampness. The scent of stirred earth, something recently cut.
But most of all… I could feel.
Not just wind.
But tremors.
Qi.
The minute fluctuations in pressure under my feet, the subtle flex of moss shifting beneath someone’s weight, even if they barely moved. I’d tapped into this before; on the road from Pingyao, while foraging. I’d used Nature’s Attunement to trace threads of life through the dirt, find plants where none should grow.
Each pulse of the ground spoke. Each ripple of movement tickled the edge of my awareness. If I focused, I could map them. A shuffle there. A tilt of breath near the trees. Windy’s sinuous body moving in a low coil across the grass, just three paces to my left.
I didn’t see the world.
I felt it.
As though Nature’s Attunement had awakened fully under this pressure. Forced to compensate for missing senses, it filled the gaps with raw sensation.
I exhaled, long and slow.
I let the sounds blur, the smells fade.
And listened instead to the heartbeat of the ground.
Ren Zhi’s step pressed into the soil. Barely a twitch. But I caught it. Not through my ears. Not even through pressure.
Through connection.
I moved.
One step forward, one pivot to the side, hand rising.
A tap met my palm.
It wasn’t a full strike. Just a test.
I parried the tap cleanly. A flick of my wrist. No wasted movement.
A breath passed. Just one.
Whap.
A firm swat landed squarely on the back of my head.
“Don’t get cocky,” Ren Zhi said dryly. “You weren’t using your nose, were you?”
“I—no,” I admitted. “I was using Nature’s Attunement. It’s a skill I picked up as a herbalist. It’s not really like a normal sense—it’s more like a… resonance. Feeling the qi in the ground. The life in it. I can feel everything that's living around me. Even plants."
“So you're cheating."
I frowned. “I wouldn't say—”
“It’s not the point of the damn exercise,” he cut in. “Of course it’s useful. But you’re treating it like a free pass.”
“But it’s not something I can just turn off,” I protested.
“Exactly,” he said. “That’s the problem. Your hearing, your smell, your touch... those you can refine, isolate, control. That thing? That’s a crutch. And I can’t disable it.”
“So what, I’m supposed to ignore it?”
He clucked his tongue. “No. You’re supposed to train past it. Build the rest of your senses strong enough that you don’t need to lean on your fancy little spirit-wood whispering trick.”
“Spirit-wood whispering trick?”
“I don’t know what you herbalists call it. Qi-sniffing, leaf-whispers, root gossip. Whatever it is, save it for your garden. You’re building your body.”
I almost laughed. Almost. But he kept going.
“And don’t think I’m impressed just ’cause you caught one strike,” he added, pacing around me now. “Back in my day, if you didn’t catch three in a row blindfolded, you weren’t allowed to eat rice. Had to go chew bark for dinner.”
“…Was that an actual rule?”
“Damn right it was. Builds character.”
I bit back the grin this time.
Because the Ren Zhi I’d met weeks ago; the quiet, gentle old man who sat by the fire sipping tea, telling stories like a fable-spinning monk—was nowhere to be found.
This version?
He was alive. Sharp. A little unhinged.
And probably the best teacher I’d ever had. Aside from Elder Ming, of course!
“All right, blind boy,” he said, clapping his hands once. “Do it again. And this time? Smell me coming.”
I sighed. “If you covered yourself in ginger, maybe I could. It's easier said than done to smell you coming."
“Do you want me to seal your mouth too? To keep you focused on the exercise?”
Tianyi, through the haze of muffled sound, let out a giggle that felt like a chime dancing on the breeze.
And me?
I reset my stance.
Blind.
Still aching.
Still off-balance.
But smiling.
Because I knew this was what growth felt like.