Chapter Ninety-One: Sealed Earth, Refined Yin Demon

Jiming did not know that the couplet he had composed had not yet reached the Master before it caught the attention of a young maiden.

Even if he had known, he would not likely have cared.

In the Fire Ruins Cavern, he needed only keep watch over the Master; the rest were of no consequence to him.

In the thatched hut, the two attendant boys did not complain about the crude surroundings. On the contrary, they served with even greater care, for within this Bone-Piercing Garden, all honor and disgrace truly issued from the Golden Boy.

The garden gate was shut. Jiming began preparing the next step of the Small Circulation: opening the Conception and Governing vessels, also known as building the Double Bridge.

The step before had been to advance the yang fire and retreat the yin talisman, driving vital essence and energy through the two channels, a total of fifty-two acupoints.

Yet once this vital essence passed through, the acupoints of the two channels did not remain open. This next step was to make them permanently unobstructed.

In the shamaness's annotated scriptures there was a line: "Though breath be abundant, without spirit there is no radiance in the body, and the person is without life. Therefore spirit is the sovereign, and the upper burner must be emptied."

Jiming had investigated this statement. The upper burner chiefly refers to the region of the heart and lungs, whose main function is to diffuse and distribute vital essence and energy throughout the body, nourishing all things as dew and mist do in nature; hence the saying, "The upper burner is like mist."

Thus Jiming took the meaning to be this: even if vital essence is abundant, without spirit to govern it, the flesh loses its purity, and the person likewise loses their naturalness. Therefore spirit is the sovereign of all human faculties, and the key lies within the heart and lungs.

The shamaness's annotations did not explain the connection between this line and the opening of the two channels in the Small Circulation, which was why Jiming had delayed practicing this step for so long.

It was as if someone had given you the question and the answer, yet you could never, no matter what, derive the already-given answer from the question itself.

In cultivation, nothing was more to be feared than not seeking true understanding. If one dares to muddle through cultivation today, cultivation will muddle through one tomorrow; in the end, one may fall into demonic deviation, perish body and soul, and there will be no one else to blame.

The shamaness's annotations were already the best and most detailed volume in Jiming's possession. The other disciples' writings from the garden need not even be looked at.

It was a pity. If he had Yu Xiao's annotations, he could compare the two books against one another and derive the final known correct answer from them.

At present he had two options: first, seek help from Wei Wulan, even from the Master; second, use the ritual method to decode the talisman diagram, thereby obtaining his own annotations.

Of the two, Jiming naturally leaned toward the second. It was the most direct approach, and it would also deepen his understanding of ritual methods.

For now Jiming had learned two kinds of fasting rituals. One was the "Earth-Sealing Rite," commonly practiced among wandering cultivators and the general public; the other was the "Scorpion Heart Fasting Rite" he had obtained from Yu Xiao.

The latter required inviting the Pan Immortals and was extremely costly, so it was not suitable for use. He would therefore employ the most common Earth-Sealing Rite to decipher the talisman diagram.

Having settled on his plan, Jiming sent the two boys, Heron and Skylark, to borrow several ghost attendants of the Yin Earth from the Fire Ruins Cavern, so that he could heap up earth and set an altar in the garden.

Before long, indistinct and substantial figures slipped into the garden, numbering several dozen in all.

These spirits from the Yin Earth beneath Mount Qiheng were each complete in form, with fully formed shadow-bodies. If placed in Guhuo Prefecture, they would absolutely count as fierce ghosts.

Only within this famed mountain and divine peak could they be so docile, willing to serve cultivators and labor here, opening caverns and raising halls.

Seeing these ghost attendants, Jiming thought of his three little ghosts. Their shadow-bodies were not as complete as these, but in his previous life he had used them just as readily.

The ghost attendants moved through the plum grove, and according to Jiming's instructions, quickly piled up a mound of earth.

The whole mound was split down the middle, with a hollow inside large enough for two or three people to sit within.

Such an earth mound was the altar form of the Earth-Sealing Rite. Of course, there were many improved versions, but the effect was more or less the same.

Jiming donned a daoist robe and stood before the mound, holding a clay bowl in his hands. Inside was a mass of sloppy, wet yellow mud.

The two boys, Heron and Skylark, carefully held ceremonial banners on either side. The banners were made of yellow cloth, on which blessings and hymns to the Heavenly Venerable Ones were written in cinnabar.

Before the altar, Jiming held the walking steps of the Southern Dipper constellations in his heart, and his feet naturally traced the Gang Step.

Opening the altar and treading the stars to step the Gang were accomplished in one breath. What followed were the incantation and the summoning of the sacred.

Jiming felt somewhat nervous. Though he knew that this so-called summoning of the sacred was merely invoking a trace of divine thought-power from the "Heavenly Venerable of the Three Primes" dispersed across the Three Heavens, that figure was still one of the highest divine presences in this world.

The praise incantation to the Heavenly Venerable of Deliverance from Suffering flowed from his lips, sometimes chanted, sometimes sung, harmonizing with the Gang Step beneath his feet like an ancient sacrificial dance.

"The Heavenly Venerable of the Three Primes is beyond measure, his body robed in starlight through the Three Heavens. Five-colored auspicious clouds rise beneath his feet, while the nine-colored divine salamander goes before his law. Sweet dew is ever shed within his palace, and in his hand he bears the wish-fulfilling scepter beyond count of autumns. In every land that seeks the Dharma, in every land he answers; amid the sea of suffering, he forever ferries living beings across."

The two boys clutched the banners, sensing something burrowing beneath the ground, threading straight into the earth mound as if waiting there solely for the one performing the rite.

These things were absolutely not human. Could they be... ghosts?

Around the mound, those drifting ghost attendants fled like startled birds, darting rapidly beyond the plum grove.

Whatever was clawing up from underground filled even these ghost attendants, raised within the Fire Ruins Cavern, with an inexplicable terror.

Jiming stepped forward and entered the mound. Joining two fingers, he scooped up a clump of wet mud from the clay bowl and smeared it over his eyes, ears, nose, and even mouth.

Within the hollow beneath the mound, the talisman diagram of the Small Circulation had already been hung.

Jiming sat cross-legged inside. Outside, the two boys immediately waved their banners, and the frightened ghost attendants surged in once more, sealing the mound tightly and thoroughly.

His mouth and nose were clogged with wet mud, preventing him from breathing, but this caused Jiming no trouble for the moment.

With his present physique, holding his breath for half an hour was nothing. As for a Golden Core adept like the Master, even if his shadow-spirit traveled out while his flesh remained still, the body would not rot even after months of inactivity, but remain full of vitality.

Rustle, rustle.

The sealed hollow was like a coffin beneath a grave mound. Jiming could hear faint sounds, so slight that they seemed to be lightly scratching at the hardening yellow mud beside his ear.

"Is this... a yin demon?"

Jiming had heard that within fasting rites, there were occasions when yin demons would question the heart. That was a trial sent down when the divine truly took note.

Such situations often arose from the one performing the rite being especially skilled or innovative in the fasting ceremony, or from some exceptional gift in the performer themself.

Jiming could roughly guess that his identity as a Heaven-man had caused that trace of divine thought invited here to favor him especially, and thus it had summoned yin demons.

"Yin demons!"

Jiming, still seated cross-legged, moved his mind, and his body moved with it.

One palm lifted. His flawless six-fingered hand unfurled within the sleeve, and a jade-green bead slowly floated and steadied within his palm.

Within the bead, a streak of gray-silver light blossomed.

Jiming's movement provoked the yin demons. This violated the proper course of the heart-questioning trial; he should have endured their torment to demonstrate his devotion to the Heavenly Venerable of the Three Primes and his sincerity in seeking the Dharma.

Before they could grow angry, the light within the jade bead burst forth. A round radiance expanded, hovering above his palm, and shone upon the yin demon gnawing at his ear.

Ah!

A shriek rang out beneath the mound. Outside, the two boys hunched their shoulders and could barely remain standing, propped up by the banners.

The yin demon struck by the gray-silver radiance froze rigidly in place. Its yellowed and decayed bone hand clutched at its chest, and it felt as though its heart had begun beating again.

It looked toward the radiance and saw its reflection there.

At the reflected heart, the rotten flesh had been peeled away, revealing a living peach-shaped heart inside, beating madly.

Pop.

With a soft sound, the heart in the round radiance burst apart.

Outside, the yin demon's shadow-body also collapsed inch by inch, dissolving into a mass of dead yin-demonic miasma that fell into the round light.

Yin demons usually wandered deep in the Yin Earth and seldom ventured into the world of the living. Like leviathans in the ocean depths, they were rarely seen by cultivators.

Only in fasting rites graced by the attention of divine thought would yin demons be drawn near.

Though they possessed neither spirit nor intelligence, more like beasts roaming the Yin Earth, they were still filled with deathly qi, yin qi, and a trace of demonic essence. Truly, they were treasures from head to toe.

Especially for left-hand-path yin treasures, or certain special secret arts, they were excellent nourishment.

He had only ever read in some idle book about slaying yin demons in a fasting rite to refine treasures. He had not expected to experience it firsthand today.

The remaining two yin demons had intended to flee at once by instinct, but that same instinct told them this was a summons followed under the regard of divine thought, and that they could not escape until they had undergone the heart-questioning.

Jiming turned the round radiance and happily took in the remaining two yin demons.

It felt as though he had exploited a loophole in the fasting rite. One of the joys of cultivation lay precisely in these novel experiences and gains.