It was the Shallow Night. Though the sky was dim, the scenery was in fact visible.
In the room, Qin Ming drew in deep breaths and let out the stale, cutting away stray thoughts and brushing the stirring dust from his heart.
The sunstone in the copper basin had just been brought back, at its brightest, and a clear light bathed Qin Ming's hair tips and the outlines of his face.
Fire-haze shone over everything, gilding even the windows and walls. Qin Ming sat there still as can be, and in this moment he much resembled some scene from the old world as recorded in books: within a temple whose tiles had caught a pale gold light under the setting sun's final glow, a divine statue bathed in the evening glow, peaceful and serene.
Before long he poured part of the pale golden liquid from the porcelain jar into a white bowl—the fragrance was rich and heady. It was, after all, the very essence drawn from honeyed wine; even before he drank, it left one faintly intoxicated.
A traveling merchant who had roamed far and wide once said that not even a Day Gold could buy a single drop of the essence in an ant nest.
In the white bowl the pale golden spiritual substance seemed to condense the sunlight of the old world, shimmering and resplendent, giving off wisp after wisp of mist, all wound about with gold.
Qin Ming capped the porcelain jar and drank down half a bowl of the spiritual substance in one go.
His mouth filled with a sweet fragrance, spread too with a faint aroma of wine, leaving a lingering savor aftertaste—this was a hundred thousand times better than the taste of the blood snake's gall, and one could not help wanting another bowl.
In an instant Qin Ming knew its virtues. His body grew feverish at once, the effect immediate, as if he had turned into a furnace.
He went out into the courtyard. The cold wind blew, yet it struck his face warm; snow fell as if in a spring drizzle, carrying him into what felt like early spring.
Qin Ming's whole body was aglow, the vitality of his flesh and blood rising without cease, driving back the biting cold of deep winter and steaming up great clouds of white mist.
He was drenched in sweat, soaked through, and a layer of silver light surfaced over his body, then seemed to solidify into silver mud; and next, one after another, "golden needles" burst from within him.
Then the golden needles threaded thread, swimming through the silver mud, and this time, before he had even fallen asleep, they began to form a "Golden Thread Jade Garment," appearing even in his waking state.
"It is different from before." Qin Ming felt it carefully. The strange omen that had come with his very first New Life was now beginning a qualitative transformation.
Qin Ming was certain: this was turning toward the Heaven Light.
He moved in the courtyard, beginning to display the New Life art recorded on the silk tome—the movements of the body, the coordination of the breath, and the tempering of the mind all included.
Qin Ming did not know fatigue, practicing the art without cease, for he felt no exhaustion, surging with a fresh breath, a rich vitality spreading and expanding through his flesh and blood, the very corners of his eyes and brows aglow.
He knew the Third New Life had truly begun; Heaven Light was being born within his body, wondrous changes unfolding.
"The predecessors called this realm a New Life, and rightly so. Every great rise in bodily constitution is like undergoing a postnatal gestation in the mother's womb."
The birth of the Heaven Light in a man's body was by no means due to such an omen as the broken-gold ripples on the surface; its source lay at the very depths of the body, and the outward was only the appearance.
At this moment, it was as if a thunderclap struck within Qin Ming's heart. With a crack there shone forth from his mind-sea a blazing Heaven Light, falling straight into his flesh and blood.
Next, all his five viscera and six bowels followed suit, each reviving in turn. Some parts were lit as by morning haze, golden and splendid, bearing a vigorous dawning breath; others were as a river of constellations drifting into a dream, breaking through the mists, the stars blazing...
Qin Ming's whole body was aglow, even his raven-black hair seeming to burn, tongues of light flickering, a most dense power of new life covering him from head to foot.
At this time even his eyes shot forth mysterious Heaven Light. This was the Third New Life—if full and complete, it would run so from head to toe, Heaven Light born in every part, present everywhere.
As the Heaven Light gradually drew back inward, Qin Ming grew ever more at peace, blending into his surroundings, his every motion spontaneous and natural, with not a trace of artifice.
The silk tome said little in detail of the Heaven Light, seeking with sparse strokes to speak of the raising of the level of life.
"I guessed right. So long as I keep practicing what the silk tome records, the Heaven Light will be born of its own accord, strengthening one's essence, spirit, and breath."
Qin Ming had a new understanding. Though the silk tome did not dwell on the Heaven Light, it was bound to appear, and would be trained out.
But what of the Heaven Light Force? He frowned. That force had to be trained; it required a specific method.
He could only hope that when he slept tonight, the memories of childhood would surface once more, that he could open the third page of the silk tome to find the answer and resolve his own doubts.
Then Qin Ming began to practice his combat arts. Thinking a moment, he put aside his long-handled black-gold hammer and took up the wood-chopping knife instead.
Instantly cold light flashed; Qin Ming felt as if light within his flesh and blood was about to burst forth.
"Hm? Could it be that the Heaven Light Force is about to be born?"
He felt into it with care, and besides practicing the knife he fought bare-handed, all manner of efficient killing moves, some of them born straight out of the knife art, stirring up the sounds of wind and thunder in the courtyard.
None knew how long passed; the Shallow Night was already drawing to a close before Qin Ming felt a hint of weariness and stopped.
After supper, Old Liu came to knock at the courtyard gate.
Qin Ming's body no longer shone like a furnace, but it still coursed with brimming vitality, his breath fresh as all things at their first stirring.
Old Liu's spirit wandered. Merely looking at him gave one the illusion of watching ice and snow melt, of grasses and trees putting forth new shoots, a scene of lush thriving growth.
"You did no preparation at all—and simply went straight to a Third New Life?" He asked in a low voice.
Qin Ming nodded. He and Old Liu had shared the journey into the mountains, and knew each other to the bottom—there was no need for concealment.
Old Liu was consumed with envy.
"Old man, with spiritual substance in hand, why not quiet your mind and adjust your state? When will you wait until?" Qin Ming asked.
"You think everyone can be like you, charging blindly ahead and taking a New Life just like that?" Old Liu said.
He indeed lacked confidence at the moment. Even with the essence from the ant nest in hand, he could not be sure he would definitely make it to a Third New Life.
For how far each person could go was honestly hard to say.
At the very least, the threshold of the first New Life alone stopped nine in ten people.
An elder of old once estimated that even if given spiritual substance, six or seven in ten would be barred at the door, unable to manage even a single New Life.
There was no doubt that taking the first New Life did not mean one had set foot on a broad road; with spiritual substance in hand, six or seven in ten would also be stopped at the Second New Life.
So it was too with the Third New Life. Old Liu was already this advanced in years—how could he have confidence?
Qin Ming comforted him and helped lift his spirits: "You must hold to a belief, that you can surely pierce through the entire realm of New Life."
Old Liu sighed, saying that all his life he tended to let himself down at the crucial moment. In his day he too could have taken a New Life in his golden window, but he ended up going into the mountains and getting injured, and that sickness had laid him up for half a year.
In his youth he had gone to Redcloud City, and had been on the point of becoming a disciple of a famous master, but that elder happened to be called away on business, and died an unmarked death on the edge of the pitch-black desert.
When Old Liu came back, he grew close to a batch of old men from the mountain patrol. Once they tried, together, to get hold of a certain mysterious substance, but no sooner had they entered the mountains than they came upon a famed beast gone mad. That odd creature had merely been passing through, with no intent to target them, and yet it nearly wiped them out to the last man. He was greatly depleted of his vital energy; that he survived at all was something of a miracle.
Qin Ming listened to Old Liu's rambling. How was it he felt the old man was rather unlucky?
"This trip into the mountains with you is about the only smooth thing that's happened for me. Everything else is a long story, always full of twists and turns." Old Liu sighed.
"You call that smooth? An ant nest that took four days to beat, with flying ants we'd never seen evolving out of it." Qin Ming looked at him with an odd expression.
"How are the people around you—unaffected, are they?" Qin Ming was not superstitious by nature, and put no stock in that sort of thing, only asking offhandedly.
"They're not bad either." Old Liu said hesitantly.
"What do you mean, not bad either?" Qin Ming was suspicious.
"I'm like you—I wasn't originally from this village. I was picked up when I was six by the grandfather on my side. Maybe I was too young, but I have no memory of my parents at all. My guess is they didn't live well back then, or perhaps they'd been gone long before, otherwise I wouldn't have been left out in the frozen snow. Strange to say, my frostbite was very severe, yet in the end it healed, and I lived."
Qin Ming didn't know how to comfort him. "Don't think about it too much. I think you should go back and quiet your mind, drink down the spiritual substance at once, don't hesitate a bit—finish it in one go, and go straight for the Third New Life!"
"That's what I'm thinking too—I should be decisive!" Old Liu said, and pulling a porcelain jar from his bosom, he twisted it open and gulped it down on the spot.
Qin Ming was dumbstruck. "You just came here to drink it straight away? Why not go home first and quiet your mind?"
Old Liu said: "I feel like being around you lately goes smoothly. I've come to share a bit of your good fortune."
Then he grew excited, for he could already feel it—his body scorched, as if it had caught fire, and within him a light-mist began to rise and steam.
"This is... have I, the old man, really made it!" He wanted to laugh aloud, but had to keep his voice low.
Qin Ming said: "Don't be so superstitious. You always had that potential; you just set up barriers in your own mind, and so at times you weren't decisive enough to take that step forward."
"Don't say that. There are some things you can't not believe. I think all my misfortunes are tied to the blood-stained kite I saw when I was young and thoughtless." Old Liu pointed at the night sky.
Qin Ming grew serious at once. "Exactly where?"
"That year, I stood beside the fire spring at the village entrance. The kite should have drifted to the spot high above the center of Twin Tree Village..."
Old Liu, taking advantage of the Heaven Light not yet having appeared, wrapped his leather coat tight and raced all the way back home.
Late at night, the "Golden Thread Jade Garment" seemed to have truly emerged upon Qin Ming's body.
He rather suspected: when the ancient sovereigns were buried, they were laid in pearl robes and jade caskets, sewn together with golden threads, seeking to be undying—had they heard of something of the sort?
Qin Ming sank into deep slumber. Only in the dead of night did he pass through that state from last time again; in a half-waking half-dreaming limbo, he saw himself as a child.
Still in those shabby small clothes, when he looked down, two toes had already poked out through the broken spots of his little shoes.
And this time, he finally saw clearly the face of the man who had been speaking—though he had only once leaned in close for a hurried glance while turning the pages of the silk tome.
Qin Ming realized this should be his own kin, for he bore some resemblance to him.
He was in his early fifties, his temples streaked with gray, calluses on his hands, his clothes old and patched.
"Could he be my grandfather?" Qin Ming guessed.
In his expectation, the silk tome turned to the third page, and rows of dense small characters and human-figure diagrams unfolded before him.
Of the Heaven Light Force there was truly no mention!
For, continuing the New Life art from the second page, it soon went on to speak of the five senses, instinct, intuition, and the like—he guessed the Fourth New Life had to do with perception.
"But what of the Heaven Light Force?!" Qin Ming was so anxious he nearly left that state, nearly jolting awake from the dream.
Luckily he steadied himself and read on, fixing the third page of the silk tome in his memory. Or perhaps it was not a matter of memorizing, but of childhood experience resurfacing—recalled with the Third New Life.
Then he made a new discovery: at the very bottom corner of the page there was a line of annotation, mentioning the Heaven Light Force!
Qin Ming read it through with a wooden face. How was it he felt he was being scolded?
The first half of the annotation meant, roughly: the Heaven Light has been born—and you still can't train out your own Heaven Light Force?
Then it did go on to say what to do next: one single word—Melt!
The second half of the annotation was mocking, saying that to learn the arts on the silk tome one needed a master to lead one through the gate. If, having been taught hand in hand, one was still this dull, one might as well abandon the silk tome.
"Scold away as you like—I trained it out on my own; no one led me through any gate." Qin Ming woke.
The thick darkness had already receded; a new day had come. After breakfast he went at once into the courtyard to practice the New Life art of the silk tome.
"Seek it within oneself!" This was the key phrase he had seen on the third page of the silk tome.
As he displayed the New Life art of the silk tome, the Heaven Light in his body grew restless again as it had yesterday, until at last, as if it could not flow without bursting, there appeared at his fingertips, on his skin, a mysterious ripple, and then it shook out into Heaven Light Force!
With a swish, no sooner had his fingertip touched the knife's handle than the wood-chopping knife clung and came into his hand.
Then he tried a little—his finger flexed it slightly, Heaven Light Force burst forth, and a great notch appeared in the chopping knife.
"Not simple. I've trained out my own Heaven Light Force at last." He felt into it with care, testing it again and again, and then naturally thought of that blade manual, which also recorded a Heaven Light Force.
At the Third New Life, many people could barely manage a single Heaven Light Force. Qin Ming felt his own ceiling should not stop at one kind—and what was more, he still had the three-colored flower in hand.
And the annotation on the silk tome made mention of the word "melt," very clearly urging those who came after to train more Heaven Light Forces.
Qin Ming heard the goings-on at the village entrance. The people of Golden Ridge had indeed come, to recruit New Lifers to join their ranks.
"Everything is ready—only a fine blade is lacking!" Qin Ming took out that mutton-fat jade iron. This mysterious produce did not need to be hammered a thousand times; melting it into a weapon sufficed. That was much simpler, and could be done very soon.