Cinnabar withdrew, mercury stilled; an array of true rosy clouds lined Supreme Clarity.
Rosy-Cloud Ascension Palace Breakthrough offered essence; settled upon the cloud bed, the Immortal Sprout flourished.
These twenty-seven characters formed the general outline of the "Supreme Clarity Immortal-Sprout Fetal-Breathing Essentials—Flying Mercury Chapter."
They contained many secret terms of Internal Alchemy and Daoist metaphors.
"Cinnabar" stood for female menses, while "mercury" stood for male semen.
"Cinnabar withdrew, mercury stilled" meant that the first step toward forming an Immortal Sprout was for female cultivators to stop their menstrual blood and male cultivators to halt their yang essence. Menstrual blood and yang essence were both acquired kidney fluids, substances that appeared only after boys and girls had passed through the filth of the mortal world and reached a certain age. The outward leakage of kidney fluids meant the loss of essence and qi, taking one ever farther from the prenatal state. [Note 1]
Thus, the first step in nurturing an Immortal Sprout was to stop kidney fluids from leaking outward, and the methods for male and female cultivators were entirely different.
"True rosy clouds" stood for the True Blossoming of Primordial Essence-Qi, while "Supreme Clarity" referred to the Supreme Clarity Moon Palace, here standing for the Kidney Palace.
"An array of true rosy clouds lined Supreme Clarity" meant that after stopping the outward leakage of kidney fluids, one needed to refine acquired kidney fluids back into the True Blossoming of Primordial Essence-Qi within the Kidney Palace. This was the second step in nurturing an Immortal Sprout.
"Rosy-Cloud Ascension Palace Breakthrough offered essence" meant that after refining acquired kidney fluids back into the True Blossoming of Primordial Essence-Qi, one needed to raise that true radiance, transporting it from the Kidney Palace into the Crimson Palace. This was the third step in