《龙虎还丹诀(金陵子)》

So-called returning elixir is a method of alchemy that refines the Golden Elixir and makes the substances return to their original state. It is formed from the essence of the Nine Heavens and receives the twenty-four perfected ones. True Water and True Fire unite within and without, giving rise to the five spirits and setting the movement of Qi in motion. Their accumulation forms water-sand; when Qi has accumulated to its utmost, this is called the “Elixir of Purple Splendor and Red Blossoms.” Then the gold of the central palace of Wu and Ji—Earth, which represents the center among the Five Phases—transforms its material form and returns to the Li position, the trigram position that symbolizes Fire. Its work is completed through nine cycles. Yang Metal thus changes without cease, activating the workings of creation, altering its material form and transforming its embryonic substance. It joins with the bodies of the five directions, then transcends the Three Origins—the three celestial tiers or three kinds of primordial Qi described in Daoism—casts off material form, and returns to its original nature. This is called the returning elixir. Its transformations are extraordinarily subtle and wondrous.

The returning elixir has no single fixed recipe. The Jinbi Jing and the Zhouyi Cantong Qi record methods for making it. Since ancient times, perfected adepts who attained the Dao have kept these methods secret: wondrous scriptures were hidden in grotto dwellings, and golden tablets concealed in the capital of the immortals. Even when oral instructions were written on paper, they still had to be transmitted by a master and could not be used carelessly. The principles of alchemy are profound and difficult to fathom, and its intent is hidden and hard to discover. Those who now aspire to the Dao and long for immortality must first distinguish good medicines from inferior ones, identify true Mercury and true Lead, and understand the nature of metals and minerals. Only then should they proceed with the firing process and work with Lead and Mercury. These are the foundations of alchemical ingredients.

Identifying Mercury

In the coded language of the immortal scriptures, Mercury is also called “the Old Woman by the River,” “the Child of Long Life,” “Mercury,” “the Flowing Pearl of the Sun,” “Divine Glue,” or “Master Lingyang.”

According to the coded language of the immortal scriptures, cinnabar—a mineral alchemical material formed from mercury, sulfides, and other substances—is also called “the Old Woman by the River,” “Child of Long Life,” “Mercury,” “Solar Flowing Pearl,” “Divine Glue,” “Master Lingyang,” “Dark Bright Dragon,” “Dark Water,” “White Tiger’s Brain,” and “Mat of Gold and Silver,” among other names.

Jinlingzi says: Mercury is the essence of the numinous spirits of the Five Yangs. The five kinds of divine Qi converge and resonate, congealing into one substance that resides in cinnabar and occupies the south. It forms within ore. Most metals and stones receive Yin Qi; their forms are hard and stubborn, their nature heavy and inert, and their efficacy greatly inferior. They cannot compare with it. Through transformation, cinnabar becomes Ren Water; “water” here refers to mercury. This is why it can move lightly and freely, communicate with and command the myriad numinous beings.

Metal and stone are originally one substance, called “Cinnabar Yang.” Water contains eight kinds of stone, within which the essence of metal is enclosed. Cinnabar holds a nature that is supremely numinous, divine, sacred, and bright. Carrying just one liang of it can ward off evil spirits; how much more so when it has been refined and taken into the five viscera? The Five Spirits unite in accordance with their proper patterns; their Qi gathers and takes form in cinnabar, making it the supreme essence of the sun, the sovereign of the Red Emperor—the deity of the southern fire virtue—and the true substance of metal and fire. It reaches the Eight Numinous Powers and is supremely divine, sacred, bright, and numinous. It resonates with the eight kinds of stone and corresponds to the twenty-four solar terms. It is the lord of the myriad numinous beings, the root of creation and transformation, and the source of the spirits. Because it can transform, it is called the “Red Dragon.” When it soars and flies, it is called the “Vermilion Crow.”

“Cinnabar” is so named because metal has been acted upon by fire; “mercury” is so named because fire has departed from metal. The essences of metal and fire congeal together, containing the true Qi of the Mysterious Origin, clear and upright. They are the foundation of the returning elixir and the source of the Great Medicine. When its potency joins with all things, it can bring forth the myriad forms; when it separates from them, it becomes profound and unfathomable.

A scripture says: “The Yang essence shines forth; obtain it, and the souls may return.” The Record of Receiving Longevity also says: “The Yang essence shines forth and can secure the souls; it is the highest grade among the immortals.” If one obtains superior cinnabar, there is no need to fire it or combine it with other ingredients: it can make the souls return. It can also be taken directly. This is the naturally formed returning elixir.

Cinnabar is regarded as the essence formed from the gathering of the pure Yang Qi of Heaven and Earth, and its numinous properties surpass those of all things. Yet it comes from mountain valleys in different prefectures, where it receives different kinds of Qi. There are therefore dozens of varieties, which must be carefully distinguished. Just as people differ in the quality of their spiritual nature, and the flesh and blood of birds and beasts vary from one another, cinnabar too must be judged for quality.

The finest cinnabar comes from stone caverns in Chenzhou and Jinzhou, and appears in several colors. The middle grade comes from Jiaozhou and Guizhou, and also has several varieties. The lowest grade comes from Hengzhou and Shaozhou, where it too is divided into several kinds. These differences arise because the Qi received by cinnabar varies in purity: true Qi and deviant Qi are not the same, so the metals and stones they produce differ as well. Cinnabar that receives the proper Qi is said, when taken, to open one to the mysteries and bring one into accord with the true Dao, making one an Upper Immortal. Cinnabar that receives deviant Qi is also said to grant long life and freedom from death, allowing one to remain in the human world.

Among the finest varieties, Bright Cinnabar comes from among the mountain rocks of Chenzhou and Jinzhou, where it grows on white, interlaced stone beds. A cluster of twelve beads forming a single seat is the most precious. Within such clusters, those with twelve or nine beads are the most numinous; those with seven or five rank next. Each seat contains one large pearl weighing more than ten liang, called the “Sovereign.” The smaller beads around it each weigh eight or nine liang, though some weigh only six or seven liang or less. These are called its subjects, surrounding and facing the large central bead. Around each stone seat there is also one or two dou of mixed sand, encircling the jade seat and vermilion bed.

If a seat contains smaller beads weighing six or seven liang or less, they likewise surround the large central bead. Among the mixed sand outside the seat, “lotus-bud heads” that remain bright and translucent when placed on red silk are also considered top grade. Those shaped like horse teeth and showing a white sheen are top grade as well. Among the white horse-tooth cinnabar, a slender variety shaped like a magnolia bud just beginning to open, with a reddish-purple color, is also top grade.

Purple Spirit Cinnabar that forms flat stone pieces, has angular edges, and shines blue-green is low grade. Purple cinnabar from Jiaozhou and Guizhou is classed as top grade if it has naturally formed into a stone seat or is extracted from rock in the shape of a bright lotus-bud head. If it occurs as grains, with three to five grains together weighing one jin and appearing translucent, it is middle grade. If it forms flat pieces that are clear and transparent, it is low grade. The purple cinnabar produced in Hengzhou and Shaozhou is mostly sand extracted from rock; varieties that shine red are also low grade. If stream cinnabar occurs as translucent grains, it is said that, after processing and taking it, one too can live forever and remain in the human world, though it does not suffice to make one an Upper Immortal.

Earth cinnabar comes from cavities in the soil, while stream cinnabar grows in sandy earth beneath running water. Since these kinds are mixed with other sands, they cannot be classed among the highest medicines and are unsuitable for ingestion. Cinnabar that has naturally formed into a stone seat is the finest of all. If one can obtain the Sovereign Cinnabar at the center of the seat, then, after processing it and taking it into the Five Viscera, its effects are said to become manifest: one is entered on the Upper Elixir Terrace, preserves the proper Qi, and escapes the entanglements of the world. With continued use, upon reaching the “seven reversals and nine returns”—stages in the Daoist practice of refining and taking elixirs—one can lighten the body and ascend by flight.

From this we can understand that when the true essence of Yang—the essence belonging to Yang—gathers and condenses into Qi, it forms a complete, pervasive light without any deviation. If cinnabar refined through fire reaches a lotus-like shape at its crown and displays a smooth, clear radiance, it is a superior elixir for the immortals to consume. The scripture says that cinnabar is, by nature, a naturally formed Returning Elixir, an elixir that restores things to their original state.

Jade-seat cinnabar is familiar to people of the world, as are golden-seat cinnabar and heavenly-seat cinnabar. The Supreme One’s Elixir of Purple Dragon and Mysterious Florescence, however, cannot be seen or recognized by ordinary people. Jade-seat cinnabar is an elixir that ordinary people aspiring to cultivate the Dao can take to become immortals, after long years of accumulating merit and refining it. Golden-seat cinnabar can be gathered and consumed only by those with an immortal nature from a former life, who can quiet the heart and nourish the spirit, and who cultivate in seclusion in mountain caves. Once consumed, it enables them to ascend to heaven that very day. Heavenly-seat cinnabar is an elixir gathered and consumed by the true officials who serve as celestial immortals under the Supreme One; it is not used by immortals of lower rank.

After absorbing the pure essence of Yang’s empty source for six thousand years, jade-seat cinnabar transforms into golden-seat cinnabar. Golden-seat cinnabar is yellow. In the center of its base, five cinnabar formations grow in layers, surrounded by four or five small pearls. After absorbing the same pure essence for another sixteen thousand years, golden-seat cinnabar transforms into heavenly-seat cinnabar. Heavenly-seat cinnabar is jade green. In the center of its base, nine cinnabar formations grow in layers, surrounded by seventy-two others. In the distant, immeasurable Great Void, the Spirit of Great Unity, who protects Heaven and Earth, often guards it. On the day of the Upper Primordial Festival, when true officials descend the mountain to gather medicines, the mountain suddenly splits open and blazes with light until the whole mountain shines like fire. The true officials gather the heavenly-seat cinnabar; people of the world cannot obtain it.

In every pound of luminous cinnabar, only two ounces are stone essence, from which fourteen ounces of mercury can be extracted. Every pound of white horse-tooth cinnabar contains four ounces of stone essence; the mercury that can be extracted… Here the original text ends with “the water extracted,” and the passage continues no further.

Each jin of Bright Cinnabar contains two liang of stone qi and yields fourteen liang of mercury when extracted. Each jin of White Horse-Tooth Cinnabar contains four liang of stone qi and yields twelve liang of mercury. Purple Spirit Cinnabar contains six liang of stone qi and yields ten liang of mercury. Clear Stream Cinnabar, pure in color and crystalline in appearance, yields eight and a half liang of mercury per jin and contains seven and a half liang of stone qi. Earth Cinnabar and other mixed varieties yield seven and a half liang of mercury per jin and contain eight and a half liang of stone qi. “Stone qi” here refers to the qi contained in flint. After the mercury is extracted, about one liang of stone matrix may remain: a grayish residue, pale green and white in color.

Bright Cinnabar forms by absorbing the sun’s clear, bright, and pure vital essence. One liang taken is as potent as four liang of White Horse-Tooth Cinnabar. White Horse-Tooth Cinnabar forms by absorbing the sun’s mild and yielding vital essence; one liang taken is as potent as eight liang of Purple Spirit Cinnabar. Purple Spirit Cinnabar absorbs the floating qi between mountains and marshes. Stream Cinnabar, Earth Cinnabar, and other miscellaneous varieties, by contrast, form from turbid, stagnant, and impure qi and cannot compare with the first kinds. Once the grades of cinnabar are distinguished, the relative quality of the mercury extracted from them can also be known.

When refining the “Supreme Elixir,” the most important taboo is using mixed mercury. This is a genuine secret. The Great Cavern Perfect Scripture (Dadong Zhenjing) treats “true mercury” as a secret method: extract pure, unblemished mercury from high-grade cinnabar, then imbue it with the inner qi of Water and Fire; only then is it called true mercury. Hence the scripture says, “How can different kinds of things be brought together to dwell as one?” Mercury of the same kind is true mercury, also called “mother and child”—a teaching kept secret in the Immortals’ scriptures.

Jinlingzi says: Place mercury on gold, and it will produce sand and form cinnabar; this is also called “cinnabar seated on gold.” True mercury is mercury extracted from high-grade cinnabar. Only after it has been imbued with the inner qi of Water and Fire is it called true mercury.

Select a length of tough bamboo with closely spaced nodes. Make it into a bamboo tube, retaining three nodes. Bore a hole about the size of a pellet in the upper node, and a small hole about the size of a fingertip in the middle node to serve as a passage for the mercury to drip through. First lay two layers of thick waxed paper over the middle node. This spot is called “true mercury.”

Put finely ground cinnabar (a mineral containing mercury sulfide) into the tube and bind it tightly with hemp rope. Steam it for a day. Then coat the tube in yellow clay to a thickness of about three-tenths of an inch and bury it in the ground, level with the surface. Tamp the soil firmly around it to prevent gas from escaping. Pile firewood on top and keep the fire burning for a full day and night, so that the heat reaches the upper part of the tube. The mercury will flow into the lower node with almost no loss. If the fire suddenly weakens, the mercury will emerge. If the ash is still blackish purple, this means the cinnabar has not yet been fully burned. Continue heating in the same way until the mercury has been completely extracted and the required degree of heat has been reached. Among the various methods, this one is the most crucial. Although cinnabar belongs to the same class as other materials, the mercury extracted from it cannot be added directly to gold sand; it must first be subjected to the Qi of “inner water” and “inner fire.”

Method for Treating Mercury

One jin of mercury and three liang of stone sulfur.

First grind the taomu wood into powder and put it in a porcelain bowl. Heat it over a low flame, then add mercury little by little, grinding it quickly until it forms green sand. Place the green sand in a porcelain container with a capacity of about one liter. Seal it with clay about two fen thick, put on the lid, and seal the edges tightly.

Put the porcelain container in a furnace and gently heat it from all sides with one jin of charcoal. After three days, switch to a strong fire and burn ten jin of charcoal in two batches of five jin each. If green smoke escapes, immediately seal the opening with thin mud; do not let flames come out. Continue heating until the charcoal is completely burned. Once the furnace has cooled, open it: the mercury will have turned into purple sand, supposedly without the slightest loss.

Next, take the purple sand prepared earlier and one jin of black lead. First melt the lead in a tripod vessel until it becomes liquid. Grind the purple sand finely and add it to the molten lead. Remove the heat and stir-fry the mixture rapidly so the two combine into sand. Then put it in the tripod and grind it finely. Cover it with salt to a thickness of about two fen, pressing the salt down firmly. Heat it over a strong fire for half a day, and “numinous mercury” will separate out, supposedly again without the slightest loss. This step is called “inner water and fire,” a term for refining with lead, mercury, and controlled heat.

Jinlingzi says: Yang essence belongs to Fire, and Yin essence belongs to Water. Yin and Yang restrain one another, while Water and Fire counterbalance each other; thus Yin and Yang are able to keep each other in check. When refining an elixir, one may grind mercury and distinguish its quality, yet still encounter mercury that has been contaminated by impurity. It is very difficult to tell whether mercury is mixed with other substances or has ever come into contact with a corpse.

If cinnabar has been contaminated by impurity associated with life and death, its outer red layer will peel away. The grains then look smooth and glossy but have no outer coating, showing that they were once contaminated. The refined method is to select only cinnabar of the highest, purest color, then extract and volatilize it oneself to obtain mercury for use.

Distinguishing True Lead

In the coded language of the immortal scriptures, True Lead is also called Establishing-Stone, Yellow Essence, Dark Splendor, White Tiger, Yellow Sprout, River Cart, Yellow Pool, Yellow Dragon, and Wood-Tin.

Of True Lead, the Classic of the Dragon and Tiger says: “Tin is black on the outside and radiant within, possessing the nature of gold.” The Secret Formula of Hidden Communication says: “From the breath of dark whiteness is born the Metal Lord, who towers as the beginning of all things unfolds.”

Jinlingzi says: True Lead is lead smelted from lead ore, before it has been extracted in a furnace or processed by roasting. It retains its original primordial Qi, and is therefore called True Lead. The True Scripture of the Great Cavern conceals the true meaning of True Lead, which should not be disclosed lightly. The phrase “Fire within True Water” refers to black tin, stone, and sulfur. Lead and tin both receive the Qi of the northern Ren and Gui: tin receives the essence of Ren Water, while lead receives the Qi of Gui Water. In the Five Phases, Metal reaches its end at the Gui position, so lead is considered to contain the essence of Yin at its utmost. The immortal scriptures say: “If lead is not true, mercury will be difficult to unite with it.” Therefore, the lead must be True Lead.

“Great Reversion” and “Seven Returns and Nine Reversions” are different names for the same essential process. “Return” means that cinnabar is transformed into gold; “reversion” means that the gold is brought back and formed into an elixir. The scripture says, “Return to my homeland and resume my ordinary state; take it, and you will be able to pay court to the Jade Emperor in broad daylight.” The furnace and crucible, too, must be arranged in accordance with the Three Powers of Heaven, Earth, and Humanity.

The crucible is made from twenty-four liang of medicinal gold, corresponding to the twenty-four solar terms. Eight liang of this forms the lid, and the crucible can hold nine ge. Choose a Wushen day in a Jiachen cycle, and build the furnace from clean earth at the Shen position in the southwest. Its inner diameter should be one chi and two cun. The furnace has three tiers and twelve doors, each fitted with a door panel. The main ingredient for the refining is high-quality Bright Luminous Sand, a kind of cinnabar, assisted by lead, stone sulfur, red sheng, and horse-tooth mirabilite.

“Seven Returns and Nine Reversions” is said to be an elixir that lets a person remain in the world, live forever, and ascend by flight. Take one jin of cinnabar, crush it to the size of hemp seeds, and boil it in water with stone ling and horse-tooth mirabilite for forty days, concealing the Yang substances through a Yin method. Then place them in the crucible and refine them by flight and subduing, following the Yin-Yang fire regimen, for five days: use the Kan trigram, which symbolizes water and Yin, for the first four days, and the Li trigram, which symbolizes fire and Yang, for the final day. During the Kan phase, boil the mixture for four days; during the Li phase, refine it by flight over fire for one day. These five days make one hou, and three hou make one qi. After eight qi, or twenty-four hou, a total of 120 days, the cinnabar is considered subdued by fire.

Saltpeter is then used to wrap the substances. Yellow earth is mixed with water to make mud, which is used to seal the gold tripod tightly. The tripod is placed in the furnace and fired with a strong flame for thirty days. Next, the silver produced by this firing is taken out. It is also called “Yellow-Fire Silver.” One ounce of it is taken and fired again, whereupon it can be turned into gold. After repeating this process seven times, the elixir is complete. It is named “Mysterious Truth Crimson-Cloud Sand.” The scripture says that taking it can grant everlasting life and keep one in the human world; used to transform mercury and various metals, it can also turn them into precious treasures.

Next, use this Crimson-Cloud Sand to refine fifteen ounces of purple gold. Take one pound of true lead and five ounces of sulfur, mix the three substances, and place them in the tripod. Fire the mixture through six cycles, adding yang sulfur at each cycle. The tripod must be made of gold, and an altar and furnace must be set up. Each cycle begins at the hour of the Rat on a jiazi day. After two months of firing—sixty days in all—the cycle is complete. As the elixir nears completion, it is said that purple Qi shoots straight into the sky, the sun and moon seem to lose their radiance, and mountains and rivers tremble.

Once the elixir is complete, it shines brightly and rises lightly, separating from its original form. It joins the lid of the tripod like a nine-tiered lotus. Its weight is exactly fifteen ounces, without the slightest difference. In the tripod, twenty-four ounces of coagulated residue remain, the color of purple gold. A single grain of this purple residue, the size of a hemp seed, is said to be enough to turn one pound of mercury and various metals at once into the finest treasures.

The genuine elixirs refined by ancient immortals are of the same kind as this Sevenfold-Returned Sand, and their effects are remarkable; those who take them can become high-ranking immortals. Yet the scripture says that this cannot be considered a true immortal elixir, because the substance remains dense and heavy in form. It cannot transform with lightness and freedom or escape the constraints of the spirits of the five organs, and it can still be melted by the water and fire of the world. The Ninefold Elixir is different. Once refined, it floats and transforms, entirely free of ordinary physical form. It is round and radiant, with purple Qi soaring into the sky; it can transform anything it encounters without obstruction. No matter how many times it is fired, it will not melt; its refined brilliance only grows stronger. Even in a blazing fire, it will not burn the hand. Those who take it are said to be able to ascend on feathered wings and become supreme perfected beings.

In cultivating the Dao, one should take worthiness as one’s standard and remain steadfast in one’s resolve. When a noble person attains this Dao, blessings and longevity know no end. For those who disclose it carelessly, calamity will reach their ninth-generation ancestors. Nor should one speak recklessly to slander this Dao or conceal it and prevent its transmission. One must simply be cautious and not readily reveal its methods of inner cultivation to ordinary people. Whether someone is worthy or foolish must be discerned with care.

Jinlingzi says: The Great Reversion Elixir, a high-level form of Daoist alchemy, is difficult to cultivate successfully. The scriptures say that the methods for making it were first bestowed by Heaven and then passed down to the human world. Without long-accumulated merit and diligent practice, bringing one’s words and actions into accord with the true Dao, one cannot attain it. The sages of antiquity said that human life passes swiftly, like flowing water: in the blink of an eye, the body decays. Life and death are the greatest of thresholds; without a wondrous elixir, there is no other shortcut. Those who obtain this elixir can ascend to pay homage at the court of the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing), enjoy longevity through ten thousand kalpas, have Jade Maidens attend them, and possess wealth beyond measure. The Biographies of Lord Yin record that this teaching truly comes from the vital force of Heaven and Earth.

Since antiquity, the Reversion Elixir has had many names: the Yellow Emperor’s Nine Tripod Elixirs, Lord Lao’s Reversion Elixir, and the Langya, Qu Chen, Divine Talisman, White Snow, Five Spirits, and Twenty-Four Elixirs, among others. There are also elixir methods said to have come from the West. Though these teachings have circulated in the world, no orthodox formula has been made public. Even when texts have been left behind, they often use terms such as Yin-Yang as metaphors. The sages have kept this art secret together: the true essentials are never written down, and what is written is often not the true teaching. If you rely on your own cleverness, pursue the literal meaning in search of practical content, and then speculate and investigate according to your own ideas, the more you contrive ingenious interpretations, the farther you stray from the true essentials. How much less can words alone reveal the mysteries of the south and north directions, Yellow Sprout, Golden Water, and other alchemical ciphers?

The key lies in mastering the timing of the firing process and the moment for receiving Qi. If even one step is mistimed, the result is no different from rubble, all the more so given how long the process of making the elixir takes. These methods must be transmitted orally by a good teacher so that the student can truly understand them. The student, in turn, must choose a suitable method with care and remain clear-minded and single-hearted. Only an extraordinary aspiration can bring about an extraordinary achievement; only by enduring hardship over a long period can one succeed. Otherwise, even if one formally enters the realm of the Elixir Dao, one has merely cut off worldly ties and is left without support—or perhaps one may encounter a spirit-being who transmits the teaching. For ordinary people, anything else is ultimately wasted effort. They may as well drink for pleasure and keep to simplicity.

I was not born knowing the methods of the Elixir. Only after enduring hardship did I come to understand them. Otherwise, even if I withdrew to a place called “Elixir Ravine” and cut off all contact with the world, I might still achieve nothing; perhaps I would have to meet a divine adept who could teach me. Apart from that, most ordinary practitioners merely spend their lives in vain. Better, for now, to enjoy good wine and keep to a simple life.

I was not born with foreknowledge, either. I once served an elder and spent many years studying through hardship, listening as these teachings were explained. Kan and Li are two hexagrams in the Book of Changes. In the methods of the Elixir, they are used to explain the foundations of the ingredients. Cinnabar lies in the south and belongs to Fire; it contains mercury. Black lead lies in the north and belongs to Water; it contains silver. Silver is the essence of lead, while mercury is the treasure within cinnabar. Once separated from their essence and treasure, each returns to its source. They are therefore called the Azure Dragon and the White Tiger, symbolic names commonly used in Neidan and Waidan texts.

The scripture says, “Use lead, yet do not use lead”; its meaning can be understood from this. In this account, silver is the purest part of lead, and mercury is the true treasure within cinnabar. But using silver and mercury directly as ingredients for refining the Elixir probably will not work. The scripture therefore also says, “If you seek it in lead, your black hair will turn white.” This means that if you seek the Elixir only in ordinary lead, your hair may turn white before you find it, and you may still fail.

The silver spoken of here is the common silver found in the world; how could it be suitable for refining the Elixir? Using lead and mercury directly is also wrong. That would take you even farther from the Dao, so you must consider the matter carefully. Another view holds that lead containing silver is not the true medicinal substance. Yet another says that lead mixed with silver is not what is truly sought. A further view maintains that true lead is inherent in lead itself. There is also a claim that lead from Jiazhou can subdue mercury and make it solidify quickly.

Those who practice alchemical methods should choose a famous mountain and a quiet, suitable place. Otherwise, malign spirits may dwell there, and ghosts and spirits may disturb the mind, making it difficult to focus on doing good.

Choose companions who share your aims with care, and keep their number to two or three. With more people, their intentions may not be aligned, which could harm the elixir and delay the practice. Select an auspicious day and hour, and observe the taboos. Details appear in the Three Caverns Essentials and Treasured Scripture (Sandong Yaochou Baojing), a Daoist text.

Practitioners should withdraw from worldly affairs outwardly and cut off improper thoughts inwardly. They should regulate their temperament, keeping Shen (spirit) and Qi (vital energy) calm and balanced, and avoid exhausting themselves. Abstain from meat and bloody foods, avoid contact with impure Yin things such as corpses and graves, and do not eat with women. These taboos are described in the Three Caverns Essentials and Treasured Scripture. Do not eat too little or too much, and do not let joy or anger unsettle the mind. Eat before noon, and sleep with your head facing south. Bathe every seven days, have no dealings with outsiders, and do not discuss improper subjects; otherwise, Yin essence will not remain stable.

On the day you begin refining the elixir and open the furnace, write a document stating your hometown, name, birth date and year, and status. End it with these words: “I am but an ordinary person in this turbid world. I wish to extend the life that remains to me and refine the orthodox elixir. I have now prepared the medicinal ingredients that serve as ruler and ministers. With reverence, I invite the numinous ruler and beseech the numinous spirit, the Supreme Emperor Taiyi, and the great gods of the four directions to descend upon this humble place of offering.”

Next, summon the gods of the four directions. Begin with the direction of noon, calling each god in turn by name and describing its appearance and color. Visualize each deity descending in its proper direction. Then click the teeth twenty-four times. Tooth clicking is a common ritual gesture in Daoist deity visualization and ritual practice. Recite: “I am refining a numinous elixir; may the numinous ruler descend to the altar. May the presiding deity protect the medicine ruler, so that the elixir does not scatter or fly away into the heavens.” Then recite: “I am refining a numinous elixir; may the numinous spirit descend to the altar. Protect the medicine spirit and keep it secure, so that it is not lost in the spring.”

After reciting, click the teeth twenty-four times again, then recite: “I am refining a numinous elixir; may the numinous ruler descend to the altar. May the presiding deity protect the medicine ruler, so that the elixir does not scatter or fly away into the heavens.” Then recite: “I am refining a numinous elixir; may the numinous spirit descend to the altar. Protect the medicine spirit and keep it secure, so that it is not lost in the spring.”

After the prayer is complete, you may freely state your wishes. If you receive a medicine to take, you should cultivate benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom, while setting aside your personal body and mind. Choose a quiet place to live, and keep away from corpses and filth. The impurity brought by death will offend the elixir, so be sure to avoid it. Once you have received a spiritual medicine, do not let anyone see it or know of it; guard against ghosts and spirits as well. Put the medicine in a pouch made of antique brocade. The number of pills must be odd, never even, or the medicine may be lost. Antique brocade has the power to ward off evil.

Formula for the Golden Flower Restoring Elixir

Eight liang of lead and eight liang of mercury.

Mix these two ingredients and grind them thoroughly with the previously mentioned medicinal materials, until they are fully blended. Encase the mixture in a ball of crucible clay made from loess. Once it has dried, place it in the furnace and bank ash around its base. Warm and nurture it over a gentle fire for sixty days, then remove it. Grind it carefully with the previously mentioned medicinal materials, form it into a ball again as before, and warm and nurture it over the fire for another sixty days.

After the full sixty days, add two liang of silver every ten days. Use pure, high-quality silver; file it into powder and grind it finely so it is thoroughly mixed with the medicinal materials. Add silver eight times in all, for a total of eighty liang, yielding two jin of medicine. If the original medicine weighs only half a jin, add one liang of silver each time, yielding one jin of medicine. Refined in this way, the medicine can subdue mercury and gradually reveal its wondrous effects.

Then return it to the furnace and warm and nurture it over the fire for another 160 days, until the medicine is refined. The total firing time is 360 days; this is considered a complete cycle, with the vital energies brought to fullness. One dao gui—a tiny ancient implement for measuring medicine—can dry out one jin of mercury. Take one pill each day, and you will live through countless kalpas, an immensely long span of time.

There are two verses. One says, “Seek the mountains and rivers, laboring tirelessly.” The other says, “White mercury gives birth to cinnabar; black lead becomes yellow elixir.”

Formula for the Yellow Flower Cinnabar

The medicinal properties of arsenic yellow are broadly similar to those of realgar: it is warm in nature, potent, and poisonous. It is found in the mountain valleys of Lizhou and is also called “smoke yellow.” If kept with lead for a long time, it turns black, like iron. Among mineral medicines, anything containing the qi of lead must be kept apart from minerals such as malachite. Arsenic yellow also fades after long exposure to the wind, as does realgar. It is especially averse to contact with lead; even in the same box or basket, it should not be stored for long. Once arsenic yellow turns the color of iron, its medicinal properties accord with those of Danyang.

A scripture says: “When copper meets subdued arsenic, it becomes soft and sinks downward; when copper meets subdued orpiment, in time it becomes like Imperial Male.” Here, “subdued arsenic” and “subdued orpiment” refer to arsenic yellow and realgar that have been refined to produce specific effects. Realgar, along with the four yellow medicines—female orpiment, male orpiment, sulfur, and arsenic—each has its own fixed correspondence.

Some people use flying sand alone, refining it repeatedly eighty-one times, and thereby make an elixir. It is said that if a pill is placed in a dead person’s mouth, the person immediately comes back to life. This shows that the power of arsenic yellow is beyond imagining. Since it is close in nature to realgar, it should also be able to overcome all weapons and kill snakes and insects. After it is ingested, its medicinal power flies into the brain, enabling a person to live forever. Surely this is how it works.

I once saw Director of Studies Wang Huan put realgar and mercury in an iron pot and grind them without stopping while gently heating them. They can also be ground without heat. Within a day, they form a sandy substance. If refined until it is fire-subdued, the resulting medicine is the size of a soapbean seed and can be refined into superior gold. When realgar is unavailable, high-grade arsenic yellow from Lizhou can be used in its place; the two are equally effective. This is what is called the numinous medicine.

Another account says: realgar is the ruler, orpiment the minister, sulfur the envoy, and arsenic yellow the general.

According to the Bencao (a classic that records medicinal substances), realgar is produced in Wudu and can be refined together with copper to make gold. Arsenic yellow resembles it. Realgar is produced in many regions, but none compares with that of Lizhou. Its color is like a cockscomb; held up to the sun, it appears vivid red. Its texture is dense and fine, moist and smooth. It is solid but not hard, and has a faint fragrance. It differs from Kunhuang: red with a trace of yellow, which is why it is called realgar. After being washed in water and left to dry, a thin yellow film should form on its surface in about the time it takes to eat a meal. The same film appears if it is held in the mouth. A venomous snake dies as soon as it sees it. Only realgar with these characteristics is genuine. Realgar is also produced in Loutian and Nanjunzhou, but neither matches that of Wudu.

Arsenic yellow is inferior in quality to realgar, but it is not as described above. It is bright yellow, sharply edged and hard, with a lustrous sheen. The best kind is vivid red and easy to break.

The art of refining danyang is extremely difficult. Though scholars are numerous in the world, few truly understand it. Danyang’s nature is hard to bring into harmony: its outer sheen is red, while within it holds a greenish black color. Iron receives the essence and Qi of the southern Yin-Ding and congeals into form, which is why it is red. Copper receives the eastern Yi-Yin Qi and congeals into a soul, which is why it is green. Silver receives the western Zu-Yin Shen-Qi and congeals into substance, which is why it is white. Lead and tin both receive the northern Ren-Gui Qi, which is why they are black. Gold receives the central Wu-Ji soul, which is why it is yellow.

Danyang is difficult to refine. One account holds that the sheen is copper and copper is the sheen: when the sheen is exhausted, the copper is exhausted; when the copper is exhausted, the sheen is exhausted as well. It therefore cannot be refined without exquisite skill. To unite the two substances, mother and child, one must understand their distinct natures and balance firmness with flexibility in the right proportions. One must then use lead and mercury that have undergone fire processing—that is, been refined by fire so their properties are transformed—together with superior elixirs, to alter their substance.

In addition, when the five metals are buried in the earth for a thousand years, only gold and silver retain their original substance; all the others turn to dust and earth.

The formula I am discussing can extract and transform the essential qualities of substances, so that they remain unchanged when placed in fire and do not dissolve when buried in earth. It can also be refined further to harmonize Yin-Yang and transform the natural workings of creation. How could this be done easily?

Only someone born with the potential to become an immortal, destined to encounter this opportunity, and fortunate enough to learn the wondrous instructions early on might achieve success through refining and transforming a very small quantity of substances. One liang is divided into twenty-four zhu; six su make one daogui, an ancient unit of very small measure. Sometimes the substance is spread over a crucible or other vessel and then placed in the fire for refinement, producing a genuine treasure. This is an advanced method of immortal alchemy, not something one can master in haste.

Those who do not already belong to this tradition must study the properties of the substances carefully, read widely in books of formulas, distinguish the “ruler” from the “minister” in their combinations—the primary ingredient from the supporting ones—and learn the various prohibitions. Substances differ in strength and gentleness: some must be processed, while others need their nature subdued; some can withstand fire, while others must undergo fire subduing. They also differ in whether they are used raw or cooked. Some formulas combine lead and mercury, while others use only the Four Yellows, a traditional class of alchemical ingredients consisting mainly of yellow minerals.

The instructions transmitted by immortal lineages are numerous, as are their methods and formulas, yet most are kept secret and left unexplained. Even when books of formulas are passed down, both teacher and student often fail to understand them, so later practitioners rarely achieve much. This is also because some worthy people have not worked hard enough to investigate them deeply or grasp the purpose behind the teachings handed down by the sages; the results they obtain are therefore shallow. Moreover, they have not fully understood the crucibles, furnaces, tongs, sheaths, and other implements, or how to use them. They fail to examine the finer details of firing, adding ingredients, and activating their transformation. When the fire blazes fiercely and the substances in the furnace turn black, the proper moment passes in an instant. How, then, could they tell whether the alchemical work had succeeded?

It is easier to refine medicines that have already been processed, while using raw, unprocessed substances directly is difficult. The recipes given here use only raw materials. The key to changing their nature and transforming them into pure substances lies in controlling the heat, knowing when to stop heating, and drawing off, replacing, and adding materials at the proper times. Choosing the right season and moment is also important. This method can also explain how lead and mercury transform into one another.

The scripture says that a space one inch square inside a vessel can hold one jin of mercury. Comparing the weights obtained by measurement, a gold block one inch on each side weighs one jin; a silver block weighs fourteen liang; lead and tin weigh nine and a half liang; iron weighs six liang; and jade weighs nine liang, though another text gives its weight as ten liang. White stone weighs three liang, and earth weighs two. Each of these substances receives different natural properties. Mercury, by contrast, receives the numinous vital essence of the “Five Yang Spirits,” so it cannot be compared directly with other substances.

The weights of the other materials differ greatly; only refined copper and silver are similar in weight. Their textures are dense and their softness is comparable. Their colors differ slightly, but they are otherwise much alike, so a method can be used to transform one into the other. The Five Metals Instructions says that realgar can change iron, orpiment can change tin, arsenic sulfide can change copper, and sulfur can turn silver into mercury. These four yellow minerals can also turn iron into copper, copper into silver, and silver into gold. This is like processing grain into rice: it is a natural process of Heaven and Earth. Magnetite attracts needles, and amber lifts tiny pieces of straw; these are effects inherent in the substances themselves, not the work of spirits.

The scripture also says that, with someone who understands the arts of the Dao, different substances can be blended through careful preparation and skillful combination, and refined into treasures. The author says that the principle is the same in his own methods: using arsenic sulfide to turn iron into copper, and using it to make silver. The recipes are as follows.

Recipe for Producing Cinnabar Yang

Thirty liang of arsenic sulfide: that from Lizhou is best. It should contain no stone fragments and should be the color of a parrot’s crest, glowing deep red when held toward the sun. Material from other places is less effective.

Eight liang of orpiment: pieces like gold leaves are best. If it is yellow and loose in texture like stone, it cannot be used. A kind of orpiment mixed with realgar looks similar, but this recipe does not use it.

Hutonglü (a medicinal substance named in the original): that from Lizhou is best. It should contain no stone fragments and should be the color of a parrot’s crest, glowing deep red when held toward the sun. Material from other places is less effective.

Take eight liang of orpiment (arsenic sulfide), preferably in thin flakes like gold leaf. If it is soft and stone-like in texture, it cannot be used. If realgar is mixed into the orpiment, the two may look alike, but this recipe should not be used for it.

Take two liang of Hutonglü. Use stone lü, which is shaped like ginger stone. It is suitable if, when placed in strong vinegar, it continues to boil for a long time.

Take two liang of salt, and stir-fry it with salt flowers until it changes color.

The four ingredients above total forty-two liang. First take a piece of arsenic the size of a small jujube, pound it into powder, and set it aside. Then weigh out thirty liang and put it in an iron pot. Use five sheng of raw sesame oil for every jin of the ingredients. Cook slowly over a low flame, keeping the contents at only a gentle simmer; do not use a fierce fire. Continue cooking this way for nine days and nine nights. If the oil thickens and becomes sluggish, draw off the old oil and add fresh oil.

After cooking for the full period, put the ingredients in a cloth bag and bury it in an earthenware pot filled with cooked rice. Place it in the center of the pot in a sand-silk bag and steam it for seven days. The oily residue will seep into the sand, and the ingredients will turn bright red on their own.

The scripture says that Emperor Male, Emperor Female, and Emperor Female Orpiment must all be processed this way. First, this removes their toxicity; once the toxicity is reduced, they can be used to refine the Five Metals. Second, this treatment doubles the amount of frost obtained. If the finest quality is unavailable, a lesser grade may also be used, but be aware that it may contain stony impurities that are difficult to refine. Simply pour it off once and use the pure portion; that will also work. Arsenic from Lizhou is potent, while that from other places is weaker.

Orpiment is processed in the same way as arsenic, but it must not be cooked in the same vessel as the arsenic. All the other steps are the same. Orpiment has a strong ability to soften other substances, and when combined with arsenic, it can produce the same effect.

Jinlingzi says: During steaming, the two may be placed in the same pot of rice, though it is also fine to keep them some distance apart. The Jing of Lead and Tin says, “Cinnabar, three…” ⟂

Jinlingzi says: During steaming and refining, place the ingredients together in a sand bath. Even if they are some distance apart, this causes no problem. According to the Jing of Lead and Tin, take three parts cinnabar and one part realgar, grind them together finely, and put them in a copper bowl. Add strong vinegar, then set the bowl over hot water and heat it slowly. When the vinegar has boiled away, add more. After boiling for three fu (an ancient unit of time), take the mixture out and let it dry. Then put it in a pan of oil and heat it slowly over a low flame until small bubbles like fish eyes appear in the oil. After two fu, take it out and collect the refined substance that has sublimated; this is best. If it does not sublime, seal a porcelain vessel with egg white and clay, put the ingredients inside, and cover it tightly. Steam it in a sand bath for one zhou (an ancient unit of time), then take it out; this works very well. If it still does not work, add red salt to transmute copper and make it yellow. For the remaining methods, see this classic.

It is very difficult to obtain genuine Hutonglü. One account says to use it raw on its own: when applied to copper, it can produce white gold (an ancient alchemical term for a refined white metal). Simply put it in a porcelain vessel and boil it with rice-washing water, adding more water as needed. Once five sheng of rice-washing water have boiled away, it is ready to use; it is said to remove the black stains on copper. When refined by this method, the copper turns yellow. For the rest, see this classic.

It is very difficult to obtain genuine Hutonglü. Another account says it can be used raw: when applied to copper, it can produce white gold. Some also say to boil it in a porcelain vessel with rice-washing water, adding more as needed; after a total of five sheng have boiled away, it is ready to use and can remove black stains. Another text says it can also be used raw without boiling. Salt should be fried until yellow; when needed urgently, it can be used without boiling or steaming. As for the kind of salt, powdered salt is inferior to coarse salt, coarse salt to well salt, and well salt to pond salt.

However, pound the first three ingredients together and pass them through a fine sieve so they are evenly mixed. Then put the bin into vinegar and wait for it to dissolve. Use this to moisten the ingredients prepared earlier, and dry them in sunlight. Mix and rub them thoroughly so they are evenly combined. Moisten them once more and dry them until slightly damp, then put them in the cauldron. Another account says to mix the medicine with mulberry-ash water. Some believe that vinegar may damage the copper, but the matter has not been settled.

Divide the medicinal material between two vessels used for refining elixirs, with a little over twenty liang in each. The exact amount may be adjusted as appropriate. Take two spoonfuls of lime and mix them evenly with the ingredients mentioned earlier.

First spread a layer of lime across the bottom of each vessel, no more than one fen thick, and press it down firmly. Put the powdered ingredients into the vessel and mound them in the shape of the back of a shovel. They need not be pressed tightly against the sides; simply press them gently with a spoon. Then sprinkle on a small amount of lime and use your palm to smooth the surface lightly, mixing the powder with the lime. Press it down slightly with a spoon, shaping it again like the back of a shovel. Finally, cover it with a layer of lime two fen thick.

Gently grind the prepared substance until it is evenly mixed. Sprinkle a little water over its surface until it is damp and loosened, then cover it with a basin. The basin should be one chi and five cun taller than the one normally used. Alternate a gentle fire and a strong fire twice, keeping the heat somewhat milder than when you usually sublime white frost. Once the furnace has cooled, open it. The white frost should have condensed across the furnace surface, with no hanging clumps forming below. It should be pure white, soft, and fine; when rubbed on the arm, it should feel like powder.

This frost condenses inside the furnace in a single layer, a little over one cun thick, with a texture like strands of silk bound together. It does not fly up onto the basin, so I call it “outer-furnace frost.” About half a liang of frost also condenses on the basin; its color is different, so collect it separately for another use. If the heat was not properly controlled and the frost did not fully sublime, you can sublime it again using the method described above.

This furnace frost is very effective at softening materials; unlike ordinary frost, it does not make them brittle and hard. I have seen methods in which a small amount of white frost, after being sublimed once, has no effect. Using more, in turn, makes the material hard. This is a serious drawback. You can use as much of this frost as needed without making the material hard, which makes it quite different from other kinds of frost.

For arsenic, it is enough to select a good grade and carry out the “reverse-drawing” treatment. If it is also to be boiled in oil or steamed, sublimed frost can be used as well. After weighing the matter, Kong also said that white frost sublimed once is preferable. These two views are largely in agreement.

After processing the frost, make it into furnace frost. Take the frost prepared earlier: use two large ounces to transmute one large pound of metal. All measurements above use the large-scale pound and ounce.

The refined Danyang can be divided between two pots, with about eight ounces in each. Use an appropriate amount: it is better to use a little less than to exceed this measure. If you use too little, the contents of the pot will burn dry.

Divide each ounce of the medicine into six pellets. Add three pellets at a time in succession. When the molten metal has become as fluid as water, keep probing it with an implement all the way to the bottom of the pot. Once the pellets have dissolved completely, stir the mixture over charcoal, then pump the bellows twenty or thirty times before adding more medicine. Repeat the same procedure with each subsequent addition. When this round is finished, pour the liquid into the Flower Pool—a vessel that catches the liquid medicine and lets it spread out—so it forms beadlike drops, then quickly break them apart with a willow branch. It is also acceptable if they do not form beads.

Then follow the same method, adding three pellets at a time and pouring the liquid medicine into the pool. Observe whether its color has turned white. If it has not, do not take the medicine you just added and heat it again. Continue adding a little more medicine until it turns white. Raw medicine is difficult to use for transmuting the metal in the pot, and the amount added is large. Pay close attention as the metal liquid moves in and out of the pot when hot and cold forces clash; much is lost with each operation. The pot should be made somewhat deeper. The ideal condition for transmutation is when the molten metal flows like water.

End of the Upper Volume of The Method of the Returned Elixir of the Dragon and Tiger.

Lower Volume of The Method of the Returned Elixir of the Dragon and Tiger, written by Jinlingzi.

According to the Immortal scriptures, yellow silver, white gold, and red silver are all made by refining superior medicinal substances. One kind is called red gold, also known as vivid red gold. There are also Li-Ji gold, green gold, and treasure gold, as well as metals made by coloring and refining mercury-silver with cinnabar, the four yellows, and other substances, and yellow-flower silver.

Mercury-silver can change in countless ways, and naturally contains hues that appear after such coloring and refining. Further refinement with medicinal substances may give it different appearances—yellow, scarlet, red, or purple—depending on the substances used. Some look as though wrapped in the color of blood, resembling the root of rehmannia; others resemble the color of the sun: yellowish but not yellow, scarlet but not scarlet, reddish but not red, or purplish but not purple. All are regarded as superior medicines refined by immortals, beyond recognition through ordinary experience. The relevant formulas and oral instructions are recorded here.

The method of refining cinnabar into red silver is to place mercury, qinglü (a copper-bearing mineral), shidan (a copper-containing mineral drug), and various medicinal ingredients and alum compounds together in an iron vessel and boil them until they congeal. The finished product resembles danyang, a red mineral, and has a halo all around it. There are also methods for making it without a halo.

There are many further subtleties to these refining methods. It is said that some practitioners can refine one jin of ingredients into one jin of finished product, or one liang into one liang. Some add the ingredients and boil them for less than an hour before producing a body of silver; some use a method in which the ingredients act upon one another in successive layers; some produce a solid that has no halo; and some shape the congealed silver into objects, then refine it again with the original ingredients, sometimes without using an iron vessel.

Another method begins with one liang of mercury, which is refined into a sandy substance and placed in a porcelain bowl set on the ground for combined refining. It hardens after a short while. The substance is then pounded in an iron mortar, another one liang of mercury is added, and it is refined in the bowl as before; after a short while, it hardens again. Pound it once more, add two liang of mercury, and refine it in the same way to obtain four liang of hardened material. Each time thereafter, double the amount used. It is said that the quantity can be increased to one hundred jin and the refining completed in a single day. There are dozens of methods for refining medicinal ingredients in all. The Great Way is profound and far-reaching, and its subtle principles are beyond exhaustive understanding. These methods must be encountered through the right circumstances; they cannot be glimpsed in haste.

In the silver mines of Raozhou, Xinzhou, and other places, there are ores resembling guangmingsha, a lustrous mineral. They are reddish purple and strikingly beautiful, and can be placed in a furnace for refining. When melted and cast with bellows, they become silver. The subtle principles are beyond exhaustive understanding; they must be encountered as circumstances allow and cannot be glimpsed in haste.

There are silver mines in Raozhou, Xinzhou, and other places that contain ore whose texture and shape resemble bright cinnabar. Its color is red-purple, vivid and pleasing to the eye. It can be smelted in a furnace: after bellows are used to refine and cast it, silver can be obtained. One jin of ore yields fourteen or fifteen liang of silver. This kind of ore is hard to find. It is now extremely rare, and since it is not mentioned in ancient scriptures or books of the arts and techniques, its true nature remains unknown.

Some suspect that it is actually a red ore of silver. So-called red silver is made by refining verdigris, a copper-bearing mineral, together with stone gall, a mineral like copperas known among ordinary people as “gall.” After smelting with bellows, the yield is only four or five liang, or perhaps six or seven liang. Its color resembles the red silver produced in Danyang. Another method is to boil and refine mercury with verdigris, stone gall, and other alum-like substances in an iron vessel, causing them to coagulate. For every jin of cinnabar-mercury refined, only four liang of red silver can be obtained. But this red silver is actually iron, not mercury.

Some say that stone gall and verdigris are copper-ore outcrops containing copper, and that mercury can therefore extract the copper. I suspect this is not so; it has nothing to do with refining medicines. The roughly four liang of red silver obtained are all iron, drawn from the iron vessel by the mercury. They are not the product of refining a mercury compound.

I once weighed materials of various colors separately and recorded them carefully. On one occasion, after boiling and refining, the vessel had originally contained five liang less red silver, but in the end I obtained only four and a half liang. This was indeed iron, not an empty claim. I record it only as evidence.

Also, whenever materials of the cinnabar class are coagulated, if the vessel is too full or the fire a little too strong, the mercury escapes in particles as fine as needlepoints, almost impossible to detect. Even a careful person may have no idea how much has been lost. Later, when the material is washed and ground with medicines, the slightest carelessness can disperse the mercury like dust, and it flows away with the liquid. People do not know how much they have lost, and assume that all the missing mercury has turned into red silver. Later practitioners of alchemy see no result from the refining and throw away all the materials. This claim is then passed down from one generation to the next, and everyone comes to believe that the red silver was made from mercury. In fact, it was not.

Another account says that the red silver produced by refining one jin of mercury is actually iron. Iron already has a colored sheen, and when stained with verdigris and similar substances, it naturally takes on a color. It is also difficult to refine further. How is it any different from copper? Practitioners of the Way of medicines today regard it as difficult to process and therefore look down on this practice.

Only after studying and investigating this art with great diligence this year have I dared to speak of it. It is truly something to treasure. Mercury can draw in iron; this is the very essence of the iron at work. To say that mercury can remain still is to stray far from the true principle. If one seeks it in iron, what one obtains is the finest essence within the iron. Cast into a mirror, it becomes a superior iron mirror. The mirror is exceptionally bright and clear, and the places where it has solidified differ from those of an ordinary mirror. From this we can tell that it was made from the essence of iron.

How can we know this? Mercury is remarkably responsive and can enter all kinds of impurities. Now that it combines with quicksilver, we can see that it contains the essence of many metals. Consider the object after it has solidified: it once ate away at the surface of an iron vessel, yet left not the slightest damage on the iron. Later, with the aid of medicinal substances, the mercury drew out the essence of iron from a distance and then fused with it into one. This is truly marvelous and wondrous. Cast into a mirror, this substance is indeed beyond belief. People of the world regard it only as mercury and do not understand that the iron within it is precious.

I only regret that my skill is shallow and my ability insufficient, and that I do not know the Yellow Emperor’s methods of alchemical refinement. If gold paste and realgar were added and the mixture refined and cast according to the proper method, the resulting mirror might well rival the celebrated vessels of antiquity. Made into a mirror, it would be a superior iron mirror, surpassing even the ancient Taiyuan mirror; nothing in the world could compare with it. Made into a copper vessel, it would be copper transformed from superior iron. People of the world call it “red silver.” Seeing its iridescent sheen and light, soft texture, they class it with refined copper, unaware that it is the essence of many metals. I call mercury “red silver.” Red silver, too, can transform into copper or iron; when used to make a mirror, it can even turn copper into silver. Since the method of refining is now complete, there can be no doubt about its underlying principle.

Method for Transforming Cinnabar into Red Silver

Place one jin of high-grade cinnabar, a mercury sulfide mineral, in caizhi. The grains need not remain whole; a bright red color is preferred. Boil it in water for thirty-five days, then in honey water for fifteen days, and finally leave it in Huachi, a liquid or vessel used in alchemical refining, for seven days.

Melt lead liquor in a crucible made of gan soil, then pour it into the crucible. Wrap the cinnabar prepared earlier in alum clay and place it in the lead liquor, letting it sink to the bottom of the crucible. Treat it this way for seven days. This is called “subduing the fire,” meaning that the substance is considered stabilized through refining. Then add red earth, yellow alum, and arsenic sulfide to give it color. The result is red silver, also called “red gold.” Its surface is white, with a hint of red showing through from within, and it has a bright luster.

Another method:

Take mercury that has not been ground or washed, and roast it with stone sulfur, or sulfur, to make cinnabar. Break up one jin of this material and put it in a double-layered silk bag, then place that bag inside an outer bag loosely woven from bamboo strips. Use liquid filtered through mulberry ash as the cooking medium. Add one jin of huangdan, a lead compound, to the liquid, then suspend the bags in it without letting them touch the bottom of the pot. Heat over a low flame until small, fish-eye-like bubbles appear on the surface. Continue boiling for seven days; this is called “subduing the fire.” Then place the material in a crucible and refine it with forced air. It will become red silver, bright and vivid like peach blossoms.

Method for Making Green-Set Red Silver

There are dozens of blue-green minerals, and zengqing is the finest. It resembles goldthread root or a string of small pearls, and is about one inch or half an inch long. Some pieces are joined in pairs or threes; others are straight or curved, and their shades vary. At times, golden veins wind through them and glimmer. This zengqing is found in the valleys of Mount Jurong, but it is now difficult to obtain and costs more than gold.

Kongqing comes from Zizhou. The pieces vary in size and are hollow inside, with a bright, emerald-green color; some contain water. Kunlun touqing resembles a Chinese bayberry and grows on mountain peaks. Its surface is rough; larger pieces are about the size of a pellet and solid inside. The blue-green minerals from Jurong and Zizhou also occur in flakes resembling fragments of a broken bowl. Their color is blue-green but not bright or vivid, though they can still be used after sorting.

There is also baiganqing, which forms in yellow earth. It is bright and beautiful in color, about the size of a bean, and somewhat soft: it can be broken with a fingernail, and the broken surface is even more vividly green. Local people call this mineral baiganqing. It is not mentioned in ancient elixir recipes or in the Bencao.

Other minerals include changpianqing, baiqing, yumu, and shanqingsan. Found in Raozhou, Xinzhou, and other places, they are all kinds of mixed blue-green minerals and have some resemblance to one another. The sand that forms through boiling and refining is a pigment obtained by painters through washing and grinding. Such pigments are often used to make mercury coagulate, and they work powerfully. Another account holds that old copper turns into green patina, which in time becomes blue-green, though its color is the palest.

Recipe for Forming Sand

One jin of white shanqing, half a jin of mineral brain, and one jin of mercury boiled with vinegar.

Mix the materials listed above and place them in vinegar broth in a flat-bottomed pan. Heat over a low flame. When small bubbles like fish eyes appear, add the fermented liquid in small amounts, a little at a time, keeping the mixture from boiling. Continue for one shichen (two hours), until the materials coagulate into grains like sand. Another method is to add water to the medicinal liquid in the pan and boil it over a strong flame for two or three days. The text says this works better: the materials become glossier and slightly lighter in color. They can then be extracted, smelted, and cast; the claimed result is six liang of red silver. In general, when using green materials, omitting the two- or three-day boiling with the medicinal liquid reduces their gloss somewhat. Adding stone gall, malachite, and similar substances also slightly diminishes the gloss.

Another method: Take two liang of good-quality green material, six liang of alum, six liang of Jurong gall, and one jin of mercury. Grind the materials finely, mix them with the mercury, and boil them until they coagulate as usual. Then boil the mixture with four liang of black bean skins. The text claims this removes the gloss.

Method for making green-flower sand: One jin of green-flower material, four liang of alum, and one jin of mercury. First mix the green-flower material and alum thoroughly. Take a small amount and grind it thoroughly with the mercury, then heat it in a pan. After boiling, remove it and rinse it. Once it reaches the state described in the text, it can be extracted, smelted, and cast. The finished product is said to be pale red.

Method for making red silver with stone gall: This is the title of the next section.

“Red silver” is the name of a product in ancient alchemical texts. These passages describe procedures for heating, boiling, and smelting materials such as mercury. Mercury and the vapors it produces when heated are highly toxic.

Stone bile, also called gall alum, is a blue-green mineral found in the mountain valleys of Puzhou. It resembles the teeth of a broken comb and is pale green. After firing, it turns white; only then is it genuine. Next in quality is stone bile produced in places such as Xuanzhou and Runzhou, made by soaking and rinsing the ore to extract its juice, then boiling it down. The finest kind is blue-green and forms into lumps and flakes of varying grades. The inferior kind resembles soft, wet yellow clay and is called “mud bile”; it can only be fired together with mercury to make powder.

Stone bile from Xuanzhou is far inferior to that from Jurong; their medicinal potency differs greatly, with Jurong stone bile ten times stronger. The finest Jurong stone bile is shaped like broken roof tiles, hard and heavy, and vividly green, with half of it a deep green. It is very striking. It does not become damp even through the summer, and wind does not easily damage it. Next in quality is Puzhou stone bile. The granular kind commonly used today also belongs to this type. Stone bile of medium or lower grades can all be used. Stone bile also forms naturally in mountain hollows and caves. It is slightly paler than the boiled kind and likewise comes in flakes and lumps. It is occasionally found, but has no fixed mining site.

Recently, some people in the markets have been selling fakes: they mix Taiyin Xuanjing, a mineral used in Daoist alchemy, with Jurong stone bile and boil the mixture in a copper vessel, passing it off as Puzhou stone bile. Some also mix Jurong stone bile with Xuanzhou stone bile and boil them together, making their shape, color, and texture look alike. This makes them difficult to distinguish, so they must be examined carefully.

Green vitriol, also called green alum or black alum, is produced in Taiyuan and is more potent than that from Xuanzhou. The method for refining the crystalline mineral known as “sand,” used in alchemy, is highly intricate: the bile is thoroughly boiled and refined until it sets into shape and changes color and texture. The finished product may resemble other kinds and be difficult to identify, so it must be examined closely. Stone bile is green throughout, like earth. The Perfected Lord Xu of Tianmu once composed a verse in its praise:

White pearls and green water are placed in a flat-bottomed cauldron; gentle and fierce fires alternate, and the sound gradually grows louder. After one subduing refinement and three periods of refining, it becomes a half-finished product; boil and refine it for another night, and it will turn into copper. Once the process has reached this stage, the General should dance with his sword, and the young lad with the green waist should not disdain it.

“Gentle and fierce fires,” “subduing refinement,” and “three periods” are alchemical terms for different degrees of heat and stages of refinement. The verse uses “turn into copper” to describe the transformation after refining.

White frost and lapis stone often harm people; yellow vitriol and stone gall have been vivid and lustrous since ancient times.

Iron pans and earthen crucibles must be used with heat regulated between a gentle fire and a fierce fire. Each cooking session must continue for five double-hours without interruption, even at night.

When you open the box and see the jade-like elixir, burn incense and offer it reverently. If an immortal encounters such an elixir, they can live on for a long time.

Method for Coagulating Stone Gall into Sand

One jin of Jurong stone gall and one jin of mercury.

First take a flat-bottomed pan with a capacity of five or six sheng, no more than one dou. Repeatedly grind the inside bottom of the pan with a tile or stone until it is polished clean and white. Choose a pan with a flat, fine-grained bottom, as it is easier to grind. Be sure to keep it free of grease. An old pan may also be used, provided it is first heated until it glows like the fire, then ground and washed clean.

Add water to the pan until it stands about half an inch above the mercury; add only enough to hold the ingredients, and do not make the water too deep. Then place one liang of stone gall, whole or in granules, on top of the mercury. There is no need to break it up. Heat over a gentle fire until small bubbles like fish eyes appear on the surface. If the water level drops, use a spoon to add hot water slowly to the pan.

The time it takes to cook about two meals counts as one cycle. Each cycle usually yields more than one liang of sand. Scraping carefully and with force gives better results. Repeat until all the ingredients have been used. After each cycle of about two meals’ cooking time, you may scrape the pan, though longer cooking usually works better. You may also use two liang of Jurong stone gall each time; increasing the ingredients will yield a corresponding increase in the coagulated sand. The secret is to keep the water shallow and the fire gentle.

This method uses only clean water, without mixing in any other substances. Stone gall can coagulate into sand this way, unlike in other formulas, and it is regarded as a good method. To tell whether coagulation has begun, blow the water away from the surface. If the mercury spreads out like a pancake covering the bottom of the pan, it indicates a change has taken place. Pay close attention to the heat as the ingredients near exhaustion. The mercury will move toward the sides of the pan, revealing that the medicinal forces are responding to one another and changing.

When collecting the sand, carefully scrape it from the bottom of the pan with a porcelain shard each time. Clean it and store it away, then repeat the process until it has all been collected. Refining it with a “tiaozi” can also make it coagulate into sand.

Another account says that when stone gall sand has just been refined, the iridescent film on its surface must first be removed. It should be cleaned only by washing and grinding it with warm water; never boil it with other substances. Some believe that miscellaneous ingredients make the original medicinal color adhere firmly, so be extremely cautious and do not use them casually. If it must be boiled, it may be boiled by itself with white alum in a porcelain vessel.

Method for Making Green Stone-Gall Sand

Take one jin of stone gall from Jurong, one large ge of guan, and one jin of mercury. Grind them together until no star-like grains remain visible. Put the mixture in a pot and add water until it reaches seven-tenths of the pot’s height. Heat it until the water is just short of boiling. Then cover the pot with a sand basin, leaving a small vent with a twig. From time to time, sprinkle a little water over the basin and let it trickle down slowly. After two days, this should yield about six liang of sand.

To make more, add another half jin or one jin of ingredients and reprocess the sand already obtained. Boil it twice more in the medicinal liquid set aside earlier. Then add water to the liquid and boil it for three days; this gives a better result. The quantity of sand will increase, but its color will grow lighter, and a halo-colored layer will appear on the surface. The instructions say that after stone gall has congealed into sand, boiling and processing it with fresh stone gall will remove the halo. This shows the subtle benefit of repeatedly boiling and congealing it.

Method for Congealing Sand

Take ten jin of stone gall from Xuanzhou. If the mercury has not fully congealed into sand, add another three to five jin of stone gall. Do not add any other substances to this method; use stone gall alone. If other substances are mixed in, the halo will be difficult to remove. Process all the sand obtained by the usual method.

The preceding passage summarizes the method: first wrap the sand tightly, then boil it repeatedly until all the impurities that arise within it have been removed. Next, slice the so-called “bamo root” very finely and boil it for two or three days, until its color resembles thick paper. Then add yellow earth and boil it for another two or three days, until it is as white as snow. This method can also retain mercury. Three medicinal plants have similar appearances, so they must be carefully distinguished.

The first is called “jue of the chicken.” Its root joints do not align, and its branches and stems are relatively long and large. The second is called “bitter staff.” Its leaves and stem joints are sparse, and it cannot be used. Bamo root is somewhat denser, with aligned root joints, slightly rounded leaves, and fine, short shoots and stems. Its medicinal properties are said to be unmatched, and it can also form into sand. Someone once gathered this root at the same season, and the resulting sand turned white. It is said that boiling with this plant produces only minerals of the bile-green vitriol type; other medicines cannot compare.

Another account says to boil bamo in a separate vessel until it thickens, then use it to boil the sand; this, too, is remarkably effective. A different book says that after a full month of boiling, the sand will turn white.

Yet another account says that when vajra root grows on a silver mountain, it is reddish in color and has small vines about three feet long. This vine can subdue mercury and is also called “silver sprout.” Only the kind growing on a silver mountain may be used. After refining one catty of sand, it must be boiled again. In all, sixteen catties of this vine from a silver mountain are required. After boiling, roast it and dip it in medicinal liquid for three days; this is said to make the medicine coagulate and stabilize, reaching the state known as “subduing fire.” To prepare the dipping liquid, thoroughly mix clear water called “Red Crow” with one catty of yellow alum.

Method for forming a mercury lump with bile seed

This method, along with methods for refining bile seed into red silver and similar substances, is recorded here.

First take one liang of mercury and one liang of danzi (the name of a mineral medicinal substance). Add a little more than two ge of zuowei, mix everything together, and simmer over a low flame for half a day. Then add half a liang of powdered danzi, gradually pour in rice vinegar, and continue cooking without letting the mixture boil. Remove the sand from time to time, until all the mercury has been transformed. Next, cook the sand together with five liang of powdered danzi for five days and nights. The medicine is then ready; the finished product resembles tea powder. One liang of this powder can turn three liang of mercury into sand. After seven days of preparation, one liang of powder can transform four liang of mercury into medicine; after twelve days, one liang of powder can make seven liang of mercury solidify into sand. The fire should be kept to about one liang at most. Once the material has solidified into sand, it is all right to make the fire a little stronger.

Method for Turning Earth-Green into Red Silver

Earth-green, a green mineral that forms near copper deposits, comes in several varieties. It is found in mountain valleys in Xuanzhou, Raozhou, Xinzhou, Daozhou, Yongzhou, and other places; it forms wherever there is copper ore. It is soil taken from copper deposits that forms after being soaked by rain. The best kind is pale in color and loose in texture, like lumps of hufen (an ancient white powder pigment). The finest crumbles into powder when pinched; the next best is hard, like soft stone. This mineral is also found in the north, where it resembles settled green rice powder: it has an attractive color, a fine, soft texture, and no coarse particles.

Making Red-Silver Sand Solidify

Use only half a jin of earth-green from Daozhou or Yongzhou, selecting the softest kind. Also use half a jin, two liang of alum, and four liang of mercury that has first been reduced to ash…

First moisten the medicinal ingredients with rice vinegar. Grind them, then add the mercury and continue grinding everything together until no grains are visible. Next, scoop the mixture into a pot with an iron spoon and spread it in a thin layer like fish skin. Cover the bottom of the pot, leaving a gap more than an inch wide in the middle so that the layers of medicine do not join together.

Then pour into the pot the liquid mixture that smells of vinegar. Add two taels of alum, ground beforehand into a powder, and one tael of salt, scattering them over the mercury mixture. The water should cover the ingredients by about one finger’s depth. Begin boiling over a low flame, so that the bottom of the pot is still cool enough to touch by hand. After boiling for half a day, gradually increase the heat, keeping it low enough that only a few small bubbles, like fish eyes, appear on the surface. Boil for another half day, then slowly increase the heat again, keeping fish-eye bubbles on the surface. After a further half day, raise the heat and add water as it boils. Boil for another half day. After a total of two periods of fu (an ancient unit of time whose precise duration varied by method of reckoning), the ingredients will have formed into sand-like grains.

There is another method: when the ingredients first begin to coagulate, take out two or three taels and let them form into grains, then break them into small pieces and scatter them in the pot so they become entangled with the other ingredients. Once all the material has formed into grains, spread it back over the bottom of the pot, add one jin or half a jin of tulü (earth-green mineral), and boil for another day or two. This is said to produce more grains and make their yunse (the color visible on the surface) lighter. Another account says that the liquid left over from the earlier coagulation should not be discarded. Collecting it and boiling it again is also said to produce more grains and make their color lighter.

Finally, grind the resulting material in a mortar, wash it with water, and separate out the fine portion. This is said to yield about ten taels of finished product.

The method for forming grains is said to come from Lord Liu: Take five taels of northern green vitriol, one jin of mercury, and one jin of northern tulü. The tulü resembles the green rice powder left after sediment has settled. It is bluish-green in color, soft and fine in texture, with no hard grains or impurities.

Place the mercury mentioned above in a mortar and grind it. Then wash it with water and separate out the fine portion. This is said to yield about ten taels of finished product.

The method for forming grains is said to come from Lord Liu: Take five taels of northern green vitriol, one jin of mercury, and one jin of northern tulü. The tulü resembles the green rice powder left after sediment has settled. It is bluish-green in color, soft and fine in texture, with no hard grains or impurities.

Put the mercury preparation made earlier into a mortar, add a little vinegar, and grind it thoroughly. Then place it in a new cauldron. Do not wash or polish the cauldron. Cook over a strong flame for one shichen, until the preparation has turned entirely into dry sand and no mercury paste remains. When weighed, the sand should total twenty liang.

Next, put the sand into a sand basin and boil it with alum for one day. Grind it with powdered oyster shell, then rinse it three times. After that, rinse it with “guan” for half a day. Boil it for one day with alum and dark plums, one day with sugar, and one day with Chinese honeylocust pods. Each time, grind and rinse it, removing the black liquid until it is clean. Then add one liang of lead oxide and grind them together. Once finely ground, roast and heat the mixture, then grind it again. Boil it for another day, then for one day with sugar and one day with Chinese honeylocust pods. Each time, continue to grind and rinse away the black liquid until it is clean. Add another one liang of lead oxide and grind; once finely ground, roast and heat it, then grind it again.

Next, add one liang of “frost” medicine and grind thoroughly until the ingredients are evenly mixed. Divide the preparation into sixteen portions, wrap each portion in salt to make a powder packet, and pierce each with a small hole. Set them in the sunlight until completely dry. Place them in a furnace or on a cauldron and cover them with ash. First warm them gently over a low flame for one day, then switch to a strong flame and heat the bottom of the crucible until it glows red. When the furnace and crucible have cooled, open them. The frost medicine will have melted away completely, and all the mercury will have gathered in the upper vessel. Collect the beads and sand lumps inside to obtain four liang of red silver.

This red silver is of ordinary quality and color, with half its color faded. It makes no sound when struck and is very soft. Put a little into the fire to test it: only a faint halo of smoke appears. The revered master said, “The frost that forms inside the beads will cause the sand to be completely subdued and transformed, becoming as white as jade. This is the finest grade used by the immortals.”

Method for forming sand: red silver

One jin of sal ammoniac, one jin of malachite, and one jin of alum.

Grind the first three ingredients together, place them in a bottle, seal the mouth with a little thin mud, and calcine for one cycle. Near the end, switch to a strong fire and burn thoroughly. Then take one dou of weathered ash and one dou of red crow. Mix vinegar slurry water into lime and let it settle; take the clear liquid from the top. Heat the lime solution and use it to wash the red crow, then collect the liquid and boil it down with the sand.

First take ten liang of prepared medicine for the mercury and grind and calcine it in a pot for one cycle. Once the medicine and salt ash have fully congealed, add the sand to the pot and calcine them together; this gives better results. Stir occasionally, but there is no need to do so often. After one cycle, the sand will have formed into granules, with no raw, unrefined mercury remaining. If washing it still shows that it is not fully refined, add another four or five liang of prepared medicine and calcine again until it has all been subdued.

For every jin of material, add four liang of white lead. Mix thoroughly in a crucible, pour into a mold, and make a thin sheet. Then place the sheet on ash and heat it over a fierce fire; a bellows may also be used to intensify the fire. Punch holes in the lead sheet as it heats, so the molten lead flows into the ash and leaves behind red silver. Melt the red silver in a crucible, add lead, and make another thin sheet. Place it on ash and heat and filter it as before. Repeat this process three times. Then use a bellows to intensify the fire and melt and filter it two or three times, until nearly all the lead has been removed. Finally, put the material in a crucible, add wall earth and salt, and stir. Filter out the remaining lead to obtain a fairly pure product. Its surface has little luster, and its texture is very soft.

Another account says to mix this substance in equal parts with Danyang and silver, using three portions in all; this works very well.

The White Lead Method

Place one jin of lead and two jin of raw pine resin together in a pot. Heat over a fierce fire until the lead melts. Then add small amounts of pine resin and salt in succession, stirring continuously with a utensil so that the resin evenly coats the lead. When all two jin of lead have turned into gray powder, the firing is considered complete. Transfer it to a crucible, heat it, and use bellows to melt it. In the end, this yields more than ten liang of a snow-white substance.

The method for forming sand (refining a sandy substance):

Take one jin of malachite, five liang of alum, and five ge of salt, and grind them together. Add one jin of fine yellow earth and paper fiber, mix them into mud, and shape the mixture into a box-shaped vessel about two cun thick. Enclose the prepared ingredients in this vessel and let it dry slowly. Then fire it once over a fierce flame, taking care not to let the earthen box crack. After it cools, open it: the substance inside will be purplish red, and is said to yield one jin. Mix it with mercury and grind it, then repeat the processing steps as described in the text. This preparation can be used many times and is said to refine ten or twenty jin at a time. Each jin of malachite can be divided into two portions, using the earthen box as the measure.

“Flower Pool Method” (an auxiliary blending material used in refining): Mix lime with fine wine and stir thoroughly until it reaches the consistency of pancake batter; it is then ready to use. Another method is to add yellow earth while refining malachite sand, so that it binds into a lump.

Another formula:

Take two jin of earth mercury and eight liang of alum.

Combine the materials for the Taoluo medicine. Sprinkle in two sheng of rice vinegar a little at a time, stirring and frying until the vinegar has completely evaporated. If rice vinegar is unavailable, good-quality bran vinegar can be used. Next, pound the medicinal materials into powder. Take half of it and grind it thoroughly with one jin of mercury until evenly mixed, then put the mixture into a shallow pan.

Add vinegar liquor, keeping the liquid level about one cun above the medicinal materials throughout. Cook over low heat until bubbles rise like fish eyes, and continue for half a day. The materials should set into grains of sand, with none left unset. If vinegar liquor is unavailable, vinegar diluted with water can be used instead.

When finished, remove the sand-like material. Following the same method, add one jin of the medicinal material, grind them together, and cook until set, again for half a day. Then rinse and grind the material clean, draw off the raw mercury, and cast it into a block. A block weighing about seven liang is best; it is far superior to ordinary products.

Method for Setting into Sand: A method for making the medicinal material set into grains of sand.

Take about three dou of mulberry wood ash. Repeatedly rinse it with steaming hot water, collecting the liquid that runs through and the sediment. Continue filtering it in this way until you have about two large dou of sediment, each dou weighing roughly eight jin. If the sediment has clumped together, break it into pellets about the size of a marble. Do not grind it too finely, or its claylike material may clog the filter and make it difficult to handle. Continue filtering with warm ash liquid until the runoff is jade green; only then is it fit for use. If it is red, it is unsuitable.

Add this ash liquid to a vessel containing at least three sheng of mercury. Boil and refine it for three days, continually adding liquid to keep it moist. Follow the usual refining method, taking care to maintain an even, steady heat. Separately, refine arsenic sulfide (an arsenic mineral) by sublimation three times, then mix it with the mercury. Take a bamboo tube with its outer skin peeled away; its wall should be about two sheets of paper thick and it should be a little over three cun long. First heat the ash liquid, fill the bamboo tube with it, and fill the pot with ash liquid as well. When the inside of the tube turns black, pour the liquid out. Repeat this three times. Treat vinegar in the same way, and do likewise with hot water and clear limewater. Then mix the materials with vinegar and refine them by sublimation according to the method for “Flying the Four Spirits Elixir,” collecting the frostlike substance.

For the Sun, Moon, Mysterious Essence, and Yellow Alum Stone, golden yellow is the finest color; for sal ammoniac, bluish black is best. Grind these five substances into a fine powder, spread them over a washing basin and pound them carefully, then distribute them evenly around the inside of a pot, to a thickness of about one grain of rice. Cover the top of the pot with a similar layer. Seal it with charcoal. After one fu period (about twelve double-hours), select the materials according to the stated criteria: “For the Sun, Moon, Mysterious Essence, and Yellow Alum Stone, those of a golden color are best; for sal ammoniac, bluish black is best.” Use a gentle flame at eight parts and a strong flame at four parts, with no more than one jin of charcoal. If the fire is too fierce, the product will be unusable.

Once the frost has formed, soften white gehuo with fire and weave it together into sheets about two layers of paper thick. Wrap the medicine above in these sheets and form pellets about the size of small marbles. Separately, make a medicine bath from five he of boiled calcium; the bath should hold at least six sheng. Melt the medicine in a crucible, add three pellets at a time, and place them in the bath. Repeat this five times. Then make a mold from boxwood, press in an indentation, and make the mold fairly deep. Coat it with oil so it is thoroughly lubricated and easy to pour into.

Another account says it is better to add previously refined white alum ash first. To prepare it, use mulberry wood to heat a pit, sweep it clean, then mix white alum with vinegar. While the pit is hot, put the dry alum into it, cover it with a basin, and seal it. Let it cool before taking it out. Use one jin of medicine for every liang of white alum ash: first boil it dry in a pot, then put it in the pit to soften. Use it to add to the frost; there is no need to form it into pellets.

The Method of Binding Red and Silver

Combine five liang of earth green—a green or blue-green substance with a soft texture that becomes as finely white as face powder when rubbed between the fingers—with more than five liang of alum and less than half a jin of red crow. Take one jin of mercury and thoroughly mix and grind it with these materials. Put the mixture in a small pot and refine it over a gentle fire for half a day, until noon, when the substances have settled completely and congealed into a sandy mass. You may then draw out the raw silver from it, up to about four liang.

First spread a layer of salt more than one cun thick over the bottom of the pot. Sprinkle a small amount of finely ground alum powder in the center of the salt. Wrap the sandy mass in thin silk, kneading it so the silk fits closely around it; the silk should just cover the mass, with no excess left over. Place the wrapped mass in the pot, cover the silk bundle with alum, then spread salt over it. Finally, seal it with a frost basin and refine it over a strong fire for half a day.

The Subsequent Method

Take one jin of mercury, six liang of green pellets, two liang of red stone fat, and two liang of lead; add more later. Put the three medicinal substances in a sand basin. Take a small amount of salt, mix it with one of the ingredients listed on the left, and pound it with a mallet more than a hundred times. Once the pot is boiling, use an iron spoon to place the ingredients in it. Boil and refine over a strong fire from the hour of Yin to the hour of Chen. After silver threads have formed, take one jin of the prepared material and combine it with one liang of yellow elixir. Stir-fry and grind the mixture; it is ready when raw silver can be drawn out.

The Method for Fuming Out Mercury and Drawing Out Raw Silver

Take the sandy mass and use cold-water stone as an outer casing, spreading it in a thin layer. Place the sandy mass inside, separating it into layers. Cover it with salt, add ash over the salt, and seal it. Refine it by fuming over both a gentle and a strong fire, until the material at the bottom of the ding stops. The cold-water stone mentioned here must first be taken in its unprocessed form and fired once, until it is red-hot and fully fired. Then remove the fire at once, cover it with a basin, and seal the gaps. It can be used once it has cooled.

The Method for Drawing Out the Sandy Mass by Inversion

Take a crucible and place the sandy mass at the bottom. Add moist salt solution, fill the crucible, and press it down firmly. Cover it with a basin and seal the gaps. It can be used once it has cooled.

Take a ganwo (a crucible used to hold substances during elixir refining) and spread sand across its bottom. Pour in yiyi juice (a liquid used for rinsing or moistening) until the vessel is full, then tamp down the sand. Set it beside a fire and heat it until the liquid has dried out. Next, invert the ganwo over the mouth of a dikeng bottle, place a little water inside the bottle, and seal it firmly with clay mixed with hair. Then gradually increase the heat. Once the ganwo is hot, add one load of strong fire. When it has cooled, break the seal and collect the contents.

After refining the sand, first boil the resulting raw mercury in vinegar. Then grind and rinse it with warm rice-washing water, wash it with warm water, and finally grind it with salt. Only then is it properly prepared.

The formula for Red Crow Sand

Red Crow Sand is the sediment left after the greasy powder settles. It is made from mud gall and salt. The kind from Huainan is better than that from the north, and freshly made material is best; material kept for a long time and stored on the ground has weaker medicinal power. A standard dou weighs eight jin, and the most compact material is best.

Take a quantity of Chiwu, a medicinal substance mentioned in the original recipe, and place it in a large porcelain vessel filled with boiling water. Stir well, then repeatedly pound it with a small wooden mallet so that it disperses in the hot water. Alternatively, the substance may be put directly into the hot water. Once it has broken apart, cold water may also be added. Fill the vessel and let it stand for a full day and night. When the liquid has cleared, take the clear liquid from the top; do not use the thick, cloudy portion.

Pour the clear liquid into a pot and boil it for about as long as it takes to eat a meal. Then use a thin-edged spoon to scrape the sandy material from the bottom of the pot. It resembles silkworm droppings and is very soft. Put it in a porcelain bowl, leaving a little of the medicinal liquid in the bowl to keep it moist. Scrape it out repeatedly until it has all been collected. If the liquid in the pot runs low, add more until the process is complete. When the liquid in the porcelain bowl has run out, add water and stir. Once the sediment has settled and the liquid has cleared, continue boiling it. If sandy material remains in the porcelain vessel, treat it in the same way until it has all been removed. When only one or two dou of medicinal liquid remain in the pot, extinguish the fire and move the pot to a bright place. Collect any sandy material still clinging to the bottom as well.

Put the collected sandy material in a porcelain bottle and add Chiwu juice. Boil gently for four fu periods, an ancient unit of time whose precise duration varies by calendar system. Stir it often, and wash and grind it once each day. This removes the mercury formed within it, leaving the sandy material behind. If it is not washed and ground, and is not stirred frequently, it will still eventually become sandy material, provided it is not left to settle at the bottom of the bottle.

Another account says that the clarified medicinal liquid can be weighed: each sheng weighs one liang. In later preparations, weigh the water first and then the clear Chiwu juice to determine the amount needed. There is also another method: boil the sandy material in juice squeezed from the medicinal substance for four fu periods, stirring often and making sure it does not settle on the bottom. Keep the fire strong. After each fu period, wash away a little of the old, sticky, cloudy liquid and add fresh juice to continue boiling. Once the full period has elapsed, tie it up to drain, then weigh it to find its weight.

A different manuscript gives a different procedure, although it too says to boil for four fu periods. Take one liang of this sandy material and put it in two liang of mercury, then boil it with soapberry and plum paste. This method differs from other methods of refining yun, a technical term for a related alchemical product or process. If it is not intended for use in increasing white metal, it is called “Red Gold.” That is what the original recipe says.

Another account says to pour all the Chiwu juice into the pot and boil it without repeatedly scraping the bottom. After the prescribed time, when the liquid has boiled away, the sandy material will cling to the bottom of the pot by itself and can then be collected. Pour the boiled liquid into an earthenware basin and leave it overnight; it will set into larger crystals called xiaoshi, a crystalline substance. They are more than a chi long, about two fingers wide, and white. They look like xiaoshi, do not dissolve or deteriorate in the wind, and are sometimes called “White Stone Gall.” It is said that sandy material set in this way can be used as a gui, a vessel for holding or containing substances during alchemical work, even without yun. In addition, when the boiled liquid from the porcelain bottle is dripped onto brick or stone, it takes on the color of kongqing, a blue-green mineral, and does not change even after a long time.

Method for Forming Red Crow Sand

First take two dou of rice bran to use as a bed for Red Crow, the name given in the original to a material used in refining. Sprinkle a small amount of bran over the Red Crow to hold it down, and mix the two together. Rinse the mixture once. Let it settle, then seal it with mud the next day. Rinse out all the liquid and clarify it separately. Once the clear liquid has settled, boil it. The resulting sand will form more clumps and have a redder color.

Next, hold the Red Crow down with a small amount of bran and repeat the earlier process of mixing, rinsing, clarifying, and boiling. This produces more clumps of sand, though their color is somewhat duller. The reason is not yet clear. I suspect it is difficult to rinse it completely clean, so this method is inferior to the one above. I have also thought that mixing the sand first and adding Jurong bile, a refining material produced in Jurong, while boiling might help it settle and make its color less dull. Ash from liaozi can also be used, with good results. In general, the best method is to boil the sand by following the general procedure above, then boil it again with liaozi ash.

I also heard the Venerable Su say that, in recent times, when boiling Red Crow, one need only heat it once until it reaches the bottom of the pot, then collect the sand and boil it in wood ash for three fu, an ancient measure of time whose exact duration varies with context. This yields fine, dry sand; each jin of raw material produces more than ten liang. Later, when Vice Censor Cui made gold objects, he put forty or fifty liang of this sand into gold, and the gold was completely consumed. The effect was unmistakable. So the earlier claim that it can be added to gold has a basis. This material is extremely soft, softer than all kinds of red gold and softer than gold or silver.

There is another method. Take at least three jin of mercury and put it in a sand basin. Add Red Crow and a little sediment from concentrated vinegar, then grind them together until the mixture resembles paste. Grind for the time it takes to cook two meals, without applying heat, then wash it with water. Next, add more Red Crow and keep grinding, adding a little concentrated vinegar as you go. When sand appears in the mercury, sift it out, continuing until you have the desired quantity. Then wash the sand clean. First boil it with amla, then with licorice, to remove its dark color and toxicity. Finally, prepare it as silver paste.

Method for Heating and Settling Sand

With sands of various colors, the amount of mercury they contain determines how many iridescent spots appear after boiling: sands richer in mercury produce more spots and are easier to refine further. Usually, a single batch yields less than four ounces. If it yields seven or eight ounces or more, you have grasped the essential method. Skillful firing can make the medicine stable; then, using the hooking method to extract mercury, you can increase the yield. If the mercury is made fully stable, that is because the medicine contains more mercury, and no iridescent spots will appear after refining. The key lies in controlling the heat during firing.

Another method:

Take the sand without grinding it into powder. Wrap it in several layers of fine, tightly woven bags made of silk and bamboo. Add four ounces of yellow lead oxide to water, along with “Red Crow Clear Water,” a liquid used to prepare elixirs, and boil for seven days. Then add the “Red Crow” and boil until it forms a white “gallbladder case,” a vessel used to enclose and refine medicines. Calcine it in this vessel for seven days to make the medicine completely stable under fire; there is no need to draw off raw mercury. Alternatively, you can leave out the vessel, remove the material, and boil it for another fourteen days.

Another method:

To make the sand completely stable, calcine it for seven days until it is fully stable under fire; there is no need to draw off raw mercury. Alternatively, you can leave out the vessel, remove the material, and boil it for another fourteen days.

Another method:

To make the sand completely stable, take one pound of earth mercury—mercury refined from ore—and add half a pound of gallbladder material. After the whole mixture has coagulated through refining, boil it with the resulting earth mercury and other materials until dry. Add a little salt, pound and mix thoroughly, and shape it into a “case” to enclose the medicine. Seal it inside a pan and calcine it over a fire for ten days; this will make it completely stable.

Another method:

One pound of salt, four ounces of saltpeter, and four ounces of alum.

Place the previously prepared ingredients together in a bottle and heat them once until they melt. Let them cool, then open the bottle. Add five liang of alum and one liang of litharge, mix them together, and heat over a fierce fire for a full day and night. Then combine these ingredients with the material prepared earlier, add five liang of magnetite, and grind everything into a powder. Alternate gentle and fierce heating for seven days; this gives the best results.

If drum salt is unavailable, use this salt to line the furnace. First heat it over a fire until it is completely dry. For every jin of salt, add five liang of fire-treated niter. Pound and grind the mixture repeatedly in an iron mortar until it is as fine and uniform as flour. It can then be used to line the furnace, and no drum is needed. The results are better if the salt is fried until red.

Another method:

If the material prepared earlier has already dispersed, take a separate empty vessel and boil alum in water until a meal could be cooked. When the material melts and takes on the appearance of silver, it will naturally become red and soft at the bottom of the pot. First spread a layer of salt more than an inch thick. Grind the alum finely and sprinkle a little over the center of the salt layer. Next, wrap sand in thin silk and gently twist it tight so the sand rests against the silk. The silk need only enclose the sand; do not leave any excess.

As soon as the material melts, place it on the sand packet, then set the packet on the alum, covering the silk’s end with a little more alum. Immediately draw salt over the end of the silk to bury it. Cover the vessel with a frost basin, seal it carefully, and secure it with iron wedges. This prevents the mercury from vaporizing in the heat and escaping through the seams. Heat it over a fierce fire from dawn until dusk. Then remove the fire and let it cool before opening. The basin should contain frostlike matter mixed with mercury. Move the salt aside and collect the purple powder. When struck with a tool, it should ring like metal; it can then be placed in the furnace for further use.

Method for Extracting the Red-Silver Halo

Extracting the halo substance of red silver from a medicinal material—the metallic component adhering to the sand—is very difficult, because the materials used are not superior medicines. In the past, those who refined lead and mercury could not succeed in transmuting and refining them if they made even a slight mistake. It is harder still to mix various ores with plants and trees, whose medicinal properties and degrees of processing all differ, and expect ordinary substances to become true medicines.

Anyone who has mastered this method must carefully distinguish the ways in which the various materials counteract one another and understand their medicinal properties. The amounts used and the order in which they are combined must both follow the prescribed rules. When the method is properly carried out, the refined product is indistinguishable from true medicine; even a slight deviation leads to error. Learners should examine the method carefully before using it.

Method for Grinding, Washing, Boiling, and Cleaning Sand to Remove the Halo

Sand of every color should be treated with warm water, not cold. While grinding, washing, and boiling it, take care not to mix in other medicines. Otherwise, the external medicines will coat the sand, making the halo cling more deeply and firmly and thus harder to extract.

First grind and wash the sand using only warm water, changing the water several times until the sand is clean. Then add salt and cooked rice and grind them together. Next prepare the mixture with barley, rice-paste water, and dark plums, place it in a large porcelain vessel, and keep it warm over a rice-husk fire for ten days so that it becomes thoroughly sour. When ready to use, add the root of Shanglu (Phytolacca) and boil the sand until it reaches the proper stage. After this treatment, the sand can be used in various refining processes.

Formula for Extracting the Halo from Red-Silver Sand

Take sand that has already been boiled and washed, shape it into small strips, and place them in an iron box. Sprinkle weathered lime over them, then insert the strips into the lime and seal the box. Sealing it is optional. Keep it warm for more than a month over alternating gentle and strong heat, then refine it with bellows. Each jin of sand yields about ten liang of finished material, without a halo.

Method for Extracting the Halo from Raw Material

Take one jin of cinnabar, together with two liang of Cold Water Stone, one liang of alum stone, and one liang of Phytolacca root. Grind them repeatedly for the time it takes to eat three to five meals; the longer they are ground, the better. Then wash the mixture by decanting. Add the three ingredients mentioned above and grind and wash it again. Repeat this process three times in all, until every trace of the surface’s iridescent color has disappeared. Next, grind the cinnabar again until it is restored to raw mercury; the longer it is ground, the better. Add the same three ingredients as before, then grind and wash the mixture three times, until all the iridescent color is gone. Grind it once more to restore it to raw mercury, then place it in a medicine cabinet made of Cold Water Stone and mix it with vinegar in a pot. Line the bottom of the Cold Water Stone cabinet to a thickness of half an inch and cover the top to a thickness of one inch. Separate the cinnabar in the middle with Cold Water Stone powder, or use thin sheets of Cold Water Stone as dividers. Place a vessel on top of the cabinet, cover the ash with salt, and alternate gentle and strong heat for one day and one night. Then put the material in a crucible and melt it, before casting it into a pool of Cold Water Stone.

Making a Cold Water Stone Pool

Mix Cold Water Stone with salt water until it has the thick consistency of dough. Repeatedly cast the medicine into it two or three times, until it turns snow white.

Firing Cold Water Stone

Place the medicine over a fire, then quickly remove the fire. Cover it with a basin and seal the gaps tightly. Use it once it has cooled.

Transforming Red Silver and Removing Its Iridescent Color

Take one liang of powdered frost and at least half a liang of Jurong gall. Combine them and grind them finely.

First heat lime as you would when preparing lime for leaching. Then leach it with white horse urine, collecting about two sheng of liquid in a porcelain bottle. Put the two ingredients above into the liquid and boil them over strong heat in a water bath for two days and nights, then extinguish the fire. Once cool, remove the excess liquid and take out the medicine. Add half a liang of saltpeter that has been processed by firing, along with the mud adhering to the medicine, and mix and knead it into a ball. Put it in the medicine cabinet and alternate gentle and strong heat for two days. Once the medicine has been made fire-resistant, one liang can be used to transform one jin of red silver, making it as white as snow.

Ingredients for the Medicine Cabinet

Two liang of naturally occurring alum stone, half a liang of a blue mineral, one liang of litharge, and half a liang of Jurong gall.

Mix the ingredients on the right thoroughly with vinegar, then put them into a small porcelain bottle and heat them for seven days. Take them out once each day, add vinegar, and continue heating. The medicine prepared this way can then be used to make a “cabinet.” This cabinet can be reused repeatedly; the longer it is used, the better.

Method for Subduing Saltpeter

Take one liang of saltpeter, grind it into a fine powder, and place it in a porcelain cup. Press and level it until it is compact. Spread two qian of powdered salt over it and level that in the same way. Cover it with another porcelain cup; there is no need to seal the join with clay. Heat it alternately over a gentle fire and a strong fire. When the salt solution has completely disappeared, the saltpeter is considered subdued.

Method for Coloring Red Silver with a Halo

Take eight liang of lead and two liang of mercury, mix them, and place them in a porcelain vessel without sealing it. Heat the mixture slowly until it melts. Do not use too much heat; stop as soon as it has melted. After ten days, remove it and grind it into a sandlike powder. Then treat it with arsenic yellow and other ingredients so that a “halo” appears—a colored layer or deposit forming on the surface of the material. Grind and wash it more than twenty times. Next, boil the material that produced the halo for one day. Add half a liang of mercury to the lead, then warm it over the fire for ten days. Once prepared, it can be used to color objects. It also works well in combination with frost medicine.

Method for Coloring Red Silver with a Halo

Use top-grade arsenic trioxide. If none is available, old rat poison can also be used. First spread a layer of ash half a cun thick, then cover it with two cun of wall clay. Repeat the sublimation process three times. “Sublimation” here means heating a substance so that it vaporizes, then collecting the material that condenses.

Take one jin of white arsenic and four liang of subdued, fire-treated saltpeter, using one liang of the saltpeter. Also take four liang of sulfur and gradually warm it over the course of one day. Use a hook to remove a small amount of sulfur and let it settle into the saltpeter; this is preferable.

Pound and grind the two ingredients on the right together until thoroughly mixed, then spread them evenly in a ding vessel. Sprinkle powdered saltpeter over the top, scattering it by hand across the mixture in a layer no thicker than half a fen. Seal the vessel and sublime the mixture for one shichen. About two liang of the medicine should collect above, with the rest remaining below. Sweep down the material left below and grind it together with saltpeter; this gives a better result.

Grind the two medicines described above together until they are thoroughly blended. Spread the powder evenly in the crucible, then sprinkle a layer of powdered saltpeter over it. Rub the powder between your fingers to break it up and scatter it evenly over the medicine. Use no more than half a fen. Seal the crucible and carry out one cycle of sublimation firing (in this alchemical terminology, a prescribed period of firing). Afterward, two liang of the medicine should have risen to the top, while the rest remains below. Sweep down the material from the top, mix and grind it with the material below, then carry out another cycle of sublimation firing. Repeat this process three times. Each time, check whether any raw saltpeter remains, and confirm that it has been subdued by fire—that is, processed so it no longer burns or changes as readily as the raw material.

Take three liang of Xuzhou stone brain and grind it to a fine powder. Fry it in an iron pan for the time it takes to cook a meal. The original text adds that a copper vessel is preferable. Once most of the heat has dissipated, pour it while still hot into five ge of strong vinegar and stir thoroughly. This is called “vinegar stone brain.” Immediately add the saltpeter frost that has been subdued by fire, and stir it thoroughly over the fire until the medicine is dry.

Next take twelve liang of raw saltpeter—the original text advises using saltpeter that has been subdued by fire instead—and two liang of alum. Grind them together, place them in a bottle, and subdue them by fire for ten days, applying heat from above. At the end, use a strong blaze to melt the medicine into a liquid, making it suitable for transforming other substances. Then dry the liquid medicine over the fire.

Next take twelve liang of raw saltpeter—the original text likewise advises using saltpeter that has been subdued by fire instead—and two liang of alum. Grind them together, place them in a bottle, and subdue them by fire for ten days, applying heat from above. Finally, use a strong blaze to melt the medicine into a liquid, which can then be used to transform substances. Four liang of the medicine can transform one jin, turning it into a superior white substance. The instructions for making “white pool” say that the basin should be tested repeatedly with cold water. Once the substance has been transformed and turned white, add four liang of “mother” to each jin—the medicinal material used to initiate or enhance the transformation—and stir thoroughly before pouring it out and shaping it into rods. To turn substances of different colors into powder, add them to mercury until they form a paste, then grind carefully until evenly mixed.

Take less than one qian of the fire-subdued medicine mentioned later. Put it in a sand basin, boil it in rice-washing water, rinse and grind it to remove the black liquid, then boil it once more. Repeat this about three times. At night, add mercury and a small amount of medicine, dry simmer the mixture, and seal it. In all, boil it for two days and dry-simmer it for two nights. The medicine should turn white, without any iridescent sheen. Burn a small amount over the fire to judge the result.

Method for Preparing Medicine Subdued by Fire

First take one liang of alum and three fen of pu xiao.

Grind the two medicines together into a fine powder and spread it in a layer in a porcelain cup. Place one liang of powdered saltpeter in the middle of this layer, then warm it gently over a low flame for an entire day.

First take one liang of alum and three fen of mirabilite, and grind them together into a fine powder. Spread the mixture in a small hollow in a porcelain dish. Place one liang of powdered saltpeter in the hollow, and first heat it gently over a low flame for a full day. Then gradually increase the heat until it glows red, and stop. Next take one liang of mercury, process it by firing, and retain one fen. Grind these two ingredients together until extremely fine, continuing for one or two days; the finer the powder, the better. Add half a liang of the alum and other ingredients previously processed by firing, and grind them finely together with the mercury preparation.

Next, build a medicine enclosure out of salt crystals and place it in a bottle. Make the enclosure about one cun thick, and seal the bottle’s mouth and joints securely. Alternate low and high heat for seven days; ten days is better. Apply heat from above until the bottle glows red, then stop. The medicine will turn a bluish purple. One such enclosure of medicine is said to be able to turn ten jin of sand pure white. Huo Jun once prepared it at Longxing Monastery in Yangzhou, and said that the result was indeed as described.

How to remove discoloration after the material has formed into lumps

Take one fen of lime, two fen of yellow earth, and one fen of salt. Mix them into rods and use them in the crucible. When a rod has turned black, replace it with a fresh one. Repeat until the rods no longer turn black. After use, burn the rods, and the black coating will fall away on its own; they can then be reused any number of times. Another account says that lime is very effective at removing discoloration from metal surfaces, but is hard and brittle. If using a crucible, it is best to stir before adding the “mother” material; if it has already been added, stirring may damage the silver.

You can also mix powdered talc with vinegar and apply it to the vessel and the lump. Heat it until it turns to ash without making a sound; this will also seal in the discoloration. One application is enough, and the discoloration will not appear even if the material is heated again. Carry out the procedure in a deep, enclosed room, away from drafts.

How to remove discoloration from red silver, sand, and similar materials

Grind the sand—mineral sand or sand used as an alchemical ingredient—thoroughly into a fine powder. Mix it with magnetite, nitre, alum, mirabilite, salt, cold-water stone, and oyster shell. Add a small amount of glutinous rice formed into a ball, then grind all the ingredients together into a cake. Wrap the sand in a layer of cloth and press it as thin as possible. Dig a pit at least two chi deep, bury the cake for one hundred days, and the sand’s mottled stains will disappear. If they are not fully gone, it may be buried for another year, until the stains have vanished completely. The sand may also be buried in the earth without any added ingredients. Objects such as guoting—an alchemical vessel or material used to make one—can likewise be made somewhat thinner and buried to remove the stains. This method was passed down by Li Jingyang, a mountain recluse who served at the shrine.

Another method:

Boil the sand with Fulonggan (the earth from a stove’s heart), lime, mineral-coal ash, and mulberry ash until it turns white and has no mottled stains. Alternatively, boil it with phyllanthus fruit to remove the stains.

Another method:

Rinse the sand with limewater until the smell of lime is gone. Soak it in water, then steam and rinse it. Repeat as often as needed; the finer the treatment, the better. Next, fire a lump of lime and rinse it, repeating this process three to five times. Finally, grind and wash the sand repeatedly with this ash until the stains are gone.

Another method:

If mottled stains appear again after the sand has been removed, boil and wash it with two liang of fired cold-water stone. If the liquid turns very dark, replace it with a fresh batch and keep checking until the sand turns white. This method was originally used to boil together substances formed from stone bile and arsenic yellow. The author is unsure whether it also works on substances formed from other ingredients.

Another method:

Boil two liang of foundation yellow, two liang of cold-water stone, and one liang of salt together. Do not use an iron vessel; the results are better without one.

Another method:

Grind the salt for three days, rinsing it once each day until the liquid runs milky white. This will remove all the sand’s mottled stains.

Another method.

Simmer purslane juice until it thickens. Add saltpeter, crude saltpeter, and jujube juice, then stir. Heat the red silver until it glows, and immerse it in the medicinal liquid three times to remove the “halo” from the surface of the sand—the adhering impurities or sheen.

Another method is to grind the roots of zhanglu with ginger, wash the mixture, and use it to remove the halo. Boiling it first also works well.

Another method is to boil the sand in bat dung liquid clarified with lime; this removes the halo.

Another method is to boil it ten times in perilla oil to remove the halo. Some say this also removes a halo caused by iron.

Another method is to first let the red silver absorb mercury, then boil it with fresh aconite to remove the halo.

Another method is to collect the urine of a habitual drinker in a pool, or use it for boiling; this removes the halo. Some say the urine should be from an old man and left to age for a long time.

Another method is to boil the sand and arsenic yellow in a sand pot with salt for seven or fourteen days to remove the halo. The urine of a habitual drinker may also be collected in a pool or used for boiling. Some say the urine should be from an old man and left to age for a long time.

Another method is to boil the sand and arsenic yellow in a sand pot with salt for seven or fourteen days to remove the halo.

Another method is to first let the red silver absorb mercury, then boil it with fennel grass to remove the halo.

Another method is to boil it with white plums to remove the halo. Some say these work slightly better than smoked plums; the pits should be removed from both.

Another method is to grind yellow sprouts finely and boil them in a sand pot for seven days to remove the halo.

Another method is to boil it with bat droppings to remove the halo. “Fuyi” means bat.

Another method is to press the juice of taolianzi grass into cakes and dry them in the shade for later use. Boil the cakes in water and wash with it to remove the halo.

Whenever grinding and washing the sand, add a little shell powder and grind it together; this works well.

Hold a mouthful of water for a short while, then wash by hand in the water to remove the halo.

Boil pine resin together with red silver and sand to remove the halo.

Another method is to add shell powder while grinding; this works well.

Hold a mouthful of water for a short while, then wash by hand in the water to remove the halo.

Boil pine resin together with red silver and sand to remove the halo.

Another method is to grind white zhangliu root, gelatin solution, crude saltpeter, and lime together, then boil the mixture to remove the halo.

Wrap the cinnabar in yellow earth and stone bile, then heat and boil it. This removes the halo very effectively.

Another method:

Steam the grass called qu until soft, then simmer it in water and extract the juice. This removes the halo and can also remove the halo from cinnabar yang.

Another method:

If a large amount of mercury has volatilized and settled below, grind yellow earth and salt together into a paste, wrap the substance in it, and fire it. This removes the halo.

Another method:

Stir the crucible with a goat’s horn and pine-torch wood, then treat it with ash obtained by repeated washing. This removes the halo.

Another method:

Boil the cinnabar in a liquid made from rice-husk ash, changing the liquid repeatedly. After seven days, the halo will be completely removed. Change the liquid six or seven times each day, and rinse the cinnabar clean with fresh liquid.

Another method:

Grind equal amounts of li stone and dark essence into powder, then add the powder to cinnabar that has been melted into liquid. This removes the halo; cinnabar yang can be treated in the same way.

Another method:

Melt red silver into thin sheets, or subject it to seven rounds of weigu treatment, then rinse it clean with fresh liquid.

Another method:

Grind equal amounts of li stone and dark essence into powder, then add the powder to cinnabar that has been melted into liquid. This removes the halo; cinnabar yang can be treated in the same way.

Another method:

Melt red silver into thin sheets, or treat it with weigu, then place it in a liquid made from meng ash. This removes the halo. Another account says that boiling it with mengzi ash yields frost and makes it subdue.

On one occasion, cinnabar was processed into a silver-paste-like substance. It was mixed with meng ash and ground into powder, then stirred into ash and boiled for less than half a day. After it had dried and crumbled, the original material was still found inside, so the process was stopped immediately and not carried through to completion. This ash is indeed very helpful for making cinnabar cohere into lumps. In general, mixing and grinding it with ash is well suited to removing the halo. Kong’s text On Burning Ash describes this in detail.

A hot method for processing cinnabar and red silver to remove the halo.

First take two jin of sand that has already formed a hard, compact mass. Place warm salt brine in a bowl and grind and wash the sand with a willow-wood mallet. Each time, keep the material submerged, then rinse away the dirty water. Repeat this washing twenty times, until the sand is white and clean. Then break up the sand and put it in a porcelain vessel. Cook it in glutinous-rice slurry, adding one sheng of pitted dark plums. A thick, mellow brewing mash from a wine shop may be used instead. Cook for two days, adding no other substances during this time.

Grind and wash it four times each day, using warm slurry each time; do not use cold water at any stage. For each grinding and washing, add a small amount of Hutonglü, one qian each time, divided into four portions. This medicinal material is suitable for use with both copper and iron, and is very effective at removing yun—the impurities or spots that appear on the surface of a substance during processing.

It may also be treated by boiling soil from an old earthen wall into a broth; this works well too. If only a small amount of lime is used during the process, put water in a bowl, grind the sand with a willow-wood mallet, and wash it while submerged twenty times.

Put the sand in a bowl with enough slurry to fill it more than halfway, and soak it. For each jin of sand, use one fen of lüsha, adding it to the slurry, then leave the mixture in a warm place for a full day and night. The medicinal substance within the sand will then emerge. Stir with a comb-like bamboo rake, then grind and wash with water. Soak it again in more than half a bowl of slurry. Stir with the rake and grind and wash it; then knead and rinse it repeatedly by hand until clean.

Next, take a large iron mortar and put the sand and two sheng of salt in it. Have a strong, adult man pound them vigorously until the mixture is like green mud. Wash it three times each day, then mix it with salt and pound and refine it; the original text is missing characters at this point. Next, boil it for a day in ashes soaked with urine, then mix it with salt and pound and refine it for a day, washing it three times each day as well. Replace the salt, then boil it for a day in the urine-ash liquid; it will then be ready for use. If pounding, refining, and boiling are continued for a total of three days, there should be no yun. Another account says that after mercury has been pounded and refined in this way, it is also easier to subdue.

If any iridescent patches remain, boil it again in vinegar solution, adding two liang of alum, two liang of salt, two sheng of smoked plums, and two liang of cold-water stone. Then wash it clean. Next, finely grind half a liang of arsenic, one qian of sal ammoniac, two liang of sodium sulfate, and one bowl of tea’s worth of chopped Zhangliu root, and boil the mixture for two days. Remove the sand three times each day. Then follow the earlier method: grind and rinse it with Hutonglü, and boil it in a decoction made with wall earth. The iridescent patches on the sand should then be completely removed.

If they are still not completely gone, place the sand with two liang each of Fulonggan and Baishan, and one fen of limestone ore. Calcine it in ash and charcoal for two days. Then rinse and grind it as before, until the sand is white and free of iridescent patches.

If it is still not clean, add one liang of minium to every jin of sand. Stir-fry it in a porcelain vessel over a low flame until evenly mixed, then grind it finely. Next, add one jin of sugar and a little water, and boil it for one day; there is no need to rinse it. Sugar can remove the black patches. Then add concentrated rice vinegar; if that is unavailable, use bran vinegar instead, along with Chinese honey locust, and boil for two days. This will also remove the black patches. Afterward, rinse it repeatedly until clean. After the prescribed number of days…

There is another method: after boiling at this stage, treat and rinse the sand. Sugar can remove the black patches. Then add concentrated rice vinegar, or bran vinegar if concentrated rice vinegar is unavailable, along with Chinese honey locust, and boil for two days. Rinse it thoroughly several times afterward. After the prescribed number of days…

One method is as follows: After the cooking and refining described earlier, shape the sand into small rods. Place them in an iron vessel containing weathered lime, setting the rods into the lime. Seal the vessel and gently heat it for about a month. Then apply a strong fire and continue refining until no halo appears. Each jin yields about fifteen liang. Spread out the refined sand to dry. At every stage, the sand must not come into contact with cold water.

For each jin of sand, add one liang of Fushuang (a Daoist alchemical term for a frost-like substance produced through refining). Grind them together until evenly mixed; if Fushuang is unavailable, the unrefined form may also be used. Divide the mixture into sixteen small pellets and wrap them in salt. First pound the salt until fine and even. Cover the salt with clay, shaping each portion into a ball, then pierce each ball three to five times with a hairpin. Once dry, place them in a ding, or use a cooking pan instead. Spread fine yellow-earth powder on the bottom, or use lime; cover this with charcoal ash, then close and seal the vessel. Warm it over a gentle fire for one day, then gradually increase the heat. Once the bottom of the ding glows red, continue firing for a while longer, then stop. When it has cooled, open it and collect the mercury that has sublimated; gather any that has settled on the ash as well.

Next, continue heating the vessel as described in the text, break open the pellets to remove the sand, and refine it by boiling with Chinese plums, alum, and salt before drying it again. Repeat this boiling process. Then add clay balls and salt and fire the mixture; remove the substance and boil it. Alternatively, add mercury and grind until mixed, then place it in the ding and repeatedly sublime it three to five times. The text holds that during sublimation, the mercury carries away the halo from the sand.

Finally, put the substance in a crucible, cover it with powdered cow dung and a little salt, and slowly apply a strong fire. There are missing characters in the original at this point. The general sense of what follows is: if the nature of the substance and the degree of refining are not yet clear, proceed as though the proper firing time has not yet been mastered. Add the “mother” (an alchemical term for a base substance used to initiate or assist the refining) as soon as strong firing begins, and refine them together. This works very well, better than adding it only during the second firing.

After extracting the sand, wash and grind it repeatedly. The light, porous portions are easily blown away, and anything that falls can easily be scattered, so take particular care. Firing it in a crucible over a strong flame is a good method: it helps the material settle and gradually develop its medicinal properties. It also prevents scattering or loss when the material is placed in the crucible again.

Another method uses “frost” in a spherical vessel. One account recommends Persian white alum and Hutonglü, which work very well. If none of the material has been lost, then after it melts into a liquid, pouring it out and drying it is inferior to putting it directly into the Flowery Pool, a liquid or solution used to process the refined material. The Flowery Pool can be made with water and wine, with sodium nitrate mineral, white alum, or animal fat added. It is not necessary to have all of these ingredients.

Another method:

Prepare the pool liquid using only salt and water, making it somewhat concentrated so that it is soft and viscous. There are missing characters in the source at this point. The pool liquid can also be prepared with Chinese honey locust pods, which works as well.