Hermit in the Mountains

Blue Star, February 3, 2025, the Beginning of Spring.

When the first spring thunder rumbles, all things flourish, the winter chill gradually fades, and the snow melts.

China, Zhongnan Mountain.

The Qinling Mountains, stretching for 1600 kilometers and covered in snow.

In the Qinling Mountains section of Chang'an City, a thatched hut nestled on a mountain peak near Zhongnan Mountain suddenly erupted with excited, high-pitched laughter.

"Hahaha....."

"Persistence pays off, it's done... it's really done..."

"I've succeeded, Daoist Master!!!"

The laughter grew louder and louder, startling the big yellow dog that was sleeping in its kennel by the door, which then leaped into the air.

"Kuang..."

The doghouse made a clattering sound.

"Bang..."

The big yellow dog landed on the old clothes on the floor of the doghouse, sticking its head out and exhaling white breath. Its ears twitched, and when it clearly heard the voice of its owner inside the house, it rolled its eyes.

It's used to its owner going crazy from time to time, and as soon as its nose gets cold, it quickly pulls its head back into its kennel.

It crawled inside the doghouse and barked a few times towards the house to express its dissatisfaction.

"Woof...woof...woof..." (Cousin, you're even noisier than me! You've disturbed my sleep again. You deserve an extra chicken leg today.)

Inside the room, a young man sat cross-legged on a wooden bed with his eyes closed, wearing a cotton blue Taoist robe, and his thick hair reached past his shoulders.

The man's eyes snapped open, filled with joy, and he burst into laughter the next second.

His laughter echoed through the silent, snowy landscape, each laugh producing a puff of white vapor in front of his mouth and nose.

Hearing Da Huang barking outside interrupted Gu Changsheng's high spirits, bringing him back to his senses.

His heightened emotions caused his heart to pound violently, and his chest heaved.

"Inhale...exhale..."

"Inhale...exhale..."

He closed his eyes, sat up straight, placed his hands naturally on his legs, and muttered to himself, trying to calm his excited mood.

Entering a meditative state, Gu Changsheng's thoughts appeared in his mind's sea of ​​consciousness.

A faint figure sat cross-legged in the hazy sea of ​​consciousness. The figure opened its eyes, its gaze passing through layers of meridians, looking down at the scene in the dantian in its chest.

A peanut-sized, emerald-green seed floated in his dantian.

A transparent cyclone ring slowly rotates around the emerald green seed.

Gu Changsheng could clearly see through his Yin Spirit that wisps of invisible gas were being drawn into his body. The gas was drawn from outside his body into his dantian and then all of it surged into the transparent vortex.

The emerald green seed suspended in the dantian seemed to possess sentience, opening its mouth to consume the gas within the transparent vortex.

Gu Changsheng gazed at the emerald green seed in his dantian and fell into deep thought, his thoughts drifting back three months to the past.

Three months ago, Gu Changsheng was nothing more than a workhorse working 996 hours a day.

He has a low level of education, only a junior college diploma.

An orphan, with no relatives or friends.

She graduated from junior college at the age of 21, worked as a hotel receptionist for three years, and paid off her student loans.

I started working in a factory at the age of 24, tightening screws for three years, and saved up a little money.

I joined GG Planning Company at the age of 27 and worked there for three years. I thought it would be easier than tightening screws in a factory, but it turned out to be even more difficult.

For the first thirty years of his life, he lived a solitary life, not even daring to find a girlfriend.

He was just an ordinary person living an ordinary life.

However, life is unpredictable, and life undergoes tremendous changes after the age of 30.

The company he works for is just a 10-person planning company, and working overtime until midnight is the norm.

Three months ago, I was working overtime until 2 a.m., and as expected, an accident happened.

The sudden death and electric shock prevented him from dying, and he unexpectedly opened the legendary sea of ​​consciousness, condensing a Yin spirit.

When he woke up in the hospital the next day, he was floating on the ceiling of the ward, below him was a person wrapped in medical gauze, lying on the hospital bed like a mummy.

Just as he was wondering what was going on, a ray of sunlight shone in through the window, and his body felt as if it had been put into a pot of boiling oil.

He screamed, but no one could hear him.

Just as he was losing consciousness, he seemed to see a lifeline and instinctively ran desperately toward the mummy.

After regaining consciousness, a high-definition video appeared in his mind, and he realized what had happened.

He collapsed and died while working overtime last night. He knocked over a water glass on the desk, and by sheer coincidence, the water spilled onto a plug.

Sudden death and electric shock occurred simultaneously to him.

Sudden death and electrocution, either alone, would be fatal. He was an exception, experiencing both simultaneously. Whether that was lucky or unlucky is unknown. (This is a fictional story for creative purposes; please do not imitate.)

The last scene in the high-definition video is him letting out a scream, and then it ends.

During his seven days of hospitalization, he finally figured out the strange events that had happened to him.

The hospital diagnosed the patient with fainting due to excessive mental stress and low blood sugar.

The smart safe burned out and lost power the instant he was electrocuted, saving his life.

The company's HR personnel visited him and offered him 100,000 yuan in compensation to settle the matter privately.

However, he also lost his job.

He was working overtime at the company until 2 a.m. when the incident happened. The company boss felt guilty and paid someone to settle the matter.

He himself did not want outsiders to know about the changes that had occurred in him.

The idea of ​​opening one's sea of ​​consciousness and condensing a legendary Yin spirit is too fantastical.

Both sides tacitly reached an agreement that neither would make things difficult for the other, and parted amicably.

During his seven days in the hospital, he figured out the abilities of the Yin Spirit: it could leave the body and explore the surrounding energy field.

However, a fatal flaw was also discovered: his inner spirit was a paper tiger, a sensitive skin.

During the day, you can't leave your body; if you do, it's like being thrown into a vat of boiling oil—you'll be gone in a second.

He could leave his body at night, but he didn't dare; the outside world was filled with various energy fields, which were too dangerous.

During his hospitalization, Gu Changsheng discovered four different energy fields.

He defined it as a field of resentment from the dead, a field of faith in national destiny, a field of extreme high pressure, and a field of worldly affairs for all living beings.

The vengeful spirits of the deceased are the obsessions created by patients who died in hospitals.

The field of faith in national destiny hangs over the entire city of Shanghai, formed by the hearts and minds of the citizens of Shanghai.

High-voltage fields are generated by the ubiquitous high-voltage power lines in cities.

The mortal world is composed of the emotions of all people and animals in Shanghai.

Why does his Yin spirit say he has sensitive skin? Because even when the Yin spirit is hiding in the sea of ​​consciousness, it can sense these energy fields in the outside world at all times, and the energy emitted by each energy field can affect the Yin spirit.

His spirit was terrified even hiding in his sea of ​​consciousness, let alone leaving his body.

These external energy fields emitted inaudible sounds, like the murmurs of unknown beings.

Wearing headphones is useless; the sound the Yin spirit hears is not on the physical level, but a special frequency formed by an energy field.

He didn't dare to sleep too soundly during his seven days in the hospital, constantly telling himself not to leave his body, not to leave his body.

Every day, he's either asking the doctor when he'll be discharged, or on his way to ask the doctor when he'll be discharged.

He questioned every single hospital staff member who entered his ward, including the attending physician, the attending physician, and the nurses.

On the day he was discharged from the hospital, he bought a plane ticket and flew directly from Shanghai to Chang'an City, and then immediately chartered a car to a village near Zhongnan Mountain.

They rented a few acres of mountain land far from the crowds, built a thatched hut, and cleared the land for farming.

Gu Changsheng hid in a deserted mountain, and only after the energy field hanging above the Yin God's head dissipated did he finally breathe a sigh of relief.

The deserted mountains were a paradise for him; they were so quiet that his tense mind finally relaxed.

He lived alone in the mountains for three months, exploring and trying out cultivation methods every day.

Three months later, after numerous attempts, Gu Changsheng finally figured out a cultivation method to attain eternal life.