Qin Ming nodded slowly. He'd been thinking about it. New Life was the most important thing — it shaped the rest of a person's existence.
Fifteen or sixteen was the golden window. New Life in that range brought the greatest gains. Miss it, and the loss was permanent.
But it was hard. Twin Tree Village's best hadn't achieved New Life until past twenty. Some passed thirty. Out of two hundred-plus souls in forty-odd households, fewer than ten had done it at all.
"Er Bingzi from the next village made it," Lu Ze said. "Right in the golden window."
Qin Ming knew Er Bingzi — thin, sallow, sickly. Even his hair was sparse, the color of dead grass.
He was genuinely surprised. That frail boy had achieved New Life at the perfect age?
"When?"
"Almost a month ago." Lu Ze said that after his New Life, Er Bingzi had walked into his yard and lifted a four-hundred-jin black mule clean overhead. The weakling who couldn't fill his own shirt.
"Something else," Lu Ze added. "They say it's because of a relative."
A distant kinsman of Er Bingzi's, one who traveled far and wide, had come home, taken one look at the boy, and called him good stock. The man said Er Bingzi's body had been leaking vitality — that was why he looked sick — but his potential was deep.
The key was a high-grade mental energy art the relative brought back. Er Bingzi switched to it, and the results were immediate.
Qin Ming went quiet. Fate worked in strange ways.
"Afterward the man said Er Bingzi's root foundation was thicker than he'd guessed. Maybe thick enough to go far."
Lu Ze shook his head. A sickly nobody, and he'd turned out to be that.
"We don't have high-grade manuals," he said. "But there are workable paths. Xiao Qin, I think it's time to drop those old exercises of yours."
In his view, Qin Ming's body was exceptional — stronger than his own, well past ordinary. But that body kept failing to achieve New Life. The problem had to be his training method. It couldn't breed the force of new life, couldn't carry him forward.
He was sixteen. The golden window wouldn't stay open forever.
Liang Wanqing agreed. "Xiao Qin, why don't you switch to Lu Ze's Dark Night Meditation Art?"
In an age of Endless Night, the wilds were lethal. So basic training manuals circulated openly — meant to give everyone a chance to strengthen their bodies and survive. They weren't elite. They weren't rare. But they worked.
Qin Ming wasn't stubborn. He knew they meant well. "I'll give it a serious try."
Lu Ze sighed. He thought Qin Ming's old "wild path" had held him back — worse even than the low-grade Dark Night Meditation Art he practiced. But switching this late, with the golden window closing... time was too short.
He shook his head. "Even a mid-grade manual would help. A body like yours wasting the golden age — that'd be a real shame."
The manuals circulating in this region were few and comparable — the Floating Life Art Introductory Volume, the Dark Night Meditation Art Primer. All basic.
But Qin Ming wasn't anxious. His years of "wild path" training had changed. The silver ripples had surfaced — faint, but real. Something was different now.
"I feel it," he said. "The sickness is gone. My body's never been better. Give me a little more time."
New Life meant this: on the foundation of the existing body, surging vitality welled up, like returning to the womb. The body underwent a second development, breeding fresh power.
Who wouldn't want that? Er Bingzi had been frail. After New Life, he could lift hundreds of pounds overhead. That kind of leap was nothing less than changing your fate.
Lu Ze could already snap green bricks and shatter wooden training posts. After New Life multiplied his strength — how terrifying would his fists become?
"I'm serious," Qin Ming said. "The sickness cleared, and everything feels different."
Wen Rui bobbed his head, round face earnest. "Uncle's the strongest. When he succeeds, he'll catch a mountain beast and we'll eat meat! I'm... hungry."
Wen Hui waddled over, echoing his brother. "Uncle... strong. Meat."
Qin Ming laughed. "No need to wait." He lifted the red squirrel off the fork.
The squirrel's gem-black eyes bulged. Terror washed over its face.
"It's awake. Even better — fresh meat beats frozen." Qin Ming turned it in his hands.
"It's so pretty," Wen Rui said, eyes shining. He loved furry animals.
"Stewed, it's even prettier. You'll eat well."
The boy wavered. He wanted meat badly. But the little red creature, its fur glowing like embers... he couldn't look away.
"Mouse... pretty," Wen Hui mimicked, eyes reflecting the squirrel's red coat.
Liang Wanqing noticed. "This little creature has real spirit. It seems to understand what you're saying — look at its face, all scrunched up with worry."
Qin Ming put away the knife. The squirrel was small — barely a meal anyway. If the kids wanted to keep it, fine.
Lu Ze frowned. "This winter's harsh. No spare food for a pet."
The squirrel stared at the hide sack — its entire life savings.
Qin Ming pulled out a handful of acorns. "These need processing before humans can eat them — slightly toxic, bitter. Perfect for feeding a squirrel."
The squirrel said nothing. Just glared, breathing hard.
"Be grateful you're alive. And if you bite anyone, I'll stew you." He shut it in an old birdcage.
---
Food shortage solved for now, Qin Ming turned to the question of New Life.
Lu Ze's words about the "wild path" had stirred something. He vaguely remembered fragments from childhood — someone telling him those exercises had a lineage but probably wouldn't work.
He went to the yard and began. The forms he'd practiced for over a decade felt different now. There was no reason to stop.
He loosened his joints, stretched his sinews. Twist, spiral, turn, flip — smooth, circular, unbroken.
He launched from the ground like an iron arrow, landed light as a swallow. Still as a crouching tiger. Moving like wading through mud.
He whipped his leg — fast as a snake's tail strike — and the air cracked.
Breath work followed. Inhale, exhale, expel the old, draw in the new. He opened his body, and wind spun around him, flinging snow into the air.
The familiar sensation came. Silver threads surfaced through his pores, weaving into ripples, forming a faint luminescence on his skin.
White mist rose from his body.
Warmth flooded his flesh — like rain falling on cracked, drought-stricken earth, the ground drinking greedily.
The exercise burned energy, but he didn't tire. If anything, he surged. His body seemed to rejoice, starving, sucking in the silver light.
His muscles itched. Power building. Was New Life coming?
Heat spread through him. He needed to run, to pour out the energy. So he ran.
He tore across the wilderness like a meteor streaking through the dark, and didn't stop until the forest loomed close.
---
Far off in the snow, a tall, slender woman stood still. A black fur cloak rippled with a dull sheen, covering her throat, showing only a fine chin — cold, mysterious.
A crow perched on a thorn bush beside her. It spoke in a human voice: "Self-initiated New Life. And at the first stage, already anomalous — silver light on the skin, like moonlight scattering gold ripples."
Its feathers gleamed like dark metal. Purple eyes fixed on the distant boy. "Your teacher is looking for a final disciple. This one might do."
The woman stood on a rock. Wind pressed the cloak to her body — striking curves beneath the black. Her voice was cool. "There's someone better."
The crow ruffled its wings. "Your teacher's path is unusual. Don't miss a seed that might grow tall."
"Unchosen is his loss, not mine. I miss nothing. The best candidate is already found." Wind snapped her black hair across her pale face. She turned toward the mountains. "Going in to investigate is more important right now."