Chapter 1 Awakening

When Feng Bujue was awakened, he was already lying sprawled out 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. Everything below his neck was completely immobile. However, his limbs and body were not restrained by handcuffs or strips of cloth; they simply looked naturally laid out.

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

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

"Normally, 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. "Speaking of which, 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 more gentle method."

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

"Heh… you little rascal…" Suddenly, a man's voice rang out from the other side of the room, "You actually dare to flirt with the department chief's granddaughter…"

The voice was unfamiliar; Feng Bujue was certain he was hearing it for the first time. What surprised him was… he hadn't "felt" that there was another person in the room. He could even sense "the Earth rotating," but this man was undetectable, so he was undoubtedly no ordinary person.

"Hey… who are you…" Feng Bujue turned his head in the direction of the voice and asked a question that he already knew the answer to.

In fact, when the other party said "department 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. He was a man who looked to be around thirty years old, with handsome features and neatly combed hair. He wore a long-sleeved t-shirt and leather trousers, giving off the air of a stay-at-home man.

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

"Hey! You, the guy who eats my food, lives in my house, and claims to be here to protect me… yes! You…" Feng Bujue locked eyes with Assas and roared, "I'm lying here, what are you doing?"

"Meow~" Assas stretched his neck comfortably and lazily replied, "What's all the fuss about… 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 there." Qi Zhi interjected, "An old man like me in his seventies or eighties is already having a hard time running errands at meal times, isn't it? Just consider it being considerate to an old man and let me finish this quickly so I can go back home and eat… I'm telling you, my wife hates reheating food, and she'll grab a knife if it's reheated 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 of your Ninth Division are all good at maintaining their appearance…"

"It's called 'Transcendent Body'," Qi Zhi's answer was exactly the same as Gu Chen's explanation, "It has nothing to do with maintenance."

Ruoyu also added from the side, "Grandpa Qi Zhi is the same generation as my great-aunt's husband. He's really in his seventies."

"Okay, okay… whatever." Feng Bujue immediately asked, "You guys used drugs to knock me out and an array to pin me on the bed. What exactly are you planning to do?"

"Naturally, we're preparing to deal with the abnormalities occurring in your body." Qi Zhi replied.

"Deal with…" Feng Bujue narrowed his eyes, repeating the two words, then said, "How do you 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 with it' you're talking about… if possible, I still hope Ruoyu does it."

"Heh…" Qi Zhi laughed, he looked at Feng Bujue, then at Ruoyu, before returning his gaze to Feng Bujue's face. "Sorry, this girl's cultivation is not enough; I have to do it myself."

"Oh…" Feng Bujue responded, adopting a look of hopelessness and turning his head away. "Please… knock me unconscious first."

"Firstly, if we could handle 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 with her hand on her forehead. "Just do it and ignore him."

"Look, Ruoyu feels embarrassed for you…" Qi Zhi said, gently placing Assas down and standing up, walking to the bedside.

"Wait…" Seeing the other party approaching, Feng Bujue 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 department chief's office, and reported your situation to her great-aunt's husband, our department chief…"

"I wasn't rushing…" Ruoyu muttered from the side.

But Qi Zhi ignored her, continuing to say, "And our department chief… he's a man of great affairs, busy with official duties, full of excuses, and shameless. So, he came up with the idea of 'drugging' you and sent me to run an errand…" He raised his hands, making quotation marks. "...'See how things go'."

"Mm… 'See how things go'," Feng Bujue repeated. "That instruction is really…"

"I already looked at your condition and consulted Assas's opinion." Qi Zhi disregarded Feng Bujue's retort and continued, "Basically, we can confirm… that some high-level being used their power to unlock the potential within you."

"So… is that a good thing?" Feng Bujue asked doubtfully.

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

"Hey! Probably?" Feng Bujue felt something was amiss when he heard that 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 picked up the thread. "I've never encountered this situation in humans. Even with demons and monsters… I can see a bit of the truth, but you… I don't understand."

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

"Let me give you a more vivid example to illustrate." Qi Zhi thought for a few seconds and replied, "If you compare a 'person' to a bottle of water, then your roots determine the 'shape' of the bottle, and your 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… that depends on your specific cultivation." He paused for a moment. "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 she was a child. Only her grandparents sometimes give her some pointers… Therefore, we can regard her as an upright, huge bottle, but with only a little water in it."

While Qi Zhi was explaining, Ruoyu also had a listening expression, carefully listening to the lecture, it seemed she was also concerned about Feng Bujue’s issues.

"And you… Feng Bujue." Two seconds later, Qi Zhi crossed his hands in front of his chest, frowning 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 right." Unexpectedly, Qi Zhi nodded in reply. "To be precise… you are not 'a bottle' of soy sauce, but a lump of soy sauce that doesn't know what container it was in, 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 abnormal…" He paused slightly. "You're simply not human."

"Yes, I'm soy sauce," Feng Bujue said mockingly, rolling his eyes.

"Hehe…" Qi Zhi chuckled twice. "Forget it, when your cultivation reaches a certain level, you will understand some things without me explaining them. Maybe you can even answer some of my questions." As he spoke, he rolled up his sleeves. "So now… I will first transmit ten years of my cultivation to you to relieve the immediate crisis."

"Eh? Is there such a good thing?" Feng Bujue was first happy, then suspicious. "Wait… what does 'immediate crisis' refer to?"

"Oh… I forgot to tell you, your potential is excessive. After awakening, it congeals and doesn't dissipate, which leads to the blockage of your spiritual meridians, the obstruction of your soul network, and thus triggers spiritual autophagy." Qi Zhi replied, "If you hadn't practiced the *Dunjia Tianshu* before, accumulating some spiritual power… within half a day, this power would exhaust your physical energy and begin to devour your life force."

"Holy crap!" Although Feng Bujue wasn't afraid, he couldn't remain calm when he heard this.

"Fortunately…" Qi Zhi glanced at Ruoyu. "This girl reported it in a timely manner and brought me here that day. If it had been delayed for a day or two, you might have been exhausted to death by 'the power within you'."

At this point, Qi Zhi seemed to have thought of something, and then said to Feng Bujue in a joking tone, "Boy, this is a life-saving grace, you know."

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

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

However, before they could finish speaking, Qi Zhi stretched out his hand and flicked Feng Bujue's forehead…

"Ouch!" Feng Bujue cried out in pain, immediately glaring at Qi Zhi. "Hey! What are you doing?"

"She saved your life, and you're just going to say thank you and that's it?" Qi Zhi asked in a strange tone.

"Oh?" Hearing this, Feng Bujue's expression changed. He faintly felt that this deputy chief was trying to help him. "Senior means…"

Before Qi Zhi could answer, Ruoyu's knife-like gaze and words 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 glared at by a junior who was fifty years younger than him, and he didn't dare to speak, complaining in his heart, "And she suddenly changed the way she addressed me… what does this have to do with me… Gu Chen, that old geezer, asked me to find an opportunity to 'help', but he was actually plotting against me… or that old bastard just misunderstood…"

"Ahem…" After some inner monologue, Qi Zhi cleared his throat and changed the subject. "Okay, let's get back to the main topic…" He looked at Feng Bujue in a serious manner again. "In short, it's impossible 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 a normal state of 'soy sauce'. However… this process takes time. Therefore, please do not engage in any spiritual 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, looking at Qi Zhi with a very sincere gaze. "But… Senior, I will lose a lot if I don't cultivate for three months." He brazenly continued, "With my talent, it's hard to say how much progress I can make in three months… You're already in your seventies, only transmitting ten years of cultivation to me is a bit stingy, isn't it? You should at least give me sixty-eighty-nine 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 potential, really, you can consider him."

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

Qi Zhi looked at her reaction and immediately looked at Feng Bujue again: "Kid… is there something you haven't told her?"

"Oh~ You can even see that?" Feng Bujue exclaimed in surprise.

"Oh…" Although Feng Bujue didn't directly answer the other party's question, Qi Zhi seemed to have understood something, "I seem to know what Gu was referring to…" he muttered in his heart, "Hmph… it's not my place to interfere, and I don't need to interfere."

A few seconds later, Qi Zhi said sternly again: "Feng Bujue, do you know what the concept of 'my' ten years of cultivation is?" He put special emphasis on the word "my" when asking this question.

"Uh…" There felt like a trap in these words, Feng Bujue didn't answer immediately.

"Heh… I'll let you know." As he spoke, Qi Zhi pressed one hand on the crown of Feng Bujue's head.

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

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

"That's good." Feng Bujue felt a little relieved.

"But it's very painful." Qi Zhi's second half of the sentence came out 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 asked again.

"Otherwise, why would I use an array to fix your body?" Qi Zhi replied, "By the way, transmitting 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 in an unconscious state."

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

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

"Where's the pain in blowing up a balloon?" Feng Bujue asked.

"You are the balloon." Qi Zhi replied.

"Mm…" Feng Bujue was ashen-faced, at this moment his only hope was that the transmission process would be short, "How long will it take?"

"One year of cultivation per minute." Qi Zhi replied.

"Can you transmit one year to me first, and pay the rest in installments?" Feng Bujue, who had just wanted sixty-nine years of cultivation, now made this suggestion.

"Damn, do 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 Feng Bujue's words were. "Do you think things like setting up arrays and transmitting cultivation are simple? I'm telling 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, going to someone's house to look at the *feng shui*, would cost at least five taels of silver. As for setting up an array… ha! Can you handle it without twenty taels? Transmitting cultivation? Bah! Unless you hire me to be your son-in-law, and it depends on whether your daughter is pretty."

"No wonder Taoism is not as prosperous as Buddhism, so perverted…" Feng Bujue commented.

"Who told you that our ghost hunters are Taoist?" Qi Zhi asked in return.

"Then we are…" Feng Bujue tentatively asked.

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

With that, his right palm struck down, covering Feng Bujue's forehead.

In the next second, Feng Bujue felt a vast spiritual force 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 stronger than a waterfall, being washed away. Moreover, the impact would not dissipate like water, but would continue to increase…