The Lanterns of Xuanjing

This was a peaceful story from back when Li Qi was still at the sixth rank, in the cave abode of Xuanjing Mountain.

The sun and moon pushed one another onward, and brightness was born; cold and heat pushed one another onward, and years were formed.

Another year had passed. All things changed in succession, and one year was gone.

Between heaven and earth, clear qi and turbid qi traded places, cold and heat surged and rolled. Heaven moved with vigorous strength, never stopping for a single breath. If earth could not respond to that motion in harmony, then the work of creation endlessly giving birth to life might nearly cease. Every year's end was a "node" in the workings of heaven and earth, representing one successful cycle of their operation.

This was called a "year."

People always spoke of so many years, but in the boundless outer realms, this unit was difficult to standardize. Some places counted by the number of cycles a world completed; others calculated according to the movements of the sun and moon. The various calendars were too numerous to count. As many worlds as there were, so too were there that many calendars.

But when the world calculated such time, it followed only the world's own calendar. That was one revolution of the world's qi, counted as a year. Whenever people spoke of so many years of age, they used this standard as well.

Yet for cultivators, such a span was far too short. Thus, there were longer units. For example, in the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches calendar, the first year of a sixty-year cycle was called a Jiazi Year, the time it took for the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches each to make one circuit. There were also still longer units such as