Chapter 23: The Completion of the Phantom Yi Yin Zhi

Unknowingly, a long stretch of time passed; Zhao Ti felt not the slightest drowsiness, and instead his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He was not entirely ignorant of internal cultivation — he had several ordinary internal cultivation manuals in hand, and had many times chatted with guards who had studied internal cultivation about the practice of it.

The differences between various cultivation techniques lay only in the breathing, the routes of circulating one's art, and the postures of practice.

Among these, the breathing and the practice postures were easy to understand and rarely went wrong; the hardest part was the route of circulating the art.

The body's extraordinary and eight ordinary meridians, the front ren and back du, the dantian and purple chambers, the twelve stories, the three hundred sixty visible and hidden acupoints — these were the truly difficult parts.

When circulating qi, a hair's breadth of error leads to a thousand miles of loss; once the meridians are taken wrongly, the lightest result is wasted effort, the middle result is the loss of all prior progress, and the worst result is maiming and death.

A person who has never practiced internal cultivation, merely following the diagrams without a master at his side to guide and resolve doubts, finds it very hard to succeed through self-practice.

Toss an internal cultivation manual into the marketplace, and if an ordinary person picks it up to cultivate, eight or nine out of ten will not succeed. If that manual is a powerful one, not only will they fail to cultivate, they will harm their own body — at most they will fall gravely ill and lose a few months of lifespan; but once they do manage to generate internal force and then take a wrong route, disaster strikes, and mishandled, they will die and vanish.

Therefore the matter of meridians and acupoints is the utmost importance in cultivating internal arts; those who have never practiced, who do not understand, who have no master to teach and guide, must not act rashly or try to figure it out on their own.

But Zhao Ti had no such need — in his hands he had the Imperial Medical Bureau's Tiansheng bronze figure, the ancestor of all acupuncture and meridian bronze figures; not only were the meridians complete and the acupoints accurate, even the five viscera, six bowels, and bones were perfectly carved out.

Medicine and martial arts are one family; he had discussed the body's meridians and acupoints in detail with a medical doctor of the Imperial Medical Bureau, and it could be said that his understanding of the body's meridians and acupoints was no less than that of any internal cultivation martial artist.

He read this Phantom Yi Yin Zhi over and over, five or six times in all; he memorized the entire content on the first reading, and the repeated silent readings were to mull over the obscure parts within the technique.

That essay on the Tianyi-sheng-shui Cantongqi now came into play; comparing the two, and with further reference to the Hetu and Yijing, he had already understood ninety percent of this Phantom Yi Yin Zhi.

Heaven one gives birth to water, earth six completes it; water is the origin of heaven and earth, the origin of the universe, the origin of the ten thousand things, the origin of the human body. The One is the Dao; the Dao gives birth to water; water is yin, nourishing heaven and earth, the primordial supreme ultimate.

The human body is like a world; the twelve meridians and the eight extraordinary meridians each divide into yin, yang, water, and fire.

Of the twelve ordinary meridians, six are yin and six are yang.

The meridians on the back of the hand are yang, those on the palm are yin. The meridians on the inner side of the body are yin, those on the outer side are yang. The six viscera are yin, the six bowels are yang.

The eight extraordinary meridians differ from the twelve ordinary meridians — they belong to neither viscera nor bowels, have no paired interior-exterior relationship, take a separate path and run unusually, hence they are called extraordinary; they run in interlaced patterns distributed among the twelve ordinary meridians, likewise four yin and four yang.

There are also three hundred sixty acupoints, some visible, some hidden, secretly corresponding to the celestial circuit, likewise half yin and half yang, like the stars of the universe, scattered throughout the human body.

With so many meridians, extraordinary vessels, and acupoints, interlaced and weaving as they run, and with three dantians — upper, middle, and lower — an incalculable number of circulation routes can be formed.

Each internal cultivation technique cultivates different meridians and acupoints, and the routes run are even more different; once mastered, the strengths of their power vary, vastly divergent, worlds apart.

Hence there exist differences of high and low among internal cultivation techniques, differences of cold, heat, slowness, speed, swiftness, and rapidity.

Generally speaking, the more meridians a technique cultivates, the more routes it can branch and travel; although it is absolutely impossible to traverse them all, the broader the positions of qi circulation, the stronger the internal cultivation's power ought to be.

But Zhao Ti saw that this Phantom Yi Yin Zhi technique cultivated only one Taiyin meridian — it did not even cultivate the Jueyin and Shaoyin, which are likewise among the twelve ordinary meridians, let alone any of the yang meridians.

The Taiyin meridian is the chief of all yin meridians; the Phantom Yi Yin Zhi is properly named One Yi Yin Zhi, this "one" referring to this chief yin meridian, and additionally carrying the meaning of "one giving birth to the ten thousand things."

By running this Taiyin meridian along the special route described in the technique, fixing the body's minor celestial circuit circulation, once successful one can achieve: Taiyin concealing the ten thousand things; heaven one gives birth to water; water melts all affairs. The minor celestial circuit slowly forms into the major celestial circuit, hiding the firm and concealing the fierce, feigning fire and hiding yang, the entire body forming an extremely yin internal force true qi, incomparably cold.

One Yi Yin Zhi is also called Phantom Yi Yin Zhi, and for this very reason — using the Taiyin meridian as the sole great meridian, it transforms all the body's meridians and acupoints into yin; this is what is meant by "phantom yin."

And this is precisely why the Phantom Yi Yin Zhi is able to cultivate the Sunflower Manual!

Similar to the Nine Yang Divine Art, there are points of resemblance; the One Yang Finger is likewise so, but the Six Meridian Divine Sword is different.

The One Yang Finger is an utmost yang technique, but by the time of the Six Meridian Divine Sword a change has arisen — the Six Meridian Divine Sword is an art of yin and yang in harmony.

The One Yang Finger is divided into nine grades; the fourth grade is the foundation for cultivating the Six Meridian Divine Sword, and only at that point does one have the qualification to advance and practice the Six Meridian Divine Sword.

Zhao Ti had never seen the contents of the One Yang Finger and Six Meridian Divine Sword techniques, so he did not know what change this art underwent at the fourth grade.

This Phantom Yi Yin Zhi is divided into six layers; cultivated to the fourth layer, one can project true qi outward to harm others, forming finger winds that strike acupoints through the air, facing opponents without form.

But similar to the One Yang Finger, when the One Yang Finger is projected through the air, the qi expended is extremely draining of internal force; continuous use will at best cost all one's power, at worst cost one's life.

No matter how formidable the technique, if internal force is not abundant enough, it is hard to sustain prolonged use, or even to use it at all.

With the Six Meridian Divine Sword, if internal force is insufficient, one cannot bring it forth — even if one strains to the point of spitting blood, not a single trace can be produced.

The Eighteen Dragon-Subduing Palms is likewise so; if internal force is insufficient, even if one has learned it, all eighteen palms cannot be delivered in full.

By this time Zhao Ti had already grasped ninety percent of the Phantom Yi Yin Zhi; he sat cross-legged on the couch. Unlike ordinary techniques with the five hearts facing the heavens, the Phantom Yi Yin Zhi has one heart facing the heavens and four hearts facing the earth, and then he began his breathing.

One must first obtain the sensation of qi, gather little into much, store it in the dantian, then run the Taiyin meridian, gradually following the route described in the technique to open the minor celestial circuit along the special path.

At this point one must look at the cultivator's talent — some may practice for a year without obtaining the sensation of qi, some may obtain it within a single day.

Zhao Ti had only breathed for several dozen breaths when he suddenly felt a chill rise from his dantian, and could not help being startled.

He had chatted with guards who possessed internal force; at the moment of obtaining qi, the essence of breathing gradually enters the dantian, like a little warm mouse scurrying about inside, warm and utterly comfortable.

But why did he himself feel it was cold?

The technique did not say whether the internal qi cultivated was cold or hot, but this being a cold-yin technique… perhaps it was simply meant to be cool?

He could only think so; fortunately that true qi showed no other abnormality — it was merely not warm, and did not scurry about, but lay hidden in the dantian, as if hibernating, quiet and still.

Zhao Ti thought it over and then paid it no further heed, only ceaselessly breathing, ceaselessly accumulating; in the blink of an eye three nights and two days had passed.

His progress was swift — he had originally mastered the first layer of this technique on the very first day, but feeling an unsated appetite, he actually continued on, and now had unexpectedly stepped into the second-layer realm!

When he had entered the secret chamber the sky was already dark; now, at dawn on the third day, he slowly rose from the couch, drank some clear water, ate a small amount of fruit, and with a shift of his body began to dart about within the secret chamber.

The Phantom Yi Yin Zhi is primarily internal cultivation, but also has finger techniques and footwork in coordination; now beginning to practice, one saw only the human shadow flickering, as if a phantom walking, fingers tapping lightly, as if playing a game of chess with someone through the air, or writing a long scroll in the void.

After a while he stopped; Zhao Ti drew a deep breath, flicked a finger and casually poked the wall, and around the spot where the finger fell a faint white cold qi actually rose; when he lifted his finger, a thin layer of frost had formed beneath it.

Satisfied, he nodded, sat quietly again to breathe and recover for a moment, then opened the great door of the secret chamber and walked out.

Yu Er was standing in attendance outside the door, and hurriedly bowed: "Your Highness has come out of seclusion?"

Zhao Ti nodded: "Has anything happened these past few days?"

Yu Er said: "Nothing else, only the Commandery Prince of Jiyin came once; we made excuses that Your Highness was not in, and told him to come again another day."

Zhao Ti smiled at this — the Commandery Prince of Jiyin, Zhao Zongjing, was the Director of the Court of the Imperial Clan, and had surely come on the orders of Empress Dowager Xiang to inquire about his offenses.

At this moment the steward Zheng Fu hurried over from afar, wiped the sweat from his brow: "Congratulations to Your Highness on emerging from seclusion, Your Highness…"

Zhao Ti saw his urgency and said: "What is it?"

Zheng Fu said: "Your Highness, the Commandery Prince of Jiyin has come to the residence a second time, saying he must see Your Highness in person."