[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky":3,"chapter-i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-chapter-21":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","I Must Immediately Strike It Lucky",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},2293793,4487,"Chapter 21: Short-Term Goal: Extend Life by Seven More Years","i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-chapter-21",21,"\u003Cp>“Say I look human! Just say it! Don’t you love my human form?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“I’m so tired! If you won’t cultivate, I still have to cultivate!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Xue couldn’t stand the saccharine, whiny tone of the white snake, and was about to turn it into an inanimate stone—when suddenly a thought struck him, and he changed the subject:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You said earlier you’ve cultivated for forty years?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Yeah, let me count… about forty-four… hmm, forty-five? Something like that!” The white snake sounded unsure herself; after all, in the wilds, a snake had no easy way to track exact time.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But whether forty or forty-five, to Feng Xue it sounded strangely off—after all…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Could forty-five years really give you this level of sentience? Then wouldn’t every old monkey in the mountains be a demon?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Xue’s question wasn’t unreasonable. Even accounting for species limits, reptiles generally have lower intelligence than mammals, whether viewed through strange-tale lore or biology. Of course, if you count birds—the dragon lineage’s lost jewel—there are indeed corvid masters, but in this world of strange tales, birds are feathered insects, while most reptiles are scaled insects.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the question arises: if a creature with such a small brain as a snake can attain human-level sentience in forty years, how long would a raven, a dolphin, or even a chimpanzee need?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Hearing this, the white snake was puzzled, and said with surprise:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Doesn’t the number forty-four mean anything to you?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Mean what? I’m only in my twenties—what happened forty years ago would I know?” Feng Xue rolled his eyes. Even if he’d arrived in this world just two days ago, he couldn’t possibly know about an alien invasion that had been repelled a year ago, let alone forty years ago.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“...” The white snake said nothing about Feng Xue’s age. In her eyes, even if he wasn’t a true transcendent, he must be the reincarnation of some great master—perhaps even a ghost deity from the Underworld who’d returned to the mortal realm for a vacation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Fox Immortal Grandma had told similar tales. Whether the person carried memories or not, one must never speak plainly—so she simply went along with Feng Xue’s words:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“The Emperor’s Juice! It’s the Emperor’s Juice! A rare essence of lunar essence, appearing once every sixty years. Any creature lucky enough to swallow and digest it gains sentience, extends its lifespan, and learns how to absorb lunar radiance.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Oh!” Feng Xue had heard of the Emperor’s Juice before—but then a thought struck him:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“If animals gain sentience and extended life from the Emperor’s Juice, what about humans?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“That… I really don’t know.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The white snake shook her head decisively. Before Feng Xue, she’d never even met a human.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The white snake didn’t know—but that didn’t stop Feng Xue from thinking.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’d assumed the eighty-odd years of remaining lifespan left after she lost her cultivation was the human lifespan granted by her transformation. But now he thought again: if she wasn’t even in human form, how could she have gained human lifespan bonuses?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Now he realized: those eighty years… no, counting her original lifespan and the time she’d lived, it must be over a hundred and twenty, nearly a hundred and thirty years.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Considering that small snakes normally live five to ten years, the Emperor’s Juice must grant not only sentience, but also a hundred and twenty years of yang life?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this thought, Feng Xue’s heart burned hot. If humans could also benefit from the Emperor’s Juice, could he use it to extend his own life?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But forty-four years ago… that was sixteen years ago…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“So I’ve got to find a way to gain at least seven more years of life!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Xue instantly set himself a short-term goal—but he didn’t hold out much hope. After all, the Emperor’s Juice appeared only once every sixty years. Even warriors and mystery cultivators, with their long lifespans, might encounter it once or twice in their lives—and ordinary people weren’t immune either. Even if it could extend life, it wouldn’t be easy to obtain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So the Emperor’s Juice could only be an optional path, not a primary goal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Great master, you’ve asked all your questions—can I be human again now?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Seeing Feng Xue in a good mood, the white snake steered the conversation back. Feng Xue rolled his eyes:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“No. I’m cultivating. If I turn you human, I might not be able to resist doing you! Oh, wait—you’re right, I forgot: you’re just a silent stone!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bang!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Satisfied, Feng Xue placed the white snake’s stone statue beside the bed, returned to his sleeping mat, and resumed his cultivation in the quiet of night.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Qi surged like tides, rising and falling. In his mind-sea, the spherical form veiled in gauzy light slowly grew fuller, smoother, pulsing gently with his breath and heartbeat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Repeated explosive extractions made his qi supply irregular and cyclical, causing his soul’s pulsation to be far more pronounced than that of ordinary cultivators.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>An ordinary cultivator’s soul rhythm was like a breathing light—slow and prolonged. Feng Xue’s soul, however, beat like a heart—sharp and violent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This soul, unlike ordinary cultivators’, still produced magical power. It gathered in his empty mind-sea, and under his conscious guidance, fell like fine rain onto his heart-field, pooling into a small puddle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>According to cultivation manuals, at the Master Realm, one could summon magical power like a tidal wave with a single thought. Feng Xue’s tiny puddle seemed insignificant by comparison.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But add the prefix “after just one night of cultivation,” and it became extraordinary. For a new cultivator to reach Feng Xue’s level—soul shaped, magical power falling like rain—would require months of seclusion, burning three to five years of lifespan, and still might fail.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Each pulse of his soul extracted qi equivalent to three days of yang life. Continuing like this, by morning, Feng Xue had extracted qi equal to sixty years of yang life.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When he awoke, fully replenished, he only felt hungry. He looked up—Yu Shou: 3281.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Of course—I accidentally burned two days of lifespan yesterday!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feng Xue muttered, walking toward the ordinary-looking stone:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“You look like a ring.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Bang!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“That’s too much! You sealed my mouth, but you filled the whole building with qi—how am I supposed to cultivate?!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The white snake immediately raised her voice in protest. Feng Xue, hearing this, sighed helplessly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Though he’d burned sixty years of lifespan in one night, that didn’t mean his soul had gained sixty years of cultivation. He’d just begun—like a newborn infant. No matter how much you feed it, its capacity to absorb and digest is limited.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But who cared? Feng Xue had endless qi—he didn’t care about cost or life! He just kept increasing the flow!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Feeling his soul swollen to the point of bursting, Feng Xue adjusted his clothes. Today, he had two things to do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You spent two whole chapters explaining the cultivation method, yet some still don’t understand.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this world, “Refining Essence into Qi” and “Refining Qi into Spirit” are not two separate realms, but one unified cultivation method—equivalent to the Wu Xiu practice of nourishing essence and stabilizing qi, stabilizing qi and anchoring spirit—not the traditional xianxia model where one first refines essence into qi, then abandons qi refinement to begin refining qi into spirit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The overall process here is: during cultivation, the body’s essence is refined into qi, then the qi is sent to the mind-sea to nourish the soul. This is a continuous, simultaneous cycle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, the result is: though essence is refined, spirit is also refined.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whether beginner or Master, all cultivators follow this same method. Different sects may vary in details, but the principle remains identical.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The difference only emerges after “Achieving the Dao” (soul becomes leak-proof), when one can finely manipulate magical power to nourish the body in reverse—yet this merely allows the body to extract more essence without depletion; it does not change the cultivation method.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for how qi is sent to the mind-sea: it’s the Small Heavenly Circulation. Qi gathers at the heart region (not the heart organ, but closer to the Zhongtan point), then descends past the dantian to Huiyin, then ascends along the spine’s Great Dragon to Baihui, entering the mind-sea. In martial arts novels, this is often called the Ren and Du meridians (not exact, but similar in path). But the circulation actually begins with Ren and Du, then extends to the limbs and extremities—since flow prevents pain, and pain indicates blockage. As long as one is healthy, the meridians are naturally open; there is no such thing as “opening” them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>(End of Chapter)\u003C\u002Fp>",1433,"2026-06-20T04:32:49.208Z",1,"Qwen3-Next 80B","5a9addcd6050b717127c18cd6d87a7cdf1e647e6816ec39a8f228bed6c13267d","i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-chapter-22","i-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-chapter-20",365,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fi-must-immediately-strike-it-lucky-cover.jpg"]