CHAPTER 227
### Twenty-Three Breaths And One More
He was three weeks west of Jing He when it happened.
Not at a meaningful location.
Not at the hollow or the formation site or the five sword frequency sections.
On a road.
In the middle of the morning.
He had been walking and reading the domain and the hollow-frequency was conducting through the passive contribution and seven sections had crossed threshold from the passive walking and the third faction leader had sent a response and Shen Bo had retired and Lin Mei had a new journal and the One Continuous Project was distributing and Feng Luo's fire was at the correct size at Xian Yue's northeastern sections.
He was walking.
He held twenty-three breaths.
He tried twenty-four.
Twenty-four arrived.
He did not stop.
He kept walking.
Twenty-four breaths.
He noted it.
He did not announce it.
He kept walking.
Lin Mei was at his left.
She noticed within thirty seconds.
"Twenty-four," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"When," she said.
"Just now," he said.
She looked at him.
She looked at the domain.
She looked at the grey blade.
She looked at the road.
"The domain," she said.
He extended it.
At twenty-four breaths the domain changed.
Not the range.
Not the resolution.
The character.
He had been reading the domain the way he read it at twenty-three breaths — the sections in passive awareness, the hollow at the outer edge, the network pathways conducting.
At twenty-four breaths the domain was reading the sections and also being read by them.
Not a two-way exchange.
Something more complete than that.
The sections were not responding to the domain's reading.
The sections and the domain were the same reading.
He read a developing section at twelve li.
He was the domain reading the section.
He was also the section being read.
Both simultaneously.
Neither and both.
He released twenty-four.
He went back to twenty-three.
The domain returned to standard reading mode.
He looked at Lin Mei.
He could not read her expression.
He looked at her face without trying.
"Tell me," she said.
"At twenty-four," he said, "the domain does not read the sections. The domain and the sections are the same thing temporarily."
She was quiet.
"Same thing," she said.
"Neither separate," he said. "Both the same."
"The between," she said.
"No," he said. "Not the between. The between requires two separate things to be the between of. At twenty-four there are not two things. There is one thing in multiple expressions."
She was quiet.
He looked at the grey blade.
The between quality invisible because it was everything.
"The between quality," he said slowly, "was the space between separate things. At twenty-four the things are not separate."
"Then there is no between," she said.
"The between completed," he said. "Into the thing it was always between of."
She looked at the domain.
She looked at him.
"Li Shan," she said.
"Yes," he said.
He sent.
Li Shan's response came back in twenty minutes.
*At twenty-four breaths the domain and the sections achieve unified reading. The sections and the wielder are one continuous reading event rather than two separate events in contact.*
*This is — I do not have a framework for this.*
*The undocumented stage is documenting itself through you faster than I can keep up.*
*What happened after you released twenty-four.*
He sent back: *Twenty-three. Standard domain reading. The sections separate from me again.*
Li Shan: *The twenty-four state is temporary. Sustainable at a cost. Released when the breath releases.*
*Or is it.*
He looked at the grey blade.
He tried twenty-four again.
The unified reading.
He tried to sustain it through one minute.
The reading held.
He tried to sustain it through two minutes.
The reading held.
He tried to sustain it through ten minutes while walking.
The sections and the domain were one thing.
Continuously.
For ten minutes.
He released.
He was at twenty-three.
Standard reading.
He looked at Lin Mei.
"Sustainable," he said.
She looked at him.
"At twenty-four," she said. "Indefinitely."
"While walking," he said.
"While walking," she said.
She looked at the road.
"The work is the road," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"And now the road and the sections and the domain are the same thing," she said.
"At twenty-four," he said.
"The one continuous project," she said.
He looked at the grey blade.
At the ancient layer at the hollow's depth.
At the beginning words.
At the between quality that had needed separate things to be the between of.
At the twenty-four breaths where the separate things became one thing.
He committed.
He walked at twenty-four.
The sections were with him.
He was with them.
Neither separate.
Both the work.
Don't waste it.
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