CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY FIVE
### The Two Practitioners Return
Mo Xuan's message arrived on the eighth day south.
*Two of the three practitioners who contacted me have been working through the adaptation document.*
*The third has not responded since the initial contact. I do not know where he is.*
*The two who are working — they have questions that the document does not answer. Specifically about what cultivation practice looks like in generating territory. They know the theory. They need the practical experience.*
*I am recommending they visit the river crossing section.*
*I need your permission before I send them there.*
He read the message.
He looked south.
They were four days from the river crossing.
"Mo Xuan is asking permission," Feng Luo said. He had read it over Jian Yu's shoulder.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"He did not ask permission when he spent four weeks alone in the mountain valley arranging the section for the Lost Blade's frequency," Feng Luo said.
"No," Jian Yu said. "But he has learned the difference between taking independent action and taking action that involves someone else's specific situation."
Feng Luo thought about this.
"He is learning," Feng Luo said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
He sent back: *Send them to the river crossing. Tell them Jian Yu said the section was built from two months of passive domain contribution. Tell them what built it is what they need to practice in.*
Mo Xuan's response: *Sent. They will arrive at the river crossing in three days.*
*Also: the third practitioner. I have a relay contact from a practitioner in the dead zone fringe's western section who reports a cultivation signature in their territory that matches the third practitioner's frequency. He has not contacted me. He has not returned north. He is in the fringe territory practicing near a seeded section.*
*Alone.*
*I am monitoring.*
He read the last part to the group.
Bing Xi was quiet.
"The third one," she said. "He could not follow the organization into option three because he could not understand why. He could not follow the faction's independent action because the technique failed at the river crossing."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"He has no direction," she said.
"He has a seeded section," Jian Yu said.
Bing Xi looked at him.
"He is practicing near the seeded section," Jian Yu said. "He found the section and he is practicing near it. Without being told to. Without knowing what the section is."
"He felt something," she said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said. "He felt the section's frequency and he recognized it as something different from the dead zone's inert conditions. And he stayed."
Bing Xi was quiet for a moment.
"Before the words," she said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"Shen Hua's subsection," she said. "What people feel before they know what they are feeling."
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
He sent to Mo Xuan: *The third practitioner. He is practicing near a seeded section because he felt something real there. Send him the archive's Before The Words section. Not the technical documentation. Specifically the Before The Words section.*
*And tell him someone else spent three years in a specific place because it felt right before they understood what they were feeling.*
*He will understand the reference.*
Mo Xuan's response: *Sending. Also I know who the three years reference is. I will make sure the context is clear.*
He showed the exchange to Bing Xi.
She read it.
She said nothing.
She put her hand on the Frostbite Edge at her hip.
The deliberate walls present.
The choosing.
"He felt something real and he stayed," she said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"That is all it takes to begin," she said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
She looked at the road south.
"Don't waste it," she said. Quietly.
To the third practitioner who was alone in a seeded section somewhere in the fringe territory, practicing without vocabulary, staying because it felt right.
He counted sixteen breaths.
"Don't waste it," he agreed.