Chapter Twenty-Five: The Five Viscera

At the Hall of the Square Tower, a few scattered Taoist priests could still be seen around the area, with people coming and going; it seemed that quite a crowd had gathered inside.

Following the procedure explained by Priest Jiang, Chen Yu handed over ten taels of patterned silver and received the wooden token in return.

The token was finely crafted, with an intricate character on each side. In his memory, it seemed to be an ancient script from a thousand years ago, far more complex than the writing of the present day.

“Never lose the token. When you come out, bring it here and reclaim your silver.”

“Many thanks. I understand.”

With that, Chen Yu, a little impatient, stepped into the wooden tower.

The complex was divided into inner and outer sections. The outer part stood apart like a ring of walls, built from some unfamiliar kind of wood, smooth as could be.

Inside stood three smaller towers, each four stories high, with banners flying at the top, painted with a black divine bird.

“Priest Jiang said that if one wants miscellaneous works, go left; if one seeks wide-ranging treatises from various schools, go right; as for orthodox Taoist scriptures and books, they are all placed in the center.”

He advanced a few steps and indeed saw different plaques above the three towers. The one in the middle was the most elegant, as though carved by a master’s hand, the strokes forceful as a thousand weights yet free and unrestrained.

At first glance, it carried a transcendent and ethereal air.

Chen Yu looked up for a moment, then went straight in.

As soon as he entered, he saw a Taoist in a blue robe seated cross-legged on the floor facing the corner. A lamp burned beside him, yet its wick was no candle flame; on closer inspection, it turned out to be a kind of luminous stone. The light was not much, but with daylight spilling down from above and reflecting together, it was not so dim after all.

“Chang Yong... Vertical Wall... Si Li...”

As he walked deeper into the hall, stopping and starting along the way, he saw that there were indeed many books stored here.

Compared with this, the mere five Taoist books in Cloud Crane Temple were nothing to boast of.

Fortunately, square wooden tags like bookmarks hung from the bookshelves, making it possible to locate what one sought even amid the towering piles of volumes.

Soon, he found Gold Inquiry.

This entire section was filled with medical texts.

Not eager to leave, Chen Yu casually picked one up and opened it in his hands. The book was brand new, clearly not an original, but a later copy made by the True Origin Temple.

As he browsed the Treatise on Cold Damage and Miscellaneous Illnesses before him, especially the descriptions of the five viscera and the internal organs, he quickly became immersed.

Leaning against the floor, heedless of his robe trailing upon it, he read by the light from above.

...

The five viscera—heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys—were, in the understanding of countless ancient scholars, the places where essence, vital energy, spirit, blood, and body fluids were generated and stored. They were the central organs of the human body and of utmost importance.

They were called the five spirit-viscera.

In some medical texts and Taoist scriptures, the five viscera were further linked to cultivation and to the heaven and earth themselves.

And if one thought all this too fanciful and lacking in evidence, then speaking of martial arts would bring one back down to earth: internal training also rested upon the five viscera and six bowels.

Among Taoist teachings, the five viscera and six bowels were also called the inner palace.

They stood beside the Purple Mansion and Muddy Pellet of the upper dantian.

At this moment, Chen Yu was deep in thought, his hands turning page after page as he absorbed every notion recorded therein.

His thoughts surged and collided without cease.

What did it mean to train the viscera?

The Cloud Crane Art recorded that it was to strengthen the five bodies.

Here, the five bodies referred to the five viscera. According to an old saying, the human body concealed secret treasures; the five viscera were the five hidden vaults. To open even one was enough to strengthen oneself, and to open all five was a remarkable achievement indeed.

Internal training was, in essence, the tempering of the five viscera until they far surpassed their former state, thereby awakening the hidden vaults of the human body as a consequence.

But...

“There is no hidden vault.”

Chen Yu shook his head, his brow furrowed before gradually easing.

That old priest, before his death, had gone very far in internal training; his five viscera had been tempered almost to perfection—not in terms of the technique, but because the human body itself had reached its limit.

After all, training the viscera required the quivering force of muscle and sinew, refined bit by bit through repeated work.

Yet the organs were delicate, and unlike flesh, blood, and bone, the viscera were too tightly interlinked; one misstep could affect the whole body, with consequences such as heart attack, internal bleeding, or organ rupture.

And even though the old priest, through various opportunities, had reached the limit, he still had not discovered the so-called hidden vault mentioned in the manual.

In the annotations he left behind, he wrote:

These people are talking nonsense. Later students must not believe it lightly.

In fact, over the past two days, while attending the fasting rites and ritual assemblies, Chen Yu had inquired about matters of this sort. According to Priest Jiang and Qian Xuanzhong, martial manuals must be believed to some extent, but never believed too completely. Through the ages there had been countless entries in books and records describing feats approaching miracles, such as the thunderous roar of tigers and leopards.

Yet in the last twenty years, none had been seen.

One could imagine how much water had been mixed into those accounts.

The matter of hidden vaults was the same.

But Chen Yu also had his own doubts. Within him there truly existed the wondrous force known as embryonic breathing, though it had been catalyzed by the spiritual liquid; still, it was real and undeniably present, not an empty fancy.

“To train the five viscera... others have nothing to rely on, only the hard-to-control force to grind them down. But I can use mental power to control things with precision, and I have spiritual liquid to support me...”

At this point, he could not help wondering whether he might be bolder and draw the floating embryonic breath occupying his dantian into the five viscera.

Over the past few days, each time his mental power touched the embryonic breath, it was swallowed without a trace, merely helping it grow.

But now, with the mental power in his Muddy Pellet Palace becoming increasingly abundant and vigorous, perhaps he could, by slow and steady effort, draw some of it out.

Once the thought arose, he acted at once.

Chen Yu did not hesitate. He stood up, looked around, and found a secluded spot where no one was present, keeping the spiritual liquid ready at hand.

He closed his eyes and calmed his spirit, his mind gradually becoming vast and empty.

A thread of mental power descended into the five viscera and six bowels, then came to the area below the navel, where there was a dantian that seemed both real and unreal.

Within it hovered a mist-like embryonic breath.

The moment the two touched, the embryonic breath, like a kitten spotting dried fish, could no longer restrain its hunger and lunged straight at it.

Fortunately, he had plenty of mental power. If before it had descended in wisps, then now it poured down like rain, silent as an invisible waterfall.

It pressed directly upon the dantian.

Hiss—

His brow throbbed; he had released too much mental power from the Muddy Pellet in an instant, and the pain made him involuntarily wince.

Still, he did not stop. The ceaseless flow of mental power washed over the outer wall of the dantian, drawing out strand after strand of embryonic breath. Before it could even be absorbed and grow stronger, it was hooked free and led into the liver.

After long tempering, together with nourishment and strengthening from the ginseng balm and spiritual liquid, the liver, compared with the other somewhat weaker organs, was undoubtedly the most suitable for this trial.

At the same time, he quickly swallowed a mouthful of spiritual liquid and concentrated on observing the changes.

...

After a quarter of an hour, his mouth had gone numb and sore, yet there was still no change within the liver.

Was it not going to work?

He opened his eyes, and a dry, gritty sensation rose in his mind—the sign of mental exhaustion.

Chen Yu paid it no mind and instead pondered the entire process.

His original intention had been to search within the human body for the so-called hidden vault. But now it seemed that, perhaps just as the old priest had said, such a thing did not exist at all; everything was only the fine imagination of the sages of old.

So be it. He set that thought aside and decided to read more Taoist books and scriptures. Perhaps he had overlooked something before.

His gaze returned to the liver. The embryonic breath had been drawn in, but at this moment it was as still as death, motionless.

The liver itself had not been further strengthened either.

Fortunately, no mutation had occurred. After careful examination, he found that it was as though only a few strands of embryonic breath unrelated to flesh and blood had been drawn out.

Yet after Chen Yu swallowed the spiritual liquid and activated the Breath-Nurturing and Strengthening Technique, a thread of familiar warmth began to ripple up from the liver...