Blossoming Path

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.” Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novelfire(.)net

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.”

Something shifted to my right. A foot grinding against damp soil, too deliberate to be anything but an attack.

I turned and ducked, barely missing the oncoming motion, only to crash headlong into an outstretched palm that caught me clean across the chest. I reeled back, stumbling as air fled from my lungs.

“Again,” Ren Zhi said.

I tried to breathe. Focus. My mind flared outward, desperate to calculate everything from the sound of the wind brushing through his robes to the angle of his breath. I couldn’t afford to guess.

Another sound. A soft step ahead of me, maybe three paces ahead.

I stepped to the side only for my shin to smash against something solid. My leg caught mid-motion and I fell sideways, arms windmilling.

Ren Zhi had extended his foot where I was about to go.

I caught myself falling with one hand, flipping back onto my feet.

“This is how you plan to survive?” His voice wasn’t mocking. Just flat. Sharp as truth. “You’ll never grow like this.”

My instincts—sharp in battle, in alchemy, in strategy—meant nothing here. No visualization. No simulation. The most I could use was my Manifold Memory Palace; but overusing it would be dangerous.

Just me. My body.

And the black.

Again.

Another step, too soft to place. I turned left.

Pain exploded in my ribs. A short palm-strike, fast and clean, sent me reeling back a step.

Again.

A shift behind me. I pivoted, too fast.

My foot caught nothing. A hand swept my ankle.

I hit the dirt again.

Again.

I lunged forward at the first breath of movement and walked directly into a shoulder. The contact jarred up my spine. I gasped. My teeth clenched. For a man of his size and stature, he was surprisingly solid. It felt like I was running into a tree rooted deep into the earth.

Frustration built like steam beneath my skin. Each failure layered over the last until I could barely think. Until every nerve screamed for an answer. Something, anything to hold onto.

I dragged in a breath through grit and sweat and clenched my fists. What was I missing?

Then, it hit me.

Not like a realization; like a reaction. Like something I had always known but never used.

I was relying on one sense. Hearing. Treating it like sight. But hearing wasn't meant to give shape. It gave rhythm. Clues. Flashes. It wasn't enough.

The next step landed. A whisper of soil, somewhere near.

I didn’t move.

I stretched my senses and listened.

Not to sound.

But to the air. The subtle shift in pressure as it moved. The heat bleeding off another body. The tension in the ground under my bare feet, like the tautness of a stretched string before it snapped.

There! Just a hair’s breadth off to my left. My body wanted to dodge right. It screamed to. Which meant—

I spun left instead and brought up my forearm—

Clack.

Flesh met flesh. I caught his wrist mid-strike, redirecting it with a hard deflection.

A low whistle.

“Well,” Ren Zhi murmured, “looks like you finally caught it.”

I panted, heart hammering. Still blind. Still unbalanced. But my breath had steadied.

“You weren’t just listening anymore,” he said. “You used it all. Breath. Heat. Pressure. And…”

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.