The Blue Moon was high in the sky, the stars keeping her company on her journey. Together, they gifted the creatures of the night enough light to see the city, tinting it in azure, just not enough to see the details, contours getting fuzzy and shadows plenty.

  Paper lamps swayed, complementing the blues with gold and red. Their intricate designs danced, telling stories that no one could hear.

  The wind rolled peacefully in the long streets and tiny alleys, carrying with it not the petals of blooming flowers anymore, but the slightly sour perfume of fruits that weren't ripe yet. As it wandered, it gently let the world forget the steps of men and beasts, the thin sand of the bare earth streets following its nudges.

  The silence of sleep was filled with the singing of crickets, growing in number as the warmth of summer slowly came back. Dogs barked when the owl joined their chorus.

  Chang Heng took it all in from the centre of an empty square. Behind him, the Prize Palace was peaceful once again. The person guarding it, despite all their power, had not moved.

  He was exhausted in body and mind alike; Those last couple of days had been more tiring than the previous two weeks of forced training combined.

  Despite that, determination had finally started growing roots inside him, giving him a sense of hope that kept him steady on his feet.

  Following that emotion, he set out to walk to his clan’s terrains.

  …

  …

  “How do I get there?” He asked aloud.

  The wind has no answer.

  He smiled, then giggled, then laughed and laughed until his belly hurt. His legs got weak as all the air left his lungs in raucous laughter.

  He had no idea how to get there! None! In fact, no idea how to get anywhere!

  He knew the vague shape of the path from the Colosseo to his home, but he couldn’t see it, making that already unclear way moot.

  There was no point just waiting there, and he was not going back in, so he picked a random street and started walking, hoping to find someone to ask for directions. The idea of having to talk to some strangers made him a bit nervous, but also… curious.

  It’s the first time in my life that I’m out all alone, he mused, it’s a bit exciting. I’m getting to do something new, I don’t care if it’s common for everyone else. Hm, yes. I like this feeling of novelty.

  His steps quickened, and a small smile stayed on his face.

  I’m like the dumbest explorer, seeing for the first time the place I’ve lived in my whole life… No one by my side, no one to drive a carriage, just me… and the city…

  His heart happily pounded, the barest hint of anxiety mixed with wonder and curiosity. He hummed a song he had heard as a child, his steps following the rhythm.

  The boy trotted in the centre of the road, seeing the scenery change around him as time passed, the Moon moved, and the shadows got a bit longer and a bit darker. As he left the richer districts, the number of lights got smaller, letting the blue of the moon and the white of the stars pick the colours of the night.

  It was an unknown world, the one he was seeing at that moment. Novel and free, but also silent and lonely. Is this what life feels like for Old Man Ling?

  He pondered the question a bit more, and slowly came to the realisation that the silence and loneliness didn’t need to be a bad thing. They absolutely could, but they didn’t have to. As much as they left him anxious, at times overthinking the random path he was taking, at times making him worry about what hid in the shadows, they also let him think freely.

  The silence didn’t need to be filled, not when there was no one to listen. He didn’t have to try to understand the mysterious implicit rules of communication while trying to make a good impression. He could just… be.

  His mind, just like his body, could wander with no bounds there.

  First, it stayed with Old Man Ling, the man he admired most, his intellect an inspiration, even if he was a bit weird at times. From there, it branched in two directions: one thinking of his father, mother and sister, nerves creeping in on him; another to Cultivation Techniques, and the unique method he and his ancestor had been refining in the last month, calm coming back.

  It then strayed to the ways his body had been changing. He was still short for his age, and incredibly so for a Chang, but he thought he had been growing a bit; and that was not even talking of his growing appetite, emaciated body getting healthier and more lively, and the pains… they were more intense than ever, beyond what he was used to, as expected from his worsening illness, but they were getting sparcer, at least a tiny bit.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  The metaphorical walk to his deathbed was getting slower, unlike the totally-non-metaphorical one he was having.

  One foot, in front of the other… he attuned in his head, following notes he had heard once or twice in a completely unrelated context.

  He followed them with his feet, then his legs joined, moving slightly more than they were supposed to; his hand started snapping in rhythm, a good sound coming only every third or fourth beat; then his arms swung more than they should, bringing his shoulders with them.

  He gave a quick look around, and the place was still empty.

  His head wobbled together the rest of his body, and the worst dance ever to the worst tune ever was born.

  He had no idea what he was doing, no idea where he was going, what he was singing, or how to dance, but he let himself be carried anyway, his voice coming to life to complete the show. He sucked at singing, too, but that moment of newfound freedom was euphoric enough to not make him care.

  …

  More of Green Leaves City blanketed itself in darkness as the minutes, or maybe hours, passed.

  Still lost, he passed through a thin alleyway, just a hole between two buildings, and reached a clearing. Old and simple stone floor, a couple of benches, some shops or houses to the sides, and a nice little fountain in the centre of it all, with a small statue of a bull on top of it, with some added weird details, like the human face it wore.

  He sat on one of the benches, the cold wood a nice change from the warm air. He looked up at the Blue Moon, barely above the roofs of the ancient buildings around him. The night didn’t have many hours left.

  Appreciating once again the blessings it gave, he started cultivating.

  Inside his Dantian, his Cultivation Technique came to life. A maze of symbols, woven into patterns; patterns which were just small gears of a bigger structure, yet all essential; written in a language of numbers and logic, from the simplest line, to shapes that shouldn't exist, all taking part in the one goal of empowering him.

  There were many subsections, each with a specific role that could not be missing, except for a few that he didn't have to think about yet.

  Taking it all in was hard already for Chang Heng. If a mortal tried to… either their mind would simply refuse to acknowledge its entirety, or it would end up damaged, like a dam that tried to stop a flood.

  It was his masterpiece, the proof of years of passionate study and endless waking nights, a work completed together with a man unlike all others. He understood it all, from the smallest dot to the absurd fractals, except for what was at its core.

  A Cultivation Technique had more than one function, from controlling and improving the way it shaped the user’s body, to the way it changed their relation to the elements, to how Qi flowed through them…, but one stood above all others: gathering Qi from the world around them. What one could achieve with their will and effort amounted to nothing compared to what the simplest of those could do.

  The name Old Man Ling gave it was “The Call”, as it, based on the structural elements of the Technique and the maker’s and user’s understanding of Dao and the elements, had the energies of the world come to the user of their own accord, rather than forcing them.

  It was the one thing their new language couldn’t do, no matter how hard they tried, how many symbols and patterns they made up, what new approaches and solutions they had thrown themselves into researching. Logic couldn’t sway the hidden will of the Dao, not yet.

  From the way Chang Heng saw it, this was the one thing that made Old Man Ling change from a solitary person to basically a crazy hermit.

  And the actual- temporary, the redhead always said to himself- solution was to simply… use the traditional way, the one the old man had used and practised for decades anyway. So they just slammed it in and called it a day, for the time being. Or at least, the elder man did; he was the only one of the pair who understood the elements enough to make something out of them.

  The process started, and the Qi all around him was called.

  Metal inside him was folded, forged, made perfect; so, the Metal of the world wanted to join the process. Dust and sand were layered and compressed into compact, solid and great Earth, and the little motes of Earth added themselves as new layers. The tree grew both in height and width, and needed more bark to cover itself, so the Wood came to be made living shield.

  It wasn’t in tune with how the boy saw them, but the old man’s work was leagues above anything he could achieve in that moment.

  The whole system was one he understood, and didn’t need much thought; only this section asked for his focus, so he had plenty to spare. He had resolved himself to get stronger, better, so he did exactly that.

  At first, it was a physical training, both body improvement and practising what little skills he had. Lacking instruments or partners to challenge him, it was cut short due to how pointless it felt; the “shadow fighting” of his cousin was still beyond him.

  His control of Stamina was next, forming patterns of meaning inside of him, making it rush and flow, and he kept going until a headache forced him to stop. There was a reason he had not managed to learn a second move in almost a month; he simply was not that good at it. A lot of training would be needed.

  So, he ended up sitting back on the bench, his palms one in front of the other a couple of spans apart. Between them, he gave his whole attention to one, singular, little mote of ambient Qi.

  First, he moved it with his will: the process, as always, was slow, and far too hard for what it did. The little mote went to his left thumb, but did not enter his body. Then, he had it go to the opposite one; then the left index finger, then to the right… When the right pinky was reached, he did it again in the opposite direction.

  He had done this far too many times, but it was still taxing enough to give him another headache by the middle of the training. A third of the way in through the fourth lap, the pain became too much for him to handle, especially on top of the ones his body gave him on its own accord already. It was much easier to just keep a few motes close and absorb them when needed.

  He was left running only his Technique, watching the stars, when the window behind him let out some light, a grunt and a slam heard not much later.

  It was a bakery, and whoever was in could give him pointers on how to get to his parents.