Spirit Plant Entry: Immortality Begins with Farming

When the morning fog was at its thickest, there was a knock on the door of the thatched hut.

It wasn't a knock, but the sound of fingernails scraping against a wooden board, creaking and scraping, slow and rough, like a dull knife scraping bone. One sound, three breaths' pause, then another.

Chen Yuan opened his eyes, but didn't move. His fist stopped half an inch from his chest, his skin was bluish-purple, and sweat and blood mixed with salt water dripped down.

A voice came from outside the door, dry and hoarse like two pieces of sandpaper: "Yin Jiu, are you there?"

It's neither the languid charm of Hong Gu nor the somber composure of Yin Jiu.

It's a different kind of flatness—lifeless flatness, each word as if dug out of a grave and then dried before being spoken.

Chen Yuan withdrew his fist, grabbed a tattered shirt draped over the bed, and put it on. The fabric rubbed against his wound, but he didn't even flinch.

He walked to the door, placed his hand on the latch, paused for a moment, and then slowly pulled it open.

There was a person standing outside the door.

A black robe, but not the kind of black that blends into the night like Yin Jiu's.

The man's black robe was washed until it was grayish, the cuffs were frayed, and the hem was still covered with dried mud.

He was tall and thin, with a slightly hunched back. His face was hidden in the shadow of his hood, and only the lower half of his face could be seen—his skin was pale, his lips were light purple, and there were two deep nasolabial folds at the corners of his mouth, as if they had been carved by a knife.

Behind him stood two "things".

Not a living person.

It wasn't a completely dead person.

They wore tattered gray clothes, their exposed skin was bluish-gray and covered with dark purple lividity.

The eye sockets were empty, but deep inside, a tiny green flame flickered.

They stood upright, their arms hanging at their sides, their fingernails long, black, and curled.

Corpse puppet.

Chen Yuan's gaze lingered on the two corpse puppets for a moment before returning to the black-robed man's face: "You've come to the wrong door."

His voice was calm, as if he were talking about the weather this morning.

The man in the black robe didn't move. The shadow under the hood turned towards him, as if scrutinizing him. That gaze was devoid of warmth, like the hand of a dead man touching your face.

"Yin Jiu has been here." This is not a question.

"Many people have come here," Chen Yuan said. "People who come to buy rice at the market, neighbors who come to borrow salt, and people who come to ask for directions."

"He left something here." The man in black robes took half a step forward, his withered hand emerging from his sleeve. The hand was as white as if it had been soaking in water for three days, and black mud was stuck under his fingernails. He opened his palm, and there lay a small piece of broken jade—a fragment of the Soul-Suppressing Pendant.

Chen Yuan glanced at it but didn't say anything.

"The Soul-Suppressing Pendant of the Yellow Springs Gate is shattered, and there are remnants of Yin Jiu's unique soul imprint." The black-robed man's voice remained calm, but every word sounded like evidence of a crime. "He used forbidden techniques here. And you? Are you his 'furnace,' or... 'material'?"

As the last two words were uttered, the green flames in the empty eye sockets of the two corpse puppets suddenly leaped.

Chen Yuan didn't back down. He stepped aside to let the door open: "Come in and take a look."

The man in black robes did not move.

"Afraid?" Chen Yuan asked.

"Be careful," the man in black robes corrected. He raised his hand, and the corpse puppet on the left stiffly stepped across the threshold. The movement was uncoordinated, and the joints made a soft creaking sound, like rusty mechanisms.

The corpse puppet circled the thatched hut, its empty eye sockets scanning every corner—the empty bed, the broken table, the water vat, and the pot of blood ginseng in the corner.

Finally, it stopped in front of the blood ginseng, tilted its head, and the green flame flickered more rapidly.

The man in black robes then stepped in.

He walked slowly, each step firm and deliberate, as if confirming that the ground wouldn't collapse.

As he passed by Chen Yuan, Chen Yuan smelled a scent—old incense ash, damp grave soil, and a very faint, sweet, putrid odor.

The man in black robes stopped in front of the blood ginseng, bent down, and held his withered white fingers above the leaves without touching them.

"Golden-Veined Blood Ginseng... Yin and Yang in symbiosis." He said in a low voice, his voice carrying a different tone for the first time—not surprise, but a cold assessment. "Yin Jiu's work? No, he couldn't have refined something so 'clean.' You used another method."

"Watering, fertilizing, and sunbathing," Chen Yuan said, "the methods of farming."

The man in the black robe straightened up, the shadow under his hood facing him: "Farming can't produce yin and yang symbiosis."

"This is a forbidden technique. It requires drawing the earth's fiery energy, fusing the obsessions of living souls, and..." He paused, "...it requires someone to willingly act as a 'bridge' to ferry the soul source across, bearing the backlash themselves."

He turned around to face Chen Yuan.

Chen Yuan finally saw the face under the hood—around forty years old, with ordinary features, but his eyes were grayish-white with extremely small pupils, like pinpoints.

The whites of his eyes were covered with fine blood vessels, and if you looked at them for a long time, you could feel that the blood vessels were wriggling.

"Yin Jiu can't do it," the man in black said. "He's too greedy. He wants to refine the Blood Ginseng and preserve his Soul Source at the same time; in the end, he'll lose both. And you? How much backlash have you suffered?"

Chen Yuan didn't answer. He walked to the table, picked up a ladle, scooped up half a ladle of cold water, and slowly took a sip.

"You're his senior," he said, not asking.

The man in black robes was silent for a moment: "Yin Jiu told you?"

"He mentioned the Yellow Springs Gate." Chen Yuan put down the water ladle. "He said that you ghost cultivators seek to 'retain.' Retain love, retain memories, retain that tiny bit of tenderness you don't want to let go of."

The man in black robes let out a short, coughing laugh: "He's right. That's why he stole Master's 'Soul-Nourishing Coffin' and turned my junior sister's corpse into a living corpse, wanting to bring her 'back to life'."

"Junior sister?" Chen Yuan recalled the story Yin Jiu had told.

"She is my junior sister, and also his Daoist partner." The black-robed man's gray eyes stared into the void, as if looking at something very far away. "One hundred and thirty-seven years ago, in the inner sect of the Yellow Springs Sect in the Western Desert, there were three disciples. I cultivated 'Soul Suppression,' he cultivated 'Corpse Nourishment,' and she... cultivated 'Rebirth.'"

He paused, his voice still flat, but something beneath it was slowly cracking: "The Rebirth Technique requires severing worldly ties, which she couldn't. Before her final seclusion, she begged me: 'Senior brother, if I fail, don't let him do anything foolish.'"

Chen Yuan remained silent. The only sound in the thatched hut was the occasional soft cracking of the corpse puppet's joints.

"She failed," the man in black continued. "Her soul dissipated, and her body turned to ash. Yin Jiu sat holding that handful of ash for three days, and then went to steal the Soul-Nourishing Coffin—the treasure of the Yellow Springs Sect, capable of nourishing remnant souls and reshaping the body. But he didn't know, or rather, didn't care: every time the Soul-Nourishing Coffin is used, a complete, conscious 'living soul' must be placed inside as a sacrifice."

"Who did he fill in?" Chen Yuan asked.

The man in black robes did not answer. He raised his hand, his withered white fingers gently touching the cheek of the corpse puppet on his left. The corpse puppet's stiff face was expressionless, but the green flames in its eye sockets flickered slightly.

"I've been chasing him for 130 years." The man in black robes withdrew his hand. "From the Western Desert to the Eastern Wilderness, from the Eastern Wilderness to the Southern Frontier. Every time he escaped, I distanced myself from 'humans' a little further. At first, I only used talismans, then puppets, and now... I use this."

He looked at the two corpse puppets, his gray eyes devoid of any emotion: "They were my disciples in life. Two very good children, one seventeen and the other nineteen. They shielded me from Yin Jiu's 'Soul-Eating Curse,' their souls shattered, but their bodies weren't quite dead yet. So I... refined them into this. At least they can still move, still obey, and still help me continue the chase."