Watching the World from the Counter, Passing the Seasons in Silence

Spring departed and autumn returned; summer passed and winter arrived.
The old scholar tree in the small courtyard in eastern Yanwei City bloomed twice and shed its leaves twice. The green stone slab in front of Zhou's Pawnshop was worn smooth by footsteps, welcoming and bidding farewell to two seasons of frost and snow.
Two years was neither long nor short for Yanwei City. A few newborns cried their first breaths in the city, while several elders reached the end of their lifespans and passed away; a few shops changed their signs, and a few alleys had their roads repaved. Everything was changing, yet it seemed as if nothing had changed at all.

This was especially true for Chen Ping'an's life.
He remained the quiet, taciturn old manager of Zhou's Pawnshop, opening and closing the doors on time. Every day he handled various pawned items, witnessing the warmth and coldness of human nature, which had long since made him numb.
He remembered a destitute young scholar whose first pawn was a square ancient inkstone, his face filled with shame, anger, and reluctance; half a year later, he pawned a pearl hairpin left by his late wife, his eyes already vacant; later still, he pawned his only decent long robe, his body emaciated and his eyes filled with deathly silence.

Such people and events were countless on this three-foot counter over the past two years. He was like a reef by the river, quietly watching the world flow past him like water, saying nothing, never swayed in the slightest.
The apprentice, Little Zhang, often remarked that Master Chen seemed to live more and more "tranquilly" over the past two years.
Only Chen Ping'an knew that beneath this solitude observed by outsiders lay a earth-shattering transformation.

His body was the first to respond.
His once-slight hunch had straightened unconsciously; his presbyopic eyes could now see the tiny characters on pawn receipts clearly without reading glasses; and his winter cough, which had plagued him for over a decade, did not flare up even once last winter.
Neighbors who met him remarked that Old Chen's complexion was improving by the day, speculating that he must have found some effective health preservation method. Some guessed he was taking expensive tonics, while others said his peaceful, desireless state of mind naturally kept him healthy.

Chen Ping'an merely smiled and said nothing, letting them speculate. People were always accustomed to using common sense they could understand to explain things they did not. This was the best cover for him.
Meanwhile, the secret herb garden deep within Neping Alley was no longer as desolate as it had been two years ago.
On countless moonlit or moonless nights, Chen Ping'an would appear there like a silent ghost. He personally turned over every inch of soil, clearing away all stones and weeds. He dug irrigation ditches and nourished the soil with decayed leaves, turning that barren plot into fertile land bit by bit.

Now, that small plot had become his garden of a hundred herbs. The mugwort grew lush and green, the Shehan Grass crawled across the ground, brimming with life, and several Longkui plants bore plump, dark purple berries. The air was constantly filled with a faint medicinal fragrance.
With this herb garden providing a steady supply, he no longer had to worry about cultivation materials.
Two years, over seven hundred days and nights of uninterrupted breathing exercises, had finally allowed the warm current in his body to gather from a tiny trickle into a small, established stream.

He could clearly feel that this "true Qi" transformed from the essence of plants no longer required his utmost effort to capture; it was like a part of his own body, moving at his whim, slowly flowing through his meridians.
He had naturally reached the boundary of completion in the first level of the *Qingnang Breathing Art*.
On this day, the lazy evening sunlight pierced through the pawnshop window, casting several beams of light in the air, with countless tiny dust motes dancing within them.
There were no customers in the shop, and the apprentice Little Zhang was dozing off under the counter.

Chen Ping'an was sorting through a batch of old pawned items, among which was a bronze mirror. Covered in bronze rust, it could no longer reflect images and could only be considered an ordinary antique.
He picked up the bronze mirror, preparing to wipe it with a soft cloth, when his heart suddenly stirred.
A thought arose without warning in his mind: *What would happen if I infused the thread of true Qi in my body into this mirror?*
Once this thought appeared, he could no longer suppress it.

He instinctively glanced at the entrance, then at the dozing Little Zhang. The surroundings were very quiet, save for Little Zhang's soft snoring.
Chen Ping'an took a deep breath. Holding the bronze mirror, he appeared normal, but he was actually guiding the thread of warm, thread-like true Qi in his body slowly and carefully down his arm and into his palm.
The moment his palm made contact with the bronze mirror, he gently "transmitted" that thread of true Qi.
There was no sound, nor any light.

But in Chen Ping'an's eyes, the mirror's surface, covered in the thick rust of time, rippled silently with an extremely faint, water-like glow.
The glow flashed and vanished, so quickly that it seemed like an illusion.
When he looked closely again, the bronze mirror was still the same ordinary, ancient object, except that its surface seemed slightly brighter than before.
Chen Ping'an stood frozen, holding the bronze mirror.

His heart pounded uncontrollably, blood rushing to his brain. The composure he had spent two years gathering nearly collapsed at this moment.
He was no longer merely a healthy old man.
He had touched the first thread of power belonging to the "deeper level" of this world.
He slowly set the bronze mirror down, his arm feeling strangely stiff throughout the process. He lowered his head and continued sorting the other items, his expression unchanged.

Outside, carriages and horses flowed like water, and the clamor of voices remained as it had always been.
Inside, behind the three-foot counter, Chen Ping'an's world was now entirely different.