Fang Yuan steps into the river under the whole crowd’s eyes and feels the spirit spring’s pressure as Hope Gu rise from the flowers and gather beneath his navel. He recalls the legend of Ren Zu, the first man, who bought strength from one Gu with his youth and wisdom from a second with his middle years, only to be abandoned by both when he had nothing left to give. A third, humble Gu asked only for his heart, and when he gave it, the light it produced drove off the beasts called Predicament, who fear hope above all else. Since that day, a person facing Predicament gives their heart to hope. ch. 5
Fang Yuan keeps walking as the Hope Gu accumulate, though the elders and clan head watching from the dark note that fewer lights are gathering than an A grade talent would draw. He counts his own steps against the grade thresholds, twenty to thirty for C grade and thirty to forty for B grade, and stops at twenty-seven, where the light inside him bursts and an aperture forms between his navel and his kidneys. The Awakening Ceremony succeeds, and the text names the aperture the hope to immortality. ch. 5
