?? Childhood Among the Withered Earth

  The village where Ash was born lay in a hollow between scorched hills, as if the earth itself tried to hide it from the sky’s gaze. Once there had been groves and streams—so the elders said. But now—only dust, cracked trails, and rare bushes whose leaves resembled dry feathers more than greenery. Green—true, living green—had become a legend, nearly as distant as thunder.

  And still, people lived. Not out of stubbornness, but from the habit of belief. Belief in rain that might one day return. Belief in unseen powers hiding in the dunes. At night, they told stories—not fairy tales, but memories. “The grass used to stay wet until noon,” an old man next door would say, staring into emptiness where, he claimed, peach trees once grew.

  Children saw it differently. For them, green lived in myths, in games, in dreams. They built palaces from sand, played “search for water,” shouting “Found a spring!” each time they stumbled upon a shard of glass. Yet behind these games lurked a truth: they felt what lay beyond the hills—emptiness. Not hostile, but final. As if the world ended right there, where the earth cracked and the wind blew away the sounds of the past.

  Ash grew up quiet. He liked to go alone to the village’s edge, where the path crumbled into stone and the horizon turned into shimmering haze. He would sit on a flat boulder and listen. The earth was alive—in its own way. Quiet, deep, like the heartbeat of an old beast under stone. Sometimes he thought it whispered—not in words, but in pulses, in vibrations under his heels. These hours of silence were his first lessons.

  It was then, among the burnt stillness, that a dream was born in him. Not a child’s whim, but a call. He didn’t know what lay beyond the horizon, but he knew he had to go. Not out of a desire to leave the village—he loved it, even in its barrenness. But because somewhere out there, beyond the edge of that dusty basin, there had to be something else. Something that could breathe life into the earth again.

  And that dream became his first bond—not with a homeland, but with the very element. With the dry, cracked, stubborn soil where, perhaps, a seed of rain still slept.

  ?? Family as Pillar and Flame

  Ash’s father, Chen Dao, was a man of the earth. Not the fertile, generous kind—but the harsh, cracked kind that demands patience. His hands knew every stone in the village, every crevice in the sagging walls. He fixed, built, restored. When he walked down the street, noise hushed—not from fear, but respect. There was a strength in him that needed no words. Stern as a drawn bow, he demanded much—above all, from himself.

  In the evenings, he rarely spoke. He sat by the hearth, cleaning tools, occasionally glancing at his son—a heavy, demanding gaze, but not without warmth. In that gaze, Ash first learned what trust meant: not affection, but the expectation that you would endure. That you would be worthy. Even in his darkest dreams, his father always stood tall, as if even death would not dare bend his spine.

  His mother, Lan Hua, was different—as if she carried a living thread connecting people to the sky. She remembered everything: ancient customs, names of ancestors, festival rituals, forgotten prayers. Her home was a temple of memory. Her voice—like the rustle of leaves that once adorned the village, in the days when rains still came.

  She had a gift: she could make morning feel warm, even if the night had passed in fear. She wove clothes, dried herbs, brewed sweet infusions that healed not just the body—but the heart. In Ash, her hands left a trace of tenderness he would return to in hard hours. She used to say: “Strength is remembering. Even when it hurts.”

  And Xi Ling, his younger sister… was light. So bright that even a storm couldn’t dim her. She ran barefoot through the village as if the wind were her brother. Always scraped knees, hands in paint or dirt, she lived as though time were her toy. She could laugh until she cried, stare without blinking, and believe in the impossible. “One day I’ll find a star and plant it in our well!” she once declared. And no one doubted that she would.

  Xi Ling was what Ash wanted to preserve—but couldn’t. A flame that went out, leaving a scar. Their family had been a whole world—stone, water, and fire. In that home, he had learned all shades of love: heavy, warm, bright. And when it all vanished, only a shadow remained—but with it, a strength. Because Ash knew: he did not walk forward alone. He was their continuation. Their memory, their guilt, their spark.

  ?? The Flame of Destruction

  That morning began like all the others—with wind and dry light. Ash was about to go to the well for water. His mother was brushing Xi Ling’s hair, singing an old song, while his father sharpened a blade in the shade of the awning. Everything was ordinary, almost lazy. Even the neighbor’s dog didn’t bark—just stared eastward, ears pressed back.

  The first sound came like a blow to the taut skin of a drum—low, drawn out, distorted. Then a second. And in another moment—a scream. Not one. A whole wave. Ash ran outside and saw riders descending the hill. Not traders, not wanderers. Their horses wore spiked masks, and their banners burned even before they were planted in the ground. The Burning Clan.

  They didn’t attack. They destroyed. Without prelude, without demands. As if sent from hell itself to erase the very memory of this village’s existence. Fire crawled over the rooftops, and behind it—black smoke, like a curtain between the past and what would never come. People tried to flee, with buckets, with knives. None were fast enough.

  Ash screamed—calling for his father, mother, Xi Ling. But the house was already in flames. Through the crackle of boards, he heard only one voice—his father’s, loud as a bell tolling its final time: “Run!” And that word pierced deeper than any blade. He ran. Through heat, through screams, through a collapsing awning. He didn’t remember how. Only the fire—remained.

  He fell, crawled, blacked out. When he came to, the sun was already leaning toward the horizon, and the village no longer existed. Stones still smoked. The air was hot, like blood. No bodies, no voices. Only ash. Everywhere.

  He walked through the ash barefoot, with a scorched cheek, and felt something vital slip away. His name—fading. His childhood—blown away by wind. His hands trembled, but there were no tears. Grief had sunk into the ground, like dew that never returns. Of the boy Ash had been, only a shell remained. Everything bright—had burned. Only emptiness remained. And a blade.

  From that day on, he never called himself by name. Not from shame—but because there was nothing left to name. He became the one who remembers the fire. Whose soul had burned but body endured—to one day repay a debt. Or vanish entirely.

  ?? Ash as a State Between Life and Death

  He didn’t remember how he left the ruins. His legs moved on their own, his body walked as though guided by some old memory of paths. First came a grove—burnt, dead. Then thickets, and then—nothing. Only desert, charred like he was.

  He didn’t know how many days had passed. Maybe three. Maybe thirty. Dust became food. Rare dew—water. And dreams—his only refuge. He didn’t eat. Didn’t drink properly. Didn’t speak. Didn’t even think. He simply… existed. But even that word felt too loud.

  He wasn’t alive—his heart beat, but held no purpose. He wasn’t dead—he breathed, but not for the sake of life. He was in between. Like coals darkened but still warm. Like ash lifted into the air, slowly falling—not knowing whether it would land or vanish into eternity.

  At night he saw fire. It didn’t burn, but glowed in his eyes. Sometimes, among the tongues of flame, someone stood. A man? A woman? A shadow? The voice in his dreams was muffled, like underwater. It didn’t call. It… remembered. As if someone was watching him, waiting—but not rushing. Not interfering.

  At times, in this silence, Ash felt the earth stir beneath him. Not with hostility—but like the breath of a giant sleeping beast. He would lie on the dust, close his eyes, and it felt like his body dissolved. He became part of the soil, part of oblivion. The world didn’t reject him—but it didn’t embrace him either.

  He lived in this gray crack between realities until the name he once bore completely faded. Time stopped. Desires vanished. Only the body remained—and a memory of flame. And a voice, not yet born—but one day meant to come.

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  ?? Monk Zhen and the Second Birth

  He didn’t find him by chance. Though back then, Ash still believed in chance. The place where he fell was unremarkable: a scarred plain, scattered rocks, a dried-up stream. He had no hope of rising. His body refused, his mind drifted somewhere beyond pain. And then—a shadow. Quiet, motionless. No words. No fear. Just a gaze.

  Monk Zhen was old. But his back was straighter than many young men’s. His face—calm, like water in a stone vessel. He said nothing when he saw the burned boy lying in the dust. He simply sat beside him and drew water. No pity. No reproach. No surprise. In his silence was more understanding than in a hundred words.

  He stayed with him three days. Fed him broth, gave him water, washed the ash from his hands. And on the fourth day, when the boy first whispered—barely audible, struggling: “Why?”—Zhen answered not with a phrase, but with a name:

  “Ash.”

  It didn’t sound like a label. And not as a farewell to the past. It was a statement. An acceptance. A name—not as a reminder of death, but as a starting point. In ash, fire dies, but possibility is born. The spark lives in what remains.

  “Ash is not the end,” he said later, when the boy could walk. “It’s the beginning. You didn’t become no one. You became someone who can choose who to be.”

  The monk didn’t teach him directly. He didn’t push him to a path. He simply showed how to steep leaves, how to listen to the wind, how to read the signs in cracked stone. And Ash began to learn. Not for revenge. Not for salvation. Just to feel alive again.

  With each morning, it was as if he was being born anew. Without the past. Without any name but the one given. And in that name was everything: the burned home, vanished voices—and the fleeting hope that something new could grow from the void. Not the old life. But a new one.

  ?? Years of Silence and Learning

  The monastery wasn’t a temple in the usual sense. More of a refuge, a rock amid dusty plains. No gold, no ornate decor. Just stone slabs, creaking shutters, and silence. So dense that, at first, Ash found it unbearable. After screams, ash, and dreams of fire—silence was like snow: blinding, foreign, unfamiliar. But in it, healing began.

  Each morning started with movement. No words. No explanations. They rose before the light, boiled water, swept the courtyard, prepared herbs. Not because anyone ordered them to—but because the monastery breathed this way. It lived in the rhythm of nature: with dawn—awakening, with wind—stillness, with rain—patience. And Ash began to hear this rhythm. First—in tasks. Then—in himself.

  He worked with his hands. Quietly. He scrubbed stones, wove mats, tended the garden where three living trees grew—a miracle in that land. In each task was more than labor: a thin, nearly invisible thread linking his body to the world.

  Zhen didn’t teach him to fight. He spoke not of blades, nor enemies, nor justice. He taught him to breathe. To listen. To pause between movement and stillness. “If you want to hear your enemy,” he once said, “first learn to hear yourself. And you can only hear yourself in silence.”

  Over the years, Ash began to feel time. Not by the sun—but by the earth’s pulse. He knew when to move, when to wait. He felt fear—not as an enemy, but as a tremble in the air. He could spend a whole day sitting by the doorway, knowing when the wind would shift, and what the next hour might bring. His hearing deepened. Not with ears—but with skin, heart, breath.

  He became part of the monastery, like a stone that had weathered a thousand storms and still held. And yet, in his eyes lived something else—not a desire for peace, but for understanding. He didn’t seek vengeance. But he knew: the void in him still lived. And within it—something waiting.

  While he was learning to live, not to fight, something else stirred deep inside: crystallization. Ash was becoming form. Without form. Without anger. But with potential. And with each day, his steps grew quieter—but left deeper marks.

  ?? Flow and Form

  Every morning began the same way. Water. Stone. Movement. Zhen never called it training. He simply stepped onto the dawn-lit platform and began to move—slowly, as if dissolving into the air. Ash watched. Imitated. Erred. Remained silent.

  At first, the movements seemed simple: a step—a turn—a breath. But the longer he practiced, the clearer it became: it wasn’t about form. It was about flow. About not resisting the air, but following it. Not pressing on the ground, but walking it like water.

  “You do not fight the world,” Zhen said one day. “You are in it. You are part of it.”

  Ash struggled to accept this. Pain still lived inside him, demanding sharpness, strikes, resolution. But the monastery gave no blades. Only breath. And at some point, he began to feel it: the movements weren’t preparation for combat. They were a way to live inside the body. Not to command it—but to be it.

  He learned to stand—and feel how weight shifted from heel to toe. He learned to breathe—and see how with each breath the world expanded. He learned to walk—and notice how the earth gently responded to each step, whispering: “I am here.”

  And in this flow, he began to discover himself—not as a victim, not as a shadow of the past, but as something whole. Not strong. Not weak. Just—alive.

  He understood: the body is not a tool. It is a gateway. If you cannot hear your palm speak, you cannot hear another’s pain. If you cannot feel your neck tense, you will not sense the ambush in a man. Everything is part of the same. Inside and out.

  From that day forward, Ash no longer trained. He lived in movement. He drank tea like wielding a blade. He washed stones like reading ancient signs. And each day was not preparation—but continuation of the path.

  ?? Observing the Flame

  There were no luxuries in the monastery, but one thing appeared nearly every evening—fire. A small flame in a clay bowl that Monk Zhen lit himself. No words. No ritual. He placed it in the center of the inner courtyard and left. Sometimes he stayed nearby—but silent.

  At first, Ash couldn’t approach. Even when the flame was tiny, it felt like a beast. The same one from the past. He felt his back tighten, his skin recall, his breath freeze. Fire was a reminder. It didn’t burn the body—it seared memory.

  But one day he sat closer. Not daring to look directly, he placed his hands on his knees, absorbing warmth from a distance. The fire didn’t reach for him. It simply existed. Danced. Changed shape. Crackled softly, as if telling its own story in a forgotten tongue.

  “Look,” Zhen said that evening, for the first time in many days, “not as an enemy. As a teacher.”

  Ash didn’t reply. But he began coming every evening. Sometimes for a moment. Sometimes until nightfall. He watched. Studied. Learned. He began to notice that the flame was never the same. That it had a breath—long, short, broken. That it could be warm—or sharp. That it was not evil. It was power. And with power, one could live—if unafraid.

  He remembered the house. The family. Xi Ling’s cry. His father’s voice. The strikes. And the fire. All of it returned. But now—not as a wave. As a soft call, which he could face. He began to release. Not forget. But let go.

  One night, he came closer than ever. The flame reflected in his eyes. And he didn’t look away. He simply watched until everything inside him matched the fire—calm, alive, in motion.

  And then he understood: you don’t have to burn the past to move forward. You simply have to stop burning inside.

  ?? The First Sound of the Sword

  There were no weapons in the monastery. Monk Zhen used to say: “If you go looking for something to fight—your enemy will find you first.” But one day, in a cellar beneath an old cell, Ash found it.

  It wasn’t an armory. Not a shrine of blades. Just a box. Dusty, bound with twine. Inside—a cloth. And inside the cloth—a sword. No name. No gold. The steel, slightly dimmed with time, was whole. A simple form, a straight blade, a light curve at the tip. The hilt bore no symbols, no characters. Only silence.

  He didn’t take it right away. He just sat nearby. Breathed. Listened. Not with ears—but with his body, as Zhen had taught him. And at some point… he heard it. Not a clang. Not a scrape. Not even a voice. It was resonance. As if the blade hadn’t been lying there—but standing within him since childhood. And now, after years, it slowly opened its eyes.

  He reached out. Touched the hilt. His skin flared—not from heat, but from recognition. The sword was cold, but not alien. Not a weapon. Not a tool. Not protection. A continuation. Of form. Of flow. Of meaning.

  He lifted it. Not with force—but with respect. The weight was right. The balance—clear. Like breath returned after a long hold. He moved the blade through the air—not with a swing, but as if slicing through time itself. And he heard a sound.

  Soft. Not a chime. Not a rustle. A deep response. As if a stone inside him resonated with a plucked string. No words. No prophecy. Just knowing: "Yes. This—is you."

  When he lowered the blade, he didn’t hide it. And didn’t take it with him. He just wrapped it again in the cloth. As if they had made an agreement—not today. But soon.

  From then on, he returned often. Held the sword. He didn’t train—he listened. Studied. Learned not to wield—but to understand. The sword wasn’t a weapon. It was a mirror. And the quieter Ash’s soul became—the clearer the metal sang.

  ?? The First Acceptance of His Fate

  A name is not a sound. Not a mark. Not a reminder. A name becomes part of one’s essence only when it no longer needs to be spoken aloud. For a long time, Ash had heard his name like a brand, like the scar of a burn, like a whisper of someone else’s will. He accepted it from Zhen—with gratitude, but without belief. It rang, but it didn’t live in him.

  He saw himself as nothing. A remainder. A trace left by fire. And only years of silence burned away the fear of being himself. Not the fear of pain, not of death—but of being. Not someone. Just being.

  One morning, at dawn, he walked to the old rock where Zhen often sat. The air was still. No dust, no wind. Just the thinness of the world before a new turning. He stood there for a long time, watching the horizon, and for the first time, did not search within for a question. He did not ask what comes next. Did not call to fate. Did not wait for a sign.

  He simply breathed. And in that breath—understood. Not where his place was. But that it was. That he could walk. Not for revenge. Not for forgiveness. But because he was Ash. Not a child of fire. Not a survivor. Not an exile. But fire itself—having endured its own death, becoming form.

  He did not reject the past. Did not hide from it. But neither did he let it lead. The memories no longer screamed. They simply were. Like stones on a path. You can notice them. You can walk around them. But still—you walk.

  And so he walked.

  Unhurried. Without banners. Without oaths. Without hope for an end. But with clarity. With silence inside. With a sword that still slept. And with a rhythm within—a song that guided his way.

  Thus his journey began.

  Not an escape. Not a quest. But a movement.

  A true one.