My dao to eternity

The mountain's western slopes carried a particular strain of frost lily that grew nowhere else within a day's walk of the city, and Li Fan made the climb himself twice a year rather than trust the harvest to sellers who padded their baskets with lesser stock and charged frost-lily prices for it regardless. He'd made the same climb enough times now that his feet knew the trail's uneven stones without his eyes needing to check them, leaving his attention free to range across the slope's ordinary sounds — wind through the high pines, a hawk's distant cry, the particular hush that settled over mountain forest in the hour before dusk.

The hush broke without warning, three ridges over, a concussive crack that sent a flock of startled birds exploding skyward from the tree line and reached Li Fan's own chest as much as his ears, a pressure wave rolling down the slope with enough force to shiver the frost lily's delicate stems around him.

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