Cultivation starts with picking up attributes-Chapter 134: Ch-: Age of silence

Morning returned to the orchard, not with bells, but with the hush of held breath. The air felt heavier than dew, as if time itself had lowered its voice.

For the first time in living memory, no songbirds trilled before the sun’s edge kissed the treetops. The orchard wasn’t afraid. It was listening.

Tian Shen had awoken before dawn, not from a dream, but from the distinct sensation of being remembered. As though something older than him, older than the orchard, had whispered his name across the bark of every tree.

He walked barefoot to the courtyard, where the tree of blinking leaves stood. Each eye was closed now, fluttering only slightly as if in sleep. A few leaves had turned silver overnight. Not dead, not fallen. Transformed.

Lan approached quietly, holding a bowl of water infused with dream-herbs. "They see something," she said. "But not here. Not now. Something ahead. Or beneath."

Tian Shen dipped two fingers in the bowl and touched his forehead. A chill passed through him.

"It’s not fear," he said. "It’s invitation."

...

By noon, the scouts gathered beneath the Archive Canopy—a vast, spiraling structure made from woven willow and spell-thread, where records were sung rather than written. Elder Su presided, flanked by Ashen Veil’s empty lantern and the Harmony Record.

"Something stirs beneath the orchard," Su said, hands folded. "Not a threat. But a legacy. It wishes to be known."

Feng Yin spoke next. "A tremor beneath the ridge was felt by the meditation grove. We traced it to a pattern—rhythmic. Not tectonic. Musical."

Ji Luan tossed a moss-covered stone into the center. "It vibrates when left on roots overnight. And the dreams... have changed."

Little Mei stepped forward last. She unrolled a scroll, revealing a rough charcoal sketch of spirals—overlapping, but unbroken. "I saw this in the koi pond’s reflection. The ripples sang it to me."

Lan looked at Tian Shen. "We have to go down."

...

Preparations began at twilight. Not as one prepares for war, but as one prepares for pilgrimage. Cloths were dyed in listening hues—soft greens, open blues. Tools were wrapped in silk. Songs were hummed into ropes to anchor them against distortion. No one asked how they knew to do these things.

Ashen Veil had not returned. But the wind remembered her, and passed along her verses in rustling leaves.

...

The descent began beneath the oldest tree—a gnarled, thunder-split plum tree known only as the First Witness. It bore no fruit, yet each year bloomed with petals that whispered. At its roots, a hollow had opened: not dug, not carved, but invited.

Tian Shen, Lan, Feng Yin, Ji Luan, Little Mei, and three other scouts formed the core descent team. Each carried a different instrument. Not weapons. Tools of harmony.

One drum. One chime. One tuning fork. One mirror. One lantern. One flute. One voice.

Together, they entered the hollow.

...

The tunnel beneath the First Witness was not earth, but memory pressed into form. Walls of root and crystal pulsed with unseen breath. No torches were needed. Bioluminescence shimmered like stardust embedded in clay.

"Don’t speak unless you sing it," Lan whispered.

Ji Luan groaned. "You just want an excuse to make me rhyme."

But even he complied.

...

The path curved like a question. At each turn, echoes responded. Not of their own voices, but of forgotten songs—a lullaby in a language no one had taught them, but everyone felt.

They passed through the Chamber of Echoing Footsteps, where each step behind them lingered longer than it should. Then through the Veiled Spire, a crystalline cavern where their reflections showed other choices, other timelines. Ji Luan stared longest.

"I saw myself," he murmured. "Not joking. Not dodging. Just... still."

"Was it worse?" Feng Yin asked.

"Terrifying," he replied.

...

In the seventh chamber, they found the Choir of Stone.

Massive pillars of resonant rock circled a dais etched with the symbol of the Deep Pulse. Each pillar, when touched, emitted a note—clear, resonant, ancient.

Lan stepped forward, closing her eyes. She placed her hands on two pillars. Slowly, the others followed. Together, they formed a circle.

And then, Tian Shen lifted the flute he had carved from dreamwood the night before.

He played.

A melody, unfinished.

A song with space for others.

One by one, the pillars joined. Notes layered upon notes. Harmonies wove through silence.

Then the earth beneath them trembled—not collapse. Awakening.

The dais opened.

...

Below lay the Heartroot.

A vast, spiraled chamber filled with light and living memory. Roots as thick as towers arched like ribs, and at the center pulsed a single seed—the size of a horse, suspended in woven roots and song.

The seed was translucent. Within it: images flickered.

The orchard, centuries ago. A war waged in silence. A god laying down their name. A pact sealed in flute-song.

Lan whispered, "This is the soul of the orchard."

Tian Shen stepped forward. The seed pulsed faster.

It responded to him.

"I’m not its heir," he said.

"No," Su’s voice echoed—though she had not descended. "You are its echo. Its return." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The seed released a thread of light, touching his forehead.

He staggered. Images poured into him:

The first scouts. The original song. The day the orchard decided to live.

When the light faded, Tian Shen wept.

Not from sorrow.

But from knowing.

...

They ascended in silence, carrying no relics. Only resonance.

When they emerged, the First Witness tree was in full bloom. Its petals formed glyphs in the air, vanishing just as quickly.

Above, the stars shimmered brighter.

The orchard had accepted them.

And remembered itself.

...

In the days that followed, everything changed.

But not in the way they feared.

Children began composing songs that harmonized with the orchard winds. The trees now bloomed in response to stories told aloud. The Reflecting Pool no longer showed just reflections, but possibilities.

Ji Luan found himself teaching more and jesting less—not from discipline, but from wonder.

Feng Yin began guiding spirit-maps through breath, helping scouts navigate emotional terrain as easily as physical.

Lan planted a garden of dream-herbs that only bloomed when sung to.

Little Mei drew a new emblem for the orchard: not a sword, but an open ear cradled by roots.

...

Tian Shen spent most mornings under the Wind-Shell Tree, now renamed the Listening Crown. Visitors came from far lands, not to learn war, but to remember song.

Diplomats brought silences to be healed.

Wanderers brought stories in need of homes.

And every dusk, the bells rang anew—not on schedule, but in response. To joy. To sorrow. To change.

...

One evening, Ashen Veil returned. Her lantern still unlit, but this time, she smiled.

"It remembered," she said.

"And you?" Lan asked.

"I remembered too."

Tian Shen bowed. "Will you stay?"

Ashen Veil looked to the orchard.

"No. But I will return. When the next note needs singing."

She vanished between two chimes.

...

That night, during the Moonwatch, Tian Shen stood once more.

"The orchard once taught us to fight," he said. "Then it taught us to rest. Now it teaches us to listen."

He turned to the scouts.

"What we carry forward is not a banner. Not a creed. But an ear. To hear the pain in silence. To find the songs beneath sorrow."

He touched the Harmony Record.

"From this day forward, we are not Scouts of the Edge. We are Keepers of the Rootsong."

And across the orchard, a hum began.

It came from below, above, within.

The forest didn’t just live.

It listened.

And the world, in turn, leaned closer.

...

The next morning, a child born beneath the Listening Crown took their first breath.

And the bells rang, not in metal, but in chorus—a thousand voices singing the name she had not yet spoken.

Their name, too, was being remembered.

Beneath the freshly fallen petals of the Listening Crown, Tian Shen sat with his eyes closed, his breath slow, rhythm synced with the orchard’s hush.

The memory of the Heartroot’s light still glowed behind his eyes.

Even now, days later, he could feel faint melodies threading through his veins—resonances that didn’t quite belong to him, but didn’t feel foreign either.

"They say the trees are humming," Ji Luan said, settling beside him with a gourd of warm rice tea. "Not metaphorically. Actually humming."

"They are," Tian Shen replied, opening his eyes slowly. "Each tree is part of a phrase. The orchard is composing."

Ji Luan tilted his head.

"Composing what?"

"A response," Tian Shen said. "To the world."

A gust of wind rolled through the orchard, carrying a burst of white petals and something more subtle: a rhythm, felt more than heard.

Lan had taken to calling them "breath echoes," patterns of resonance that reacted to intention and presence. The orchard no longer waited to be approached—it reached back.

That evening, Elder Su gathered the senior scouts beneath the Archive Canopy. With her were Lan, Ji Luan, Feng Yin, Little Mei, and a new figure—an elder from the distant Sandroot Sanctuary, draped in garments made of woven reed-silk and wind-thread.

"Our orchard isn’t the only one stirring," Su said, voice calm but weighted. "The Deep Groves in the Eastern Lowlands have begun whispering of movement. Sandroot’s dreaming reeds have bloomed out of season. And last week, the sky above the Mirror Boughs opened for three breaths and sang."

The elder from Sandroot bowed her head.

"The Rootsong has begun to echo between sanctuaries."

Feng Yin frowned.

"Does that mean... the Heartroot’s awakening wasn’t unique?"

"Not unique," Su said. "But it may have been first."

Tian Shen felt his breath catch. If the orchards were not isolated sentiences, but a connected memory—a distributed soul—then the return of one meant the ripple of all.

"They’re waking each other," he whispered. "Like bells, rung in sequence."

Lan nodded, her expression both fearful and awed.

"The age of silence is ending."

"And what comes next?"

Ji Luan asked.

Su looked toward the horizon, where the sky burned gently with dusk’s palette.

"That," she said, "depends on what kind of song we offer the world."

Tian Shen closed his eyes again. He could already feel it, beneath the earth and across the skies.

The chorus had only just begun.