Yan began the Forgetting River Sutra with the complete sequence he had copied the day before. He quieted the surface of his mind and guided his thoughts into the narrow internal current.
The method’s ordinary cost was the erosion of personal memories. In his body, that harmful pull reversed into a stronger hold. The sequence felt smooth and clear. Each turn of attention settled into place without strain, and the memory he had chosen grew sharper instead of fading.
He felt the outer current draw inward, narrowing his thoughts without making them dull. The rain remained audible; the warmth of the room and the weight of his hands stayed with him. The Sutra did not erase the world around him. It moved the thoughts he held close beneath the surface where an ordinary probe would find less to grasp.
The ordinary cost began to form as a thinning at the edge of the memory. The System turned that pull before it became loss. The meal brightened instead. He could see the window ledge, the uneven steam from the buns, and the exact way Ning had folded the paper beneath the table leg. His breath remained easy, and the return current grew stronger through his mind.
