— Sasuke (Yan Hai) POV —
I rose with the sun.
Not because I wanted to, but because sleep had abandoned me.
The bed was soft, the room quiet. The walls were smooth wood, the linens neatly folded. The air carried the faint scent of salt and herbs. Still, I lay there for a while, staring up at the ceiling. My body felt heavy, too heavy for rest.
Eventually, I got up.
The courtyard outside was silent. I stepped out barefoot, the stone floor cool beneath my feet. The morning mist still clung to the pine trees lining the cliff's edge. Seagulls cried in the distance, waves breaking somewhere below. But here, it was quiet.
Piandao was already there.
He stood beside a low table, a kettle and two cups placed neatly atop it. Loose black robes with gold trim framed his sharp posture. When he noticed me, he didn't speak. He simply motioned for me to sit.
I obeyed.
"Breathwork," he said.
That was all. No greeting. No explanation. Just the word.
I inhaled.
It was shallow. My chest felt tight. The tension had settled there since the day I woke up on that boat, and it hadn't left.
"Slower," Piandao said. "Let it travel."
I tried again. Inhale. Hold. Exhale.
Stillness was foreign to me. Frustrating. I wanted to move. To fight. Sitting still had never been part of my training.
But Piandao said nothing else. He just sat beside me.
We stayed like that for nearly an hour.
By the time it ended, my shoulders had dropped slightly. My breath came more evenly. Not relaxed. More aware.
"Tomorrow," he said, standing up, "you'll do it again. At sunrise."
That was Day One.
The next day, I walked.
Back and forth across the stone courtyard. Slowly. Deliberately. No stance. No target. Just walking.
I thought it was a waste of time. But I did it.
"Your stride is heavy," Piandao said. "You carry too much in your heels."
"That's how I was trained."
"Then untrain it."
My feet grew sore. The sun climbed higher. I kept walking.
When I stopped, he handed me tea.
"You fight your body," he said. "Try listening to it."
That was Day Two.
The days blurred together.
Each morning began the same: breathwork, walking, tea.
Sometimes we sat in silence. Sometimes he corrected my stance, posture, and breathing. But he always noticed the smallest things—when my fists were too tight, when I held my breath when I tried to hide my fatigue.
"You have stamina," he said once. "But no discipline of mind."
"I trained under pressure."
"You trained to survive. Not to grow."
I hated how right he was.
By the seventh day, we focused on balance.
Wooden beams. Narrow paths. Only breath and movement.
I fell. A lot.
Each time, I got back up.
"You're not failing," Piandao said. "You're learning where your center ends."
His words stuck longer than I expected.
By the tenth day, I saw myself in a water basin. I barely recognized the reflection.
Not because I looked different—
Because I wasn't scowling. I wasn't tense. I wasn't angry.
I was… still.
Piandao introduced new tasks.
Calligraphy. Landscape painting. Rock gardening.
I didn't understand at first. These were not the tools of a warrior.
"This is part of the training," he said simply.
"Why?"
"To see clearly, you must slow down. To strike, you must know stillness. The sword is not only for battle. It's for balance."
I didn't argue.
But I didn't fully understand either.
The next week, he introduced a game.
Pai Sho.
The board was circular, the pieces were abstract. I had never played.
He beat me quickly. Repeatedly.
I grew frustrated. He didn't comment. Just reset the board and gestured for me to try again.
Each game revealed something I hadn't noticed—impatience, narrow thinking, emotion clouding reason.
"You learn how someone fights by how they play," Piandao said. "And how they lose."
I began paying attention.
He didn't explain the rules every time. He made me remember.
Slowly, I improved. I never won. But I started seeing the patterns. Predicting a few moves ahead. Thinking beyond instinct.
By the next month, I could walk blindfolded across the courtyard. I was breathing evenly under strain. My steps were lighter. More deliberate.
I still couldn't bend.
That morning, a quiet knock came to the garden gate.
A man entered. Round, quiet, and wordless. He bowed to Piandao and began setting tea.
"This is Fat," Piandao said.
Fat didn't react to the name.
"He helps around the grounds. You'll be seeing more of him."
Fat nodded at me once, then continued his work.
Later that day, after calligraphy practice, Piandao handed me a wooden sword.
No ceremony. No speech. Just the simple weight of it in my hands.
"Not a weapon," he said. "A mirror."
It felt different than I expected.
Not fire.
But something close.
The first step forward.
(A/N: New arc! Officially introduced Fat and the new stage in our MC's life.
And crazy enough, Yes, his name is actually fat…:0
I took too long on this first volume, and I plan to finish this second volume very quickly. Let's continue watching his journey, my fellow DAOISTS! )