At this moment, the one sitting in Mysterious Yang Cave was Cheng Xinzhan's flesh-and-blood body, housing his Taiguang primordial spirit.
All along, the one reading and refining arts in Carefree Cave had been Cheng Xinzhan's bamboo body, housing his Shuangling primordial spirit.
To him, an incarnation was a shell, a weapon, a Dharma Treasure, a garment his primordial spirit wore when venturing abroad. It was convenient, but it could never replace his true flesh-and-blood body.
He now had two incarnations. One was the Seven-Jointed, Seven-Holed Bamboo Staff Incarnation, his most precious and most frequently used incarnation. One of his primordial spirits dwelled within it year-round, and this body favored wood.
The other was the Nine-Holed Dustless Lotus Incarnation, which he had completed only recently. This body favored water.
He was refining a third incarnation, one that favored fire.
Looking more closely into the furnace now, one would discover that it was not empty.
Golden solar bing fire burned quietly within it, and above the flames floated a blood-red lotus.
This was the third incarnation Cheng Xinzhan intended to refine.
This Floating Life Burning-Karma Fire Lotus had long been used on the mountain as a curse-suppressing object to quell corpse qi. Ever since he brought it back to the mountain, he had kept it roasting in solar bing fire to remove the corpse qi and rotten stench. Nearly a month had passed before he finally cleansed it completely.
It was still that same saying: "South of the Huai, oranges grow; north of the Huai, they become bitter trifoliate oranges, for the soil and water differ."
Now, washed by yang fire, the fire lotus seemed reborn through flame, radiating a brilliant glow. Its petals alternately gathered and unfurled, as though stirred by a gentle breeze, or pulsing like a heartbeat, while a