Da Bao woke Xu Hao before sunrise by stealing his blanket.
One moment, Xu Hao was dreaming about his old university office. The kettle was working, his research papers were neatly arranged, and nobody had interrupted him to ask questions about ancient inscriptions.
The next moment, cold air struck his legs.
"Wake up, little brother! We're going running!"
Xu Hao opened one eye.
Beyond the shelter, the sky was still black.
He slowly turned towards the enormous figure standing beside his bed.
"Brother Da Bao, there seems to be a mistake."
"What mistake?"
"The sun hasn't come up."
"It will."
Xu Hao stared at him.
"I admire your confidence. Perhaps we could wait for proof."
Da Bao burst into laughter.
He was already dressed, his boots tied and his club resting against his back. Xu Hao suspected he'd been looking forward to this particular morning ever since announcing the training the previous evening.
Er Bao stood beside the fire, filling a water skin.
"Give him a moment to wake properly, Brother. There's no benefit in dragging him uphill before he's even had something to eat."
He offered Xu Hao a small piece of dried meat wrapped in a leaf.
"Eat a little before we leave. You don't want to run on a completely empty stomach, but too much food will make you uncomfortable."
Xu Hao accepted it gratefully.
"Thank you, Brother Er Bao. At least someone in this family remembers that I'm not built like a mountain."
Da Bao grinned.
"That's why we're training you. Another few months and you'll be able to keep up with us."
Xu Hao looked at the giant's enormous shoulders.
He sincerely doubted that.
Nevertheless, he ate the meat, pulled on his shoes and collected the staff Da Bao had made for him.
Er Bao checked the wrapping around his injured heel before allowing them to leave.
"We'll walk for the first stretch," he said. "Once you're warmed up, you can try running. Tell us if the heel starts hurting badly."
Xu Hao nodded.
He was beginning to appreciate that Er Bao's cautious approach might be the only thing preventing his eldest brother from training him into an early grave.
---
The forest looked very different before dawn.
During the day, sunlight filtered between the branches, illuminating enough of the ground for Xu Hao to see where he was placing his feet.
Now, the trail appeared in fragments.
A pale root crossing the path.
A wet stone reflecting the faint light.
The dark opening beneath a fallen tree.
Er Bao carried a small covered lamp, allowing just enough light to illuminate the ground without sending a bright glow through the surrounding forest.
Da Bao walked ahead, setting a pace that Xu Hao could follow comfortably.
For the first few minutes, everything went reasonably well.
Then the trail began climbing.
Da Bao broke into a light jog.
Xu Hao followed.
He had considered himself reasonably healthy in his former life. Archaeological expeditions often involved long days on difficult terrain, and he'd never been particularly fond of sitting in an office for weeks at a time.
Unfortunately, the body he occupied now was considerably weaker than the one he remembered.
After a short distance, his breathing became heavy.
His calves began to burn.
The injured heel pulled painfully whenever he pushed off the ground.
Da Bao glanced over his shoulder and immediately slowed.
"How are you managing, little brother?"
"I've discovered that this hill is considerably steeper than it looked yesterday."
Da Bao laughed.
"We haven't reached the steep part yet."
Xu Hao decided that wasn't information he needed.
They continued past the twisted pine and began climbing towards a large tree with two trunks.
Da Bao pointed towards it.
"Let's try reaching that tree without stopping. It's about thirty paces from here. Don't worry about speed. Keep your breathing steady and concentrate on where you're placing your feet."
Xu Hao examined the distance.
Thirty paces.
That didn't sound unreasonable.
He adjusted his grip on the staff and began running.
The first ten paces were manageable.
By the twentieth, however, his breathing had become ragged.
His attention shifted from the uneven ground to the increasingly uncomfortable sensation in his chest.
That was when his foot struck a buried root.
Xu Hao stumbled forward.
For one horrible instant, the ground rushed towards him.
Then his body reacted.
He drove the end of his staff into the earth and stepped forward with his free foot.
His weight shifted.
His balance returned.
He remained standing.
Da Bao was beside him almost immediately, one hand already reaching out to catch him.
When he saw that Xu Hao had recovered, he stopped.
"Good! That's exactly what I wanted you to learn yesterday."
Xu Hao looked down at the staff planted in the dirt.
He hadn't deliberately chosen the movement.
There had been no time to think about where his feet should go or how he ought to distribute his weight.
His body had simply remembered.
"I didn't even realise what I was doing," he admitted.
Da Bao nodded enthusiastically.
"That's the idea. When something attacks you, you won't always have time to think. Your body needs to know how to move before your mind finishes deciding."
Xu Hao considered that.
He'd spent years teaching students that understanding a technique was different from being able to perform it reliably.
Apparently, the same principle applied to not falling on one's face.
They walked the remaining distance to the tree.
Xu Hao leaned against the trunk, catching his breath.
Er Bao joined them a moment later and handed him the water skin.
"That was a good effort. How does your heel feel?"
"A little sore, but it hasn't become worse. Mostly, I think my lungs would like to submit a complaint."
Er Bao smiled.
"We'll walk for a while. You've already done more than you managed yesterday, and there's no reason to exhaust yourself on the first morning."
Da Bao looked as though he wanted to object.
Then he noticed Xu Hao's trembling legs.
"All right," he agreed. "But tomorrow we'll try to make it farther."
Xu Hao nodded.
They continued uphill at a slower pace.
Da Bao occasionally pointed out places where the ground was slippery or uneven, while Er Bao explained how to recognise paths animals used regularly.
On the return journey, Xu Hao noticed several stiff white bristles caught beneath the roots of a shrub.
He stopped and crouched beside them.
"Brother Er Bao, could these be from a boar?"
Er Bao examined the bristles.
"They could. They're old, though. The beast we killed might have passed this way some time ago."
"Could there be another one nearby?"
"There could be. The forest is large, and boars aren't particularly rare in this region."
Xu Hao looked towards the dark undergrowth.
The memory of the enormous white boar they had encountered was still unpleasantly clear.
Er Bao noticed his expression.
"Don't assume there's a dangerous beast nearby merely because you've found a few hairs," he said. "But it's good that you noticed them. Learning to recognise signs like these will help you avoid trouble."
Xu Hao nodded.
He made a mental note of the bristles and their location.
It seemed that even a morning run could become an opportunity to study the forest.
He wasn't certain whether that made the exercise more enjoyable.
But it did make it more interesting.
---
After breakfast, Da Bao announced their next lesson.
"Today, you're going to learn how to fall properly."
Xu Hao slowly lowered his bowl.
"Brother Da Bao, I believe I've already had considerable experience with that."
Da Bao laughed.
"That's exactly the problem. You keep trying to catch yourself with your hands. If you fall badly during a fight, you could break your wrist or injure your shoulder."
He led Xu Hao towards a flat patch of ground beside the shelter.
Er Bao helped spread dry grass across the harder sections and removed several stones.
Da Bao then demonstrated.
He crouched, tucked his chin towards his chest and rolled across one shoulder.
Despite his enormous size, the movement was smooth.
He rose almost immediately, brushing a few pieces of grass from his vest.
"See? You don't want all your weight landing on one hand. Let your body roll instead of fighting the fall."
Xu Hao studied the movement.
It looked simple enough when performed by someone who'd spent years training.
Unfortunately, he was discovering that simplicity was often deceptive.
He lowered himself into a crouch and tried to imitate the motion.
His first attempt left him with grass in his mouth.
The second trapped part of his coat beneath his knee.
On the third, he twisted too sharply and struck his hip against a small stone Da Bao had overlooked.
Xu Hao sat up, rubbing the sore spot.
Da Bao immediately came over.
"Are you hurt?"
"Nothing serious. Although I believe we've discovered another reason to check the ground carefully."
Da Bao removed the stone.
Then he spent several minutes examining the training area again.
Xu Hao appreciated the effort.
For all his eldest brother's roughness, he was gradually learning that Da Bao took their lessons seriously.
He simply had a habit of discovering problems after they occurred.
They resumed practising.
This time, Da Bao slowed the movement and demonstrated how to turn the shoulder without allowing the head to strike the ground.
Er Bao watched from nearby, occasionally correcting Xu Hao's position.
"Don't stare at the place where you expect to land," he advised. "Keep your chin tucked and look in the direction of the roll. Your body tends to follow your head."
Xu Hao tried again.
The movement was still awkward.
But by his sixth attempt, he could roll without striking the base of his spine.
By the tenth, he was beginning to understand how to control the fall rather than simply endure it.
Da Bao nodded approvingly.
"That's much better. Now we'll try it from a standing position."
Xu Hao examined the distance between his head and the ground.
He wasn't particularly enthusiastic about increasing it.
"Could we begin from a crouch and work our way up? I'd prefer not to discover my mistakes from that height."
Da Bao considered the suggestion.
Then he nodded.
"Fair enough. Show me the movement slowly first."
Xu Hao was pleasantly surprised by the agreement.
Perhaps Da Bao really was learning to become a teacher.
They practised several more times before Er Bao noticed Xu Hao favouring his injured heel.
"Enough for now. You've done well, but you're beginning to put too much weight on your other leg. If you keep compensating like that, you'll hurt something else."
Xu Hao looked down.
Er Bao was right.
He'd been so focused on performing the movement correctly that he hadn't noticed how much his stance had changed.
He agreed to stop.
At the stream, he washed the dirt from his hands and examined the small calluses forming across his palms.
His skin was beginning to toughen where the training staff rubbed against it.
He thought of his father.
The man had often joked that scholars developed soft hands because they spent too much time turning pages and too little time doing practical work.
Xu Hao smiled faintly.
He wished he could show his father the calluses.
More than that, he wished he could hear him complain about them.
For a little while, he sat beside the stream, remembering home.
Then he dried his hands and returned to camp.
---
Around noon, the brothers took him to a broad rock overlooking the shelter.
They intended to practise their cultivation while Xu Hao observed.
Da Bao sat with his club resting across his knees, while Er Bao placed his hands against the stone and closed his eyes.
Xu Hao settled in the shade nearby.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
A beetle crawled between two cracks in the rock.
Dry needles shifted in the breeze.
Xu Hao began to wonder whether cultivating Spirit required a great deal more patience than he possessed.
Then a small pebble beside Er Bao's foot moved.
It slid sideways, travelling no farther than the width of a finger.
Xu Hao leaned forward.
"Brother Er Bao, did you move that stone?"
Er Bao opened his eyes.
"Yes. I'm practising control."
Xu Hao looked at the pebble.
He remembered the enormous earthen wall the brothers had raised during the fight against the two-headed snake.
"Forgive me, but I'm a little confused. I've seen you move enough earth to stop a charging beast. Why are you practising with something so small?"
Er Bao picked up the pebble.
"Moving a great deal of earth isn't necessarily difficult once your Spirit is strong enough. Moving a tiny amount exactly where you want it is another matter."
He placed the pebble on the rock again.
"Imagine you're fighting beside someone you want to protect. If you raise a wall too far to the left, you might expose them to an attack. If you raise it too close, you could injure them yourself."
Xu Hao listened carefully.
"So power and control aren't the same thing."
"Exactly. Father's lessons were very strict about that. He used to make us move stones across a courtyard without disturbing anything nearby. Da Bao hated those exercises."
Da Bao opened one eye.
"I didn't hate them. I simply thought we should be practising with larger stones."
Er Bao smiled.
"Which is how you ended up breaking the courtyard steps."
Da Bao looked away.
Xu Hao laughed.
He was beginning to suspect the Wang family had endured rather more damaged property than most.
Da Bao decided to demonstrate his own control.
He placed a small stone beside his knee and concentrated.
The stone rose from the rock.
For a moment, it hovered steadily.
Then it shot sideways and struck a wooden bowl resting beside him.
The bowl toppled over the edge.
They heard it bounce against the rocks below before disappearing into the undergrowth.
Da Bao stared after it.
Er Bao looked at the empty space where the bowl had been.
Xu Hao pressed his lips together.
He tried very hard not to laugh.
Da Bao eventually rose.
"I'll get it."
He climbed down the slope, muttering something about the stone moving farther than he'd intended.
Er Bao shook his head.
"He's considerably stronger than I am in some respects. But Father always worried that his enthusiasm would get the better of his control."
Xu Hao looked towards Da Bao, who was searching among the shrubs.
"At least he's still practising."
"He is," Er Bao agreed. "And he's improved a great deal. That's why he can afford to demonstrate those large earth techniques now."
Xu Hao examined the remaining pebbles.
The idea fascinated him.
A power capable of moving the earth itself could be developed through exercises no more dramatic than shifting a pebble across a stone.
It reminded him of laboratory work.
A researcher might spend years refining a measurement technique before attempting an experiment that looked impressive to outsiders.
Precision mattered.
He turned towards Er Bao.
"Brother, do you think I could learn to do something like this?"
"Possibly. But we don't know what element you were born with. You may have an earth affinity, or your power might be something entirely different."
"How do we find out?"
Er Bao considered the question.
"Tonight, I'll show you how Father taught us to begin sensing Spirit. You won't necessarily discover your element immediately, but it will give you somewhere to start."
Xu Hao felt a surge of excitement.
For the first time since arriving in this world, he was about to attempt something that might reveal the nature of his own power.
The afternoon suddenly seemed much too long.
---
After sunset, Xu Hao followed Er Bao back to the broad rock.
Below them, Da Bao was preparing the evening meal.
The steady sound of his axe striking firewood drifted up from the camp.
Er Bao sat cross-legged and indicated that Xu Hao should do the same.
"Before we begin, there's something you need to understand," he said. "Tonight, I don't want you trying to move anything. Don't attempt to create fire, raise earth, or summon wind."
Xu Hao settled into position.
"Then what exactly am I supposed to do?"
"Observe."
Xu Hao blinked.
Er Bao continued.
"When people first begin cultivating, they often try to force something to happen. They imagine a particular element, concentrate as hard as they can, and become frustrated when nothing responds."
He rested his hands on his knees.
"Father used to say that before you can learn to control your Spirit, you must first recognise what it feels like. If you're too busy trying to command it, you may overlook the very thing you're searching for."
Xu Hao considered that.
It sounded sensible enough.
But it was hardly a precise set of instructions.
"How will I know what I'm supposed to feel?"
"I can't tell you exactly. Everyone experiences it a little differently. Some feel warmth, others notice pressure or movement. Sometimes the first sign is so faint that you might mistake it for something ordinary."
Er Bao smiled.
"That's why I want you to sit quietly and pay attention. Don't decide what you expect to find before you've found anything."
Xu Hao nodded.
He had spent much of his former life warning students against forcing evidence to match their expectations.
Apparently, he now needed to apply the same discipline to something entirely unfamiliar.
He closed his eyes.
At first, all he could hear was the forest.
Insects chirped among the grass.
Water moved over stones somewhere below.
Da Bao split another log.
Xu Hao concentrated on his breathing, allowing his shoulders to relax.
His thoughts drifted towards the excavation sites he'd once worked on, the notebooks he'd left behind, and the countless questions he still had about this world.
He brought his attention back.
Several minutes passed.
His left knee began to ache.
He shifted slightly, then became annoyed with himself for moving.
An insect landed on his cheek.
Xu Hao resisted the urge to brush it away.
The insect wandered towards his mouth.
His patience ended.
He slapped his face.
Er Bao opened his eyes.
"Something wrong?"
"An insect appears to have mistaken me for a convenient resting place."
Er Bao smiled.
"That happens. You don't have to remain perfectly still. Just try not to let every little discomfort draw your attention away."
Xu Hao rubbed his cheek.
"I'll try again."
He settled himself more carefully.
This time, he stopped trying to shut out every sound.
He let the stream remain part of the background.
He allowed the insects to chirp.
He concentrated on the quiet rhythm of his breathing.
Gradually, he became more aware of small sensations he'd normally ignore.
The warmth of his chest.
The slow beat of his heart.
The pressure of his hands resting against his knees.
The slight movement of air across his skin.
He waited for something unusual.
Nothing happened.
He tried to imagine a connection with the earth beneath him.
Still nothing.
He considered whether there might be some faint warmth associated with fire, or perhaps a sensation of movement connected to wind.
Then he remembered Er Bao's instructions.
Don't decide what you expect to find.
Xu Hao abandoned the speculation and returned his attention to his breathing.
Time passed.
He wasn't certain how much.
Eventually, a hand rested lightly on his shoulder.
Xu Hao opened his eyes.
The sky had darkened.
The sound of Da Bao chopping wood had stopped, and the smell of supper drifted up from the camp.
Er Bao was watching him.
"That's enough for tonight."
Xu Hao straightened his aching back.
"I don't think I discovered anything."
"Tell me what you noticed."
Xu Hao described the sensations he'd experienced.
His breathing.
His heartbeat.
The warmth of his body.
The slight changes he'd noticed when he stopped concentrating so fiercely.
Er Bao listened without interrupting.
When Xu Hao finished, his brother nodded.
"That's a useful beginning. Most people spend their first attempts trying to feel something extraordinary. You managed to settle down and observe what was actually happening."
"But none of it seemed particularly spiritual."
"It may not have been. I'm not going to tell you that you've discovered Spirit merely because you noticed your own heartbeat."
Xu Hao appreciated the honesty.
Er Bao continued.
"The important thing is learning to recognise small changes without immediately inventing an explanation for them. You'll become more familiar with the sensations over time. When something genuinely different happens, you'll be better prepared to notice it."
Xu Hao considered the explanation.
It sounded less like learning a magical technique and more like beginning a research project.
He could live with that.
Er Bao stood and offered him a hand.
"Come on. Da Bao will complain if we let supper get cold."
Xu Hao accepted the help.
His knees protested as he rose, and he had to wait a moment before they felt steady enough to walk.
They followed the narrow path down towards camp.
The ground was uneven, with exposed roots and patches of loose soil.
Xu Hao carried his new staff, but he found that he hardly needed it.
Without thinking about it, he adjusted his footing whenever the path became difficult.
He kept his balance.
He didn't stumble.
By the time they reached the shelter, he realised that he'd come all the way down without once needing the staff to catch himself.
He looked back towards the hill.
The meditation session hadn't revealed his element.
He hadn't sensed anything extraordinary.
But the day's training had taught him something he could actually use.
He was beginning to understand his new body.
And perhaps, if he remained patient, he would eventually begin to understand the power hidden within it as well.
Xu Hao turned towards Er Bao.
"Brother, could we try the meditation again tomorrow evening? I think I'd like another attempt."
Er Bao smiled.
"Of course. We'll continue after supper."
From beside the fire came Da Bao's booming voice.
"And we'll go running again in the morning!"
Xu Hao closed his eyes.
He had been looking forward to a peaceful evening.
Apparently, he'd joined a family that believed rest was an unfortunate interruption between training sessions.
Still, as he approached the fire and accepted a warm bowl of food from Da Bao, he found himself smiling.