Chapter Thirty-One: Blossoms at Their Peak

In the Daoist tradition, the middle cinnabar field lies at the Heavenly Curtain point and corresponds with the Spirit Terrace point below the sixth vertebra of the spine. In the scriptures, this place plays a great role, linked above to the twelve tiers of the throat and below to the hollow aperture of the Mysterious Hall, connecting the upper and lower cinnabar fields and counted among the vital points.

But in Chen Yu's eyes, it was something else entirely.

In the murky haze, his vision was empty and dim. Threads of spiritual essence passed through the liver, were refined and absorbed by the joints, blossoming with a faint radiance. Reflected within the body, it was as brilliant as a starry sky.

Yet these nodes were far too ordinary, not the elusive realm half real, half illusory that he sought. Whether acupoints or seams, they were all nothing but flesh and tissue, with no trace of anything strange.

The Heavenly Curtain point, so heavily emphasized in the Daoist texts, was the same.

Supreme Yang, Divine Way, Body Pillar, Furnace Road...

Moving upward all the way, past the Great Pivot point and to the neck, then further still into the domain of the brain, which belonged to the range of the upper cinnabar field; the middle cinnabar field should not be adjoining it so closely.

His spiritual power surged forth, descending from the Palace of the Muddy Pellet and spreading through every part of his body, sweeping through him entirely.

Chen Yu kept searching, but still found nothing.

...

Snap!

He patted the greedy little deer on the head and dragged it out from beneath the peach tree.

In ancient times there was the bull chewing peonies; he had not expected that one day he would witness a scene fit to be compared with it.

Was it really that delicious?

The little deer was chased aside, let out a few plaintive cries, and then watched as Chen Yu reached into the cluster of blossoms, plucked off a petal, and put it into his mouth.

At first his expression was full of curiosity; then it slowly collapsed into a grimace.

So bitter!

He looked at the foolish deer. How did it manage to gorge itself with such a carefree face?

Besides, he remembered that peach blossoms were not supposed to taste like this. Chen Yu stared at the tree, beginning to suspect he had planted the wrong thing entirely; this did not seem to be a peach tree at all.

Huh? After chewing a few bites and just about spitting it out, he suddenly felt something strange in his throat.

A streak of heat rose at the tongue, then slipped down with the saliva into his stomach.

Warmth surged upward, and before he could sense it carefully, it had vanished again in an instant.

The sensation was extremely faint. Had his spiritual power not been enveloping his body, he would likely never have noticed it.

After thinking for a moment, Chen Yu, under the little deer's watchful gaze, plucked another dozen or so petals, stripping several blossoms nearly bare.

He casually gathered them together, pinched off a strand, and put them into his mouth to chew gently.

The bitterness exploded in his mouth, so fierce that his brows instantly knotted together. Wrinkling up his face, he opened his mouth wide and stomped in circles on the spot.

This taste...

He dared not savor it too closely. Once the heat began to rise, Chen Yu immediately released his spiritual power, pressing it tightly against his throat.

His search for the middle cinnabar field had recently reached a bottleneck and yielded no clue at all. He had searched every part of his body, examined no fewer than a thousand acupoints and joints of all sizes, and not one matched his intention.

None of them were the imagined "cinnabar field."

Yet the repeated search had not been without benefit.

At the very least, his control over spiritual power had improved considerably. He could already circulate it through the heavens and the earth, fill every part of his body, and even reach some of the most peripheral areas.

At this moment, he guided his ever-stronger spiritual power to follow the heat past the throat and intestines, and finally into the stomach.

A little curious, after all, the human body was intricate and precise; perhaps this accident would bring some gain.

In the next instant, a silver-gray halo invisible to the naked eye coiled over his flesh, wrapping the entire stomach within it. A soft force was quietly awakened. Since it had not yet been tempered to the level of the liver, its strength was not great; he merely wanted to see what reaction it would produce.

The mucous membrane was washed by acid, and a bit of force spread outward, tearing through flesh and tissue. Yet it did not hurt, because he was controlling it himself; the wound was extremely slight, insignificant to his body.

And at the very moment the wound appeared, the heat submerged in the gastric fluid drilled into the flesh like a worm, clinging to the torn area and causing it to heal rapidly.

The whole process, though cumbersome in description, was in truth extremely swift. Under Chen Yu's spiritual perception, it seemed only a few breaths later that the marks raised by the force were already gone.

At the same time, that heat dissipated as well.

Hoo.

Opening his eyes, he focused on the peach tree before him, and joy had already deepened across his face.

"Just when I needed it, here it comes."

These past days he had been thinking that spiritual fluid was not very effective for healing, and had planned to carefully select some spirit plants to see whether he could cultivate something related through spiritual vitality. He had not expected one to appear right before his eyes.

"No wonder you keep pressing yourself against this peach tree every day."

Looking at the little deer, Chen Yu laughed and scolded it. At last he had found the source; so it had been greedy for the tree's healing effect.

That explained the unusual way the little deer's own injuries had healed.

He glanced at the peach tree, which already had one bare side. It should have been soft pink and lovely, but now it was disheveled and ragged, with the largest and most gorgeous blossoms all ruined by that greedy little deer. The remaining flowers might well be far less effective than before.

Having understood the whole story, Chen Yu knew that the peach tree in front of the courtyard had been planted by generations of people in the temple. It was nothing remarkable, merely the most common wild peach found both up and down the mountain.

Now that it possessed such strange efficacy, he guessed it must have something to do with the thread of spiritual vitality he had infused into it before descending the mountain.

"I thought it would grow immortal peaches that prolong life. I never expected to accidentally produce peach blossoms that nurture the body and heal the flesh."

He could not help sighing at the mystery of the world. Still, he could not say for certain whether the peaches that eventually grew from these blossoms would possess even stronger medicinal power.

He would have to wait and observe later.

Before that, however...

Chen Yu went to the woodshed, took a few pieces of wood, and nailed them around the peach tree, then encircled it with old coarse cloth for protection.

The little deer came up close, stretching its head high and straining with all its might to get inside.

Rubbing its soft little belly, he pushed it away.

"This is exactly what I am guarding against."

By now he could see it clearly: this deer was very unusual, at least in terms of fortune it was not lacking.

On several occasions, the spirit plants he cultivated with spiritual vitality had not been touched by him at all; every last one had been sampled fresh by this fellow instead.

And it ate voraciously and indiscriminately, with no qualms at all about berries, green grass, tender leaves, or even flowers. Anything it could eat, it swallowed.

Chen Yu estimated that if it had not previously eaten the purging herb for the intestines, it would likely have already been laid low by the toxins accumulating in its body.

"What a resilient little thing."

Seeing the greedy little deer unable to enter and forced to stand outside the fence, crying softly at the peach tree, he smiled and turned back into the courtyard, walking toward the pine and pear trees on either side of the gravel path.

The pine stood upright, lean and straight, with a fine bearing; unfortunately, it was too short, only about half a head taller than Chen Yu.

As for the pear tree, it had blossomed early, but now there were not many flowers left on its branches. They were probably already fallen to the ground and turned into nourishment.

One could still faintly make out a few half-decayed petals on the scattered stones.

Standing before the two trees, he stroked his chin in thought. Since even the peach tree could possess such wonder, what of the pine and pear trees that had likewise been infused with spiritual vitality?

After searching for a while, Chen Yu took a section of pine needle and a lone pear blossom, one of the few remaining.

The result proved that the changes in these two might not be the same as with the peach tree, but could lie in other respects.

"Not bad in taste."

The pear blossom, in both fragrance and texture, was far better than the catalyzed peach blossom. It was not nearly as bitter, but at the same time it had no wondrous effect either.

Chen Yu had no habit of eating things recklessly, so after a brief test he stopped.

The effects of spiritual vitality on the two trees were still unclear, but since he now had peach blossoms capable of healing injuries, he naturally needed to gather more of them.

At first there had been only a single lonely tree standing at the edge, and the foolish deer had eaten much of it, leaving a bare patch.

Besides, he was planning to wait for the peaches to form and be harvested, so there truly would not be much available.