Zombies did not need sleep, but Chen Jin was no ordinary zombie. After all those twists and turns, he felt terribly weak and longed to rest and recuperate.
So he sat in the full lotus position and began to meditate.
The movements and posture came casually and naturally, as though etched into his bones.
The organs within this shell of his were withered, its meridians shriveled, its apertures sealed and blocked, leaving him unable to breathe. Yet deep within his soul, a peculiar sensation of inhaling and exhaling arose, like a fetus within its mother's womb, with a mysterious breath slowly circulating of its own accord.
At the same time, the red hair all over his body stirred without wind, tightening and relaxing in a measured rhythm, leaving him feeling immensely satisfied and comfortable:
Embryonic Breathing!
The Dragon-Tiger Inner Treasury Mysterious Scripture.
Manifesting from another set of memories, the cultivation method's mnemonic stood vividly before his mind, never to be forgotten.
Could I have been an immortal cultivator in life?
But why did I become this thing, neither human nor ghost...
Chen Jin was full of questions.
Unable to make sense of them for now, he focused instead on cultivating, improving his strength, and opening his five senses as soon as possible.
Only then could he better understand this world.
And find himself again.
On that stormy night, beneath the old banyan tree, a red-haired corpse monster sat upright inside the stone shrine, utterly motionless, just like a statue.
A night passed, and the wind and rain ceased.
In the early morning, mist wreathed the mountain wilderness, revealing barren mountains, treacherous waters, and sheer peaks standing starkly upright.
Chen Jin cautiously poked his head out, like a timid rabbit shrinking into itself.
All around was silent, with no sign of birds or beasts stirring. Perhaps last night's lightning had been so fierce and frightening that it had cowed the many living creatures into keeping their distance, not daring to approach this place.
That was a good thing.
The old banyan had an extensive root system, forming a forest from a single tree. Moisture gathered thickly among its tangled roots, making it exceedingly damp and gloomy.
Zombies liked this sort of gloomy Qi, and they thirsted for blood.
But Chen Jin cultivated the Dragon-Tiger Inner Treasury Mysterious Scripture. Of its so-called "dragon and tiger," the "dragon" was heart fire, and the "tiger" was kidney water. With dragon and tiger interacting, yin and yang working in harmony, one could attain the Great Dao of the Golden Core.
With this orthodox Daoist method balancing things out, his zombie instincts were firmly suppressed. Whether in logical thought or in preferences and habits, his human nature held sway.
He set to work, breaking off low-hanging banyan branches and leaves to make a simple broom, then sweeping inside and outside the shrine.
A troop of monkeys had occupied this place before, relieving themselves wherever they pleased and leaving everything filthy and chaotic.
Although zombies did not fear foul smells, and he could not see clearly either, deep down he yearned for cleanliness and did not want to live in a filthy, squalid environment.
Only once the cleaning was done did the place feel comfortable to live in.
Time had feet, hurrying past.
Chen Jin abruptly stopped and raised his head. He had suddenly sensed a ball of fire burning on the eastern horizon.
The sun was rising!
Zombies were yin in nature. They liked moonlight and the Yin Qi of the earth veins, among other things, but feared all manner of strongly yang objects.
Especially the scorching rays of the blazing sun.
Fortunately, the old banyan's luxuriant branches and leaves blocked most of the direct sunlight.
Even so, when the sun reached its zenith, dappled light and shadow would still filter through.
This shell's cultivation was not advanced enough, after all. If he could cultivate into something like a Flying Zombie, soaring through the heavens and burrowing through the earth, there would not be so many restrictions.
Then again, if it was merely an ordinary zombie, why had it provoked a lightning tribulation?
Could it have been caused by his returning to life in a borrowed corpse?
Doubts crowded Chen Jin's mind, and as he thought too much, his head began to ache and swell again.
He put down the broom and hurried back into the cool shade of the shrine, sitting down to meditate once more and passing the long day in cultivation.
The golden crow sank in the west, the jade rabbit began to rise, and myriad stars drew open the curtain of night.
After a day's cultivation, Chen Jin had gained quite a bit. Even his movements had become somewhat more nimble.
The defining feature of the Dragon-Tiger Inner Treasury Mysterious Scripture lay in working with both Yin Qi and Yang Qi at once. Limited by the condition of his shell, however, the True Qi within him was currently only beginning to sprout, exceedingly weak, with "yin flourishing and yang declining."
There was no helping it. He was a corpse monster, after all, innately imbued with yin balefulness.
The broad direction of his future cultivation would be to gradually adapt and coordinate, increasing his true yang little by little until yin and yang were in harmony and he reached a state of perfection.
Then he would undergo a true transformation.
But meals had to be eaten one mouthful at a time. It was too early to speak of certain things; they were merely idle fancies.
Chen Jin left the shrine and strolled around the area with his hands clasped behind his back, like a lord inspecting his domain.
Then, sensing something, he climbed the old banyan with both hands and feet, all the way up to its crown.
Last night's lightning tribulation and burning lightning fire had damaged the crown. Many thick branches had withered, split, and twisted, becoming charred black. If they could put forth fresh shoots next year, they would become lightning-struck wood.
Lightning-struck wood was a decent material for law artifacts, though banyan wood was inferior to peach wood or jujube wood.
Chen Jin paid that no further mind. Finding a relatively secure fork, he sat cross-legged upon it and lifted his head to gaze at the bright moon overhead.
His eyesight was poor, so he could not truly gaze at the moon.
Instead, he used his mind to imagine it, constructing moonlight within his heart.
Eight Scenes Contemplation and Visualization Method!
Another Daoist formula.
Chen Jin grew increasingly certain of his identity as a cultivator, and one from a renowned major sect at that.
Unfortunately, his memories were currently vague and confused, a jumble of this and that, difficult to sort out clearly.
As he immersed himself in visualization, he suddenly felt himself rising into the air, flying straight toward the bright moon.
It was an indescribably wondrous sensation, drifting and soaring, as though he needed only to reach the moon to become an immortal on the spot.
Closer, closer still.
He could already see the jade towers and jeweled palaces upon the moon, and a graceful beauty in ancient dress came out to greet him, seemingly the legendary Fairy of the Vast Cold.
The fairy smiled charmingly, beckoning to him with tender affection and inviting him to dance with her. "Come! Hurry over..."
Her voice was languid and seductive, melting him to the bone.
No, these are the delusions of an inner demon!
Alarm shot through Chen Jin's heart. He hastily gathered his mind and broke off the visualization.
That was close!
He had nearly suffered Qi Deviation and fallen into eternal ruin.
If his soul left his shell, it would never be able to return, and he would truly become a walking corpse.
He dared not look at the moon again. Quickly climbing down, he returned to the shrine and sat down properly.
Reviewing the lesson he had learned, it had all come from his eagerness for success, from rushing too much.
As he was now, having only crawled out of the coffin last night, his mind was dazed, and there were many things he simply could not distinguish clearly. He was especially prone to letting his thoughts run wild.
Under such circumstances, even with a higher-vehicle cultivation method in his grasp, an unstable and insufficiently resolute will made success difficult and would instead bring trouble.
Thus, he needed to properly adjust his condition and stabilize his thoughts.
For the next two or three days, wind and rain persisted. He did not know whether it happened to be the rainy season or whether these mountains simply received a great deal of rain.
And on every rainy night, silver serpents danced wildly across the sky, seemingly searching for something. Every so often, a bolt of lightning would crash down onto the banyan, sending lightning fire splashing.
This left Chen Jin trembling with fear, thinking that this lightning tribulation was frighteningly endless. He could only hide inside the shrine and treat it as secluded cultivation.
That day, the skies finally cleared. By nightfall, the bright moon was like a mirror, spilling countless rays of clear light over the earth.
Having rested his mind fully, the corpse monster climbed the tree again, settled skillfully into meditation, and began his second visualization.