Under One Person: Starting with the Dual Cultivation of Body and Soul.

"Senior Brother Chang'an!"

Lu Lin hesitated for a moment, but still couldn't help asking:

"When you were being hit just now...didn't you feel any pain at all?"

"It hurts! Who said it doesn't hurt? I'm in so much pain!"

"what?!"

Lu Lin asked in surprise, "Then why did you remain completely calm and composed the whole time, without uttering a single scream?"

“Even if your face changes drastically, even if you scream loudly, it won’t lessen the pain!” Li Chang’an said.

"This..." Lu Lin was speechless. The logic was indeed sound, but could anyone actually do that?

"So how did you do that?"

"Maybe I'm better at managing my emotions."

Chapter 46 Five years later, his cultivation reached perfection.

Even with the combined aid of ointments and medicinal baths, the body still needs a recovery period after the physical training.

During this period, Li Chang'an mainly focused on meditation and spiritual practice.

He continued to maintain the state of reversing the cycle of birth and tempering his spirit, and began his cultivation of the three points in a straight line.

Time passed little by little.

During this period, the Li family visited him several times.

When the Lunar New Year arrives, he will return to the Li family to reunite with his relatives.

After the New Year, he returned to the Lu family to learn his craft.

It is worth mentioning that Lu Jin personally picked up and dropped off Li Chang'an every time he traveled to and from his hometown.

This was not Lu Jin making a mountain out of a molehill. Although the Lu family was kind to others and had no enemies in the industry, the Li family was different.

Li Cheng, the patriarch of the Li family, used to go out every day decades ago with his sword to hunt down the Quanxing demons, making a lot of enemies in the process.

Lu Jin dared not gamble that the Quanxing demons he had grudges against would show leniency to Li Chang'an out of consideration for him.

He would never give those guys the slightest chance to retaliate.

And so, two years passed in this daily routine of spiritual practice.

The following year, Lu Jin stopped Li Chang'an and Lu Lin's physical training courses.

After all, the Sanyi Sect is not a sect specializing in external physical training. Once the physical strength has been honed to a certain level, it is difficult to produce any substantial improvement by relying solely on external physical attacks.

If one wants to continue down this path, one must practice specialized external martial arts techniques, which is undoubtedly putting the cart before the horse.

However, although he stopped physical training, Li Chang'an never stopped honing his spirit and energy.

In the past two years, he has made great progress in both sexual cultivation and life cultivation.

In terms of physical development, although he is not very old, his body is very well developed and his height is already far beyond that of his peers.

If you take off that oversized training uniform, you can see his well-defined and muscular physique.

His muscles weren't bulky or exaggerated; they were smooth and powerful, like an agile little leopard. Even without using Qi, he could leap several meters high with just his physical strength and easily lift hundreds of kilograms of weight.

Compared to the obvious external manifestations of life cultivation, Li Chang'an's improvement in sexual cultivation is somewhat subtle.

Because the Sanyi Sect's methods do not include techniques for manifesting the Yin or Yang spirits, Li Chang'an finds it difficult to quantify the strength of his sexual cultivation.

But he could clearly feel the progress.

Previously, he needed to constantly reflect on himself, and whenever a delusional thought arose, he had to quickly recognize it and then stop the thought.

But now, fewer and fewer delusions arise in his mind.

Instead, his true nature became more apparent, revealing more of his genuine emotions.

This genuine nature is inherent and can be satisfied without external feedback.

Just like some mathematical geniuses, they don't need fame or fortune, nor do they need praise from others. They only need to immerse themselves in the world of numbers and formula derivation that they love, and seek inward, to obtain immense joy and spiritual satisfaction that is difficult for ordinary people to understand.

Li Chang'an is in the same boat now. He is immersed in introspection, and his whole being exudes a kind of inner peace.

In this tranquil state, the agitation caused by maintaining the reverse life state for a long time is greatly reduced, and he can maintain that state of tempering life for a longer period of time.

At the same time, his efficiency in cultivating Qi also greatly improved, because although Qi is hidden in one's destiny, it is ultimately the nature that controls Qi. When one's nature cultivation is strong, Qi will naturally become stronger.

In addition, in that same year, some personnel changes also occurred in the Lu family. Lu Linglong, who was as talkative as a lark, left home for the capital.

Lu Linglong was originally a lay disciple of Baiyun Temple, and in principle, she should have gone to the capital to learn martial arts long ago.

However, due to her young age and some special reasons regarding her abilities, Lu Jinnian was unable to leave home. Therefore, she invited her friend, Fang Dongtian, a high-ranking priest from Baiyun Temple, to teach her at the Lu family for several years.

Now that Lu Linglong's temperament has stabilized, Lu Jin is relieved and has sent her to the capital to study and learn her craft. She will only come back to visit during holidays and winter/summer vacations.

With Lu Linglong gone, only Lu Lin and Li Chang'an remained in the Lu family compound to cultivate, making it quite deserted.

In the first year after Lu Linglong left home, Lu Lin, under Lu Jin's guidance, successfully broke through the barrier and entered the first level of the Reverse Life Realm. She gained the ability to transform her body with Qi and the strength of a dragon and tiger, and every move she made had the power to split rocks and shatter monuments.

Speaking of which, Lu Jin was around the same age when he mastered the first level of Reverse Life, and Lu Jin was a genius of the Sanyi Sect at that time.

Lu Jin was overjoyed for several days after Lu Lin successfully broke through the barrier. Subsequently, he transmitted the complete Qi circulation trajectory of the first level of Reverse Life to Li Chang'an, hoping that he would strike while the iron was hot and follow in Lu Lin's footsteps to complete the breakthrough as well.

Although Li Chang'an was two years younger than Lu Lin, as his master, Lu Jin had some confidence in Li Chang'an's cultivation foundation. He knew that the boy's foundation was terrifyingly strong, and the first level would definitely not be difficult for him.

Unexpectedly, after obtaining the specific Qi circulation route, Li Chang'an acted as if nothing had happened, delaying his attempt to break through the barrier and continuing his daily practice as usual.

Lu Jin was puzzled, so she took the opportunity to ask him the reason.

Li Chang'an replied, "The time is not yet ripe. The foundation of my life is not yet solid enough; it needs further tempering."

Lu Jin was puzzled. This kid had clearly reached a certain level of cultivation, so why did he insist that his foundation was unstable?

However, as the saying goes, the master leads you through the door, but the practice depends on the individual.

Since Li Chang'an was unwilling to break through the barrier at this time, Lu Jin did not try to persuade him any further.

Li Chang'an continued his steady cultivation.

Flowers bloom and fade, spring goes and autumn comes, and two more years have passed.

On this day, just like in the past few years, Li Chang'an sat cross-legged in a cave on the back mountain, using the cave's dim environment to enter a state of being a living dead, tempering his own life force.

Having cultivated for so long, Li Chang'an has gained some understanding of his current state.

This so-called state of cultivating oneself as if one were dead is not his original creation.

There are precedents in history.

Those who frequently read Jin Yong's novels know that in the novels, there is a Tomb of the Living Dead on Zhongnan Mountain, and there is a Little Dragon Girl in the Tomb of the Living Dead.

Of course, Xiaolongnu is a fictional character, but there is indeed a Tomb of the Living Dead on Zhongnan Mountain, which was created by Wang Chongyang, the founder of the Quanzhen School of Taoism.

The Quanzhen School has many branches.

According to their founders, they are divided into the Five Patriarchs of the South and the Five Patriarchs of the North.

The most famous of the Five Patriarchs of the South was Zhang Boduan, also known as the Master of the Twenty-Four Heavenly Valley. It is no exaggeration to say that he was the source of the Jia Shen Rebellion.

The most famous of the Five Patriarchs of the North was Wang Chongyang, also known as Chongyang Zhenren.

Wang Chongyang called himself "The Living Dead," and the purpose of building the Tomb of the Living Dead was not for romance, but for cultivation.

Li Chang'an felt that his current method of cultivating in this deep and quiet mountain cave, treating himself as a dead man, was similar to the cultivation in the Tomb of the Living Dead by the founder of the Quanzhen School.

Of course, Li Chang'an wouldn't dare to claim that he had truly reached the level of Chongyang Zhenren; he had only touched upon this state through the awareness of his intermediate state.

The benefits this state brought him were unimaginable. His life cultivation improved significantly. After reaching a certain level, the Qi in his back was like the water level in a reservoir, having overcome a certain bottleneck.

There were no strange phenomena from the sky, no violent outburst of true qi, and not even a trace of painful struggle or hesitation!

The white qi within Li Chang'an's body calmly traveled a complete route, constructing a mysterious and profound ritual within his body.

The moment the ritual was completed, the reversible white qi within his body surged forth like a tidal wave, instantly permeating every inch of his skin and flesh, from his pores to the tips of his hair.

In recent years, Li Chang'an has been engrossed in cultivation and found going to the barbershop too troublesome, so he has never cut his hair and has let it grow freely. Now his hair is waist-length.

At this moment, her waist-length black hair moved without wind, gradually fading from black at the roots to a crystalline white, like frost and snow.

This white is not the dry, rough, dead white produced by commercial hair dyes.

Instead, it was a vibrant, flourishing, jade-white color where every strand of hair shimmered with a faint, ethereal glow.

Chapter 47 Reverse Life State Activated

Not only his hair changed, but Li Chang'an's skin color also changed.

Previously, Li Chang'an's skin was rosy, but in the reverse-generation state, it presented an otherworldly, crystal-clear jade color.

After completing the transformation of his entire body, the reversing white energy did not stop, but continued to emanate outwards. As it dispersed, white energy resembling auspicious clouds appeared around him.

Then, Li Chang'an opened his eyes, his pupils turning a fiery white, and two beams of light shot out from them.

"The first stage of reverse rebirth?"

Li Chang'an raised his hand, looked at the white aura surrounding Zhou Shen, and was slightly puzzled:

"Why does it look so different from Lu Lin's... or even the first stage of the Reverse Rebirth state?"

"After Lu Lin and Lu Jin activated their reversal of life, they were only enveloped by a faint white aura."

"That white aura was very faint; you might not even notice it if you didn't look closely. But the white aura on my body is excessive, and besides, my eyes..."

Li Chang'an looked up at the top of the cave and could clearly see two beams of light shining from it.

If one observes oneself using the awareness of the intermediate state (bardo), one can see that his eyes are like shooting stars, with no pupils visible, only two terrifying white lights.

It wasn't the empty whiteness that Zhang Chulan had after entering the Qi Infant state.

Rather, it was like Zhang Zhiwei's eyes after he unleashed his golden light, his energy and spirit converging in his eyes, forming a gaze as bright as a star.

The former radiates divine light, giving people a foolish or silly impression.

The latter is a focused divine light, which gives people a strong sense of oppression.

Li Chang'an is the latter. If he were to go out in his current state, some uninformed ordinary people would never mistake him for a cosplayer dressed as the white-haired man.

Is it because the breakthrough methods are different?

Li Chang'an used his intermediate state awareness to see himself.

He soon discovered that his Qi circulation trajectory after the breakthrough was more complex than that taught by Lu Jin, and there were also some differences in some branch acupoints and turning points of Qi circulation.

"If they can all enter the so-called first stage of reverse rebirth, what's the difference between them?"

Thinking of this, Li Chang'an tried to circulate his Qi according to the Qi circulation path given by Lu Jin, and found that he could also activate the reverse life state.

However, the construction process can be somewhat obscure, far less smooth than his own method.

It's like driving a high-powered sports car on a highway with extremely strict speed limits; there's a frustrating feeling of being unable to accelerate.

Moreover, the auspicious white aura surrounding him had receded, and the light in his eyes had dimmed. Compared to before, he felt weak all over.

Li Chang'an could understand this outcome.

This is probably the difference between the personalized version and the standard version.

He can use the standard method of Qi circulation, but others may not be able to use his method to circulate Qi successfully.

Li Chang'an felt somewhat uncomfortable with his current Qi circulation trajectory. With a thought, he changed back to his original trajectory and immediately felt much more comfortable.

"There's too much white energy around you, and your eyes are too bright. You need to tone it down a bit."

With a thought, he gathered the white energy surrounding him into his body.

After the white qi entered his body, the burning light in his eyes gradually dimmed, but he still maintained his reversal of life.

For Li Chang'an, achieving this step was not difficult.

Once he enters this state, the intensity of his reversed growth is entirely within his control.

When he's in full power, he can transform back into his previous form.

Once he calms down, he can return to normal.

Of course, saying "normal" only means relative to before.