How do characters usually recover lost Chi?
Anyone, so long as they have at least one point of Positive Chi left, can get back all lost Chi simply by getting a full night's sleep.
Interrupted sleep, where the character gets between four and six hours of rest, will result in recovery of only half the lost Chi.
The "so long as they have at least one point" part I thought maybe only applied to 'get back all lost chi' part, and I thought maybe it was not a requirement for the 'recovery of only half" part. So maybe if you were at 0 chi, you could sleep 4 hours, get 1/2 chi, and then use all but one point, then getting a full night to go back to full.
I don't know why "and six" is mentioned though. Unless maybe more than 6 counts as a full night? Page 16 of N&S defines a "full night's sleep" as "eight hours of uninterrupted" though.
Given that it also says "more than 5 hours of uninterrupted" as restoring half, I figure we should just ignore the "four to six" as a way of referring to five. Knowing a specific post you need to pass to get the chi is best, right?
Page 16 also mentions you can't meditate or sleep to recover 'disrupted' chi. I don't know the entirety of what that refers to. It mentions you have to restore via the chi skills... but what skills is that?
If 'disrupted' refers to being in negative or zero chi then Dragon Chi (Fu Zhensong, page 119 N&S) seemed like it wouldn't work. It ends with "if the character ever reaches zero Chi, or is infected with negative Chi, then it becomes impossible to tap natural Chi".
I think I jumped to too-encompassing a conclusion though. Perhaps "natural Chi" only refers to getting it from the environment, so you can still get chi back by getting it from another person who donates it? But people are part of the "natural" world too, so maybe not...
16 said "Disrupted Chi must be restored using one of the Chi Skills". I think I was wrong to assume this meant Dragon Chi / Fu Zhensong on 119. It might refer to the Chi Relaxation skill on 118. It says "A full hour's meditation will recover all lost chi" but it explicitly doesn't work if infected with Negative Chi...
So I think that 1 hour Chi Relaxation can only help if you're "disrupted" to 0 chi, but not if you are disrupted to negative chi.
"Defend against Chi Attacks" I think is what covers that possibility under its "Getting Rid of Negative Chi" sub-ability. The "meditating in a place of great Positive Chi" part. If you dispel 1D6 per day, that could get you to 0, at which point you then switch to Chi Relaxation to regain it from 0 to full.
People without any Chi Mastery seem out of luck though, because I think the form of meditation given by Chi Relaxation is superior to the mundane meditation available to those without chi mastery (N&S page 16, any form with Chi bonuses)
Page 153 of Mystic China continues:
What if the character has Zero Chi or Negative Chi?
That's a problem!
People with no Positive Chi remaining and with no Chi abilities can't heal back their lost Chi.
This implies that if you have no positive chi (0) but with 1 chi ability, you CAN heal back your lost chi. It may only refer to having the proper chi abilities though (like any Chi Mastery, which gives you Chi Relaxation) rather than just any chi ability though.
The implication from 152 remains that you can't get chi back via sleeping if you're at 0. I think this is because sleep-restored chi counts as "healed" chi. That's why 153 uses the phrase "heal back their lost Chi". Essentially if you lose chi, your chi is 'damaged' and it needs to be healed.
Chi can be damaged by negative chi attacks, or basically spending chi to use any abilities is effectively self-harming by depleting your chi stores.
The final bullet in 153's Chi: How it Works:
How can characters recover from Zero or from Negative Chi?
By getting help from anyone with Chi Healing.
After a character recovers any Positive Chi, even a single point, then healing will start immediately, illnesses will disappear, and all lost Chi, hit points and S..D.C. will be recovered normally.
My bolding for emphasis. The "normal recovery" of Chi is when chi is healed by sleep. Meditation is abnormal, it's not an instinct, it's a skill which is gained. Therefore, I think this is only a restriction on restoring chi via sleep (full in 8 hours, regain 1/2 in 5) but not a restriction on restoring chi via meditation (full in 1 hour, regardless of whether you use the mundane version available to those with a +chi in their Form, or the Chi Relaxation available to anyone with Chi Mastery, regardless of whether their form gives a bonus)
Even though it is a separate sentence and it seems like a loophole, it feels like splitting hairs to think I could go 0>half using 5/4-6 hours sleep because I think that is implied to be a continuation of the previous thought, inheriting its requirements.