Cultivation starts with picking up attributes
Chapter 126: Ch-126: We can’t erase grief

Chapter 126: Ch-126: We can’t erase grief

The sun rose slowly over the Glades, draping its golden light across the dew-laced foliage.

Where mountains once framed the sky in jagged pride, now only the gentle slope of green hills and jade-tinted trees stretched endlessly.

But there was something strange today. The light felt refracted, fractured, as though it passed through a lens not wholly of this world.

Tian Shen stood at the edge of a village unnamed on most maps, staring toward the aurora dancing above the treeline.

Ripples of emerald and violet shimmered unnaturally through the sky. A low hum, inaudible to most, thrummed faintly beneath the surface of the air. He could feel it in his teeth.

The villagers had called them the "Sky Trails." A beautiful name for something that left crops twisted and livestock scattered. Three shepherd families had vanished in the last month.

No bodies. No blood. Just tools dropped mid-use and fences broken without force.

Behind him, the Scout Division was quiet. Twenty-eight assembled members, divided into two squads, all waiting for orders.

The younger recruits stood stiff-backed, uncertain. The veterans, those who had persisted, merely watched Tian Shen with practiced patience.

Feng Yin arrived beside him without needing to be summoned. Her robes were darker today, charcoal with plum stitching, made for shadows.

"The pulse increased just before dawn."

She murmured.

"Little Mei sensed a tear opening and closing somewhere east of the riverbed. Drowsy’s been circling the forest rim."

Tian Shen nodded.

"We split into three units. One on recon with Mei. One mapping the distortion line with me. One holding the village perimeter. Minimum noise. Maximum caution."

Feng Yin’s brow creased.

"And if something comes through the tear?"

"We don’t kill unless we must. Not until we know if it’s alive—or just... left behind."

At his word, the Division scattered into motion.

...

Little Mei led the first team along the broken riverbed, her tails low to the ground. Her steps were impossibly silent, a dance with the mist. Behind her, two scouts copied her every movement.

She whispered.

"Sweet and Sour."

One of the scouts blinked.

"What does that mean?"

She tapped his forehead lightly.

"Means keep your spirit threads ready. If something smells like it wants to remember you, it might try to wear your face."

They moved on.

...

Tian Shen walked through the distortion line. The jade compass in his hand spun slowly, as if reluctant to settle.

They passed deer that didn’t blink, trees with leaves that whispered in the wrong direction.

A shrine had half-sunk into the earth, its stone lion split perfectly in half. And then the sound began.

Laughter.

Children’s laughter.

Not loud. Just barely brushing the edge of hearing. The scouts with him tensed, hands on hilts.

"It’s a memory," Tian Shen said. "Keep walking. Don’t respond."

The laughter faded as they moved through.

...

Feng Yin’s team remained near the village border, adjusting layered talismans and setting spirit anchors at key intersections. One of the new recruits, a sharp-eyed girl named Ji Luan, paused.

"Sister Feng," she said, voice trembling. "There’s a girl watching us."

Feng Yin turned—and saw nothing. Just tall grass swaying.

But the air felt colder.

She raised a hand.

"Keep your eyes closed and spiritual senses open."

Ji Luan did as told. Then gasped.

"There, beyond the wards. A girl in red dress. She’s crying."

Feng Yin’s fingers twitched, activating a silent barrier.

"Let her cry. Don’t invite her in."

"But—"

"If you let grief enter uninvited, it will live in your bones. That’s not superstition. That’s war."

...

By dusk, all three teams regrouped.

Tian Shen sat before a hastily drawn map scratched into the dirt.

"This is not a rift," he concluded. "It’s a graveyard."

Feng Yin knelt beside him.

"So the auroras?"

"Residual mourning. A mass memory trapped in feedback. Possibly triggered by something we haven’t yet found."

Little Mei appeared, brushing dust from her sleeves.

"Found a circle. Old runes. Bone-carved. Not ours."

Feng Yin narrowed her eyes.

"Demonic faction?"

Mei shook her head.

Tian Shen exhaled slowly.

"That explains the echoing grief. They maybe harvesting the memory resonance."

A murmur rippled through the group.

He stood.

"Tomorrow, we cleanse the glade."

...

At dawn, the Scout Division formed a spiral formation around the heart of the distortion. Wind howled without sound. Light danced unnaturally.

Tian Shen, Feng Yin, and Little Mei stood at the center. Drowsy circled high above.

"Begin!"

Tian Shen ordered.

Talismans flared. Incense burned blue. Songs from five generations of spirit cultivators echoed through the harmonics as the formation activated.

And then they came.

Shadows wearing faces.

Smiling children.

Weeping mothers.

Whispering husbands.

The dead memories surged from the soil, trying to attach themselves to the living.

But the Scouts held.

Every formation was tight.

Every chant was loud.

And Tian Shen walked into the heart of the disturbance, scroll in hand, writing names.

"I see you," he whispered. "I remember you. You may rest."

And with each name written, the wind calmed. The auroras faded.

By dusk, the glade was quiet.

...

They built a cairn where the circle had once been. Simple stones. No names.

Just the Division’s emblem etched into one.

Tian Shen placed the scroll beside it, sealed and bound in gold thread.

"Not all graves need to be seen," he said. "But they should never be forgotten."

The team bowed low.

...

That night, beneath the spirit trees, Tian Shen added one more name to the shrine’s scroll.

The girl in the red dress.

He did not know her name.

But she had cried.

And he had listened.

...

The days that followed were quiet—not in the absence of motion, but in the deep stillness that followed understanding.

Tian Shen did not issue new missions.

Instead, he called for training.

Not the drills of swordplay or spirit bursts, but the subtler work—the sharpening of senses dulled by familiarity, the refinement of techniques earned through fire but blurred by routine.

The Scouts gathered each morning at the mist-ringed clearing beyond the orchard, where the spirit trees arched high above like silent witnesses.

No bells, no flags. Just the sound of breath and rustling robes.

Little Mei led the first set of exercises.

"Fall with the leaf," she said.

Then promptly kicked a branch.

A dozen golden leaves spun through the air.

"Whoever lands at the same time as their leaf wins. No spiritual Qi."

The recruits laughed, awkward at first. But by the third round, they were timing their steps with the wind, learning how to read descent, silence their steps, and move without disrupting the air around them.

"Footwork isn’t just for chasing," Little Mei grinned. "Sometimes it’s for not being seen running at all."

Later, Feng Yin took over, leading pairs of scouts into the meditation grove.

She gave no instruction. Only silence.

One by one, she returned an hour later to each pair.

"What did your partner feel?"

She asked.

Some faltered. Others guessed. But a few got it right—matching each other’s heartbeat, breath, or unspoken thoughts.

"Empathy," Feng Yin said simply. "You can’t protect what you don’t understand. You must learn to listen without ears."

At midday, Tian Shen walked the perimeter with rotating teams, bringing back old teachings from wandering cultivators he’d once met during his exile.

He pointed out patterns in grass, broken lines in moss, how the angle of a spider’s web could reveal recent fluctuations in spiritual energy.

"Not all clues are loud," he told them. "Sometimes the world is only whispering."

By dusk, the Division returned to the orchard, sharing a communal meal cooked over gentle flame.

No titles.

No hierarchy.

Just bowls of rice and wild vegetables, laughter over burned dumplings, and the occasional soft song hummed from someone’s hometown.

Tian Shen sat beneath a lantern tree, his scrolls untouched for once.

He watched them.

The way Ji Luan now held herself with less fear.

The way two stubborn veterans now consulted one another before sparring.

The way Little Mei offered seconds before teasing.

Change had taken root—not because he’d demanded it, but because they had chosen it.

After dinner, he addressed them simply.

"We can’t erase grief. But we can prepare for what follows it."

He gestured toward the rising stars.

"The sky changes, always. Let us change with it."

The Scouts bowed—not out of obligation, but something deeper. A shared purpose that required no oath.

That night, Feng Yin lingered after the others had gone.

She found Tian Shen still beneath the tree, rubbing his knuckles absently.

"You’re still listening to them, aren’t you?"

She asked.

He nodded.

"The wind doesn’t lie."

"And what does it say?"

"That we’re not ready," he murmured. "But we’re becoming something that might be."

She nodded.

Then sat beside him, shoulder brushing his lightly.

For a long while, neither spoke.

They didn’t need to.

The orchard, after all, was always listening.

Above them, the lantern tree shimmered softly, leaves rustling like whispered promises. In the silence, hope began to root itself deeply.