Severing a foot, stabbing the abdomen, beheading, slicing off fingers, striking the eyes...
This was what it meant to attain Embryonic Breathing through life and death.
In Xu Zhi's understanding, it was a method of terrifying the spirit, forcibly driving oneself into the mysterious, secluded state of an infant in its mother's womb, and drawing Embryonic Breathing from there.
Though it seemed a shortcut, and a decidedly unconventional one, it was nonetheless a legitimate method of entering the Dao.
Others, however, did not have the One True Dharma Realm at hand, and could not act as boldly as Chen Heng.
Most who practiced this orthodox method did so atop lofty cliffs or beside deep, treacherous pools, using the atmosphere of danger to temper their minds.
They also needed teachers, fellow disciples, friends, or family nearby to protect them and watch over them closely.
Otherwise, a single misstep might send them tumbling off a cliff or into the water, turning the whole affair into a colossal joke.
Though this approach was less convenient and direct than Chen Heng's method, it was also rather less brutal and agonizing.
When he first began dying, recalling the terror and overwhelming dread of his final moments made Chen Heng so nauseated that he vomited bile several times. Whenever he could bear it no longer, he threw himself onto his sword and started over.
By the end, however, he had grown accustomed to it.
"Sever all external affairs, let nothing oppose the mind; then sit peacefully, observe inwardly the arising of thought, and if you perceive a thought arise..."
Chen Heng swept his sword.
All five fingers of his left hand fell at once.
"Mm... good. This is Fixed Contemplation..."
Cold sweat streamed down him, veins throbbed wildly on his forehead, and his normally cool, detached face twisted like a fiend's. "This step should be right."
Shhk-
Chen Heng abruptly drew the blade across his throat and crumpled to the ground.
An instant later, his corpse dissolved, and a new body appeared in its place.
"It's Fixed Contemplation. This step is right."
Chen Heng shook his head, dispelling the dazed sensation in his mind, and frowned.
"Then where did I go wrong? What omission have I still failed to remedy? Could I have misconstrued 'body and spirit' in 'body and spirit are complete in themselves, like an image containing its shadow'? But that doesn't seem quite right either."
With a cold expression, he drew his sword across his chest and abdomen. Blood instantly poured out in torrents. After lingering in that excruciating pain for a while, Chen Heng ended his life.
"The spiritual radiance of the five organs, the transformed body freely released?"
He raised his sword.
"Draw breath through the nose and hold it, silently count to one hundred and twenty in the mind-cut off death, never to return?"
He raised his sword.
"Without medicines or elixirs, guard the three ones?"
He raised his sword.
"Guard the corpse spirit?"
He raised his sword.
"Let the spirit harbor no deluded thoughts; awaken it again and again."
He raised his sword.
He was reborn once more.
Chen Heng grasped the longsword lying across his knees. His brows drew together, and he instinctively moved to swing it, only for his movement to freeze.
"No, no! So that's it? Of course! Of course!"
A flash of inspiration struck him, and he suddenly burst into laughter. He felt all the knotted stones in his chest fall away. The final insight that had kept him from attaining Embryonic Breathing was now firmly within his grasp.
It was simple-as clear as reading the lines on his palm.
"Fear life and death, and the spirit finds itself-so the entire purpose of this method lies in those eight opening words. I was too deliberate, too insistent, and forgot the 'itself' in 'the spirit finds itself.' I grasped its form but missed its meaning. No wonder. No wonder."
Flowers fell and water flowed; the spirit became whole, the embryonic state complete.
He had been too intent on the crucial points of every step and the circulation of vital energy, afraid of making the slightest mistake. Instead, he had fallen into the Lower Vehicle and lost the true Daoist principle of following nature.
"Higher virtue acts without striving and does not seek through scrutiny; lower virtue strives, its exertions never cease. Know the white, keep to the black, and spiritual illumination comes of itself."
Chen Heng sighed and flung his longsword far away. "I overlooked it. Nothing better exemplifies profound meaning in subtle words."
At that moment.
The One True Dharma Realm began to tremble, countless wondrous, resplendent lights blooming all around like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows.
"Is my time up? To think I spent ten days in the Dharma Realm."
A suction arose out of nowhere, drawing Chen Heng away. He did not resist, merely steadied his mind and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again.
He had returned to his cave abode in the outside world. Every furnishing remained exactly as it had been when he left, without the slightest change.
Chen Heng set down the longsword in his hand and paced slowly through the cave abode, his tall, jade-like figure possessed of an indescribable elegance.
"In dreams I crossed from the seabed past withered mulberries, and witnessed every wind and wave of the Silver River."
He silently lowered his eyes, straightened his hand into a blade, and lightly tapped his neck, smiling.
"Today, I behold heaven and earth."
All three hundred and sixty-five apertures throughout his body trembled in unison.
In an instant, a warm, gentle darkness engulfed him. That wondrous comfort made Chen Heng drowsy, like an infant nestled in the peace of the womb...
"A Yin Celestial?"
High atop the clouds.
Inside the Jade-Green Heavenly Palace, Ai Jian paused in thought, then gave a cold sneer.
"Isn't that a term from bedroom dual-cultivation arts? What, is our niece already planning to establish a harem, to hide beauties in a golden house? I'd advise her to settle down and cultivate. A brilliant child, you know, does not necessarily become an outstanding adult."
"That is no concern of yours, a castoff of the Jade Dawn School. Little Jian, you must understand that, as a True Disciple of the Vermilion Luminescence Sect, every action she takes carries a deeper meaning."
The beautiful woman disdained to argue.
She merely crooked a finger, and the handsome men behind her obediently offered their faces like cats, allowing her to stroke them.
"Still, I believe I've guessed why she's seeking a Yin Celestial."
The beautiful woman said, "Among the Divine Abilities of the Vermilion Luminescence Sect, there seems to be one that requires a Yin Celestial's natal destiny as its catalyst. Perhaps that is why she wants to find one."
"A Divine Ability? What Divine Ability would require-"
Ai Jian pondered under his breath, but before long, his expression changed sharply.
He had, after all, once been a disciple of the Jade Dawn School, and came from the Shangyu Ai clan. A suspicion soon formed in his mind.
"How could... could the Vermilion Luminescence Sect intend to appoint my niece as its Dao Scion?" he asked hoarsely. "Would they really pass down an ancient Dao art like that to her?"
The beautiful woman smiled without answering.
In this great age, when the immortal Dao manifested its wonders.
There was no talk of rigid roles for men and women, or distinctions of superiority and inferiority between them. Rank was determined entirely by one's cultivation.
Men could take wives and concubines and gather maidservants in abundance; women could likewise keep three thousand male favorites.
If they became Dao companions who jointly cultivated their nature and life, however, and one partner forbade it, that was another matter.
"Even so, I'm no expert in physiognomy and have no way to distinguish one. At most, I can gather people for you within this region."
Ai Jian spread his hands. "You do have some means of identifying a Yin Celestial, don't you?"
"Naturally." The beautiful woman nodded.
"Still, Yin Celestials have another conspicuous characteristic. Every one of them possesses beauty that could topple a kingdom, the finest spirit of the world gathered into their being. Searching on that basis will speed things up further."
Before Ai Jian could speak.
High Person Yuanji, who had sat idly to one side for a long time, suddenly lit up.
Ever since the banquet began, he had been scheming to establish a connection with the Ai clan behind the beautiful woman.
But the woman was utterly disdainful of others. From the moment she took her seat, she had not spared a proper glance for the three elders of the Mysterious Truth Sect attending her.
He did not know how Yan Feichen and Gu Jun felt.
High Person Yuanji, however, was burning with anxiety, like an ant on a hot pan. Time and again, he had wanted to join the conversation, only to hesitate and shrink back for fear of being presumptuous and giving offense.
"Refinement Master! Refinement Master! If it's beauty you seek, our sect already has someone! Far beyond the horizon, yet right before your eyes!"
Yan Feichen's eyes darkened at these words. Seeming to realize something, he glared furiously at High Person Yuanji.
"His name is Chen Heng. He lives on Sunset-Glow Peak in our Mysterious Truth Sect, and once served as Chief Musician of the Hall of Joyful Virtue."
Ignoring Yan Feichen's nearly murderous glare, High Person Yuanji, who had finally found an opening, bowed obsequiously and smiled at the beautiful woman.
"This young man truly looks like a celestial descended to earth! If he isn't a Yin Celestial, I cannot imagine anyone worthy of the title."
"Oh?"
The beautiful woman gave a soft exclamation. "The Hall of Joyful Virtue? A musician?"
She looked at the musicians below the steps, all silent as winter cicadas, and disgust crossed her face.
"A mortal musician like these?"
The musicians, all originally from the Hall of Joyful Virtue, were already terrified after hearing so many secrets that day. At her words, their hands and feet shook even harder. Convinced they were about to die, they broke into loud sobs.
"No, no!" High Person Yuanji was sweating profusely with anxiety. "Chen Heng is different. He is young, exceptionally beautiful, exceptionally..."
"Little Jian?"
The beautiful woman could no longer be bothered with him and turned to Ai Jian on the black-crane jade dais.
"Indeed, the High Person hasn't lied. The Chen Heng he speaks of truly is a banished immortal. The Southern Territory would scarcely produce such a person in five hundred years. Heaven has singled him out for its finest work."
Ai Jian nodded slightly, a curious smile appearing on his face.
"If anyone could rival him in appearance, then among everyone I've seen in my life, only Jun Yao, who nearly killed you, and that Jade Pivot True Lord formerly of the Dipper Pivot Order qualify. One glimpse of those three makes a person forget the mundane world!"
The beautiful woman snorted coldly.
Before she could chide him, Ai Jian pointed a finger and used true qi to draw Chen Heng's likeness.
"..."
The beautiful woman stared blankly for a long moment.
Only after some time did her throat stir. She had actually been stunned by the sight.
"Well, Refinement Master? Does he please you?" High Person Yuanji raised his wine cup with a beaming smile.
"Good! Good! Good!"
The beautiful woman ignored him, fixing an excited gaze on Ai Jian as she said:
"Quickly! Now! Take me to find him right now!"
What good fortune!
Heaven truly is helping me!
"Aunt, you certainly are impatient."
Ignoring High Person Yuanji's embarrassment as well, Ai Jian smiled and activated a talisman token, sending the Jade-Green Heavenly Palace descending toward a mountain peak beneath the clouds.
"All this weeping and wailing. Utterly disgraceful."
Some of the musicians below the steps were still sobbing. Ai Jian frowned and waved his hand, erasing all their memories of the day before tossing the unconscious musicians onto the mountaintop.
"Aunt, he-"
Ai Jian pointed toward a cave abode. He was about to speak, but stopped abruptly.
A mysterious, unnamed current of energy, wavering between obscurity and clarity, was slowly rising. Though faint, it could not escape the senses of the several Cavern Mystery Refiners present.
"How strange. Wasn't Chen Heng said to have no interest in the Dao, nor any heart for it?"
Ai Jian tapped out a beat, his expression poised between a smile and something else.
"To think he would attain Embryonic Breathing today."
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