Annouhird chapter today!

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  The crisp m air carried the st of damp earth and pine as Feiyin stood before his father iraining yard. The sky, tinged with the soft gold of dawn, stretched vast above them, mirr the vastness of knowledge Feiyin had yet to grasp.Cai Feng, his arms crossed over his chest, regarded his son with his usual calm iy.“Today, we move past refining internal strength,” he said. “You’ve begun to uand the natural osciltions of the elements, but uanding alone isn’t enough.” His gaze sharpened. “Now, you will learn to apply it.”Feiyin’s fiwitched in anticipation.His father picked up a single dried leaf, holding it between his fingers before letting it fall. It fluttered, light as a feather, before settling onto the training ptform.“Shatter it,” Cai Feng said simply.Feiyin blinked.‘Shatter a leaf? That’s…’He looked up at his father, who remained expressionless.“…How?”Cai Feng stepped forward, standio him. “Your internal strength is like a b. When pulled taut, it is at its peak tension. But if released too early, it will lose its force. If unfocused, it will scatter. And if applied incorrectly, it will be wasted.”He crouched down, his fingers brushing over the leaf.“To break something as fragile as this, you must not strike it with raw power. Instead, you must release an explosive pulse of force, all at o the very moment of tact.”Cai Feng straightened. “Watch.”His body did not move. He did not breathe deeply, nor did his stance shift.Then, the leaf simply disied.Feiyin barely saw it happen. A minuscule tremor in the air—a pulse of energy so pact, so perfectly trolled that the dry structure of the leaf had no choice but to colpse us force.Feiyin stared, his heart pounding. ‘This… this is possible?’His father turo him. “Now, you try.”Feiyiated before stepping forward. He took a deep breath, fog his internal strength as he gathered it beh his skin.Firm. trolled. Explosive.He crouched, mirr his father’s motion, and with a swift pulse of internal strength—The leaf… fluttered slightly.It did not break.Cai Feng said nothing.Feiyin frowrying agaiensed his entire body, sending his internal strength forward. This time, the leaf quivered, but still, it did not shatter.Frustration bubbled in his chest.“…I don’t get it,” he admitted, exhaling. “I’m fog all my strength on it, but nothing happens.”His father nodded. “That’s your problem.”Feiyin blinked.“You are fog on strength,” Cai Feng crified. “But strength alone doesn’t shatter—precision does.”He gestured toward the leaf.“Do not think of destroying it with force. Instead, think of creating a perfect resohin it—a tremor that shakes its very structure apart.”Feiyin ched his fists. That made sense, but—How do I do that?He closed his eyes, drawing in a slow breath.Then, he listehe leaf was fragile. Its osciltion was delicate, barely present. To break it, he had to match that osciltion, amplify it, and the his internal strength strike at the precise moment wheructure could no longer hold itself together.His eyes snapped open.With o trolled breath, he pressed his fingers against the leaf—Snap.It didn’t disie like his father’s, but a split ran through its ter.Feiyin exhaled, his chest tight with excitement.Cai Feng smirked. “You’re beginning to uand.”

  That afternoon, Feiyin sat across from his mother he riverbank, the flowing water glistening uhe setting sun.Mei Liao held a smooth, thin piece of wood in her hand, her fingers gently trag its grain.“You learned about explosivehis m,” she said, her voice light as the breeze. “But what happens when the world does not allow you to break something by force?”She pced the wood ft on the ground before them.“This piece is thin, but firm. If you strike it without enough strength, it will not break.”Feiyin nodded, already seeing the test before him.“…Then I just use more strength?” he guessed.His mother chuckled, shaking her head. “No, my dear. If you force your way through, you will only meet resistance. Instead, you must learn to flow past that resistance.”She picked up the wood and tapped it gently with her fiip. The piece did not move.Then, without any visible force, a crack appeared along the inside of the wood.Feiyin’s eyes widened.“You didn’t even hit it hard…”Mei Liao smiled. “I didn’t o.”She tapped his forehead lightly. “This is where you’ve been thinking too much about external force. What if, instead of breaking something from the outside, you send your strength inside?”Feiyin stared at the cracked wood, realization dawning.“…Softness.”Mei Liao nodded. “You ot always rely on hardness. If something refuses to break, find the spaces where strength slip through.”She picked up a small river stone, polished smooth by years of water running over it.“Try sending your strength through this.”Feiyin took the stone in his palm. It was dense, unyielding. His instinct was to try to crush it—to send power forward as he had doh the leaf.But he paused.Instead of f his strength, he let it sink into his hand. He felt the stone’s subtle osciltions, its inner resohen, he sent his internal strength i, spreading it gently instead of striking all at o first, nothing happehen—A faint crack ran along the surfaot shattered, not destroyed. But peed.Mei Liao beamed. “Very good.”Feiyin’s heart pouhis was different from his father’s explosive force. This was like slippiween the spaces of the world itself.Softness wasn’t weakness. It was another kind of power.

  As the sun dipped below the mountains, Feiyin sat quietly between his parents, his thoughts rag.Cai Feng had taught him how to erupt his strength outward, while Mei Liao had shown him how to send it inward.Two sides of the same . Firmness and softness. Dired hidden. Yang and Yin.He looked down at his hands.‘…If I master both, what else will I be able to do?’His mother ruffled his hair. “You’re thinking too much again.”His father chuckled. “Let him think. That’s how he grows.”Feiyin grinned, stretg his fiomorrow, he would try again. And again. Until he perfected it.