Within the womb, a human was a formless whole like an egg, conceived from the father's essence and the mother's blood. At first, it was merely a gelatinous substance resembling milky fluid. After twenty days, it began to solidify; after a month, its general shape emerged; only after more than a month did the umbilical cord appear.
In the cultivation world, this was known as the innate form.
After two months, the eyes and head took shape. After three months, the nine apertures and all the internal organs had fully developed. The fingers and toes formed in the fourth month, and the bones and marrow grew in the fifth. Traces of innate energy still remained at this stage, but the transition into the acquired state had already begun.
Another theory held that the dividing line between the innate and acquired states was the instant a newborn entered the world crying and drew its first breath of mortal air.
Whichever distinction one used, however, one thing was certain: the marrow did indeed contain abundant information about life.
A human's sex was determined at the moment of conception, and all subsequent development had to follow this innate information. Thus, both her jade bones and her spirit carried her sex and a wealth of other information, growing step by step as though reenacting her development within the womb.
A fetus grew in orderly stages, and the regeneration of flesh upon the jade bones largely followed the same mechanism.
First came a pool of gelatinous flesh and blood, then a rough shape, followed by eyes, ears, mouth, and nose, and finally the nine apertures and all the internal organs...
Before long, a clean new body, familiar beyond measure, was reborn amid the filth and decay, like a lotus growing from the mud.
The Ninth