Chapter Thirty-Two: Contemplation of the Fire Aperture Visualization

At last, Chen Yu chose several sturdy, heavily blossoming ones and poured spiritual energy into them.

With his spirit strengthened, the speed at which he drew out that energy increased dramatically, and recovery became far easier as well.

Even so, to this day he still had not penetrated the vague veil that shrouded it. Hidden in the tide of consciousness, that veil could only be stilled through meditation, entering the realm of first light, where the roiling waves would settle and its true face be revealed.

But setting aside the fact that entering first light was not always easy, even if he did see it, it would be of little use. His mental power could not pierce it, and he had yet to locate the place within the consciousness space where it resided.

The complexity of the brain far exceeded that of the internal organs. He did not dare make any great move; even when directing his mental power, he could only let it drift around the areas near the cranial palace. As for the depths of consciousness, he still lacked the courage to explore them.

There had been a few times when his mental power had voluntarily descended into that hazy chaos, only to vanish without a trace, as though cut off.

After trying twice, he no longer bothered wasting effort on it.

“One day I’ll uncover it myself.”

There were too many unknowns and mysteries in the mental realm. Coupled with the literary influences of two lifetimes, he always felt that delving into the mind’s potential was boundless and full of promise.

And now that he had returned to the mountain, many of his earlier ideas could finally be put on the agenda, such as fashioning a little figure within the cranial palace.

“Once my primordial spirit is fully formed, I will surely reflect the great thousand worlds!”

He muttered words no ordinary person could understand. In any case, that was roughly what he meant.

Suppressing those pointless, unfounded reveries, Chen Yu turned his head and found the foolish deer staring blankly at him. His expression twitched; fortunately, the other side probably had no idea what he had been saying.

He rubbed the deer’s head furiously.

He kept at it until the little deer could no longer endure it and sprang away in escape. Only then did he clasp his hands behind his back and walk toward the rear courtyard.

The primordial spirit described in the Daoist texts was wondrous beyond measure, something ordinary people could not refine. But none of that was an issue for Chen Yu, because he had no idea whether the little figure he was fashioning even counted as the so-called primordial spirit.

Whether anything truly marvelous would manifest after it took residence in the cranial palace was also unknown.

“We’ll see later. Perhaps it will prove useful.”

Beyond fashioning a little figure in the cranial palace, he also had plans for the five viscera. At first, he had intended to use embryonic breathing to build pathways between the organs, imitating a method of drawing out evil energies recorded in a certain classic, while also aligning with the Daoist principles of the five phases, mutual generation and restraint, and endless circulation.

But after he acquired the qi seed, that idea was cast aside, no longer worth the trouble.

“The liver has already condensed a qi seed. The other four places need to be done too.”

And that was not all. The six bowels could not be neglected either. If conditions allowed, he wanted to plant some in the great acupoints of the human body as well.

Ever since discovering that he could not find, in the short term, the legendary lower dantian where qi could reside, Chen Yu had been thinking of treating every acupoint and joint he could discover as a reserve dantian.

Though they lacked the miraculous transcendence of the upper and lower dantians, these places at least were tied to the flesh and blood body. Once qi seeds were placed within them, who knew what might happen.

It should be a good thing.

At the very least, it could speed up the body’s absorption of qi and thereby strengthen the physique.

Chen Yu thought the idea was quite good indeed. He even considered arranging them according to the positions of the heavenly stars, filling them little by little. If so, then once spiritual fluid was absorbed, the scene under the gaze of mental power would surely be astonishing.

Of course, all of that remained in the realm of imagination and was still a long way from realization.

Most of all, the acupoints of the human body were not as numerous as the stars in the heavens and could not be arranged however one pleased.

So for now, it was nothing more than idle fancy born of boredom.

...

Back courtyard, herb field.

Spring millet stood tall across the plots.

This field had been tended well. A great deal of effort had gone into its care earlier on, so even after ten days away from the mountain, there was still not much weed growth to be seen.

Stepping carefully between the rows, Chen Yu plucked up the scattered wild grasses and tossed them aside while crouching to inspect the young crops in detail.

Before leaving, he had scattered the spring millet seeds nurtured with spiritual fluid into the field, then poured out a bag of spiritual fluid diluted with well water.

Now the growth was gratifying, far surpassing the grain he had seen down the mountain.

One could already see that some of the stalks were beginning to form ears. And this after only ten days—it was clear how fast they were growing.

Yet not everything was satisfactory.

Chen Yu looked toward one corner of the herb field.

There, there was no spring millet, only a stretch of withered stems.

That was the section where he had deliberately withheld the spiritual fluid. The result was obvious: everything had died and failed to mature.

Looking at it, the cause seemed to be insufficient fertility. But this herb field was already among the rarest of good plots on the mountain, and even so it still could not meet the demand.

Was it because of the spiritual-fluid catalysis?

Chen Yu suspected that this batch of grain seeds, cultivated with spiritual fluid, had seen their need for fertility—or rather, for spiritual fluid—magnified greatly. Ordinary soil simply could not support them.

After understanding this, he could not help sighing. He had thought he might gain a new high-yield, fast-maturing crop, but it seemed he was still far from that. Even if the field before him truly produced a thousand catties per acre, it would still be confined to the mountain.

Others had no spiritual fluid to use as fertilizer.

“Still, it’s enough to feed myself.”

What he did not know was how these millet grains, nurtured by spiritual fluid, would taste.

Though curious, Chen Yu was not greedy enough to yank up an unripe handful just for a taste. He stood up, gathered a bundle of long green grasses—these, too, had absorbed spiritual fluid, their blades large, tender, and vividly green—and took them to the little deer, feeding it for a while.

As daylight dimmed and lost its brightness, Chen Yu returned to the temple to cook, while the little deer departed into the depths of the forest.

...

May eighteenth, overcast and rainy.

Seated beneath the eaves in a long robe, he gazed out at the distant sky.

He had been down the mountain for ten days without seeing a drop of rain. On the return journey, there had been at most a fierce wind, but the clouds had never managed to break.

And now, the moment he came back up the mountain, the rain began to fall. Heaven’s timing was remarkably precise.

In front of him lay an open Daoist manual.

Chen Yu read with care. During his first two days back on the mountain, he had sorted through his gains, and after that he immersed himself in the books he had brought home. Since there were so few books on the mountain, the scriptures he chose to carry back were all fairly substantial, stacked thickly.

Added to the four books gifted by Daoist Jiang, there were a total of more than twenty volumes, all placed on the wooden shelf in the storage room.

They leaned against the original collection of Daoist texts there.

At the moment, however, he was reading the book Daoist Jiang had taken pains to introduce and explain: The Contemplation of the Fire Aperture Through Visualization.

Visualization was a term that had only risen to prominence in Daoist circles in recent times. In his memory, the old Daoist had only spoken of meditation, of seeking self-knowledge. As for methods of placing other things before one’s mind’s eye and observing oneself thereby, he had rarely mentioned or taught them.

In truth, as Daoist Jiang had said, this was a method derived from Buddhism, also called contemplative visualization or the sending forth of thought.

Of course, Daoism in ancient times had not lacked methods of entrusting the mind to external things and refining spirit through them. It was simply that those methods had long since vanished, and after centuries of iteration, the remnants that remained had become ever more theatrical and mystifying.

The whole thing was wrapped in mumbo-jumbo; no proper Daoist practiced it. Likely only the wandering shamans and witch-women of the countryside would bother studying it.

The Contemplation of the Fire Aperture Through Visualization did not contain much. Even its visualization techniques were incomplete. Yet Chen Yu himself was not interested in this style of practice. What captivated him instead were the explanations concerning the great apertures within the inner abode.

Even after a cursory reading, he felt inspiration bursting forth uncontrollably in his mind.