Sound-to-Thread (Part Two)

Yutian had actually had a question he wanted to ask for some time.

A place at the Elite Training Ground was already an enormous favor. Now Yinglang was risking offending Elder Yuanguang to guide him in secret through such covert means. The weight of that kindness left him struggling to breathe.

Yinglang glanced at him, then suddenly asked, "Yutian, what kind of person do you think can live well among the Uchiha?"

Yutian paused briefly, thought it over carefully, and answered earnestly, "Someone strong. Someone with backing."

"Right, but not quite." Yinglang walked over to a large rock and sat down, motioning for Yutian to join him. His tone was calm to the point of coldness. "If you're strong but have no backing, people can easily use you as a weapon, and you'll be the first to die. If you have backing but no strength, you're useless, and the clan will abandon you sooner or later. Naturally, having both is best."

He paused, looking toward the dappled daylight filtering through the gaps in the woods, his voice softening a little.

"I have some backing, but it isn't strong enough. Elder Xuan can protect me for a while, not forever. I'm building up my strength too, but that takes time." He turned and looked straight at Yutian, his gaze sharp and direct. "So I need people. Not the sort of followers around Kagami who do nothing but play along with him. People who can actually get things done, handle things on their own, and be relied on when it matters."

"Right now, you have no backing, and you're weak. But I'll give you backing, give you an elite place, and help you build your strength. Once you're strong enough in the future, you'll be my backing."

He spoke openly and bluntly, even somewhat coldly, laying bare his covert support as an exchange of interests, an investment that went both ways.

Yet as Yutian listened, he showed no sign of offense. Instead, he wore a calm expression that said, "Just as I thought." This was best: clear and straightforward, with no hollow pity, only a concrete agreement. Neither would owe the other, and neither would let the other down.

"I understand." He nodded firmly.

"Good." Yinglang hopped down from the rock, his tone turning brisk. "From now on, we'll meet every three days. The location will change; I'll tell you beforehand. Keep everything I teach you to yourself, and make sure no one sees you practicing. Yuanguang won't limit his tampering to theory classes. There are other dirty tricks waiting for you. I'll give you two weeks for the Water Walking test. In two weeks, you have to pass."

"Two weeks?" Yutian's heart tightened abruptly.

He had only just begun to grasp chakra control. The difficulty of crossing ten paces of water with Water Walking in just two weeks was easy to imagine.

"Two weeks." Yinglang's tone left no room for negotiation, his gaze firm. "If you don't pass, Yuanguang will have ample grounds to propose kicking you out of the elite ranks. At that point, even Elder Xuan would have a hard time insisting on protecting you. You don't want to crawl back to the stables and spend your whole life as a servant, do you?"

Yutian clenched his teeth, his jaw taut, and said each word distinctly. "I'll practice."

"Mm." Yinglang waved a casual hand. "Head back. Remember, hide what you can do. Even once you've mastered it, don't stand out too much at the training ground. Just 'improve' slowly, bit by bit. That's enough. Shine too brightly, and you'll die quickly."

Looking at Yinglang, he finally could not hold back his other question. His voice was very low, but carried a long-suppressed frustration. "Yinglang, I... I want to know what exactly Yuanguang's people have done. Why is it that in the same theory class, Kagami and the others understand as soon as they hear it and progress so quickly in practice, while I... I don't think I'm the stupidest, but when I hear those words, they're just a tangled mess. Why can't I ever sort out the key points?"

This was what he had never been able to understand. He had observed Kagami and the others listening attentively in class too, but afterward, they could immediately put it into practice and make obvious progress. Yet even after going over those words again and again himself, he still could not find a way in, as though they had not been hearing the same thing at all.

Yinglang glanced at him without answering immediately. Instead, he unhurriedly took a folded sheet of paper with somewhat ragged edges from inside his clothes, unfolded it, and held it out before Yutian.

"Look at this."

Puzzled, Yutian took the paper and lowered his head to examine it. There were no words on it, only a dense arrangement of tiny dots made with fine dabs of ink. Their arrangement seemed to follow some pattern, yet also seemed completely random. He widened his eyes and looked over it several times, utterly unable to make sense of it.

"This..." Yutian looked up, his brow tightly furrowed. "Isn't this just... a bunch of dots? There's nothing here."

"Exactly. To you, it's just a bunch of dots." Yinglang's tone was even. He took the paper back, brushing his fingertips lightly over the ink dots. "But to me, or to certain people, it's covered in words. It's clear, unmistakable information. These dots... are my coded symbols!"

Yutian froze.

Watching his increasingly puzzled expression, Yinglang said slowly, "This is an encrypted way of writing. You can think of it as a 'secret language' or 'code' that only people who know certain rules can understand. Anyone who doesn't know the rules sees only a meaningless array of dots, just like..." He paused, finding a more fitting comparison. "Like an illiterate person faced with a book full of writing."

This is Braille. This world happens to have no Braille system. So I didn't prick holes in the paper, just made dots with a pen, but the principle is the same. A thought passed through Yinglang's mind, imperceptible to anyone else. The Braille knowledge I won in the system lottery three months ago finally came in handy.

Yutian's eyes flew wide. A vague but startling thought flashed through his mind, sending a shudder through him.

"You mean... Elder Yuanguang and the others, during theory classes..." His voice was a little dry.

"Not all of it," Yinglang interrupted, analyzing it calmly. "But the most crucial concepts, the subtle techniques of circulating chakra, the keys to transforming its nature... what they use is very likely a set of 'technical terms,' 'codes,' or 'abbreviated explanations' understood only within their own circle, or by the inner-circle students they're willing to teach. But you, and those other children they don't favor, hear a different set of 'descriptions,' deliberately made complicated and obscure, even out of order and missing the crucial connecting pieces."

He shook the paper in his hand. "Just like if I gave you this sheet. When Kagami gets it, what he sees is 'raise your energy, gather it at the foot apertures, three parts solid and seven parts yielding, rise and fall with the waves.' But what you hear is 'mobilize your chakra, cover the soles of your feet, feel the power of the water, maintain your balance.' Sounds pretty similar, doesn't it?"

Yutian's fists clenched abruptly, his nails digging deep into his palms. Similar was an understatement. In theory class, the teacher said exactly that sort of empty but correct nonsense! Back then, he had even desperately tried to understand what "feel the power of the water" and "maintain your balance" meant!

"In reality," Yinglang said, his voice cold, "the key points in class require knowledge from outside class, knowledge from home? So what you hear will always be fragments that can't directly form the right picture. You're not stupid. You've just... been shut outside the walls around the information. How can an 'illiterate' who can't understand the teaching materials compete in learning speed with people who can read them directly?"

Yutian's face went pale, then livid, his chest heaving as a mixture of anger, realization, and humiliation battered his heart. So that was it! It wasn't a gap in talent at all, or a lack of effort. From the very beginning, the door to the right path had been silently shut, left open only to a select few! He had been stumbling through a maze like a blind man, while those "inner-circle students" held maps!

"Do you understand now?" Yinglang folded the paper again and tucked it back inside his clothes, looking at him sharply. "The 'clumsy method' I'm teaching you bypasses their encrypted 'terminology.' It starts directly from the most fundamental thing, the sensations in your own body, and lays a new path that you can understand and follow all the way through. This path might wind a little more and take a little longer, but every step will be on solid ground."

Yutian let out a heavy breath. The confusion and trace of inferiority in his eyes gave way to clear anger and resolve. He raised his head and looked at Yinglang. His earlier question had been answered, and with that answer came a heavier determination.

"I understand," he said in a low voice. This time, there was no hesitation in it, only a settled, cold firmness.

Yutian turned and walked toward the edge of the woods.

After a few steps, he suddenly stopped and looked back at the thin, small figure beneath the old pine, nearly two heads shorter than himself. After a moment of silence, he spoke, his voice low and earnest:

"Yinglang, thanks."

With his back to him, Yinglang did not turn around. He merely raised a hand and waved casually.

Yutian said nothing more. He strode out of the pine grove, his figure gradually disappearing at the end of the woodland path.

Only after the sound of his footsteps had faded completely did Yinglang slowly turn around. Looking at the empty path, he let out a soft breath.

Sound-to-Thread took an even greater toll than he had expected. Those few brief words of guidance had nearly exhausted the disguised chakra in his body, and a faint wave of mental fatigue had set in as well. He raised a hand and rubbed between his brows, a glimmer flashing in his eyes.

At last, he had taken the first step.