Father and the Bottleneck

Morning light squeezed through the crack in the window, and Lu Yuan opened his eyes.

After three cycles of Tide breathing, the warm current in his chest had become a little more distinct.

Good.

He got up, dressed, and walked beneath the old locust tree in the corner of the courtyard. He planted his feet apart, bent his knees slightly, and held his arms in a loose circle before his abdomen. This was the Embracing the Origin Stance, a variation of a health-preserving method from the knowledge base that could stabilize the core.

He closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

His legs began to ache, and his back and waist stiffened. He endured it, circulating his faint Soul Power in time with his breathing. A quarter of an hour later, the hinges of the main house creaked.

Lu Yuan lowered his arms and turned. His mother, Lin Xiu, came out carrying a wooden basin and paused in surprise. "Little Yuan, you're up so early?"

"Just getting some exercise." He went over to carry the water. "Where's Dad?"

"Chopping wood behind the house."

Lu Yuan went around to the backyard. Lu Qinghe stood with his back to him, swinging his axe up and bringing it down. His movements were mechanical, accompanied by dull thuds.

Lu Yuan didn't call out. He stood to the side and watched.

After splitting a few logs, Lu Qinghe wiped away his sweat and turned to see his son. "What brings you out here?"

"Dad," Lu Yuan said calmly, "when you cultivate and your Soul Power reaches the level-nineteen node, does it always catch? You can't push past it, your chest feels tight, and there's a sharp pain behind your right shoulder."

The axe froze in midair.

Lu Qinghe stared at him, the wrinkles on his face frozen in place. Bewilderment and disbelief finally settled into profound confusion.

"...How do you know?"

"From watching you chop wood." Lu Yuan pointed to the slight pullback of his right shoulder as he drew the axe back. "Also, when you smoke at night, you always press your left hand three inches below your left ribs. That's a point where Soul Power has built up."

Lu Qinghe opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

He put down the axe, sat on a chopping block, and reached for his pipe. His hands shook, and it took him two tries to pack the tobacco. He lit it and drew a deep breath. Through the smoke, he looked at his son with an immensely complicated expression.

"Don't go thinking nonsense, kid." His voice was low. "You don't understand."

"I don't," Lu Yuan said, squatting down and picking up a thin twig. "But what I saw isn't necessarily wrong."

He began drawing in the dirt with the twig.

The lines were crooked, but the structure was clear. A circle and a few lines. At one node, he jabbed a dot into the dirt and marked it with a cross.

"This is the rough path your Soul Power takes as it circulates," Lu Yuan said. "It's crude and inefficient. The node where you're stuck is where the hand taiyin lung meridian meets the main Soul Power channel. Your cultivation technique makes too sharp a turn there, and on top of that, your years of using your right hand have strained your meridians. Together, those two things have formed a bottleneck."

Lu Qinghe stared at the drawing on the ground, forgetting to smoke.

It was too specific. The dull pain in his right shoulder, the sluggishness when he cultivated... he had been right about everything.

"You..." His throat tightened. "Where did you learn that?"

"There were a few torn pages tucked into that old primer." Lu Yuan's expression didn't change. "I compared them and made some guesses."

Lu Qinghe fell silent. His tobacco had burned out, and he tapped the ashes against the chopping block. "Even if that's true... what can be done?" Weariness seeped into his voice. "The Soul Master in town said level nineteen was as high as I'd ever get in this life. That's just my fate."

"Fate is fixed," Lu Yuan said, "but people walk their own roads."

He threw down the twig. "A crude cultivation technique can be fine-tuned. Sluggish meridians can be nourished and cleared with Soul Power. You don't need heavenly treasures. Just change a few details of how you circulate it and adjust your habits."

Lu Qinghe looked at him as though he were a stranger.

His six-year-old son had been different ever since coming back yesterday. He was too calm, and now he was saying things that Lu Qinghe couldn't understand but that still made sense.

"Easy for you to say." He shook his head. "I've cultivated for more than ten years and never found the trick to it."

"Because you've been practicing the wrong way all along," Lu Yuan said. "It's like chopping wood with a blunt axe. The harder you swing, the worse you chip the blade. You have to sharpen the axe first."

He paused and studied his father's expression. Doubt was still thick on his face, but deep beneath it, something faint stirred.

Words alone were no use.

"Dad, circulate your Soul Power now, up to that node," Lu Yuan said. "Don't rush to push through. Stop and feel it. Does your Soul Power split into two streams? One pushing forward and the other burrowing into a fine channel to the right and behind?"

Lu Qinghe hesitated, then closed his eyes.

He slowly set his Soul Power in motion. When it reached the familiar spot, it met a blockage. He stopped as instructed and felt it carefully. After a few breaths, his brow furrowed.

It was true.

Behind the sense of blockage, there really were two faint forces pushing in different directions. One went forward, while the other scattered to the right and behind. He had never noticed before. Every time, he had thrown all his strength into forcing his way through, until his chest felt tight.

"Can you feel it?" Lu Yuan asked.

Lu Qinghe opened his eyes and nodded, even more shocked.

"The one going forward is the main path. The one going back is dispersing," Lu Yuan explained. "Your cultivation technique is missing guidance to 'gather' the Soul Power at this point, so it runs down a side path. Every time you try to break through, thirty or forty percent of your strength scatters. It'd be a wonder if you got through."

"Then... what should I do?"

"Pull the scattered part back." Lu Yuan made a circling motion with his hand. "Don't use brute force. Just before your Soul Power reaches the node, use your mind to imagine a 'vortex' spinning inward. When the Soul Power passes through, it'll naturally be gathered and concentrated forward."

He paused.

"At the same time, don't tense your right hand too tightly when you cultivate. Relax your right shoulder and imagine the Soul Power flowing through like water. Don't smash it through like a rock."

Lu Qinghe listened with his brow tightly furrowed. He had no idea what "using your mind" or a "vortex" meant. But the problem was real enough.

After hesitating again and again, he couldn't help asking, "Will... will that work?"

"I don't know," Lu Yuan admitted. "The theory makes sense. We'll have to try it to see what actually happens."

Silence.

The morning light had spread fully, brightening the courtyard. Roosters crowed and dogs barked in the distance. Lu Qinghe sat on the chopping block, looking from the drawing on the ground to his son.

The child carried a certainty in his very bones. It was strange, but every word he said struck true.

Fifteen years.

He had been stuck at level nineteen for fifteen whole years. He had endured from the prime of his youth until his shoulders and back had grown slightly hunched and his palms callused. He had given up hope and accepted his fate long ago. But deep down, was there truly not a single spark left?

Now his son had gently stirred that spark with a twig and a few words.

Lu Qinghe's Adam's apple bobbed. He put down his pipe and rubbed his large, rough hands against his knees. Then he raised his eyes and looked at Lu Yuan.

His voice was hoarse and dry, weighted with the resolve to throw caution to the wind.

"...Should we try?"

Lu Yuan nodded.

"Not now," he said. "You've just finished working, and your Qi and blood are unsettled. Wait until tonight, after dinner, when you've calmed your mind. I'll watch over you."

He stood and brushed the dirt from his trouser legs. "I'm going to have my porridge first, Dad. You're almost done chopping the wood."

He turned and walked toward the front courtyard, his steps steady.

Lu Qinghe remained seated. He lowered his head and looked again at the drawing on the ground. After a long while, he stretched out his foot and slowly rubbed it smooth.

But some things could no longer be rubbed away.