Chapter 1 Something in the Food

When Feng Bujue was awakened, he was lying flat on Li Ruoyu's bed.

Of course, it could also be said to be his own bed, at least it was a few days ago...

The moment he opened his eyes, Feng Bujue tried to move his body, but he found that only his head could make small movements; he couldn't move at all from the neck down. However, his limbs and body were not restrained by handcuffs or strips of cloth; they just seemed to be lying flat naturally.

"Hey, hey..." Feng Bujue shifted his gaze and quickly saw Li Ruoyu, who was standing by the bed, looking down at him. "What's going on..."

"Even you... have psychological blind spots." Ruoyu was still as cold as ever, calmly responding, "Just because I eat at the same table with you, you naturally assume that I wouldn't add anything to the food..."

"Normally speaking, even if you didn't sit down and eat with me... you wouldn't add anything to the food, right!" Feng Bujue couldn't help but retort. "So you suddenly buying groceries and cooking today... that was the purpose!"

"That's right." Ruoyu replied frankly, "Although knocking you unconscious directly isn't impossible, I still prefer this gentler method."

"Um... what exactly are you plotting..." Feng Bujue squinted at her. "If you wanted to do something to me, there should be gentler ways... like just telling me, I think the chances of me refusing are extremely low..."

"Heh... you little hooligan..." Suddenly, a man's voice sounded from the other side of the room, "You dare to flirt with the chief's grandniece..."

The voice was unfamiliar; Feng Bujue was sure he had never heard it before. What surprised him was... that he hadn't "sensed" there was another person in the room. You must know that the current Jue-ge (Brother Jue) could even perceive "the Earth rotating"; but this man could make him unable to detect him, which undoubtedly meant he was no ordinary person.

"Hey... and who are you..." Feng Bujue turned his head in the direction of the voice and asked a question he was already seventy or eighty percent sure of.

In fact, when the other party said the word "chief," he guessed that this was a member of the Ninth Division. But he still asked, wanting to hear the other party's self-introduction.

"I am... the deputy chief of the Ninth Division." The man replied neither humbly nor arrogantly, "My surname is Qi, and my given name is Zhi."

While Qi Zhi was speaking, Feng Bujue quickly sized him up. This was a man who looked about thirty years old, with handsome features and neatly combed hair. He wore a long-sleeved T-shirt and leather pants, giving off the air of a homebody.

It is worth mentioning that... at this moment, Qi Zhi was sitting in a chair, and Assas was lying on his lap... the former was even stroking the latter's fur.

"Hey! You, who eats my food, lives in my house, and claims to be here to protect me... Yes! You..." Feng Bujue yelled after making eye contact with Assas, "I'm lying here, what are you doing?"

"Meow~" Assas stretched his neck comfortably and lazily replied, "What's the big fuss... Isn't my leisurely state the best proof that 'these two pose no threat to you'?"

"Uh..." Feng Bujue was speechless.

"Alright, Feng Bujue, stop yelling." Qi Zhi continued, "An old man like me in his seventies or eighties, running errands at this hour, isn't that difficult? Just think of it as being considerate to an old man, let me finish things early and go back to eat... Let me tell you, my wife hates reheating food, she'll kill me if I reheat it more than twice."

"Oh~ another one?" Feng Bujue couldn't help but think of Chief Gu, who also looked like he was thirty, but claimed to be seventy-six, "The men in your Ninth Division are all pretty good at maintaining themselves..."

"It's called 'super spirit body'," Qi Zhi's answer was exactly the same as what Gu Chen had said, "It has nothing to do with maintenance."

Ruoyu also added from the side, "Grandpa Qi Zhi is of the same generation as my great aunt, he really is over seventy."

"Okay, okay... whatever." Feng Bujue immediately asked, "You guys drugged me and pinned me to the bed with a formation, what exactly are you planning to do?"

"Naturally, we're preparing to deal with the changes that have occurred in your body," Qi Zhi replied.

"Deal with..." Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes, repeating the words, and then said, "How to deal with it? Who will deal with it?" Before the other party could answer, he continued at a rapid pace, "I'm declaring in advance... no matter what form of 'dealing' you're talking about... if possible, I still hope Ruoyu does it."

"Heh..." Qi Zhi smiled, he looked at Jue-ge, then at Ruoyu, and then shifted his gaze back to Jue-ge's face, "Sorry, this girl's cultivation is not enough, I have to do it."

"Oh..." Feng Bujue responded, put on a life-is-meaningless expression, and turned his head away, "Excuse me... please knock me unconscious first."

"Firstly, if we could have handled it while you were unconscious, we wouldn't have needed to wake you up," Qi Zhi replied, "Secondly, can you please stop always bringing this topic into a perverted atmosphere?"

"Forget it... Grandpa Qi Zhi, he's just like that..." Ruoyu shook her head, holding her forehead, "Just do it, ignore him."

"Look, Ruoyu thinks you're embarrassing yourself..." Qi Zhi said, gently putting Assas down, and stood up, walking to the bed.

"Wait..." Feng Bujue saw the other party approaching, and his whole body tensed up, "Before you do anything, can you explain the cause and effect of this matter, and... what exactly are you going to do?"

"Sure." Qi Zhi replied in a very casual tone, "This afternoon, our Miss Yu rushed to the Ninth Division headquarters, went straight to the chief's office, and reported your situation to her great aunt, our chief..."

"I wasn't rushing..." Ruoyu muttered at this time.

But Qi Zhi ignored her and continued to say to himself, "And our chief... he's a busy man who manages thousands of affairs every day, with many excuses, shameless. So, he came up with the idea of 'drugging' you, and sent me to make a trip..." He raised his hands and made quotation marks, "... 'Act as circumstances dictate'."

"Hmm... 'Act by looking at the base and getting wet'," Feng Bujue read, "This instruction is really..."

"I just looked at your condition and consulted Assas's opinion," Qi Zhi ignored Jue-ge's complaints and continued, "Basically, it can be confirmed... that some high-level being used its power to unleash the potential in your body."

"So... this is a good thing?" Feng Bujue asked suspiciously.

"Probably..." Qi Zhi's expression changed slightly when he said this.

"Hey! Probably?" Feng Bujue felt something was wrong when he heard this word.

"Before today, anyone with a certain level of spiritual awareness could see that your roots were not right," Ruoyu interjected from the side, "But now..."

"...Now even I can't see what your roots are like," Qi Zhi took over, "I've never encountered this situation in humans, even demons and monsters... I can see some of their truths, but you... I don't understand."

"How don't you understand... tell me, and I'll help you analyze it." Regarding his own body, Feng Bujue was still very concerned.

"Let me use a more vivid example to illustrate." Qi Zhi thought for a few seconds, and then replied, "If we compare 'people' to a bottle of water, then the roots determine the 'shape' of the bottle, and talent determines the 'maximum capacity' of the bottle and the 'accumulation speed' of the water. As for how much water is in the bottle, that is, how much strength you currently have... it depends on the specific cultivation." He paused, "Taking Ruoyu as an example, she belongs to the type with excellent roots and high talent; however, she is not a full-time ghost hunter, nor has she received rigorous training since childhood, but her grandparents sometimes give her some pointers... So, we can regard her as an upright, huge bottle, but with only a little water in it."

When Qi Zhi explained these things, Ruoyu also had a look of listening to a lecture on her face, listening attentively, it seemed that she was also quite concerned about Jue-ge's affairs.

"And you... Feng Bujue." After two seconds, Qi Zhi crossed his hands in front of his chest and frowned slightly, "At first, I heard that your roots were not right, but your talent was not bad, that is... the shape is not so upright, but the capacity is okay. But now... according to my observation, you are no longer 'a bottle of water'."

"If it's not water, could it be soy sauce..." Feng Bujue interjected.

"Eh~ you're actually right." Unexpectedly, Qi Zhi nodded in response, "To be precise... you're not 'a bottle' of soy sauce, but a lump of soy sauce that has been stuck in an unknown container and has become so thick that it's like a solid."

"Anyway, not a normal person..." Feng Bujue added.

"No, no, no..." Qi Zhi waved his hand, "This is not a question of normal or not..." He paused slightly, "You're simply not human."

"Yes, I'm soy sauce." Jue-ge mocked himself, and even rolled his eyes.

"Hehe..." Qi Zhi chuckled twice, "Forget it, when your cultivation reaches a certain level, you'll understand some things even without my explanation, maybe you can even answer some of my questions in return." As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeves, "So now... I'll first transfer ten years of my cultivation to you to solve your immediate needs."

"Eh? Is there such a good thing?" Feng Bujue was first delighted, and then suspicious, "Wait... what does immediate needs refer to?"

"Oh... I forgot to tell you, your potential is excessive, and it stagnates and doesn't dissipate after awakening, which leads to the blockage of your spiritual meridians and the obstruction of your soul network, thereby triggering spiritual self-devouring," Qi Zhi replied, "If you hadn't practiced the Dunjia Heavenly Book before, and accumulated some spiritual power... within half a day, this power would exhaust your physical energy and begin to devour your life."

"Holy crap!" Although Feng Bujue wouldn't be afraid, he wouldn't be calm when he heard such a thing.

"Fortunately..." Qi Zhi glanced at Ruoyu at this time, "This girl reported it in a timely manner and brought me here on the same day, if it had been delayed for a day or two, you might have been exhausted alive by 'the power within your body'."

At this point, Qi Zhi seemed to have thought of something, and then said to Jue-ge in a joking tone, "Kid, this is a life-saving grace, you understand."

"Ah, I understand." Feng Bujue responded, turned to Ruoyu, and said, "Thank you, heroine, for saving my life."

"Monitoring you is my duty, no need to thank me for what is within my responsibility." Ruoyu's response was still as thin as water.

However, before the two of them could finish speaking, Qi Zhi had already reached out and flicked Jue-ge's forehead...

"Ouch!" Jue-ge cried out in pain and immediately glared at Qi Zhi, "Hey! What are you doing?"

"People saved your life, is saying thank you enough?" Qi Zhi asked in a strange tone.

"Oh?" Hearing this, Feng Bujue's expression changed, he vaguely felt that this deputy chief wanted to help him out, "Senior means..."

Before Qi Zhi could answer, Ruoyu's sharp gaze and words had already arrived together: "Deputy Chief Qi, you seem to be saying too much outside of official business."

"I'm going... her eyes are so scary..." Qi Zhi was stared at by a junior who was fifty years younger than him and didn't dare to speak, and he was still complaining in his heart, "And she suddenly changed her address to me... in the end, what does this have to do with me... Gu Chen, that old geezer, told me to look for opportunities to 'help out' is actually plotting against me, right... or is this old bastard misunderstanding something..."

"Ahem..." After a series of inner monologues, Qi Zhi cleared his throat and changed the topic, "Okay, let's get back to the topic..." He looked at Feng Bujue again with a serious expression, "In short, it's not okay to leave you alone. My ten years of cultivation... is like a large amount of high-quality water, which can dilute your 'soy sauce block' into 'soy sauce' in a normal state. However... this process takes time. Therefore, please do not engage in any spiritual power cultivation for at least three months. After three months, we will decide based on the situation."

"I see..." Feng Bujue said, "I understand..." He paused, and looked at Qi Zhi with a very sincere gaze, "But... Senior, I'll lose a lot if I don't cultivate for three months." He shamelessly continued, "With my talent, it's hard to say how much progress I can make in three months... You're seventy-something, only passing on ten years of cultivation to me is a bit stingy, right? You should at least give me sixty-eight or ninety years of cultivation to make it worthwhile."

Qi Zhi was stunned after hearing these words, and he was stunned for a full ten seconds.

"Heh... hehehehe..." Then, Qi Zhi laughed, after laughing a few times, he looked up at Ruoyu, "Girl, this kid has a lot of potential, really, you can consider it."

"Consider what?" Ruoyu asked, looking at her expression, it didn't seem like she was pretending to be stupid, but she really didn't know what these words meant.

Qi Zhi looked at her reaction, and immediately looked at Feng Bujue again: "You kid... is there something you haven't told her?"

"Oh~ you can even see that?" Jue-ge said in surprise.

"Oh..." Although Feng Bujue didn't answer the other party's question directly, Qi Zhi seemed to have understood something, "I seem to know what the old man Gu meant..." he muttered in his heart, "Hmph... this matter is not up to me, nor does it need me to worry about it."

After a few seconds, Qi Zhi said seriously again: "Feng Bujue, do you know what the concept of 'my' ten years of cultivation is?" When he asked this question, he deliberately emphasized the word "my."

"Uh..." There seemed to be a trap in these words, and Feng Bujue didn't answer immediately.

"Heh... I'll let you know." As Qi Zhi said this, he pressed one hand on the top of Jue-ge's head.

"It won't hurt, right? Senior." Feng Bujue asked.

"It won't hurt." Qi Zhi replied immediately.

"That's good." Jue-ge felt a little relieved in his heart.

"But it will be very painful." Qi Zhi's second half of the sentence was only spoken a second later.

"Hey!" Feng Bujue was furious, "What's the difference!"

"There is..." Qi Zhi's answer was truly classic, "Pain can be endured."

"So this kind of pain has reached the point where it can't be endured?" Feng Bujue added.

"Otherwise, why would I use a formation to fix your body?" Qi Zhi continued, "By the way, transferring spiritual power and ordinary 'infusion of spiritual power' are two different concepts, the degree of pain is enough to temporarily wake up a person in a deep coma, so... there's no difference in doing it while in a coma."

"Can you describe the specific feeling..." Feng Bujue was already sweating cold sweat.

"It's similar to blowing up a balloon." Qi Zhi said.

"Where is blowing up a balloon painful?" Feng Bujue asked.

"You are the balloon." Qi Zhi replied.

"Hmm..." Feng Bujue was already pale, at this moment his only hope was that the process of transferring power would be shorter, "How long will it take?"

"One year of cultivation takes about a minute." Qi Zhi replied.

"You transfer one year to me first, and the rest can be paid in installments, right?" Jue-ge, who had just wanted sixty-nine years of cultivation, now made this suggestion.

"Damn, you think it's really blowing up a balloon?" Qi Zhi, who was in his seventies or eighties, even said "damn," which shows how unreliable Jue-ge's words were, "Do you think things like setting up formations and transferring power are simple? Let me tell you, in our line of work, more than a thousand years ago, drawing a talisman for someone would cost a string of copper coins; a master of my level would charge at least five taels of silver for looking at the Feng Shui for someone; as for setting up a formation... ha! Can you get it done without twenty taels? Transferring power? I spit on it! Unless you hire me as your son-in-law, and it depends on whether your daughter is pretty or not."

"No wonder Taoism is not as prosperous as Buddhism, they're so rogue..." Feng Bujue commented.

"Who told you that our ghost hunters are Taoists?" Qi Zhi asked back.

"Then we are..." Feng Bujue asked tentatively.

"Okay, stop with the 'we we'... you're trying to get information out of me, right? Do you think I can't see it?" Qi Zhi wasn't senile, "Stop talking nonsense, hold on!"

After saying that, his right palm struck down and covered Feng Bujue's forehead.

In the next second, Jue-ge felt a vast spiritual power pouring down from the top of his head.

This was indeed not physical pain, to describe it specifically, it was more like - a person's soul, standing under a torrent ten times more violent than a waterfall, receiving a wash, and the force of the impact would not dissipate like water, but would continue to increase...