Knock, knock!
A soft knocking suddenly sounded at the door.
Chen Jin wiped his tears away with his sleeve, stood up, and went to open it.
Lights shone outside, though not very brightly. Night had fallen without him noticing.
He had spent more than half the day in meditation this time.
The visitor had graying hair and a face weathered by dust and frost. It was none other than Old Man He. He put on a smile, offered a greeting, and said, "Greetings, old brother."
Old brother?
Chen Jin froze for a moment, then realized that his current appearance did indeed warrant an "old brother." He asked evenly, "What is it?"
He was used to solitude and disliked being disturbed. Moreover, having been a zombie once, his temperament had inevitably changed. Not only had he grown indifferent, but he also felt a natural distance and wariness toward outsiders.
Hearing that hoarse, low voice, Old Man He could not help having second thoughts. He hurriedly said, "Well, I saw you move into the market today, and you haven't left your hut all day. I figured you must be hungry. We happened to be cooking at home, so I brought you a bowl. Hehe, there's nothing fancy to go with it. I hope you won't mind."
As he spoke, he held out a large bowl filled to the brim with cooked coarse grains, a large slice of meat laid on top, steam rising from it.
It had clearly just come off the stove.
Chen Jin glanced at it and politely declined. "Thank you. But I'm not hungry, so I won't eat."
He turned, went inside, and shut the wooden door.
Rebuffed, Old Man He could only carry the food back, looking sheepish.
His son He Tie teased him. "That's what you get for always playing the good Samaritan. You pressed a warm face against a cold backside, didn't you? He's on his guard against you."
Old Man He glared. "What do you know? At least I've shown my goodwill. When we travel the jianghu, another friend means another road open to us. Even if we can't become friends, there's nothing wrong with treating people kindly. Besides, I don't think that old brother is any ordinary man."
He Tie paused, then quickly asked, "What's so extraordinary about him?"
"He swept the floor after moving into the hut."
"Sweeping the floor makes him extraordinary?"
He Tie scratched his head, baffled.
Exasperated at his failure to improve, Old Man He said, "I'm always telling you to observe people and think things through, but you never listen. Think about it. This old brother didn't forget to sweep the floor even when moving into a place like this. That's enough to show he's a particular sort."
He Tie murmured in acknowledgment, feeling there was some truth to that. Then he thought, So what? Isn't he just a pauper with pretensions?
Mountain foragers like them toiled from dawn to dusk. Aside from some skill with their feet and a discerning eye, they had little ability to speak of. They were generally still within the Three Mortal Passes; reaching Entering Jin was already the limit.
He Tie himself was only at the second realm, Bone Forging. Advancing further was harder than ascending to heaven. After all, he was busy from morning to night, beset by all sorts of trivial tasks, with precious little time to practice. Not to mention that all the money he earned, along with his resources, went into his son He Tong, in the hope of raising an Entering Jin martial artist.
That was the only aspiration he had left in this life.
Judging by Chen Jin's clothing, he was clearly in the same line of work. Never mind being better off-he was plainly doing even worse.
He did not even have a wife.
With that thought, some of the gloom He Tie had felt these past few days dissipated.
After his family retreated to the market, they had considered leaving the mountains. But they had traveled a considerable distance to Stream Mountain this time, only to gain nothing and lose even their travel expenses. They could not quite resign themselves to that. Thinking that things might be fine with the Yan Household holding the fort here, they decided to wait and see for a little while, and so lingered on.
Chen Jin had not accepted that bowl of food partly because he truly was not hungry, and partly because he was unwilling to casually accept favors.
Although every aspect of his condition was no different from a living person's after returning from the dead, he was far from ordinary. With his cultivation, he could feed on Qi.
The "Qi" in question was Yin and Yang Qi: the essence Qi of moonlight and the essence Qi of the sun.
As the scripture said: those who feed on Qi are divine and long-lived.
This was the true Great Dao, the path to immortality.
Back when he studied swordsmanship at the lower courtyard of the Zhongnan Sword Sect, reaching the fourth realm, Aperture Opening, had allowed him to draw Qi into his body. But in his haste to succeed and prove himself, Chen Jin had damaged his Qi Seed, leaving his Dao Path able to reach no further than the seventh realm, Innate.
Now that his Qi and Blood had been reborn, it was tantamount to starting over.
Having another life, how could he repeat the same mistakes?
The Qi Seeds in this world were many and varied, differing in quality and rank. The most commonplace was the refined essence Qi of water and grain, obtainable through everyday food and drink.
Yet this Qi was turbid and contained the most impurities, making it difficult to refine. This was the step referred to as "refining essence into Qi."
Counterpart to the refined essence Qi of water and grain was "Innate Primordial Qi."
This Qi came into being alongside the fetus, and the vast majority of people possessed it.
But possessing it was one thing; being able to preserve it was another.
In ordinary households, this Innate Primordial Qi dissipated within a day or two of a child's birth.
Only certain great clans possessed inherited Secret Methods and precious medicines, beginning all manner of nourishment during gestation. From beginning to end, they constantly expended vast resources to preserve this breath of Qi. When the child was born, they naturally enjoyed exceptional advantages, truly having begun cultivation in the womb and entered the world with a golden key in their mouth.
How unjust the human world was.
Apart from these two kinds of Qi, there were also four-season Qi Seeds, five-element Qi Seeds, six-attribute Qi Seeds, and others.
Different Qi Seeds gave rise to different methods of cultivation, known in brief as "Qi Schools."
Whether great orthodox sects, divine sects and demonic sects, or unorthodox schools and miscellaneous traditions, virtually all were founded upon Qi Schools.
Among them, Yin and Yang Qi undoubtedly ranked among the highest-grade Qi Seeds.
For almost without exception, all those other kinds of Qi Seeds were ultimately cultivated with the aim of refining Yin and Yang Qi.
The transformations of heaven and earth never strayed beyond the Dao of Yin and Yang. How could those be mere words?
Thus, Yin-Yang methods were the true methods of heaven and earth.
The Dragon-Tiger Inner Treasury Mysterious Scripture, for instance.
Having mastered this scripture, Chen Jin needed only to devote himself wholeheartedly to its practice. He no longer thought much of any other Qi Seed methods.
That raised a question: why had he previously forsaken the root to pursue the branches and practiced other paths?
He pondered carefully, only to find a blank. He could not remember. Perhaps the memories and thoughts within his spiritual altar had yet to recover fully, or perhaps some of them had been lost.
He could only set the matter aside for now.
Reborn as a human, he ought to fortify every step and make no more missteps.
First and foremost, he had to hone this body and firmly lay its foundation.
In his youth, Chen Jin's ambitions had towered higher than the heavens. He had always wanted to reach the sky in a single bound, unwilling to lag behind anyone, striving to be first in everything. As a result, he had overlooked many things.
He had competed and competed, only to miss his footing and fall into a pit.
Fortunately, he had managed to climb back out.
Once out, of course he would avenge every wrong and settle every grievance!
For the next two or three days, Chen Jin never stepped outside, practicing diligently within the hut.
Old Man He's family, diagonally opposite, did not venture back into the mountains. They seemed quite idle, and with nothing to do, they sat there letting their thoughts wander.
Old Man He could not help wondering whether Chen Jin had died inside.
Such things were not uncommon. Whether because of illness, a devastating failure or setback, or being driven into a dead end, a person might lose the will to live, then find somewhere to end their life.
Chen Jin's appearance had not looked quite right.
Old Man He wondered whether he should go over and knock again.
He Tie tried to dissuade him. "Dad, why worry about that? You'd be better off thinking about what our family should do next."
Old Man He said, "This is a human life we're talking about."
"Maybe he's just lying in there sleeping and resting. If you disturb him, you'll only earn his resentment."
"Who stays indoors for two or three days, doing nothing but sleeping without eating? He's no immortal!"
"Can't he have brought dry rations?"
Worried that they would get embroiled in trouble, He Tie strongly opposed his father's actions.
As the two continued arguing, the hut's wooden door creaked open, and Chen Jin stepped out.