Convergence
It was noon when we returned to the stone house.
The mountain sunlight shone directly down from above, turning the open space in front of the house white. Mu Shuang sat in the shade beside the house, mending a torn food bag. She only glanced up when she saw the two people emerge from the woods. Shen Mo squatted by the stream washing a pottery jar, while Shen Qiu sat against the wall, basking in the warm sun for a moment. Long Tieshan was inside the house; through the open door, one could see him squatting in front of the stove adding firewood. The water in the pot had just boiled, and white steam rose from it, framed by the door frame as a neat, everyday scene.
Long Tian stood in the open space for a moment, but did not go into the house. Instead, he turned around and went to the open flat area on the hillside behind the house. Yu Jin followed and stopped at the edge of the flat area, sitting down against the shady side of the hillside.
Long Tian stood still in the center of the flat ground, his six Soul Ring lighting up in succession. The Origin Return Pearl rotated steadily, the new core deep within its inner wall transmitting the residual energy of each oscillation at a fixed pulse frequency. He let his Soul Power flow from the first ring through the Sixth Ring and then into the Origin Return Pearl. Afterward, instead of stopping as usual, he let the new core catch the return flow—the surface of the new core glowed slightly, absorbing the returning energy, grinding it once inside the core, and then releasing it again, the energy denser than before the return flow. That grinding process left an extremely thin, warm mark inside Long Tian's body, extending from the lower edge of his chest to both sides, like a red-hot wire drawing an arc on the inner layer of his skin.
He repeated the cycle three times. Each time, the recirculation after the new core was ground was heavier than the last. By the third cycle, the patterns on the scales on his back began to emerge automatically, spreading along his spine from the base of his neck to his tailbone. The scales rubbed together with extremely fine sounds, like a pile of dry fallen leaves being pressed and released by the wind. He did not activate his sixth Soul Skill, but the two-headed Dragon Shadow rose up from behind him on its own at the last moment after he completed the third cycle, hovering for about two breaths before dissipating.
Yu Jin sat in the shadows of the mountain wall, watching him complete the three cycles. After finishing his practice, Long Tian walked over and sat down next to him, leaning against the same mountain wall. The fabric on his shoulders was damp from the residual heat of the previous grinding session, and the area against his back was slowly drying in the wind. The two sat side by side in the shadows, facing the open space bathed in the midday sun, and neither of them spoke.
For the next three days, Long Tian did not activate the Sixth Ring again. He performed the same cycle twice a day, morning and evening—the six rings flowed through the Origin Return Pearl, the Origin Return Pearl guided the new core, the new core was ground and then released back, allowing the denser energy to travel through the meridians along the Return to Origin path. After each round of grinding, the surface of the new core would light up, like a Shitou that had been repeatedly polished to reveal a denser inner texture. By the evening of the third day, the surface of the new core no longer shone alone—the residual heat emitted after each grinding could last until the start of the next round, and the warm energy remained in his body during the intervals between rounds.
When Long Tian woke up on the morning of the fourth day, he felt that the new core was no longer rotating independently. The extremely thin air gap between it and the Origin Return Pearl had disappeared—the two were now glued together, with the new core embedded in the center of the Origin Return Pearl's inner wall, like a pivot that had been placed inside. Every time the Origin Return Pearl rotated, it directly caused the new core to rotate synchronously, and there was no longer a phase difference between the two.
He sat up and placed his palms below his chest to feel it. The rotation speed of the Origin Return Pearl was about 10% slower than before after the new core was integrated, but the force of each rotation was heavier. When the vibration of the entire pearl was transmitted through the ribcage to the scales on his back, the arrangement of the scales rose and fell in turn like a field of wheat being blown by the same gust of wind.
That evening, he summoned Yu Jin to come out and practice Qigong. The two sat facing each other at the edge of the flat ground on the hillside, their palms touching. When Yu Jin's Power of Origin flowed from his palms and entered Long Tian's body through the circuit, the Returning Origin Return Pearl did not, as usual, first receive the power and then transmit it to the new core—the new core lit up a sliver the instant Yu Jin's primordial power arrived, like the well wall opening itself in the direction of the incoming water. Yu Jin's Power of Origin was directly swallowed and ground inside the core by the new core, and when it was released, it was wrapped in a layer of warmer gray-gold luster than before, flowing back towards Yu Jin's core along the Closed Circuit.
Yu Jin caught the returning aura. The four Soul Ring around his core lit up for a moment, and the dark gray bead on his chest continued to glow, like another burner in the same furnace being lit. After the two auras completed the first full cycle in the circuit, Long Tian felt the scales on his back unfold on their own. The two-headed Dragon Shadow silently rose from behind him, remaining suspended in the air above the two of them, maintaining a stable presence.
The Origin Return Pearl, the new core, the six Soul Ring, the core and four rings of the Yu Jin, and the dark gray bead—these six things resonated continuously at their respective frequencies within the complete Closed Circuit. In the final breath of that resonance, Long Tian felt something deep within the Origin Return Pearl in his chest cavity being continuously compressed, bound, and shaped by that combined force. During this binding process, the outline of the scales of the two-headed Dragon Shadow became clearer, like a painting that had been repeatedly outlined in ink finally receiving its color.
He finished his work. Yu Jin also withdrew his essence. The two sat in the twilight, each organizing their own aura, reviewing what they had felt in the previous cycle in their own minds. The two-headed Dragon Shadow lingered above their heads for a while, then dispersed on its own. The light dust from the edges of its scales fell from the sky, like a miniature rain of light compressed into a tiny area, leaving only a faint trace of warmth on their shoulders and knees before sinking into the earth with the arrival of night.