Taking the first step

Searching for his missing son, Ren Zu becomes lost in Luo Po Valley’s maze himself, and after days without an exit he collapses against its wall, engulfed by the loneliness of a heart already given wholly to hope. Unbearable at first, it grows familiar, and he even comes to savor its quiet. A voice beside him calls him the spirit of all beings, lonely and wanting to be comforted, understood and recognized, and when he asks who speaks, it names itself a Gu called self, found by looking inward. ^{ch. 646}

He inspects his heart of loneliness and finds inside it a tiny Gu worm shaped like himself. Self Gu says understanding oneself matters most in life, and it offers to lead him out. Asked if it can send him back along the Reverse Flow River, it refuses. That road, it says, is only the trace fate Gu left behind on a visit to fairness Gu, and walking it means submitting to fate. A new road exists for anyone willing to walk one, it insists, but first he must learn to think about leaving. ^{ch. 646}

He strains to think until cognition Gu, an old friend, leaps from his mind and lights him with a bright glow. The light fades. Any being cognition Gu enlightens gains wings, as Verdant Great Sun once did. Delicate new wings appear at his heels, and cognition Gu names them independence. It warns that only self Gu, and no other Gu, can be relied on, then vanishes. Told simply to walk and carve his own road of life, Ren Zu takes his first step, and his vision changes. ^{ch. 646}