Chapter 5: Strange Spirit
The waiter who brought Lin Yao back should have been trained in the same batch as the two big brothers on duty in the main courtyard. He had a standard smile on his face and his tone was so polite that it was impeccable.
Don't hit a smiling person. Lin Yao also understood this principle. He spoke to the man politely, but when the waiter glanced at him, a trace of contempt flashed across his face.
After putting him down, the hovercraft turned around with a "whoosh", as if it was afraid of being affected by the bad luck here.
Lin Yao looked at the taillights of the car that seemed to be fleeing, his eyes deep.
The first person who came to his mind was De Linfeng, the powerful head of the De Lin family.
While he was threatening his second uncle's family with the video, the old man leisurely asked the housekeeper Zhan standing beside him to change his cup of tea.
Then, with a barely perceptible smile in his eyes, he watched them perform the play.
At that time, I thought I had seen it wrong, but now thinking back, his words "the master is the master, the servant is the servant" were clearly adding fuel to the fire for the second wife.
Even when Gu Yun was pointing at his nose and scolding him, De Linfeng deliberately took a beat longer to speak, as if waiting for him to say something even harsher.
"Old Master, are you... happy to see this happen?" Lin Yao rubbed his chin.
In the original owner's memory, De Linfeng always ignored him, and the thing he kept saying the most was "A harmonious family brings prosperity."
But just now, when he saw him quarreling with his second wife, his eyes were like an old farmer looking at the rice growing well in his field.
Could it be that this old man had been wanting to punish the second wife for a long time, but just lacked a pretext? And he just happened to be the perfect weapon?
Lin Yao felt that it was not the same. He couldn't figure out the old man, and he also couldn't figure out the guide lady sitting next to the old man.
Just when the argument was at its most intense, the old lady was sitting on a bamboo chair peeling lotus seeds. The silver shelling knife twirled rapidly between her fingertips, and she didn't even look up even when the lotus seeds rolled all over the plate.
In theory, she is the biological mother of my second uncle and the oldest elder in the family except for the old man.
When one's own son and a younger generation have such an ugly quarrel, under normal circumstances, one should either try to reconcile them or take sides, and at least say something.
This silence itself was strange. Normally, elders would watch their juniors fighting for interests, but she acted like she was watching a play that had nothing to do with her, and she didn't even bother to lift her eyelids.
From the beginning to the end, the old lady didn't say a word. In the end, she just pushed the plate of lotus seeds in front of the old man and said, "It can relieve heart heat."
If Lin Yao had not seen her chatting happily with his second uncle's family before entering the house, he would have thought that this old lady De Lin was a mute!
Is this old lady really staying out of the matter, or is she seeing things too clearly and knows what not to say?
The last one is De Linwei. It’s okay that Lin Yao couldn’t figure out the first two because he didn’t have enough information, but De Linwei’s situation was very clear.
Tell him clearly that there is something wrong with the Ye family or Ye Heng!
"What's the point?" Lin Yao twitched his lips. The Delinwei in the original owner's memory was stubborn and stubborn, the kind who would argue for a long time over a single star beast hair.
Ye Heng was indifferent to the engagement? But the Ye family's power was there, and wasn't that what she valued most? Could it be that... the Ye family had something more terrifying than breaking off the engagement, forcing her to run away even if it meant paying the money?
Lin Yao dug through the original owner's memory. Regarding this Ye family master, everything he had was as detailed as an encyclopedia, without any redundant memories.
He pursed his lips and shrugged, then turned and walked towards the shabby house, taking off the smile on his face.
Although the battle was won, it was like stepping on a seemingly ordinary floor tile and revealing the intricate hidden wires underneath.
-
Stepping into the yard, Lin Yao discovered that there was someone in this broken yard!
Lin Yao didn't expect that the man was Uncle Fu. He looked at the time on the computer. According to the original owner's memory, Uncle Fu would not appear here at this time.
Hearing the footsteps, Uncle Fu, who was tidying up in the yard, immediately looked over:
"Xiao Yao? You're back!"
Lin Yao looked at him and rubbed his hands awkwardly, a strange feeling flashing through his mind.
"Uncle Fu, have you been waiting for a long time?" Lin Yao walked forward.
Seeing him coming forward, Uncle Fu said no, he came here after having dinner.
After saying that, he hurriedly turned around and took out a tray from the cabinet in the yard, on which were some simple food.
Not to mention, after Lin Yao saw what was on the tray, he felt hungry. After dealing with that group of people for so long, the food he had eaten in the morning had long been gone.
Lin Yao went to take the tray, but was dodged by Uncle Fu. He glanced behind him and saw that Lin Yao was indeed the only one there, but he still lowered his voice:
"Your second uncle's family...did they give you any trouble?"
Lin Yao had no choice but to open the door, and the precarious but tenacious door was opened; Uncle Fu let him in first, and then followed him into the house with the tray.
After the door was closed, Lin Yao said slowly: "No, they gave some 'compensation'."
After a pause, he continued, "In the final analysis, whether it's Delinwei or the Cang family, they need to shut my mouth."
Hearing Lin Yao's words, Uncle Fu, who had been helping him prepare the meal since he came in, nodded. His hands did not stop serving the porridge, and his whole body was glowing with joy. Then he thought of something:
"Were the compensations given to you on the spot?"
Lin Yao shook his head, and Uncle Fu's brows instantly frowned and his mouth opened and closed.
"Send it over tomorrow, don't worry, they won't dare not give it to you this time!" Lin Yao understood his worries, fearing that he would be stood up by his second uncle's family.
Lin Yao took the bowl of porridge handed to him by Uncle Fu with a smile, took a sip of the porridge, and the warm rice porridge slid into his stomach, the warmth penetrated into his belly, and soothed his emotions.
Uncle Fu paused, and did not respond. He just silently helped him clean the house and accompanied him for dinner. For a moment, the whole room was quiet. The sound of porridge sliding into the mouth and the sounds of cleaning were intertwined, exuding an incomparable warmth.
In the original owner's memory, Uncle Fu was truly caring towards him, and Lin Yao could feel it from time to time after traveling through time.
Maybe all old people are so considerate.
-
After seeing Uncle Fu off, Lin Yao did not return to the house. Instead, he walked to the back of the house to look at the green ivy planted there by the original owner, and by the way, to evaluate how to care for this thing so that it can get rid of its current sickly state.
The midday sun made the stone slabs hot, and even the weeds in the corners of the wall drooped and scurried into the shade. However, this green ivy was planted in an open space with no shelter, and its leaves were sunburned to a burnt yellow color, as if they had been burned by fire.
"Wow, this is roasting shade-loving plants on a solar stove."
Lin Yao squatted down and touched a curled leaf with his fingertips. The edge of the leaf was so brittle that it broke when pinched. He couldn't help but exclaim in amazement.
He dug up the soil at the roots. The soil was soft, but as dry as sifted sand, and it fell down as soon as he touched it.
"Too much light and not enough water—a typical 'sunburst and dehydration combination.'"
Lin Yao sighed, his eyes scanning the surroundings, and soon set his sights on the crooked old locust tree beside the courtyard wall. "Thank goodness for this tree, otherwise it would have dried up long ago."
The most urgent thing is to find a place for the green ivy.
Lin Yao looked around and finally found something that could be called a flower pot in a corner.
It is called a flower pot, but it is actually just a broken ceramic jar without any drainage holes at the bottom. It can be transformed into a flower pot after some modification.
I carefully transplanted the extremely fragile green ivy into the flowerpot, and the first step of the long journey was finally completed without any danger.
He carried the pottery jar to the old locust tree and chose a spot.
There is no direct sunlight here at noon, but there is soft scattered light in the afternoon, which perfectly suits the growth habits of the green ivy.
"This is your Feng Shui treasure land." After choosing the location, Lin Yao began to trim the dead leaves.
Leaving those scorched leaves would only consume nutrients, so he pinched the base of the petiole and twisted it gently, and the withered yellow leaves fell off.
The last step was watering. Lin Yao scooped a ladle of water from the water tank and slowly poured it along the edge of the tank, watching the water seep out through the newly dug drainage holes, carrying a fishy smell of soil.
He squatted beside and observed, and saw the new buds tremble slightly, as if they breathed a sigh of relief, and he couldn't help but smile.
After finishing all this, the fragmented sunlight fell down, giving the green ivy a layer of warm golden edge.
Lin Yao patted the dirt off his hands and looked at the green ivy that had resettled, and suddenly felt at peace.
Perhaps it was because he was able to bring a dying plant back to life with his old skills, and this sense of security counteracted the sense of emptiness brought about by time travel, so he felt very at ease.
When Lin Yao stood up, he kicked something hard with his foot. He looked down and saw that it was a broken lens, which probably fell from a broken computer.
The scattered light reflected from the lens made his eyes blurry. He suddenly remembered what the original owner had written in his diary: 'Green radish can understand human language. Talk to it more and it will grow well!'
"That's quite romantic." Lin Yao waved at the green ivy. "Grow well. When you've covered the entire wall, I'll build you a 'green ivy waterfall' like on Earth, so those interstellar people can see the power of life."
The evening breeze rustled through the leaves of the locust tree, as if responding to his words.
Lin Yao turned and walked towards the house, thinking to himself that in addition to this green ivy, he had another plant here that needed his attention to see the spiritual form of its original owner - the twined peony.
-
Lin Yao sat down on the edge of the bed, closed his eyes and began to mobilize his consciousness according to the memories left to him by the original owner, entering into the mental picture.
When he reached in, the first thing Lin Yao felt was a gray mist, which was even heavier than the morning mist in late autumn on Earth, and even his consciousness seemed to be stuck in a quagmire.
"Is this mental state so bad?" Lin Yao was shocked.
Through the mist, a large area of strangely cracked black soil appeared, black soil with nothing on it.
Lin Yao was stunned: No! Wasn't the original owner's spirit a plant? Why is there only dirt everywhere I look? Did the spirit body, after being severely injured, crumble into dust?
Fortunately, Lin Yao only blinked for a moment and almost missed the small spiritual body hidden in the deepest part of his mental picture.
The silvery-white vines were a hundred times thinner than the ones on Earth in my memory, like threads spun from moonlight, tightly wrapped together.
The leaves are translucent ice blue, with the star-shaped serrations on the edges drooping, as if all their strength has been drained away. The ice-blue light spots flowing in the veins are so faint that they are almost invisible, even dimmer than the tail light of a firefly.
What is most shocking are the fractures - not breaks in the physical sense.
But there are several places on the vine where the spiritual power is as thin as a layer of ice, as if it will shatter with the slightest touch, revealing the deeper nothingness underneath.
The only flower bud was tightly wrapped, with layers of ice-blue petals, but it was sickly pale, and even the ice-blue halo on the edge was almost fading to gray.
Where the stardust-shaped pistil should be at the top of the bud, there is now only a small black hole, as if a piece of it had been forcibly gouged out by something, and it is slowly devouring the weak spiritual power around it.
Lin Yao's consciousness gently touched the vine, and the silver-white branches trembled violently, and the entire flower plant shrank deeper, like a frightened rabbit.
'Something's wrong, something's 30% wrong!' This thought lingered in Lin Yao's mind, and at the same time he discovered another strange thing.
The original owner was a person with an extraordinary memory, and Lin Yao successfully inherited all of his memories, but it would be better to say that it was just a compressed package rather than all of it.
In other words, only when key things are triggered will the original owner's related memories be unlocked.
For example, it’s like today he went to the main courtyard and saw a hovercraft on the road.
He knew what it was without anyone introducing it, and then some of the original owner's memories of seeing and touching the hover car would emerge.
At that time, Lin Yao didn't think there was anything wrong. Even though this situation had happened many times before, he didn't think there was anything wrong.
It was not until he saw the spirit body that he realized that the original owner's memory needed to trigger a key to be awakened in detail!
Lin Yao tentatively determined that this was caused by his time travel, but what was more important now was the original owner's spirit body.
In the original owner's memory, he suffered damage to his spiritual body and deteriorated his mental strength due to an unexpected accident during a guide assessment.
After emergency treatment, the situation was stabilized. At that time, the peony was not so small. Logically, after being stabilized, the state of the mental body would be stable and the mental power would not fluctuate.
But why was the spirit that appeared before Lin Yao this time so weak and sickly? This did not conform to common sense.
Lin Yao's consciousness was wandering in confusion in the mental picture. When his eyes fell on the curled-up peony, his mind suddenly made a buzzing sound.
It was as if a deeply buried switch had been triggered, and the original owner's memory fragments about the spiritual body were being unlocked bit by bit along with the image of the spiritual body.
The first thing that came to mind was the scene right after the assessment accident.
Although the spiritual picture at that time was also foggy, it was not so heavy. The black soil was intact, and even sporadic green sprouts could be seen.
The vines of the peony were three times thicker than they are now, the silvery branches still had toughness, the leaves were a rich ice blue, and the light in their veins was like a flowing stream.
Although the flower bud was not fully open at that time, it was bulging, and the stardust pistil at the top was so bright that it could reflect the shadow of its original owner.
'The state after stabilization is clearly like this...' Lin Yao's consciousness gently brushed the air in the mental picture, like stroking the vines in his memory.
I could sense how cautious the original owner was at the time. Every day before going to bed, he would enter a mental image and touch the leaves with his fingertips, as if caressing a fragile treasure.
At that time, the original owner had a "Spiritual Body Care Manual" on the bedside.
The edges of the pages were curled, and the key points were marked with a highlighter: "Rest rest after surgery and avoid violent fluctuations in mental energy."
But the memory fragments suddenly shook and the tone darkened.
It is the third month after the end of treatment.
When the original owner's consciousness entered the spiritual picture again, he found that the vines of the peony had become thinner, and the star-shaped serrations on the edge of the top leaf began to turn gray.
He panicked and couldn't find the reason after searching through the manual. He ran to ask the doctor at the White Tower, but the doctor just said it was a "normal fluctuation after surgery" and told him not to be too nervous.
The original owner stayed in the mental image for a whole afternoon that day, using his meager mental power to wrap the vines bit by bit, like wrapping a blanket around a frozen child.
He even followed the method in the manual and simulated the frequency of sunlight at the edge of his mental image, but the vines only trembled slightly and never recovered at all.
"This is the beginning of something wrong." Lin Yao's consciousness followed the original owner's memory and saw the scene further on -
The original owner began to keep a diary every day:
April 12, 372 Star Calendar: The vines have become thinner, and the golden light has weakened. I secretly used the tranquilizing grass juice Uncle Fu gave me today, but it didn't work.
“April 28: There seems to be a small dot on the top of the bud, am I seeing things?
May 15: The doctor said I was too anxious, but it was clearly getting smaller...
The handwriting in the diary went from neat to sloppy, and the last few pages even had water stains, as if the author was crying while writing.
He tried everything he could think of: secretly going to the cultivation garden to look for 'Star Orchid Dew', which was said to nourish the spiritual body;
Feed your spiritual energy to the vines;
He even tried to simulate the warm light that the Earth Peony liked in his mental image. The original owner had accidentally seen it in an ancient book, and he tried it for half a month with the last glimmer of hope.
But the peony is still getting smaller.
The vine shrank from the thickness of a wrist to the thinness of a finger, most of the leaves fell off, and the originally plump flower bud deflated. The "little dot" gradually expanded into a black hole and began to swallow up the surrounding light.
The original owner's diary entry went from daily, to three days, then a week - finally stopping in November of the 372nd year of the Star Calendar, with only one sentence: 'It seems it doesn't want to grow up.'
From that day on, the original owner almost never entered the spiritual picture again.
Lin Yao could feel the resistance in his memory. It wasn't that he didn't want to see it, but that he didn't dare.
Every time I approached the edge of the mental picture, as soon as my fingertips touched the heavy mist, I would think of the shrinking vines and the ever-expanding black hole on the flower bud. My heart felt like it was being gripped by something, making it hard to breathe.
He began to deliberately avoid all topics related to 'spiritual bodies'.
When I went to the White Tower doctor for a follow-up checkup, he always said, "I'm fine," and refused to be examined;
When Uncle Fu asked, "Have you visited your spirit body today?", he would lower his head to fiddle with the green ivy he had transplanted from outside and say, "I'm busy," "I'll be there soon."
The "Spiritual Body Care Manual" was pressed at the bottom of the box, covered with a thick layer of dust, as if burying a despair that dared not be touched.
"It was clearly said to be stable..." Lin Yao's consciousness gently touched the current vines.
The silvery branches trembled even more violently, as if they could sense the despair in the memory.
The original owner couldn't understand until the end why everything was normal after the operation, but three months later his spiritual body seemed to be quietly gnawed by something, getting smaller day by day?
Why did I try everything, but even Xing Lanlu, the "best for nourishing the spirit body", was useless?
At the end of the memory fragment was a corner of the original owner's mental picture. The vines of the peony were shaking violently, and the black hole at the top suddenly expanded, as if it had been stung by something poisonous.
Lin Yao suddenly regained consciousness, and when he opened his eyes, his forehead was covered in cold sweat.
It turned out that it was not a natural degeneration after stabilization. The original owner's spiritual body continued to shrink, and it was clearly being eroded by some external force.
The original owner herself was trapped in the lies of 'normal fluctuations after surgery' and 'natural degeneration after stabilization', and in the despair of repeated failed attempts. In the end, she didn't even have the courage to take a look.
Is it poison? But where does the poison come from?
Lin Yao's eyes fell on the bowl of medicine brought by Uncle Fu. This was the bowl for lunch today. In the original owner's memory, this medicine was delivered on time by Uncle Fu three times a day.
He said it was a tranquilizer prescribed by the White Tower doctor, good for mental recovery, and told him to drink it without missing a single dose! Could this be it?
Lin Yao walked over, his fingertips hovering above the bowl, not daring to touch it. After doing some ideological work, he frowned, dipped his fingertips in some of the medicine juice, and sniffed it. In addition to the fishy smell of grass and trees, there was also a very faint metallic smell.
Oh! What a terrible taste!
But he had no evidence.
There was no instrument to detect the ingredients in the medicine, no doctor's prescription to compare, and even in the original owner's memory, Uncle Fu always said "drink while it's hot" when delivering the medicine.
He couldn't rush to the doctor with half a bowl of medicine and confront him, saying, "There's something wrong with your medicine." He was afraid that he would be regarded as mentally ill.
Just as the seed of doubt was planted, his eyes swept across the electronic calendar on the wall. On a blank space on it, "Central Star White Pagoda Academy Guide Assessment" was written in red pen.
Lin Yao was stunned. He had seen it when he just woke up, but his mind was too dizzy at that time and it had not yet merged with the original owner's memory, so he skipped it.
The original owner had already graduated from the Central Star White Pagoda Academy, so why did he still have to take the exam?
He subconsciously focused his mind and triggered the keyword 'Central Star White Pagoda Academy Guide Assessment'.
Relevant memory fragments immediately came flooding back, carrying with them the original owner's excitement and anticipation at the time:
January 5, Stardate 373: The vines seem a bit thicker today! The golden light is brighter! The doctor said this is a sign of recovery. Perhaps... Can I go back and finish the unfinished exams?
January 10th: I've signed up! The instructor at Baita said I can get my Advanced Guide Certificate as long as I pass the supplementary exam. Then, I'll be able to go to the front lines.
January 15th: Uncle Fu said I've looked much better recently, so the medicine paid off. Once I get my qualification certificate, I'll apply to help those sentinels protect our homeland!
The original owner in my memory had eyes that were so bright that they seemed to contain stars.
He did feel that his spirit body was 'recovering' at that time - the vines grew thicker, the golden light became brighter, and even the black hole at the top of the bud seemed to have shrunk a little.
These signs of "improvement" became the only reason he had the confidence to sign up for the supplementary examination.
But what about now?
Lin Yao closed his eyes again, and his consciousness sank into the spiritual picture.
The peony was still curled up, its vines as thin as cotton threads, the golden light was dim, and the black hole had expanded a whole circle compared to when it had 'improved' in the original owner's memory.
The so-called 'recovery' is totally fake!
Not once! Uncle Fu's voice suddenly rang in his ears, and this word made Lin Yao's back chill.
There was a bowl of medicine yesterday and another bowl of medicine this morning. Both bowls of medicine were because Lin Yao felt that the medicine soup was like witch's poison, and also, he really didn't like taking medicine.
It wasn't touched at all, it all went down the drain.
So there's something wrong with this medicine! Lin Yao stared at the bowl of medicine.
The yellow-green turbid liquid, exactly the same as the previous two bowls, rushed into the sewer!
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