Sensing Qi

At the end of the corridor was Room Jia-Three.

Chen Mo used his key to open the old padlock and pushed the door inside.

The room was tiny, barely large enough for a bed, a table, and a stool.

The bed was a hard plank bed covered with a straw mat. A blue cotton quilt, neither new nor quite old, was folded at the head.

One leg of the table was short, propped up with a brick.

The window faced a small courtyard behind the building. Several holes had torn through the paper windowpanes, crudely patched with old newspapers.

Cobwebs clung to the corners. The floor was unvarnished wood, with black grime packed into the cracks.

He shut the door behind him and set the key on the table beside it.

He didn't inspect the room right away. Instead, he went to the window and listened closely.

The courtyard was silent, save for the faint sound of the wind occasionally stirring the clothesline.

Through a tear in the newspaper, he could see a small patch of night sky hemmed in by high walls. The eerie moon had dipped farther west, its light seemingly dimmer than before.

Only then did he begin a careful inspection.

The bed, beneath the table, the corners...

Once he was sure everything was in order, Chen Mo twitched his fingers. Two small, plain-white paper slips drifted out soundlessly, just as before, and settled in the shadows above the door and along the window frame.

When everything was done, he breathed a sigh of relief and sat on the icy edge of the bed. He took out all his silver notes and the six Red Sun Blood Crystals, then tallied what he had gained in the Ghost Market.

The goods from the Black Tiger Gang's secret chamber had fetched a total of 3,600 silver dollars. After spending 1,200 on Yin Stones, he still had 2,400 silver dollars, plus several dozen coins in loose change.

The ten-thousand-silver-dollar note from selling the fragments had been set aside separately.

Later, he had bought two batches of Yin Talisman Paper in the Ghost Market for twenty dollars. He had also used the Moonlight Treasure Mirror to swipe two martial arts manuals without paying.

One footwork manual and one saber manual.

And most important of all, the Taiyin Ghost Form Manual.

After putting everything away, Chen Mo sat cross-legged on the bed and began reviewing the manual in his mind.

"The Taiyin is the utmost gloom and stillness. It bears the radiance of the soul, yet takes in all filth. The root of the Ghost Form lies not in seizing the workings of creation, but in stealing the mysteries of the dark: using the void to receive the real, using yin to command things..."

The manual's principles were laid out clearly. The Qi Refining section had two core stages: sensing qi, opening apertures, and condensing a core.

Chen Mo held his breath and focused his attention on the first part—sensing qi.

According to the manual, qi did not mean the ordinary, pure qi of heaven and earth drawn in through breathing. It specifically referred to Taiyin Qi.

Taiyin Qi was utterly pure and yin, cool and deep, and primarily originated from moonlight.

Yet the manual also alluded to the fact that the moon waxed and waned, brightened and dimmed, and that qi likewise had pure and turbid, proper and aberrant forms. It had to be carefully distinguished.

The key to sensing qi lay in emptiness, stillness, and attunement.

A cultivator first had to strive to cast off distracting thoughts, making the mind like an ancient well, deep and still, without the faintest ripple.

Rather than actively reaching out to seize it, he had to slowly sink his awareness into the surrounding environment, trying to resonate faintly with the subtle, icy quality of yin within it.

Like placing a block of ice in cold water: don't seek to control it, only to sense its cold.

After memorizing every principle and taboo in the section on sensing qi, Chen Mo adjusted his posture and sat with the soles of his feet and palms turned upward.

His breathing gradually grew light, slow, long, and fine. His thoughts no longer dwelled on his mouth and nose. Instead, with every exhale, he imagined his mind sinking like a speck of dust, descending toward the area below his lower abdomen, behind the navel and in front of the kidneys—the empty region known as the dantian.

At the same time, he tried to spread a thread of awareness outward, touching for any qi that might exist in the room.

At first, nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Gradually, perhaps because his mind had begun to settle, he sensed a change.

First came a clearer chill against his skin. It wasn't entirely the cold of night; it felt more like a clammy coolness.

It seeped faintly from the cracks in the floorboards, the cobwebs in the corners, even the straw mat beneath him.

This was probably the murky yin qi that permeated cheap inns, a blend of dampness, filth, and the fatigue and illness left behind by former guests—faint, yet muddled.

He kept the instructions in mind and did not guide these wisps of qi. He merely maintained that faint touch with his awareness.

Time passed little by little.

Moonlight slipped through holes in the torn newspaper and moved across the floor in a weak patch of light.

The moonlight still carried a trace of dark red that had yet to fade.

After an unknown stretch of time, when Chen Mo's awareness had almost merged with the room's darkness, a strange sensation seeped in from the direction of the patch of night sky beyond the window, cut off by the high walls.

It was a clearer, colder sensation, unlike the clammy heaviness of the murky yin qi. It was lighter and more transparent, imbued with a loneliness beyond the mortal world.

Yet within that clarity, which should have been pure, Chen Mo keenly caught something faintly amiss.

A subtle restlessness, a trace of blood-sweetness that came and went.

It was like a drop of alien, tainted blood quietly mingling at the bottom of a pure spring of ice.

The Red Moon's influence!

Chen Mo immediately became alert.

This was definitely not the pure Taiyin Qi described in the manual. It was moonlight tainted by the celestial omen, mixed with the Red Moon's aberrant power!

If he drew it into his body directly, as ordinary cultivation methods prescribed, the consequences would be impossible to predict.

Just as his mind tightened and he instinctively wanted to sever this thread of perception,

the Moonlight Treasure Mirror, which had been floating motionlessly deep in his sea of consciousness, suddenly gave an almost imperceptible tremor.

A cool, balanced intent flowed out from the mirror. The wisp of Taiyin Qi, tainted with that strange aura, seemed to heed a higher summons as soon as it touched Chen Mo's skin, and moved of its own accord toward the ancestral aperture between his brows!

It was being drawn toward the gentle Moonlight Treasure Mirror!

Once the wisp entered his sea of consciousness, it shot straight into the area enveloped by the mirror's radiance.

The mirror's surface rippled like water. Clear light flowed across it, rapidly stripping away the obvious aberrant element in the qi and making it more concentrated and pure, until only the cleanest wisp of Taiyin essence remained.

Only then did the Taiyin essence, purified by the mirror, slowly flow out of his sea of consciousness, following some marvelous path downward until it finally entered the region of his lower dantian.

Chen Mo was delighted. In an instant, he understood.

The Moonlight Treasure Mirror could actually purify moonlight!

With the Red Moon hanging overhead and Taiyin power impure, this ability was absolutely vital.

What a fine purchase!

He marveled at his good fortune, then maintained his state of emptiness and stillness. Using the purified wisp of Taiyin Qi as a guide, he imagined his dantian turning inward like a whirlpool, sending out an invitation.

More Taiyin Qi seeped in from beyond the window. As soon as it entered the area around Chen Mo, it was drawn of its own accord toward the sea of consciousness between his brows, where it entered the Moonlight Treasure Mirror's clear radiance. After being purified, it became refined Taiyin essence and flowed into his dantian.

The process was smooth and natural, as though it had always been meant to happen.

Chen Mo didn't rush things. He maintained this state for about the time it took to burn a stick of incense.

Only when the moonlight outside dimmed further and the qi he drew in grew thinner did he slowly end his cultivation and open his eyes.

His fatigue had deepened, but the glimmer in his eyes shone brighter.

Not only had he taken his first steps in sensing qi, but with the Moonlight Treasure Mirror's purifying ability, his cultivation was now free of hidden dangers!

"Hahahaha! This Daoist has made it!"