darknovel Chapter 1 Rebirth
Chapter 1 Rebirth
Zhang Lin slowly opened his eyes. What came into view was the mottled wooden beams of the palace roof, with wisps of smoke rising from the bronze incense burner and dissipating into the dark depths of the palace.
He sat cross-legged on the futon, his aura gradually receding, like the tide returning to the sea.
When he entered a meditative state, his internal energy circulated three small cycles on its own, each cycle becoming more refined. In his dantian, the wisp of internal energy had solidified like a silk thread, showing faint signs of breaking through to the middle stage of Qi Refining.
Progress in one's merits and conduct is a joyous occasion.
Zhang Lin showed no joy whatsoever; instead, he frowned slightly, his gaze fixed on his outstretched palm.
These hands, with distinct knuckles and long, slender fingers, were not the hands he had used to hold celadon teacups in his previous life.
The palms have thin calluses, marks left from years of wielding a sword. The original owner of this body, though only sixteen or seventeen years old, had practiced swordsmanship and fist fighting in the courtyard.
Shangqing Temple.
He murmured those three words to himself, a barely perceptible bitter smile appearing on his lips.
After three months of practice, I have successfully guided Qi into my body and stabilized the initial stage of Qi cultivation. Now I have reached the threshold of the middle stage.
Such progress would be considered exceptional talent in any immortal sect.
But Zhang Lin knew that in this small, obscure Shangqing Temple, located in a remote corner of the southeast, what use was rapid progress?
There was no master to guide me, no superior techniques, and no magic pills.
All he had was a rudimentary copy of the "Shangqing Yinqi Jue" (a formula for guiding qi in the upper realms), which he had acquired by spending all his gold and silver.
He raised his head, his gaze passing through the half-closed palace door to the mountain scenery outside.
In late spring, the mountains are lush and verdant, shrouded in mist like gauze, and the clear, melodious cry of a crane can be heard from distant peaks.
Such an ethereal atmosphere, which appears to others as a blessed place for spiritual cultivation, is, in Zhang Lin's eyes, a series of illusions.
Jade palace ruins, stele broken, wild grasses grow in autumn; a wisp of cold smoke mourns kings and nobles.
All worldly affairs are but fleeting dreams; I alone seek immortals amidst the green mountains.
In his previous life, when he read this anonymous poem, he merely smiled and thought it was just the grumbling of a down-on-his-luck scholar.
Now that I'm in the thick of it, I realize how piercing every word is.
The path to enlightenment is far from romantic and carefree; it is a ladder paved with mountains of corpses and seas of blood, where one wrong step leads to eternal damnation.
The original owner of this body is a living example.
Thoughts surged like a tide, and Zhang Lin lowered his eyes as memories that did not belong to him, yet were inextricably linked to him, unfolded in his mind.
The original owner's surname was Zhang and given name was Lin, which was the same as his, saving him the trouble of adapting.
He was from Chuzhou in Huainan Circuit. He came from an official family. His father, Zhang Chongyuan, once served as the Prefect of Chuzhou. Although his official rank was not high, he was still a prominent figure in the local area.
The Zhang family has a long tradition of scholarship and poetry. Although they are not wealthy or powerful, they can still be considered a distinguished and respectable family.
Zhang Lin was intelligent from a young age. He began his formal education at the age of six and could write essays and poems by the age of ten. When he was sixteen, his father arranged a marriage for him with Yu Youwei, the daughter of the Yu family in Chuzhou.
The Yu family ran a medicinal herb business in Chuzhou and were quite wealthy, making them a suitable match for the Zhang family.
Zhang Lin had met the Yu family's daughter once. He only remembered that she had beautiful features, a soft voice like a spring breeze in March, and a girl's shyness when she lowered her head and looked down.
The original owner had no dissatisfaction with the marriage, and even had a faint expectation for it. After all, young people always yearn for days with red candles burning brightly and springtime in the painted hall.
Unfortunately, the good times are not long.
With the wedding date approaching, one rainy night, Zhang Chongyuan called his son into his study, dismissed everyone else, and after a long silence, revealed a secret.
The Zhang family was not an ordinary official family. Their ancestor was a Qi cultivator. Although he did not enter the path of the Great Dao, he left behind a lineage.
Zhang Chongyuan himself was the inheritor of this lineage, having practiced rudimentary breathing techniques, but due to his mediocre talent, he failed to achieve anything significant.
The original owner had studied the classics since childhood, learning the principles of self-cultivation, family harmony, and national governance. Suddenly, someone told him that there were indeed immortals and the art of immortality in the world, and that such a possibility flowed in his blood.
The shock and bewilderment almost crushed the sixteen-year-old boy.
Zhang Chongyuan told him that his marriage to Yu Youwei was not simply a matter of matching social status.
The reason why the Yu family runs a medicinal herb business in Chuzhou has another reason behind it. The ancestors of the Yu family were also Qi practitioners, and there are still practitioners in the family today, but they are kept very secret and outsiders have no way of knowing.
The marriage between the two families is not only a marriage in the secular sense, but also an alliance on the path of spiritual cultivation.
After listening in a daze, the original owner suddenly felt that everything had changed, and that the world was full of interests and calculations.
The soft-spoken daughter of the Yu family, with her shy and timid eyes, was actually just a tiny, insignificant part of this transaction.
She wasn't marrying him as a person, but rather for the Zhang family lineage; he wasn't marrying her as a person, but rather for the cultivation resources behind the Yu family.
That night, the original owner sat in the study all night.
The next morning, he did not go to see his father. Instead, he left a letter announcing his departure from home, carried a bundle, and left Chuzhou City alone.
He wanted to go up the mountain to seek the Tao.
It's not about inheriting ancestral techniques as a member of the Zhang family, nor is it about exchanging marriage for cultivation resources.
He had to find his own path, a path that truly belonged to him, and then he died on the mountain path leading to Shangqing Temple.
When he was discovered by the people in the Taoist temple, he was already the Zhang Lin of today.
As Zhang Lin perused these memories, he felt both wistful and somewhat absurd.
A sixteen-year-old boy, full of passion, abandons his family and career for the so-called pure path of seeking truth. This courage is not without admirable qualities, but it is also quite naive.
In short, it all boils down to one word: rebellion.
Is there any pure path to enlightenment in this world?
The four essential elements of spiritual practice are wealth, companions, Dharma, and location. Which one does not require careful management and maneuvering?
While Zhang Chongyuan's arrangement of his son's marriage and planning of his future certainly involved some calculation, ultimately, what father wouldn't want to pave a good path for his son?
However, these thoughts only flashed through Zhang Lin's mind for a moment before dissipating.
Having taken over this body, he assumed all the causes and effects of this body.
Whether the original owner's choice was right or wrong is no longer important; what matters is how he forges a path to survival based on that choice.
The place he was in was called Shangqing Temple, a small Taoist temple built in the mountains of southeastern China. It was not large, with only about twenty people.
The abbot was an old Taoist priest in the late stage of Qi Refining. His disciples were of mediocre talent and had rudimentary skills. They were probably not even considered bottom-tier in the entire cultivation world.
The original owner chose this place probably because his youthful ambition made him think that he could cultivate anywhere in the world.
During the three months Zhang Lin had been there, he followed the Taoist priests in the temple every day to practice the "Shangqing Yinqi Jue" (a Taoist manual for guiding qi into the body), meditating and breathing exercises on time, and honestly guiding qi into his body.
Although he had no cultivation experience, the aptitude of this body was indeed quite good.
In just three months, he went from knowing nothing to reaching the early stage of Qi Refining, and his internal Qi began to take shape, which could be considered as having barely entered the path of cultivation.
But Zhang Lin knew in his heart that this was just the beginning, or even the beginning at all; it was merely the first step in a long march.
The practices at Shangqing Temple are too rudimentary.
That scroll of "Shangqing Qi-Guiding Technique" only goes up to the late stage of Qi Refining before abruptly ending, and doesn't mention any of the subsequent stages.
The most powerful abbot in the temple is only at the late stage of Qi Refining, and has been stuck at that hurdle for more than 20 years, never able to reach the threshold of Qi Refining Perfection.
What decent disciples can be produced by such a lineage?
Moreover, even for the Qi Refining stage of cultivation, the resources required are astronomical.
Spirit stones, elixirs, magical artifacts, and cultivation manuals—none of them are free.
As Zhang Lin was calculating the resources he needed, a voice suddenly echoed in his mind.
"Ding, the Creation System has been successfully bound."
"By borrowing the power of spirit stones, one can turn decay into wonder; pills, spiritual plants, physical bodies... all can be strengthened."
Zhang Lin stared blankly at the light screen in front of him. After a long while, he finally came back to his senses from the shock, and then an uncontrollable joy surged in his heart.
"Heaven has not forsaken Zhang Lin!"
He loved reading online novels in his previous life, and this system was a life cheat code.
His system had no tasks, no punishment for obliteration, and only required one word—money.