They parted at the base of the stairs. Sun Hao went up toward the hall and Yan Qiu turned back toward the training grounds.
He made it about twenty steps before he felt it.
The qi in his dantian pulsed. It was a single sharp beat, like a second heartbeat deep in his core, and it pushed outward against the walls of his channels hard enough that he stopped walking and pressed his hand flat against his chest. The pulse faded and came again, slower, and the pressure behind it was dense and heavy.
He stood still on the path and breathed through it. The qi settled after a few moments but the tightness in his chest stayed. It sat like a fist clenched around his core, and the edges of his channels felt raw where the compressed qi had pressed against them.
He was close to the fourth stage of Breath Weaving, closer than he had thought. The breakthrough could come within days, or even today.
Which meant the dream would come too.
He started walking again, slower now. The nervousness crept in as it always did when he thought about the dreams. Every breakthrough he had gone through since arriving at the sect had brought one with it, during the mental trial, during seclusion, in the middle of a fight that nearly killed him. They all showed him the life of a person he did not know, a young man in fine robes living somewhere Yan Qiu could not recognize, training with an instructor, walking into a building full of bodies, gathering blood from the dead and using it as a weapon. All of it was connected and all of it followed one person through what looked like a single continuous life.
He had no idea who that person was. If he knew a name or a family or a sect, he could search for information in the library or ask someone who knew more about history. But the dreams gave him nothing to work with. No names stuck after waking and no locations made sense and no details pointed anywhere useful. He just recognized the face and did not understand the life behind it.
The worst part was that the dreams did not stay in his head. The qi technique he had used in Blackroot came directly from one. The Broken Jade Sword Art had come from one too. Whatever he saw in those visions left marks on his body and his cultivation that carried over into the waking world, and he had no explanation for why or how that was possible.
He had thought about telling someone more than once. Elder Han, or even Sun Hao. But every time he imagined the conversation it fell apart before he could finish it in his head. How would he explain that he learned techniques from dreams, that his body knew things his mind did not, that every breakthrough brought a piece of someone else's life into his own? Elder Han already had suspicions after Blackroot, and if Yan Qiu added the dreams on top of the blood qi lie, the elder would start pulling at threads that Yan Qiu could not afford to have pulled. And Sun Hao had enough to carry with his father dead and his mother alone on the other side of the province. The last thing he needed was a problem that neither of them could solve.
So he kept it to himself, as he had been doing since the mental trial. Every dream that came after made the silence heavier, but he did not see another option.
He sighed and let the thought go. The dream would come when it came and he could not stop it.
The qi in his core pulsed again, fainter this time, and he pressed his hand against his chest until it settled.
The training grounds opened up ahead of him. The evening light was almost gone and most of the disciples had cleared out, leaving the yard empty except for a few figures near the weapon racks.
Gao Yichen saw him from across the yard and raised a hand.
Yan Qiu had not expected to find him this quickly. He walked over. Gao Yichen had changed since the trials. He was still broad-shouldered and well-fed compared to most outer disciples, and his robes were still cleaner than anyone else's, but the softness in his face had thinned out and his posture had a steadiness that had not been there before. He stood like someone who had been training seriously and not just talking about how rich he was. Two other disciples stood behind him near the weapon racks, talking quietly, and they looked up when Yan Qiu approached.
"Yan Qiu," Gao Yichen said. He was smiling. "Sun Hao said you would come find me. I was starting to think he was being optimistic."
"He did not give me much of a choice," Yan Qiu said.
"He is persuasive when he wants to be." Gao Yichen waved the two disciples behind him away and they left without argument.
He turned back to Yan Qiu. The smile was still there but it softened, and he was quiet for a moment like he was deciding whether to say what he was about to say.
"Before we talk about anything else," he said, "I want to get something out of the way. When we first arrived at the sect, I was not a good person to be around. I was loud and I talked too much about my family and I treated the whole thing like I had already earned my place here just because my father paid for tutors." He paused and rubbed the back of his neck, and for the first time since Yan Qiu had known him he looked genuinely uncomfortable. "If any of that made things harder for you, or if I said anything that crossed a line, I am sorry. I mean that."
Yan Qiu looked at him. He had not expected this from Gao Yichen of all people.
"I came here thinking I was going to be the center of attention," Gao Yichen continued, and there was a dry humor in his voice that did not quite cover the embarrassment underneath it. "My family told me I was special. My tutors told me I was talented. I believed every word of it. Then I got here and watched Duan Ke outperform me in every single trial without breaking a sweat, and I watched you beat Sun Hao in combat after growing up in a village with no formal training at all, and it hit me that none of what I had back home mattered on a sparring ground." He straightened his robes, a small habitual gesture that looked more like a nervous tic than anything deliberate. "The sect humbled me. I needed it, and I am glad it happened even if it did not feel good at the time."
"You were annoying," Yan Qiu said. "But you were never cruel. There is a difference."
Gao Yichen looked at him and the tension in his shoulders eased. He laughed, short and genuine, and it sounded like relief. "I will take that. Thank you."
He let the moment sit for a breath and then his expression shifted back to business. "Come, walk with me. I have a few things I would like to discuss with you, and I would rather do it somewhere quieter."
He turned and started walking toward the eastern path without waiting for an answer, and Yan Qiu followed.