Glossary / Life, Death and the Soul
Life, Death and the Soul in Chinese: 55 Terms and Their English Renderings
What happens at the end: longevity, body-snatching, rebirth, and the several ways a soul can be destroyed.
55 terms
| Chinese | English | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 长生 | Longevity | Living a very long time. The first goal of every cultivator, and the least interesting one. |
| 永生 | Eternal Life | Never dying at all. Much harder than, and usually the villain's goal. |
| 不灭 | Indestructible | Cannot be destroyed, only sealed. Said of high-level souls and artifacts. |
| 坐化 | Pass Away in Meditation | Dying peacefully while seated. The dignified death in this genre. |
| 夺舍 | Body Possession | Moving your soul into someone else's body. Condemned by everyone, done by many. |
| 转世 | Reincarnation | Being born again, usually without memory. The setup for a revenge plot. |
| 元神出窍 | Soul Projection | Leaving the body on purpose. The body is defenceless while you are out. |
| 兵解 | Shedding the Body | Dying by the sword, sometimes by choice, to escape a worse fate. |
| 魂飞魄散 | Soul Scatter | Complete erasure: no death, no rebirth, no remnant. The actual threat behind most threats. |
| 尸解 | Corpse Liberation | Shedding the body like a shell in order to continue as a spirit. |
| 道消身死 | Dao Fades, Body Dies | The complete end: the body dies and the accumulated Dao goes with it. Worse than death, in the way that matters here. |
| 形神俱灭 | Body and Spirit Annihilated | Nothing left to reincarnate. The one death no later plot device can undo. |
| 幽冥 | Netherworld | The general term for the land of the dead. Rarely visited, always remembered. |
| 黄泉 | Yellow Springs | The road the dead take. Saying it aloud in a room full of cultivators ends the conversation. |
| 九幽 | Nine Hells | The deepest layer of the underworld. Used as an oath and as a threat. |
| 阴司 | Underworld Court | The bureaucracy of death. Judges, ledgers, and no appeals. |
| 轮回台 | Wheel of Rebirth | Where souls are sent back. Standing on it means everything before is finished. |
| 忘川 | River of Forgetfulness | The river that takes memory before rebirth. Characters try to avoid it, and fail. |
| 奈何桥 | Bridge of Helplessness | The bridge over the river. The name is the whole story. |
| 孟婆汤 | Soup of Oblivion | The drink that ends memory. A single bowl, no refills. |
| 生死簿 | Book of Life and Death | The ledger that records when everyone dies. Editing it is the ultimate cheat. |
| 阎罗 | Yama | The judge of the dead. Terrifying to mortals, a civil servant to anyone above a certain realm. |
| 判官 | Judge of the Dead | The one who actually reads the ledger. Bribable, in stories. |
| 黑白无常 | Soul Escorts | Two figures who come for the dying. Feared by mortals, and occasionally fought off. |
| 牛头马面 | Ox-Head and Horse-Face | The muscle of the underworld. Sent when the escorts fail. |
| 六道 | Six Paths of Rebirth | The six destinations of a soul. Which one you get depends on what you did. |
| 长寿 | Long Life | Extended lifespan without true immortality. The realistic goal, and the one that drives most plots. |
| 不死 | Undying | Cannot be killed by ordinary means. Usually comes with something worse attached. |
| 寿元将尽 | The Years Are Running Out | The diagnosis. Triggers every desperate final act in the book. |
| 延寿 | Extend the Lifespan | Buying more years. Everything else in the story is a means to this. |
| 续命 | Prolong Life | The emergency version. Often done by another person's sacrifice, which is the ethical problem. |
| 夺寿 | Steal Years | Taking lifespan from others. Efficient, addictive, and the cleanest way to write a monster. |
| 寄魂 | Soul Parasitism | Attaching to a host without displacing them. Coexistence, and a very annoying inner voice. |
| 附身 | Possession | Temporary control of a body. The host remembers everything afterwards, which matters. |
| 神魂俱灭 | Soul and Spirit Both Destroyed | The same end with more ceremony. Used when the author wants the reader to be certain. |
| 灰飞烟灭 | Dust and Smoke | The body and everything in it being erased. Dramatic, and often survivable due to a loophole. |
| 尸解成仙 | Corpse Deliverance into Immortality | Leaving the body as an empty shell and continuing as an immortal. The shell is buried and mourned. |
| 重生 | Rebirth in a Past Life | Waking up in one's own earlier body with memory intact. The entire premise of a subgenre. |
| 穿越 | Transmigration | Arriving in a different world, or a different era, with modern knowledge. The other half of the subgenre. |
| 夺功 | Seize the Cultivation | Taking someone else's progress directly. Fast, and leaves no witnesses. |
| 祭祀求生 | Sacrifice to Survive | Paying with something for another day. Ranges from harmless to a whole village. |
| 肉白骨 | Flesh to Bone | Healing so complete that it rebuilds what is gone. The highest tier of healing, and rare enough to be a plot. |
| 起死回生 | Raise the Dead | Bringing back someone who is actually dead. The price is always named and always steep. |
| 还魂 | Soul Return | A soul coming back to its own body. Limited window, and a strong chance of being someone else's. |
| 离魂 | Soul Separation | The soul leaving involuntarily. Fragile state, used for out-of-body arcs. |
| 魂体 | Soul Form | What a soul looks like without a body. Recognisable, semi-material, and unable to affect much. |
| 灵体状态 | Being a Spirit | Existing as a non-physical entity. Practical for spying and useless for holding a sword. |
| 生魂 | Living Soul | The soul of someone still alive, and therefore still attached to a body. Stealing one is a specific crime. |
| 死气 | Death Qi | Energy of things dead. Nourishes the demonic path and is survivable for everyone else only briefly. |
| 阳寿 | Allotted Years | The total lifespan assigned at birth. Modifying it is possible and always audited. |
| 轮回镜 | Mirror of Rebirth | Shows past lives. Useful for identity reveals, entertaining for everyone else. |
| 往生 | Passing On | Sending a soul to rebirth. The action is usually performed by a monk, in public, with incense. |
| 超度 | Release a Soul | The same act as a service. Refusing to release something is how a haunting starts. |
| 坠入轮回 | Fall into Rebirth | Being forced back into the cycle. Losing memory is the punishment. |
The distinction between a body dying and a soul dying drives most of the stakes in the genre. Terms follow the free cultivation novels at cultivationnovel.com.
Where these words turn up
Stories on this site that use them the way the notes describe.
My Best Friend and I Transmigrated: Demon Lord & Immortal ForemostTwo friends arrive in the same world on opposite sides of the same war.转世, 穿越 A Century in Seclusion, the Last Cultivator AliveA hundred years of practice end with everyone else gone.长生 Hey Transmigrator, Quit Causing Trouble in the SectA transmigrator who wants a quiet life in an outer sect that will not let him have one.穿越Source: cultivationnovel.com · Cultivation Glossary