novelraw Chapter 3 : Qi Refinement
Chapter 3 : Qi Refinement
Chapter 3: Qi Refinement
Xizi Temple was located in the Fangcun Mountain region. It was extremely efficacious for those praying for children, so incense offerings were constant.
Huijue was the child of a farming household at the foot of Fangcun Mountain. His mother was frail, while his father suffered from lung disease and had a hidden ailment in his leg.
Their family was extremely poor. Fearing that after his death there would be no one to care for the child, Huijue’s father sent him to Xizi Temple to become a monk.
Huijue had been sensible since childhood. He recited scriptures with great diligence, earning the favor of the abbot of Xizi Temple, Huiyuan.
Though well-versed in scriptures, Huijue could not understand why prayers for children at Xizi Temple were so effective.
Whenever he asked his master, Huiyuan would always reveal a mysterious smile.
“The women who come to pray for children must kneel in the main hall and chant sutras for an entire night. With such perseverance, even the Bodhisattva would surely be moved.”
One night, while reciting scriptures, Huijue encountered a doubt and went to his master’s room. He found it brightly lit and unlocked.
Thinking his master had not yet rested, he pushed the door open, yet did not see him. After scanning the room, he discovered a tunnel large enough for an adult man to crawl into.
As if guided by something unseen, Huijue crawled into it, moving forward along the passage. Ahead, a wooden board blocked the way, but a gap remained.
At his young age, Huijue witnessed a scene he would never forget.
Dozens of monks surrounded the woman who had come that day to pray for a child.
He did not know what exactly was happening in the main hall. The woman seemed to be in pain, and his master and the elders appeared to be doing something bad.
Yet for some reason, Huijue could not look away. As if possessed, he watched the entire scene.
Even after returning to bed, the image lingered in his mind.
He never spoke of this, keeping it buried deep within his heart.
In the days that followed, every night, he would come near the main hall, crouch by the wooden board with the gap, and secretly watch the scenes unfolding inside.
Just like now—his master lay on the ground, while that young girl of pure and refined beauty examined her fair arm, scraping at it before bringing it to her mouth.
Huijue swallowed, his face burning hot.
He could not help but feel regret—regret for pushing her away and fleeing the ruined temple.
If he had not refused then…
Would the one lying on the ground now be himself?
……
“Ugh—”
Lin Xiaowan lay prone on the ground, vomiting out all the water and charcoal that had absorbed the arsenic from her stomach. She immediately felt refreshed in both body and mind.
“The danger of the arsenic should be resolved. As for the innate defect and the problem of defective spiritual roots… I’ll take it one step at a time.” Lin Xiaowan wiped the corner of her mouth.
Creak—
“The little master is back?”
The wooden door of the ruined temple was pushed open. Hearing the sound, Lin Xiaowan did not turn her head. She quietly stood up and patted the dust from her skirt.
“Y-you… what exactly were you doing with my master? What happened to him?!”
Huijue’s voice trembled. Earlier, this girl had struggled even to sit up. Now she could stand, even calmly brushing dust from her clothes.
Could she really be some mountain demon?!
Lin Xiaowan tilted her head toward the unconscious old monk, then met Huijue’s gaze and said with a smile, “Naturally, matters between a man and a woman… unfortunately, your master’s primordial yang was depleted, so nothing further could be done.”
The young monk trembled violently. He rushed to the old monk’s side, shaking him hard and shouting, “Master! Master! Wake up! Master!”
“Stop shouting. Your master is fine—he’s just asleep.”
“You demon—!”
Huijue’s shout caught in his throat.
With a dull thud, the wooden door closed, cutting off the faint insect sounds of the mountain forest after the rain. He looked up and saw the girl leaning against the door, a faint smile on her pale face.
Moonlight filtered through the broken window lattice, outlining her slender yet upright figure.
“Demoness?”
Lin Xiaowan repeated softly, as if savoring the word, letting out a light laugh.
She walked forward slowly, her skirt brushing the dusty ground, stopping between the unconscious old monk and the trembling young monk.
“Little Master, tell me—what is a demon?”
She crouched down, meeting Huijue’s eyes at the same level, close enough for him to see her long eyelashes clearly.
“Someone like me, struggling to survive?” Her voice was low as a whisper, yet each word was clear. “Or… someone like you, who hid outside from the beginning and watched everything?”
Huijue was struck like lightning, his face turning deathly pale.
“Y-you… how did you know…”
He asked tremblingly, regretting the words the moment they left his mouth.
Lin Xiaowan blinked, showing a look of feigned surprise. “I was just guessing. Who would’ve thought it was actually true? Heh… you master and disciple are really cut from the same mold—both fond of peeping!”
“No! I didn’t!”
Huijue shrank back suddenly, his spine hitting the cold leg of the incense table.
“Whether you did or not, you know it in your heart.” Lin Xiaowan stepped closer. A stream of Mirage Qi condensed in her dantian, and she blew it toward him.
“Hu—”
The young monk’s eyes lost focus. In the next moment, his head drooped, and he fell unconscious.
Lin Xiaowan looked at the master and disciple lying unconscious on the ground. After a moment of thought, she tore the old monk’s kasaya into strips, twisting them into ropes to bind both their hands and feet.
Without delay, she quickly searched through their belongings and sleeves.
She found a heavy coarse cloth money pouch. Weighing it, there were over ten taels of silver fragments and a string of copper coins.
Aside from that, there were only a few spare monk robes, two worn scripture books, and several hard black flour cakes wrapped in oil paper.
Lin Xiaowan went out to fetch water, then sat by the fire, softening the cakes with warm water. She tore off small pieces and ate quietly.
“Am I really going to continue down this path?”
Whether it was seducing the young monk or using Mirage Qi on the old monk to obtain “female essence,” it had all been for survival—done out of necessity.
As the tension of life and death receded like a tide, what surged up was the lingering memory of this body’s original owner, along with her own.
In her previous life, she had been a man. Since coming of age, she had longed for the wonders of the world. Yet human lifespan—barely a hundred years—was insignificant compared to heaven and earth.
Cultivation, immortality… had all been mere fantasies.
Now, her soul had entered a world where spiritual energy truly existed. By chance, she had become a woman.
The path of cultivation lay before her—but this beginning… defective spiritual roots, cast aside by her family like refuse, lacking wealth, companions, techniques, and land. In this unfamiliar world, she could rely only on herself.
“The Profound Essence Scripture, dual cultivation…”
She murmured the words, her fingers unconsciously rubbing the rough ground.
This was not the cultivation she had yearned for…
But in her memories, the elder responsible for testing spiritual roots had stroked his beard and declared in a tone so calm it was almost cruel: “The five elements are mixed and chaotic, the dantian is obstructed—this is the lowest aptitude. Following the proper path, perhaps in ten years you may reach the first layer of Qi Refinement. Girl, accept your fate. Living as a mortal may not be a bad thing.”
Ten years!
Just to reach the first layer of Qi Refinement?
What a joke! Was the spiritual energy of this world truly so thin?
The path of cultivation was so difficult. Even Qi Refinement cultivators had lifespans no different from mortals.
Ten years—for higher cultivators, it was but a snap of the fingers. But for someone like her starting from nothing, it was an unbearably long and hopeless torment.
She could almost see herself sitting in meditation for decades, gathering meager spiritual energy only to have it slip away like sand through an hourglass—until her youth was spent and she achieved nothing, becoming nothing more than a pile of yellow earth.
She refused to accept it.
Compared to her previous life, this world was far more vast—there were mighty beings who could move mountains and seas, wondrous secret realms, and the heavenly Dao that governed all life… Now that she had come here, how could she remain confined and mediocre for a lifetime!?
Yet before her, it seemed there was only the path of cultivating the Profound Essence Scripture.
“I have to try…”
She closed her eyes, sat cross-legged, cleared her mind, and followed the most basic qi-guiding method this body had learned, attempting to sense the spiritual energy drifting between heaven and earth.
The process was far more difficult than she had imagined.
Her consciousness moved as if through thick mud. After a long time, she barely managed to grasp a faint, cool trace of qi.
Joy rose in Lin Xiaowan’s heart as she carefully guided that trace, attempting to lead it through her meridians into her dantian.
However, the moment it entered her body, seventy to eighty percent dissipated immediately. The remainder moved sluggishly.
Even more despairing, when that tiny remnant finally neared her dantian, it leaked away like water from a broken jar.
After guiding qi for two hours, sweat appeared on Lin Xiaowan’s forehead, and her face grew even paler.
She opened her eyes, a trace of deep exhaustion and ruthlessness flashing within them.
As expected—defective spiritual roots were truly defective.
At this rate, forget ten years to reach the first layer of Qi Refinement—whether she could even step into the Qi Refinement stage was uncertain.
Heaven and earth are unkind, treating all things as straw dogs.
The Great Dao is merciless, offering only a single thread of opportunity.
After adjusting her breathing for a moment, her gaze slowly shifted to the unconscious young monk on the ground.
“If dual cultivation alone is not strong enough… perhaps I shouldn’t simply sink into it. I should do everything I can to find a new path.”
She muttered softly, as if giving herself a final reason—a faint retreat.
Taking a deep breath, Lin Xiaowan no longer hesitated.
She walked to the young monk who had been struck by Mirage Qi. Narrowing her eyes, she simultaneously circulated the Cauldron Chapter and the Union Chapter.
She harvested the “female essence” naturally emerging from her body, as well as Huijue’s primordial yang. As expected of a virgin youth, his pure yang was abundant and continuous.
Lin Xiaowan operated the Profound Essence Scripture, harvesting four times in succession. Seeing blood seep from Huijue’s nostrils, she paused after some thought, unwilling to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs.
The girl let out a long breath and rose, returning to the fire. Following the guidance of the Profound Essence Scripture, she refined both the female essence and primordial yang within her body.
At first, nothing unusual happened.
But when she deliberately sank her consciousness inward and directed the refined qi into her dantian—
A sudden transformation occurred!
“Boom—!”
It was as if a blocked river had suddenly burst open, or parched land had been struck by torrential rain.
A stream of qi—far purer and more concentrated than what she had struggled to gather earlier, many times over—surged into her meridians with blazing heat.
This qi was domineering and scorching, forcefully flushing through her blocked channels, filling her empty dantian. Wherever it passed, it brought an almost swelling sense of fullness and power!
In just a few breaths, all the refined qi poured into her dantian, far exceeding tenfold, a hundredfold the amount she had painstakingly gathered earlier!
Lin Xiaowan suddenly opened her eyes. Her chest rose and fell violently—not from exhaustion, but from shock, and a heart-pounding sense of rapid growth.
Her dantian felt warm. A faint yet real trace of qi resided within.
At this rate, if she continued dual cultivation and refinement, she could soon open her qi sea and become a Qi Refinement cultivator.
“The path of dual cultivation… is truly this profound. Compared to bitter cultivation, it is ten times, a hundred times faster!”
Lin Xiaowan panted, subconsciously brushing her disheveled hair behind her ear. Her expression was complicated as she murmured, “After experiencing this… there’s no going back…”
She lowered her head to look at her slightly trembling hands, then raised her gaze toward the vast night sky beyond the broken window.
The hesitation in her eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, resolute clarity.
So this… was the shortcut.
So the despair of defective spiritual roots could truly be broken so easily… in this way.
The ambition for immortality, the longing for a wondrous world, ignited a dark yet blazing fire deep within her heart.