Summer solstice rain was worth its weight in gold. Fine drizzle swept across bare fields, the scent of wet earth rising. Early wheat had been harvested, bundled into sheaves. Farmers called to one another along the ridges, readying rapeseed and mustard greens for autumn.
At the Li household, the brothers had been counting the days. Li Tongya and Li Changhu set out the altar before dawn, kneeling beside Li Xiangping. The bronze mirror rested on its dragonless stand. Before it: first-cut solstice wheat, fruits, three cups of rain-brewed tea.
The three spoke in unison: "Disciples of the Li family — Li Changhu, Li Tongya, Li Xiangping — humbly beseech the Profound Mystery Bright Law. We submit to the Dao, bind our fates. We shall report our deeds at their seasons, never failing in sincerity, bodies offered to the lunar shadow."
The mirror shimmered. Three white orbs burst from the glass and shot into their foreheads. The three crossed their legs, guiding the spirit seeds according to the *Attraction Method*.
Li Chijing watched, then settled into meditation. His qi sea glowed with eighty-one strands of moon essence. *The solstice — yang fades, yin ascends — the perfect moment.*
He formed the seals. The moon essence surged, strands chasing each other through his qi sea, gathering into a current. He guided them up the Twelve-Storied Tower, past throat and palate, into the mud pellet palace at the crown of his head. There the essence condensed into liquid and cascaded back down, pooling in his qi sea like a clear, still pond.
"Rise!"
A silver crescent of light broke the surface — a sliver of captured moon, crystalline, impossibly delicate.
*"Through the twelve stories, the qi sea forms. From the clear pond, the Profound Vision Wheel emerges."*
Li Chijing held the crescent steady, but it wavered, rippling, threatening to dissolve. Sweat soaked his robes. His strength was failing.
Then the pond waters parted. A blazing white seed-orb shot upward and pressed against the crescent. The moment it touched, the moon-sliver locked into place. The mana in his qi sea stabilized. Li Chijing exhaled.
The Profound Vision Wheel was formed. Moon essence had become moon mana. He was now a cultivator of the Embryonic Breathing realm.
He opened his eyes. Before the mirror, shrouded in its lunar halo, he bowed deeply.
"Bestowed immortal arts. Condensed moon essence. Profound Vision complete. The Li family is overwhelmed with gratitude. Through years and moons, incense shall never cease, offerings never end."
His voice, still young, carried an unexpected gravity. The boy sheltered beneath his brothers' wings had become a young man.
---
"Good art!"
Li Xiangping was first to open his eyes. He stretched, grabbed the teapot, and drank deep. "I received the Nourishing Wheel Scripture and a spell — Water-Warding Art."
Li Tongya stirred next. "I received the Exorcism Art."
The two talked for a while before Li Changhu finally opened his eyes. Under his brothers' expectant gazes, he said helplessly: "Garment-Cleaning Art."
Li Chijing could hold back no longer. "I've formed the Profound Vision Wheel!"
"That fast?" Li Xiangping stared.
"The mirror's power," Li Chijing said. "It gathers moon essence on its own. Refining with it... it's incomparable."
Li Tongya and the others finally understood. Li Changhu ruffled Li Chijing's hair, but his smile was strained. During his own awakening, the seed had resisted him fiercely — nothing like his brothers' ease. *Perhaps... I simply have no talent for this path.*
"Chijing," he said, forcing brightness into his voice, "the scriptures say cultivators can sense spirit apertures within the body once mana flows through them. Check ours."
Li Chijing placed his palm on Li Xiangping's shoulder, closed his eyes, and sent a thread of mana through his brother's meridians. A stick of incense burned down.
He opened his eyes, stunned. "Nothing."
He grabbed his other brothers' shoulders, probing frantically.
"Nothing... how can there be nothing?!"
Pale-faced, he dropped into meditation, scanning his own body. No spirit apertures. Anywhere.
"The *Lunar Nourishing Wheel Scripture* is explicit," he whispered. "Spirit apertures are the foundation of the Great Dao. Without them, no immortal art can be practiced. No technique can take root."
His cultivation wavered. He couldn't hold his meditative state.
"Father." He looked at Li Mutian, who was calmly swirling tea leaves. "You were right. This mirror could be our family's annihilation."
"If true cultivators learn of it, we won't just die — our souls will be sealed in another's hand. Every person in Lijing Village, every village along the Ancient Li Road, will be reduced to ashes."
He rose, voice hardening. "I've formed the Profound Vision Wheel. Mana circulates through my entire body. Unless I cripple my cultivation, no cultivator can probe my spirit apertures. But our Li descendants — any who carry the Mysterious Pearl spirit seed without yet forming the Profound Vision — must never draw attention."
"Exactly," Li Mutian said. His tea had gone cold. "When Chijing first succeeded in cultivation, I assumed he was gifted. The scholar Han Wenxu once told me: one in a thousand possesses spirit apertures. Perhaps Chijing was the one."
He laughed bitterly. "Now I understand. This mirror is no ordinary immortal artifact. It can turn the mundane into the miraculous. With its spirit seed, even mortals can glimpse the immortal path."
The brothers sat in heavy silence — torn between gratitude and terror.
"Enough," Li Mutian said at last. "Go cultivate. I'll check the fields."
The brothers bowed and withdrew. Li Mutian carefully returned the mirror to the ancestral hall, put away the altar, and walked out toward the fields, hands clasped behind his back.