Chapter Three: The Taiji Vortex

After two sleepless days of voracious eating, Sun Licheng had devoured nearly all of the graveyard, and his body was fully restored. Recovery filled him with excitement, and he began to wiggle his hips, dancing the “Little Apple.”

But as the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be bad. Sun Licheng’s joy was short-lived, for a great trouble soon emerged—precisely because he had consumed so much meat, especially the flesh of so many magical beasts.

In this world of magic, all living creatures possessed their own fundamental attributes—some compatible, some mutually repellent. Sun Licheng was ignorant of these intricate rules, but the deity within him had been waiting for just such an opportunity. The moment the attributes of the magical beast meats clashed, every nerve in Sun Licheng’s body would explode in agony—pain that only gods or demons could endure. No matter how unyielding his will, under such torment Sun Licheng would collapse completely, allowing the deity to reclaim the body. This was the deity’s final chance, and so he had quietly intensified Sun Licheng’s hunger, prompting him to eat even more.

After a long period of brewing, the immense pain erupted within Sun Licheng like a volcano—the harvest time for the deity had come.

“You little bastard, this time you’re dead! Hahaha…”

Seeing his plan succeed, the deity burst into laughter, his glee wild and unrestrained.

Sun Licheng had expected some adverse reaction after eating so much meat. What he hadn’t anticipated was the severity of the backlash. It felt as though a fire blazed in his stomach, rapidly spreading to engulf his whole body.

Even on the frigid plateau, where droplets froze overnight and biting winds could chill one to the marrow, Sun Licheng felt as if he’d stepped into the legendary alchemical furnace, enduring the torment of celestial flames. His once green skin darkened to a deep purple, and his once blue eyes turned a blazing red, like two glowing coals—ghastly and menacing in the night.

Wracked with agony, Sun Licheng began to flail, hoping movement would dissipate the burning heat within him. But it was futile.

When exercise failed, he broke into a desperate run, but this only stoked the internal fire more fiercely, as if tossing dry wood onto an inferno. Running, Sun Licheng felt that what he exhaled was not mere breath, but streams of sulfurous flame.

The deity, who had been so confident and was awaiting his victory, suddenly noticed that Sun Licheng had stopped running and was performing a strange exercise.

A sense of foreboding crept in—the deity felt things slipping from his grasp.

The exercise was none other than the broadcast calisthenics that Sun Licheng remembered most vividly—an office worker’s tool for fitness. His mind had begun to blur, and he acted on pure instinct. Miraculously, this exercise from Earth soothed his body; the rampaging energies within him gradually slowed their wild charge.

After five rounds, Sun Licheng felt as if he’d moved from the furnace to a sauna; the burning subsided considerably.

With the temperature lowered, his mind regained clarity. He tried another round of calisthenics, but their effect had faded. He needed something else.

Sun Licheng remembered he knew tai chi.

After quitting his job, he had earnestly studied tai chi for his health, learning from online videos and elderly practitioners in the park—a method said to be quite standard.

With nothing to lose, Sun Licheng began to practice tai chi.

“Why? Why?” cried the deity, now utterly stupefied in the depths of Sun Licheng’s mind.

To his horror, as Sun Licheng moved slowly and deliberately, the various powers within the body were set into motion, gradually coalescing into a swirling vortex of energy. Even more terrifying, the very divine power the deity had left inside Sun Licheng was drawn into this vortex.

The deity did not know that the pattern forming was the renowned Taiji Diagram—the symbol of yin and yang, one of the most ancient elements of Chinese culture. All things in heaven and earth, sun and moon, thunder and rain, the seasons, the hours, male and female, hard and soft, movement and stillness, all originate from the interplay of yin and yang. In the human body, yin and yang nurture every bone and organ—nothing escapes this duality.

The essence of tai chi is this: from the boundless, the taiji is born; motion and stillness, the mother of yin and yang; movement divides, stillness unites.

Through tai chi, the various energies in Sun Licheng’s body were fused into yin and yang, ultimately reaching equilibrium. In his dantian, a tiny taiji vortex spun without ceasing.

The deity hastily tried to marshal his remaining divine power to halt the fusion, but it was in vain!

Watching his precious power drain away, the deity could only sigh in resignation. He fashioned a shell of divine force, sealing off two regions—one in Sun Licheng’s mind, the other by his heart—as his last refuge.

This shell could resist the absorption of divine power by the taiji vortex, but the deity and his power could only remain within it. To maintain the shell, he had to constantly reinforce it with divine energy and, to recover, would need to sleep often—thus losing all chance to regain control over the body.

Meanwhile, Sun Licheng’s tai chi grew ever more refined, until he felt an ethereal clarity, as if his every movement swayed the heavens and the earth, as though he were the very center of the taiji diagram. The once-violent energies coursed gently through his meridians, warmth spreading delightfully through his body.

In the end, by combining two modest fitness routines from Earth, Sun Licheng had miraculously overcome his greatest crisis since arriving in this world, and even dealt a heavy blow to the deity lurking within his mind.

After five rounds of tai chi, Sun Licheng felt not only invigorated but also hungry once more. By now, except for the portion sealed away, he had absorbed every drop of energy in his body.

The wounded deity, unwilling to accept defeat, could only retreat into the depths of Sun Licheng’s mind and fall into a deep sleep, awaiting another opportunity.

...

When Sun Licheng reached the animal graveyard, he saw two creatures collapsed at the edge.

Though the corpses within the graveyard were a deterrent, some beasts were still tempted to scavenge. Even if they avoided the most toxic source—Sun Licheng himself—the bodies scattered on the ground were laced with potent poison, and so those greedy animals also became part of the graveyard’s collection.

To be honest, the thought of such toxins inside his own body filled Sun Licheng with dread. Yet now, this toxic vessel was his greatest safeguard—an irony not lost on him.

As he resumed eating, Sun Licheng found that tearing apart carcasses had become far easier, the pieces he pulled off much neater, his control over his muscles noticeably improved. What’s more, his senses had sharpened. When magical beast meat touched his tongue, he could distinctly perceive the various nutrients and energies it contained.

His hearing and perception had also grown keener. Even as he ate, everything around him was reflected in his mind—he could count the animals lurking nearby and even sense the vibrations of the wind rustling through the leaves. However, this awareness was still too chaotic, useful only for alerting him to danger.

As a frequent gamer, Sun Licheng divided his own stats into strength, perception, endurance, charisma, intelligence, agility, and luck. After this wild feast, he judged that the greatest benefits came from the magical beast meat, which had dramatically enhanced his perception and agility—by his reckoning, each had increased by one point.

“Thank goodness for this golden finger, or else, as a scrawny guy barely one and a half meters tall, I’d hardly look the part of a world-hopper,” Sun Licheng consoled himself, gnawing on a hind leg.

...

Sun Licheng picked up a small piece of flint in his left hand and a harder stone in his right, striking the flint at an angle, bit by bit. Gradually, he shaped the flint into a willow-leaf form, producing some rough edges.

Having eaten his fill, Sun Licheng could no longer bear to rip at his food like a wild beast—he needed proper tools to reflect his civilized nature.

His idea might have been a little melodramatic, and though he was still naked, this did not dampen his pursuit of civilization. He decided to fashion a stone knife to help with cutting food. The plateau was littered with rocks, and thanks to survival shows, Sun Licheng was not clueless about making stone tools.

Unlike ordinary pebbles, flint is a silicon-rich quartz that splinters to produce sharp edges; primitive humans in the Stone Age used flint for most of their tools. Had he not been fond of reading novels and researching, Sun Licheng might have foolishly tried to make tools by striking two river stones together. But here in the mountains, he soon found plenty of flint.

After finishing the roughly spearhead-shaped knife, he tested the edge with his finger and was satisfied with its sharpness.

Having completed the knife, he decided to test his regenerative abilities.

Gripping the stone knife in his right hand, he stretched out his left and slashed it hard. The sharp blade severed the artery at his wrist, and blood gushed out immediately.

The wound, gaping like a baby’s mouth, was enough to make anyone shudder. Yet in no time, it began to heal. As the wound visibly closed, he soon felt the expected itchiness and hunger. Within half an hour, the wound was completely gone, leaving not even a scar. Sun Licheng watched the whole process with awe—such a deep, jagged wound would have been a challenge to treat even on Earth, let alone heal so perfectly. Crossing worlds truly was a miraculous golden finger.

“If only I hadn’t become a goblin,” Sun Licheng thought with deep resentment.

But soon, he closed his eyes in anguish. With such a resilient body, there was simply no way to kill himself or be killed. Deep inside, he still longed to return to his own world, to reunite with his wife and child. Killing himself seemed the only likely way home.

Suddenly, Sun Licheng let out a wild, anguished scream, pounding the ground with his hands and feet. In that moment, pain was forgotten—he struck the earth with such force that his limbs were soon bloodied and bruised, yet he continued to vent his despair. At last, exhaustion claimed him, and tears streamed down his face.

“Xiao Jie, baby, I can’t go back. I want to go home!”

His wretched cries echoed through the valley.

Above him, the bright moon bathed the land in silver light. In the dark sky, stars glittered like jewels, casting a mesmerizing glow.