Spirit Plant Entry: Immortality Begins with Farming

When the oil lamp on the first floor of the library burned down to its third wick, Chen Yuan finally looked up from the pile of books.

It was already completely dark outside the window; it was the end of the Xu hour (7-9 PM).

Five hours.

He didn't touch the sapling of the dictionary; he only read, copied, and deduced. The earth vein mark on his right palm had been throbbing, like a reminder or an urging.

Seven books were spread out on the table.

The book on the far right, "Records of Strange Qi," lay open. On its yellowed pages, a line of hastily written handwriting had been scratched by Chen Yuan with his fingernail:

"Pure is death, chaos is life. When yin energy reaches its extreme, death occurs; when yin reaches its extreme, yang arises, which is living yin."

Chen Yuan stared at these twelve characters for the full time it takes to drink a cup of tea.

Then he closed the book and stood up.

As soon as I reached the entrance of the library, I was blocked by someone.

They were three disciples of the Array Academy, led by the round-faced cultivator who had followed Senior Brother Zhang during the day. The three wore the Array Academy's signature black robes, with silver array patterns embroidered on the cuffs, which gleamed coldly in the dim corridor.

"Junior Brother Chen," the round-faced cultivator said with a forced smile, "still studying so late?"

Chen Yuan stopped walking and didn't say anything.

"I heard that Senior Sister Su has entrusted you with all the work on the Yin Soul Flower?" Another tall, thin cultivator stepped forward and looked Chen Yuan up and down. "Qi Refining Level 4... Senior Sister Su really doesn't stick to any particular type of person."

"Make way," Chen Yuan said.

The round-faced cultivator didn't move. He pulled out a palm-sized array plate from his robes, made of bronze and covered with densely packed runes: "Junior Brother Chen, let's be frank. You can't save that flower."

Chen Yuan looked at the array plate in his hand.

"This is the 'Earth Vein Sensing Plate'." The round-faced cultivator rubbed the edge of the plate with his thumb. "It can measure the flow of earth veins within a radius of fifty feet. Your plot number seventy-three has three broken pillars of the Yin Sha Array, and the earth veins are 72% blocked—according to the 'General Rules of Array Dao,' this kind of plot should be abandoned."

He pushed the array plate forward, and the runes on its surface lit up, outlining a dark red network of veins.

The dark patch in the center of the map is the location of plot number 73.

"See that? A death trap," the round-faced cultivator said. "Three months? Three years and they still won't be able to save her. Senior Sister Su is doing this out of spite, and what about you? You're going to gamble your future with her?"

Chen Yuan remained silent.

"In that case," the round-faced cultivator lowered his voice, "Senior Brother Zhang said that as long as you take the initiative to admit to the Transmission Elder that you are not capable enough and request someone else to take over the flower, the Array Academy can arrange for you to go to the Spirit Beast Garden. They are short of a handyman to feed the Fire Feather Sparrows. It's an easy job, and the monthly salary is 20% higher than in the Medicine Valley."

The tall, thin man chimed in, "Junior Brother Chen, it wasn't easy for you to come up from the shantytown, why wade into this mess? If Senior Sister Su loses, she'll at most face three years of solitary confinement. If you lose, you'll be expelled from the sect."

The corridor was so quiet you could hear the light bulb wicks crackling.

Chen Yuan stared at the three people for three breaths.

Then he spoke, his voice flat: "Finished?"

The round-faced cultivator was taken aback.

"Get out of the way if you're done talking." Chen Yuan stepped aside and squeezed through the three of them. When his shoulder bumped into the tall, thin man, the man instinctively took a half step back.

"Chen Yuan!" The round-faced cultivator turned around, his voice rising, "Don't be ungrateful! If the Array Academy really wants to get rid of you, they have plenty of options—"

"There are plenty of ways to make it impossible for me to stay in Medicine Valley." Chen Yuan didn't reply. "Zhao San said that yesterday."

He walked down the stairs, his footsteps echoing in the empty library.

The round-faced cultivator stood rooted to the spot, his face ashen. The tall, thin man leaned closer: "Senior Brother Liu, what do we do now?"

"What do we do?" The round-faced cultivator stared at the stairwell where Chen Yuan had disappeared and sneered, "Didn't he want to save that flower? Let's let him 'save' it properly."

---

It was already past midnight when I got back to my residence.

Chen Yuan sat down in the dark without turning on a light, his right palm pressed against the table. The dull pain from the ley line imprint persisted, like a needle pricking under his skin.

He closed his eyes and recalled the contents of those seven books.

The Essentials of the Five Elements' Mutual Generation and Restraint: The Five Elements are not five attributes, but five states. Fire represents rising and spreading, water represents flowing and moistening, wood represents expansion, metal represents contraction, and earth represents bearing and supporting.

"A Preliminary Exploration of Earth Vein Flow": Earth veins are like the meridians in the human body. The current situation of site No. 73 is equivalent to the rupture of three main veins. The yin energy is not flowing, but stagnating—stagnation leads to decay.

"A Comprehensive Explanation of the Physiology of Spiritual Plants": The essence of spiritual plant growth is the creation of order from disorder. What is needed is "living" energy, not "dead" matter.

Finally, there's that line from "The Record of Strange Qi": "Pure is for death, chaos is for life."

Chen Yuan opened his eyes and spread out his left hand in the darkness.

His palm was empty, but the sapling of the dictionary entries in his mind swayed gently in its slumber. The repair progress was stuck at 60%.

He suddenly remembered the illusory figure that Su Wanqing had demonstrated today.

The five colors of Yin energy circulate separately.

At the time, everyone was shocked by her masterful control over Yin energy, but Chen Yuan was thinking about something else: why did she divide it into five types?

This wasn't done arbitrarily.

This is... a simulation.

What are we simulating?

Chen Yuan suddenly stood up, knocking the oil lamp to the ground. Without bothering to pick it up, he rushed to the wall and, by the faint moonlight from the window, drew five circles on the earthen wall with his finger.

The first circle: Cold Yin. It is cold in nature, sinks and descends, and should penetrate to the root.

The second circle: Turbid Yin. Thick, sticky, and solidifying the stem.

The third circle: shady. Hidden, nourishing, moistening the leaves.

The fourth circle: Yin energy. Sharp, stimulating, it should induce flowering.

The fifth circle: Death Shadow. End, annihilation—etc.

Chen Yuan's finger stopped on the fifth circle.

Death is the end, it is annihilation.

But Su Wanqing said that the death yin is used to "fight against external evils".

What is external evil? To the Yin Soul Flower, external evil is... Yang? Is it vitality? Is it growth itself?

wrong.

Chen Yuan frowned, his fingers unconsciously tracing lines on the earthen wall. The moonlight shifted, illuminating the confused look on his face.

If death is the end, how can it combat external evils? It should be encouraging external evils—making everything move towards the end faster.

unless……

Chen Yuan suddenly stopped what he was doing.

Unless this "death yin" is not purely "death".

He turned around and pulled a wooden box from under the bed. Inside the box were his belongings that he had brought from the shantytown: a few old clothes, a small bag of spirit stones, and the notebook he had made himself.

He flipped to the middle page of the notebook, where he saw a hastily scribbled list of terms and data.

[Weak Spiritual Energy]: Provides spiritual energy for three days of arduous cultivation.

[Weak Fire Spiritual Energy]: Provides fire-attribute spiritual energy for three hours.

[Slightly effective increase in production]: Increases production by 10%, lasting for one quarter.

【Slightly accelerated ripening】: Accelerates growth, allowing natural growth in about half a day.

……

Chen Yuan's gaze lingered on the words "forced ripening".

Artificial ripening accelerates growth.

However, excessive ripening will cause the spiritual plant to age prematurely and its grade to drop—that is overdraft, not true growth.

Just like how he used the entry to keep the Yin Soul Flower in suspense, he was overdrawing the flower's own potential to buy time.

What then constitutes true growth?

Chen Yuan closed his notebook and leaned against the wall.

Moonlight streamed through the window, cutting a pale patch of light across the floor.

At the edge of the light spot, a small insect was crawling. It crawled slowly, its six thin legs moving alternately, leaving shallow marks on the soil surface.

Chen Yuan stared at it for a long time.

Then he suddenly understood.

Growth is not about accelerating, but about maintaining a rhythm.

It is the coming of cold and the passing of heat, the alternation of day and night, and the balance between absorption and consumption.

The Yin Soul Flower doesn't need more Yin energy, but rather rhythmic Yin energy.

Like that insect, it crawls slowly, but every step is firm. If you force it to run fast, it might die of exhaustion in the next second.

Therefore, Su Wanqing needs to be divided into five types of Yin energy.

It's not because she has strong control, but because she understands that different stages of growth require different rhythms of energy.

Roots need stability (coldness), leaves need nourishment (darkness), and flowers need stimulation (destructive yin).

What about the deathly shadow?

The death yin is used to... brake.

When growth is too rapid and energy is excessive, use a trace of dead yin to suppress and balance it, preventing the spiritual plant from overdrawing its own resources.

This is not about fighting against external evils.

This is to combat "excess".

Chen Yuan stood up, his heart pounding.

He walked to the window and looked in the direction of plot number 73.

In the darkness of night, the land was shrouded in a thin gray mist—the outward manifestation of accumulated yin energy.

What he needs to do now is not to infuse the flowers with more yin energy.

It means to clear blockages.

Let the stagnant yin energy flow, let the dead yin collide, rub, and transform in the flow—yin reaches its extreme and yang is born, seeking life in death.

This is not the "fix what's broken" approach used by the courts.

This is... guiding nature.

Chen Yuan looked down at his right hand. The dark purple pattern on his palm shimmered slightly in the moonlight.

The ley lines are traumas, but perhaps also pathways.

If he cannot manipulate the five types of Yin energy as precisely as Su Wanqing, could he take another approach—guide the earth's veins and let the power of nature complete the transformation?

It's like controlling floods. Instead of blocking them, it's better to guide them.

The moment this thought crossed Chen Yuan's mind, he immediately realized two things:

First, no one has ever done this before. At least, it's not mentioned in the book.

Secondly, if he fails, the backlash from the ley line mark could be fatal.

The sound of a wooden clapper came from outside the window.

It's midnight.

Chen Yuan stood by the window for a long time until the moonlight moved away and darkness once again engulfed the room.

He returned to the table, spread out the paper in the dark, and wrote two lines with a charcoal pencil:

Objective: To draw upon the earth's energy veins and transform stagnant yin into vibrant yin.

Method: Unknown.

After he finished writing, he looked at the two words—Unknown.

Then he added a sentence below this line:

But it has to be done.

Otherwise, three months later, Hua will die, Su Shi will be facing the wall in self-reflection, and I'll be fired.

The charcoal pencil broke off between my fingers.

Chen Yuan folded the paper and stuffed it into his pocket.

Outside the window, the lanterns guarding the medicine valley lit up one by one.

The light was dim and yellowish, not illuminating very far, but enough to make people see the road beneath their feet.

Even if that road leads to unknown darkness.