The rain had stopped falling, but the air on the northern outskirts of Jianghai felt far more biting than in the city center. Lin Xuan stood in the middle of the land called the Forbidden Land by Grand Master Gu. In front of him was not a hidden palace, but a foul-smelling swamp, piles of building debris from a failed project decades ago, and waist-high reeds covering the sloping ground surface.
There was no electricity, much less clean water. There was only a rickety wooden shack with a corrugated iron roof that was full of holes.
"We are going to live here, Xuan?" His mother's voice sounded shaky. Not because of anger, but because of the cold. She tried to wrap herself in the thin blanket they had brought from the old house.
Lin Haifeng tried to remain strong even though his face was pale looking at the condition of the land which resembled a garbage dump more than a business headquarters. "Maybe... maybe this is just an initial test, right?"
Behind them, the ten loyal employees who followed Lin Xuan exchanged glances. One of the young engineers, who had previously greatly admired Lin Xuan, now looked at him with a disappointed expression that he could not hide.
"Young Master Xuan," the man said, his voice hoarse. "We believe in your vision. We believe in the Life Sovereignty you promised. But we need to eat. We need a decent place to shelter to work. We cannot build future technology on mud without heavy equipment."
Lin Xuan fell silent. For the first time, the philosophical quotes that usually flowed profusely from his lips felt stuck in his throat. He saw his mother's trembling hands, saw his followers starting to doubt him, and he felt a direct blow to his ego.
"The universe will not move a mountain for you if you do not dare to hold your own hoe," he murmured in his heart. But this time the sentence was not advice for others, but a stern reprimand for himself.
Suddenly, the roar of a car engine was heard from a distance. A garbage truck with the Song family company logo stopped at the edge of the asphalt road, about fifty meters from them. Several men got down and deliberately dumped a mountain of medical waste and building debris right at the entrance path to their land.
"Hoi, Lin Xuan!" one of the men shouted while laughing. "Young Master Song said, because you are already trash, your dwelling must also be full of trash! Enjoy your palace!"
They sped the truck away, leaving dust and a stench that became even thicker. Lin Xuan's followers bowed their heads dejectedly. One of them even started packing his bag. "Sorry, Master Xuan. I think I was too naive to follow you. Philosophy cannot fill the stomachs of my wife and children."
Lin Xuan stared at the back of the man who walked away. He felt like getting angry, but he realized that his anger was a reflection of his wounded arrogance. He refused Han Seo-Ah's help out of pride, but now the people he loved were bearing the consequences.
Without saying a word, Lin Xuan took off his dirty black suit jacket, rolled up his shirt sleeves to his elbows, and walked towards the pile of garbage that had just been dumped. He did not use mental energy power. He bent down, grabbed a large concrete block blocking the road, and lifted it with pure physical strength.
"What are you doing, Sir?" his father asked in surprise.
"I am working, Father," replied Lin Xuan, sweat starting to pour down his forehead. "I talked too much about manifestation, until I forgot that human hands are the first instrument the universe gave to realize it."
Seeing Lin Xuan, who was usually cold and distant, now sweating and dirty with mud, the remaining employees fell silent. Lin Xuan did not ask them for help, he just kept working, moving the debris one by one, digging the hard ground to make a simple water channel.
Slowly, one by one of them started to move. The young engineer just now took a plastic cup to get water, the others started collecting firewood. The silence that had been full of doubt turned into the silence of hard work.
That night, under the light of a small bonfire, Lin Xuan sat with them. His hands were blistered and raw, something he had never experienced since returning to the past. The pain in his hands actually made him feel more alive and conscious than when he meditated in a luxurious penthouse.
"I apologize," Lin Xuan said suddenly in front of his followers. "I was too arrogant with my knowledge of the future and energy. I forgot that in this world, gravity and hunger are realities that must be respected."
He looked at them one by one with a gaze that was far more sincere. "Starting tomorrow, we will not build Aura Nexus with mental energy alone. We will build it with every drop of our sweat. A miracle is not a free gift, but a wage for those whose high thoughts and low actions are aligned."
Suddenly, when Lin Xuan stabbed his hoe deeper into the area that was previously a foul-smelling swamp, he felt a different vibration underground. Not the vibration of mud, but a very pure energy resonance.
He kept digging, and at a depth of two meters, he found a rock crack that emitted warm steam. Clear water began to flow out from there—a spring of pure energy hidden for decades under piles of trash. The water emitted a healing frequency that instantly reduced the fatigue in their bodies.
Grand Master Gu did not lie—this land was indeed forbidden because its power was too great for those who just wanted to build concrete. But for those who were willing to dialogue with this land through hard work, it opened its secrets.
The next morning, Han Seo-Ah came again. This time she did not bring a bag of money. She brought boots, work gloves, and some plant seeds. She saw Lin Xuan who was full of mud helping his father fix the shack roof.
Seo-Ah smiled. "I thought you would refuse me again if I brought money. So I brought these."
Lin Xuan got down from the roof, looking at Seo-Ah with a face that was dirty but full of enthusiasm. "Thank you, Seo-Ah. This time, I will not refuse help that comes with sweat."
In the distance, the Nine Heavens elders who were monitoring through remote senses felt surprised. They hoped Lin Xuan would be mentally destroyed on that land, but they actually saw Lin Xuan's frequency becoming more stable and heavy than before.
Lin Xuan realized one important thing that morning—LOA is not about flying to the clouds, but about bringing heaven down to earth through action.
The universe will not move a mountain for you if you do not dare to hold your own hoe. A miracle is a wage for those whose thoughts and actions are aligned. Do not let idealism blind you to reality, because within the bitterest reality of all, lies the seed of the greatest strength.