“What happened!?” Rouxi received an unexpected call from Secretary Liang early in the morning.

"Miss, Dr. Li is unconscious in the hospital," Secretary Liang repeated and then proceeded to explain. He found Li Yun collapsed in an old temple and had rushed him to the hospital.

As soon as Rouxi heard what had happened, she took a charter out to Panda City. Midway through the flight, she received a text from Li Yun.

Yun: If you don’t hear from me, I’m in an old abandoned temple near the untrodden pathway of Mt. Qingcheng. Don’t worry, I should be fine. The tour guide Mr. Cai Le should know my location.

“Fine my ass!” Rouxi glared at the text, trying not to cry as her eyes welled up from the message, which was obviously timed.

On arrival at Panda City, Secretary Liang picked her up, and drove her to the hospital and into a VIP suite. Li Yun was laying on the bed, hooked up to the heart monitor device. The doctor by his side said his body is stable, but for some unexplained reasons, he hadn’t been able to wake up since they found him. There were no physical injuries and the toxicology report came back negative. Li Yun’s condition was very close to being in a deep state of REM.

Rouxi thanked the doctor and nurse as the they left the room, leaving only Rouxi and Secretary Liang in the room.

“Why are you in Panda City?” Rouxi asked as she sat next to Li Yun.

“Master ordered me to visit Doctor Li and personally invite him to the next family gathering,” Secretary Liang replied.

Rouxi wondered if they were keeping tabs on Li Yun from afar. If Secretary Liang had been following Li Yun, she was sure Li Yun would have sensed it. “When did Song Taiji meet Yun?”

“The day after your visit with the third master,” Secretary Liang responded curtly.

Rouxi nodded, it was typical of Secretary Liang's response, to be quick and precise, never answering more than was needed. “Can you leave now?”

"Yes Miss," Secretary Liang nodded and discretely walked out of the room.

Rouxi took Li Yun’s hand and then touched his forehead. His temperature was normal and the soft rhythm of his breath really made it look like he was asleep. She was considering whether she should let his family know. Would it be causing them needless worry to contact them? She stayed by his side until she fell asleep by the bed.

****

Li Yun's eyes slowly opened, but a harsh ray of light entered his pupil. He closed his eyes again and readjusted his dilation as he elbowed himself up from a soft surface. With his eyes opened, he could see the moon and stars beyond the window, a much more familiar sight than the woods.

"The hospital?" Li Yun asked himself as he looked around the room. The high-end bedding and private room indicated that it was the VIP ward, but it wasn't inside a hospital that he was familiar with. He felt a warm presence by his side and glazed down to see Rouxi sleeping by his side. "Thank you," he whispered into her ears and kissed her cheek. Afterward, he moved aside, gently pulled her up onto the bed by his side, and covered her with the blanket.

At the foot of the bed were his jacket and backpack. He pulled it up and looked inside. Everything was still there, the same as when he had packed it for the tour. Was it a dream? He rested his head back on the pillow and thought about what had happened. It felt like a dream, but at the same time, it felt so real that he wondered if it was possible for it to be another reality.

Li Yun re-examined his physical body, and everything appeared normal. There wasn’t any soreness or injuries, so wherever he was, it wasn’t his physical body. However, there were antibodies in his body specifically for the exotic toxin that entered his body. Was it possible for a dream to trigger an immunal response?

Did he enter into an illusionary array at the temple? Or was it some other type of array? The only trigger was spirit detection, so was it connected with the spirits in some way? He wondered if fengshui was related to arrays. The books available on the topic were either too esoteric or difficult to understand.

One of the earliest traces of feng shui was dated more than 6000 years where the houses were aligned to allow solar gain. The same strategy that modern architects employed in passive housing strategies to reduce energy consumption.

While he was growing up, his parents and grandparents would never align the bed with the door and with the feet facing the door. It was typical things that the elders were always warning the children about. The position was called the coffin position because it was often how people were carried out after they died. From a psychological standpoint, people were most vulnerable when they sleep, and being close to openings such as doors and windows opened up the possibility of attacks or the feeling of being intruded upon. It wasn’t just in Chinese culture, but other cultures had similar guidelines with placing beds away from doors.

Feng Shui guided these decisions, but it also included geographical, mathematical, and astronomical influences. The complex relationships with different fields made it difficult for Li Yun to even grasp a small portion, much less achieve small perfection. If he could understand the principles, was it possible for him to understand what had happened to him? Or the best possible route was to avoid it altogether? Something in his head was telling him that he had walked too far to turn back.

Rouxi shifted a bit, and noticed that she was laying on the bed. Her eyes moved up to look at Li Yun, who was awake and looking back at her.

“Yun!” Rouxi got up quickly. “You’re awake. You!”

Li Yun pulled her down and kissed her before she started yelling at him for making her worry. Although it was only 24 hours, being trapped in a world with nothing but dangerous beasts really put a lot of things in perspective. Before he got carried away, she pushed him down on the pillow.

“Yun! We’re in the hospital and you better explain why you fainted,” she demanded.

“Do you remember when I fainted in the haunted house?” he asked, considering how much of the truth she would believe.

She nodded.

“Something similar happened at the temple, but much more powerful.”

Rouxi frowned and remembered the time he had collapsed. "But if you knew this would happen, shouldn't you avoid it from happening?"

"I can see it coming, but I can't avoid it forever." Li Yun had felt a bottleneck and the only way to break through was to take risks. If he stayed in one place, he would never reach the end of the path. For some people, staying in one place was fine as long as it was safe and comforting. Li Yun had also felt that way for a while, but did becoming stronger give him more courage to take risks? Or was it his stubbornness to see things to the end, even if the end might not exist?

"Are you going to be okay?" Rouxi hands softly held onto his cheeks.

Li Yun kissed the palm of her hand, "I've never felt more alive."

Rouxi settled her head on his chest and wondered what she was getting herself into.

“Did you find me in the temple?” Li Yun asked, wondering how he got to the hospital.

Rouxi explained to him what secretary Liang had told her.

“Why is Secretary Liang here?” Li Yun asked. He had sensed random people following him around, but they appeared more like scouts than anyone dangerous. Between his competitors and Song Taiji, he to be more careful from now on. He never guessed that secretary Liang would personally tail him.

“I’m not sure, Secretary Liang only works for Song Taiji. He doesn’t stray too far away from him unless it’s something important,” Rouxi explained and gave Li Yun a stern look. “Did the old man contact you?”

Li Yun nodded, “He invited me the last time we were in Imperial City.”

"Oh?" There was a period of time when Li Yun went off by himself when they first visited Imperial City together. Rouxi had guessed that Song Taiji had seen him, but she wondered why he never mentioned it to her. If he knew of her ability, wasn’t he curious? “Why didn’t you mention it to me?”

Although Rouxi could guess the reason, she wasn’t a mind reader. The more she stayed with him, the less she was able to trust her own judgment. What was it about relationships that made even the smartest of people question their own judgment?