Zhì Yuǎn examined each flower multiple times, his inner vision tracing the plant's meridians, the purity of its Qi, the density of its Yin. They were good. They might work. But they were not enough. He would need more. Much more.
"We'll test them," he said while Yù Qíng sliced bread for breakfast. "If they work, we'll tell your parents. If not…"
"They will work," she interrupted. It was not hope. It was conviction.
They called Yù Méi that same day.
She came running through the bamboo grove, her hair loose in the wind, her face lit with expectation. Ever since Zhì Yuǎn had told her her meridians were merely "thin," she had been waiting for a sign, a chance, proof that one day she could be like them.
"What is it?" she asked, breathless, before even crossing the veranda. "Did you find a treasure? An ancient book? A map?"
"An herb," Zhì Yuǎn replied, pointing to the pot. "We found it in the bamboo grove. It contains Qi. We believe it may help your meridians develop."
She looked at the purple flowers, her eyes shining.
"How does it work?"
"You will eat one. I will watch what happens inside you."
Yù Méi ate the flower.
She did it quickly, barely chewing, as if afraid the taste might make her change her mind. It was bitter, and she made a face, but she swallowed. For a moment, nothing happened.
And then, warmth.
"I feel it," she whispered, a hand on her chest. "Something warm. Like… like there's a thread of water where there was nothing before."
Zhì Yuǎn plunged into his inner vision. Her meridians, broken, fragmented, were pulsing. Not connecting. Not repairing. But pulsing. As if the flower had awakened something that had been asleep for years.
"It worked, partially," he said, his voice low. "Your meridians are reacting. But one flower is not enough. You will need many. Other herbs as well. Time."
"But it will work?" Her voice was a thread of hope. "One day, I will be able to cultivate like you?"
He thought about the answer. About the dual method he and Yù Qíng had created. About their open pores, their compressed dantian, their cellular nourishment. Yù Méi would never reach that level.
"Not like us," he answered. "But you will be able to feel Qi. Perhaps use a little. Enough not to be left behind."
Yù Qíng, who had been watching in silence, raised her hand and touched her sister's shoulder.
"You were never left behind, Méi. We are the ones who went too far."
Yù Méi looked at her sister, and for the first time in months, something in both their eyes met. It was not only sisterly love. It was recognition.
"We will help you," Yù Qíng said. "He will find a way."
---
The conversation with Yù Chéng and Sū Huì was more difficult.
They sat at the table in the main house as dusk fell. Yù Méi was beside her mother, her fingers interlaced with hers.
"We found herbs in the bamboo grove," Zhì Yuǎn began. "They contain Qi. They may help restore Méi's meridians."
Yù Chéng frowned.
"Restore? Is there something wrong with her?"
Zhì Yuǎn hesitated.
"Her meridians are broken," he said. "They did not form as they should. That is why she never felt Qi."
Sū Huì squeezed her daughter's hand.
"You knew?" Yù Méi asked, her voice low. "When I asked if I could cultivate. You knew I could not."
"I knew."
"And you lied."
"I lied."
The silence that followed was heavy. Yù Qíng was the one who broke it.
"He lied to protect you," she said, her voice calm. "So you would not give up before we had a solution."
"And now you have a solution?" Sū Huì's voice was a thread of hope.
"We have the herbs," Zhì Yuǎn replied. "They work. But there are few. We need more. And to get more, we need to go where merchants of cultivation items are found. Larger towns."
"And money," Yù Chéng added.
"And money."
Yù Chéng rose. He went to the chest of dark wood against the wall. Opened it with a key he wore around his neck. When he returned, he carried a leather pouch. Heavy.
"The savings from the mine," he said, placing the pouch on the table. "What was left after paying the tribute. It is not much. But it is what we have."
Sū Huì placed her hand over the pouch.
"Yù Méi is our daughter," she said. "If this can help her, we use it."
Yù Méi looked at her parents, and her eyes, which had been brimming moments before, now shone.
"I will repay it," she said, her voice trembling. "One day, I will return every coin."
"You do not need to repay anything," Yù Chéng replied, and for the first time that night, something like a smile appeared on his face. "You are our daughter."
---
The journey was planned for the following week.
The nearest town with a market for cultivation items was Qīngshí, half a day's cart ride to the north, beyond the valley, where the road joined the path of merchants coming from the capital. It was not a great metropolis, but it had a few hundred thousand inhabitants and a monthly fair where, they said, even cultivators appeared to buy and sell.
Yù Chéng lent them a cart and an old, sturdy mule that had made that journey dozens of times to carry coal to the town's merchants. Yù Méi was radiant. She had never left the village. Now, she would go with her siblings to a town, see things she had only heard about in stories.
Yù Qíng did not show the same enthusiasm. But it was not the journey itself. It was what the journey represented: strangers, looks, a world that was not hers. A world where other people might look at him.
"You don't like the idea?" he asked on the night before departure, as they packed the few clothes they would bring.
She sat on the bed, her eyes fixed on him.
"I like it. We will spend days together. You and me."
"And Méi."
"And Méi," she repeated without enthusiasm. "But then we will come back. And everything will be as before."
He sat beside her.
"Do you want everything to be as before?"
She thought for a moment.
"I want you to be with me. The rest does not matter."
He touched her face.
"I will be."
She rested her head on his shoulder.
"I know. I just don't like thinking that in Qīngshí there will be other people. People who will look at you. People who will speak to you."
"And that bothers you?"
She lifted her eyes.
"It does."
He laughed, a low laugh.
"You are terrible."
"I am." She kissed his shoulder. "But I am yours."
He pulled her to him.
"And I am yours. No one will change that."
She did not answer. But her fingers found his, interlaced, and they stayed like that until the moon set and the first lights of dawn began to brighten the horizon.
---
The next day, they departed.
The sun was rising when the cart crossed the village boundary, taking the dirt road that snaked north between rice fields and small hills. Yù Méi sat in front beside Zhì Yuǎn on the driver's seat, her eyes wide at the landscape unfolding before her. Yù Qíng sat in the back of the cart, knees drawn up, eyes fixed on his back.
Yù Chéng and Sū Huì stood on the veranda of the main house, watching their children leave. The grandmother, on her usual bench, waved a wrinkled hand.
"They will come back," Sū Huì said.
"They will," Yù Chéng answered. "And when they do, nothing will be as before."
The grandmother said nothing. She only smiled.
---
The road stretched before them, lined with trees beginning to shed their leaves for autumn. Yù Méi pointed at everything: a bird in the sky, a flower at the roadside, a plume of smoke in the distance marking another village.
"There! What is that?"
"A hawk," Zhì Yuǎn answered.
"And that flower?"
"I don't know."
"Then we'll give it a name. I'll call it Roadside Flower. Because it's the first one I saw outside the village."
Yù Qíng, in the cart, listened to her sister chatter without joining in. Her eyes were on Zhì Yuǎn. Her thoughts, too.
He turned to her for a moment.
"Are you all right?"
"I am."
"What are you looking at?"
"You."
He smiled and turned back to the road. Behind him, she kept looking.
The sun rose in the sky, and the cart creaked over the packed earth. Yù Méi sang a song she had learned from her mother, off‑key, happy. Yù Qíng, in silence, watched the man guiding the mule.
She needed nothing else. She had him. She had the road. She had the whole day ahead.
And that, in that moment, was everything.
---