Daoist Master of Qing Xuan

Shen Lian was listening to the legend, which was also the origin of this world. According to ‘mother’, there were only spirits in this world and not human beings.

Later, a sun appeared in the sky. The world welcomed its first batch of inhabitants. These inhabitants – the First Men came from a place that had a sun too. From then onwards, the number of spirits declined.

First men were mortal, and they faced death too. However, the stronger ones became the stars after they died. Some stronger spirits too had turned into stars in the sky.

There was a star called the moon. It engulfed the light of other stars and became the brightest star in the night sky.

Then, the moon made a promise with the rest of the stars. In order to not be in the way of their light, the moon promised to only shine to its heart’s content only once in every thirty days. That day was known as ‘full moon’.

The number of stars in the sky increased, and the moon too remained strong.

They were no longer happy coexisting with the sun. The rays from the sun shadowed their light, and that prompted an alliance between the stars and the moon. They agreed on an eternal oath. Whenever the sun was out, the stars and the moon would not appear; when the stars and the moon were out, the sun too would retreat.

The sun brought warmth to the world, and the world started to come alive. As the First Men procreated, the spirits actively merged with them.

However, the sheer size of the world meant that there would always be an endless stream of spirits. This world was known as the Netherworld. There should never have been human beings such as the First Men in this world. If it was not for the sun in the sky, the First men would not have procreated in this world.

Because of the sun, the First Men survived and the world developed into the way it was today.

Shen Lian was unsure what the world looked like today, he was even more unsure if the legend told by his ‘mother’ was real. However, he felt like the sun that he saw was not the same as the normal stars.

If the spirits had turned into the stars, would that not mean that the supreme beings in this world found another way to exist eternally?

All these mysteries were something that he could only look into when he was born.

However, Shen Lian was sure of one thing. The Netherworld that he was in now seemed to be extremely different from the records of legends and myths.

The little girl next to his ‘mother’ was not his sister, but his ‘mother”s sister – Shen Lian’s aunt in this life.

Her name was ‘Yun’. As for their surname, Shen Lian was not sure about that.

After chatting for a short while, his ‘mother’ started to get tired and took a nap.

After having wandered around with his divine thoughts, Shen Lian felt exhausted. His subconscious even absorbed energy from his surrounding blood and flesh of the fetus.

Fortunately, he was enveloped by the amniotic fluid. Being in the Daoist ‘innate’ environment enabled him to absorb the purest of innate Qi to recuperate his divine thoughts.

However, the fetus would experience a delayed growth due to this.

Shen Lian was extremely alert and was determined to not stunt the growth of the fetus because of his personal reasons. If he were born a year and a half later, he would be treated as a freak.

In the days that followed, he did not check on the outside world with his divine thoughts. Instead, he focused his attention of experiencing the growth process of his barely formed physical body.

This was a strange and new experience to him. Moreover, his ‘mother’ was from a good background and had been consuming food that were rich in Qi of vitality. Hence, Shen Lian did not hold back and had cultivated all of the Qi of vitality with his divine thoughts as a source of nourishment for both his ‘mother’ and his ‘body’.

One day, Shen Lian noticed that he had started developing a head and a brain, and was doing so at a shocking speed. That took up about two-fifth of the bulk of his body.

His other organs started to form too – his fingers appeared.

Shen Lian was not too excited about this, as he realised something else. His private part was lacking in male reproductive organ, and was developing its female counterpart.

He could not help but to exclaim at his misfortune. Even though at this point, gender did not matter much to him, but he still could not accept the fact that he was turning into a woman.

If it was any other cultivator, they probably would have accepted their fate. However, Shen Lian was not one of them.

He was clearly aware that the determination of gender was due to a special substance in one’s body. Hence, he refined his divine thoughts and latched onto the special substance that promoted male features. While he was encouraging the secretion of that substance, he suppressed the secretion of its female counterpart.

This was too great and taxing of a task to be accomplished with his weak divine thoughts. However, he had no intention to give up.

Although, the secretion of said substance required a lot of Qi of Yang.

His ‘mother’ was not one who loved physical activities and spent most of her time out of the sun. Hence, the source of Qi of Yang was scarce.

With regard to this, Shen Lian could not interfere due to his fragile state.

The solution he came up with was to stall the development of the fetus. He did so by absorbing the energy available daily and to replenish his divine thoughts. Through that, he was able to slow down the physical development of his body.

Even if this would delay his birth and ended up getting treated as a freak, he had no choice now.

Whenever his ‘mother’ was out in the sun, he would release his divine thoughts without holding back. Greedily, he absorbed the Qi of Yang from the outside world. He spent at least two months to correct his gender to that of a male.

However, because of what he did throughout this period of time, his ‘mother’ became sickly and a few doctors came to diagnose her.

Mother’s sister, ‘Yun’ only came over once in three or four days. It seemed that they did not live in the same courtyard.

Shen Lian found out that his mother was staying with her family. He had yet to meet his father.

After dealing with the issue of gender, Shen Lian had time to transfer some of the Qi and blood back to his mother. Even though he was in the Daoist ‘innate’ environment, he did not snatch too much of his ‘mother”s Qi and blood to nurture his own body. To him, there were plenty of ways to influence his physical potential. He could work on it after being born.

In the following days, besides the necessary replenishment for his divine thoughts, he let the fetus developed naturally.

Meanwhile, he found out about something strange. Every time when the night was dark and his mother was sound asleep, he could feel a prying gaze.

However, the peeping tom seemed to be at a far distance away and he was unable to find out about the person’s identity.

It was only when he developed his auditory organs that he perceived that there were two skilled individuals lurking around his mother.

One of them almost never left the courtyard. The person did not talk to his mother, and seemed to have hidden his or her existence from his mother.

As for the other person, that would be the person who had been spying on his ‘mother’.

When ‘mother’ was in the tenth month of her pregnancy, Shen Lian was still not fully developed. If he were to have his ways, he would spend two more months before being born – even if this meant that he would be treated as a freak.

Last night, Shen Lian heard sounds of battle. The person who had been spying on his mother was fighting with his mother’s guardian.

The person left at last, but his mother’s guardian suffered from injuries.

Shen Lian could not wait any longer. The last thing he wanted was for something to go wrong.