"Honey, the fish is steamed, let's get ready to eat."
Xiang Yuanyuan called out from the kitchen, and Li Qiyao had already helped bring out the food, and even the bowls and chopsticks were already set.
Not only that, there were two more sets of bowls and chopsticks, and in one of the small bowls, there was some fish meat with the bones removed.
"Uncle, we are here, Aunt, have you cooked fish today?"
Just then, a car drove into the yard. As soon as the car stopped, Yaya opened the door and got out. Then Maomao followed closely behind Yaya. After getting out of the car, Yaya went straight to the restaurant, still yelling.
"I cooked the fish and even steamed Yaya's favorite dried fish."
Xiang Yuanyuan smiled and used tongs to pick up a plate of steamed fish, her face full of smiles.
"Wow, have you cooked already? Yaya's afternoon training teacher had something else to do, so she didn't have any classes that afternoon. Yaya insisted on coming over, but I forgot to bother you to cook more rice."
Du Na walked in from outside, explaining to Xiang Yuanyuan.
There was nothing to explain between him and Du Ruo. When his sister brought her niece to dinner, there was no need for explanation at any time. However, when facing Xiang Yuanyuan, a proper explanation was still necessary.
"It's okay. Brother Du eats a lot, so I always cook more rice. Come eat, we're here just in time."
Xiang Yuanyuan smiled and handed the chopsticks to Du Na, but didn't ask any more questions.
Only Li Qiyao couldn't help but look at Du Ruo and Yaya a few more times. This kind of thing seemed so mysterious.
"He can hear my thoughts from such a distance? What if I'm thinking about it in my heart? Can he know? Du Ruo Du Ruo, I like..."
Li Qiyao sat down and picked up the bowl and chopsticks to eat, but she couldn't help but have random thoughts in her mind, and even wanted to do some experiment.
But... the thought had just come to her mind, and she had just said a few words to Du Ruo, and then she saw Du Ruo turned her head and looked at her with a strange look.
"Ahhhh!!! I'm dead, why am I so stupid, eh... No, he can really hear it!!!"
On the surface, Li Qiyao was eating and still looked like a lady, but in her mind she felt that she was socially dead. She didn't dare to look at Du Ruo, let alone Xiang Yuanyuan, and just buried her head in eating.
When people reach the age of thirty, they actually see through many things, including love. They no longer have the shy feelings they had when they were young.
Even if I meet someone I like, it is difficult to express my love. The most I can say is "I like you". Even... I don't know how to fall in love.
"Aunt, the steamed dried fish is really delicious. Do you eat dried fish every day at home?"
Yaya picked up the fish meat from Xiang Yuanyuan's soup bowl with chopsticks and held a piece of dried fish in her hand, eating with great relish. At the same time, she asked Xiang Yuanyuan some questions. She felt that she and her mother came so suddenly and yet they could eat such good dried fish and fish, which meant that her uncle and aunt must eat fish every day at home.
"We don't eat fish every day. We made some dried fish today because we knew Yaya was coming."
Xiang Yuanyuan checked the last piece of fish in the soup bowl and confirmed that there was no fish bone. Then she put it in Yaya's bowl, explained with a smile, and started drinking the soup.
"Yeah, I love coming to my aunt's house the most."
Yaya narrowed her eyes.
"Don't be so talkative when eating fish. Even if your aunt picks out the fish bones for you, you should check it out."
Du Na couldn't help but say something on the side.
The meal was eaten very quickly. After the meal, Yaya stayed at Duruo's house, while Duna went back to her hometown. She definitely had to chat with her mother about family matters, and by the way, she also had to go to the vegetable garden to pick some of her favorite vegetables.
As for Yaya, she was eyeing the two cats that Li Qiyao brought over, while Maomao was taking a nap beside Du Ruo.
Xiang Yuanyuan felt a little drowsy after eating, so she went to the bedroom to take a short nap. Only Li Qiyao was still studying hard.
Only Du Ruo seemed to be lost in thought again. He sat under the newly built shade shed on the second-floor balcony, looking up at the sky with his eyes open.
Not far from Duruo, a pen was writing something on an A4 paper.
This pen seems to have a spirit. It writes by itself, and after writing a page, the A4 paper will turn the pages tacitly.
Only when Yaya comes to the balcony will the pen stop and lie on the A4 paper.
Not only Xiang Yuanyuan, but even Li Qiyao had become accustomed to this scene.
Only the clouded leopard was not here today, otherwise it would definitely be squatting at the edge of the pen, occasionally poking at it with its paws.
Of course, this business was handled by Du Ruo.
After the progress bar of "Three Flowers and Five Qi" reached 100%, Du Ruo's mind became more active than ever before, and multitasking became a piece of cake for him.
It’s like sitting on a recliner now, seemingly in a daze, but actually all kinds of thoughts pop up in my mind.
He thought about a lot of things, about martial arts skills, about "qi", about essence, energy and spirit, about the five energies in the chest, and even some various knowledge he had read before, all of which were quickly refined and summarized in Du Ruo's mind.
Not only that, he was also listening to the various sounds in the surrounding environment and the various thoughts about him in his mind.
Ever since the "Three Flowers and Five Qis" were completed and his body entered the fourth transformation, his mind has remained in this active state.
His overly active mind occupied too much of his attention, and such an active mind made him look at many things directly and simply, and his judgment was hardly affected by emotions. It was also for this reason that he began to become less human.
Du Ruo didn't think much of it at first. After all, it was just like upgrading the core of the computer in his body. The processing power increased and more data could be processed. He was just happy at the time and didn't have too many other thoughts.
It was only after he overheard his father's mumbling that Du Ruo realized the problem.
Now, apart from subconsciously observing the portal in the sky, Du Ruo's entire mind was focused on taming the "wild mind" in his body.
Yes, Du Ruo called the current state of active thinking "restless mind". This activity is actually Du Ruo's "mind", and Du Ruo has discovered in the past few days that such an active mind will cause a large amount of energy in the body to be consumed.
This huge fluctuation in the mind leads to enormous consumption of the body.
Take the Bigu Pill as an example. If Xiang Yuanyuan were given one pill, then Xiang Yuanyuan would not need to eat for more than half a month. The energy slowly released by this pill is enough to meet the needs of an ordinary person for half a month.
If it were the case before, Du Ruo would take one pill and then do simple activities every day, without any physical exertion or strenuous exercise. Then one pill, plus drinking some tonic medicinal wine from time to time, would be enough to meet Du Ruo's daily consumption needs for three to five days.
But now, one pill can only last Du Ruo a day at most. If he does a little exercise or thinks too much, the consumption will be even greater.
If this were exchanged for food, Du Ruo suspected that he could eat a whole cow in a day. It was also thanks to the fox that he would send a large amount of medicinal herbs every once in a while to make up for such consumption.
"According to the Taoist scriptures and my research over the past few days, the mind and spirit are actually the heart. It usually resides in the heart and is very active, just like the heart, which never stops.
The only thing that can control the mind is the primordial spirit. The primordial spirit remains focused and resides in the sea of consciousness. Unlike the mind, the primordial spirit does not move and will never leave the body.
The only thing it does is to guard the portal between the body and the outside world. At the same time, it can communicate with nature or the universe, directing the mind to capture the energy in nature or the universe to replenish itself. "
Du Ruo summarized and refined the various Buddhist and Taoist scriptures that he had sorted out in his mind during this period, then went over them in his mind, and finally came to this conclusion.
Du Ruo felt that he had discovered the key to subduing his unruly mind.
So Du Ruo stopped looking at the portal to the void and began to close his eyes and meditate. He wanted to try to subdue his unruly mind for the first time, that is, his mind, and then let his mind capture the energy of nature (the universe).
He felt that this kind of energy might be the spiritual energy he had thought of before, but he had never sensed it before.
Now he felt that it might be because he had been looking at it from the perspective of "spirit" before, and had not really released his mind from his body to capture it, so he could not sense it. But at this moment, the mystery of "aura" seemed to be about to be revealed.
As Du Ruo closed his eyes, the pen that had been writing furiously in front of him suddenly froze and then fell on the paper.
The pen just rolled on the table without any support.
“La la la… snap!”
The pen rolled on the table, and finally rolled to the end of the table, and then fell on the balcony with a "click". The sound of the pen falling was very light, attracting Maomao who was lying on the ground and Li Qiyao who was practicing Tai Chi in front.
The man and the dog first glanced at the fallen pen, then subconsciously looked at Du Ruo. After seeing that Du Ruo had just closed his eyes but his chest was heaving and he was still breathing, the two of them recovered.
Maomao continued to lie there, just wagging his tail, while Li Qiyao continued with her Tai Chi posture.
Although the noise when the pen fell was very small and did not attract much attention to the man and the dog, it hit Du Ruo's heart like a heavy hammer and even caused ripples.
"No? Why is there no record? How could there be no record? Is there something wrong with my understanding? Or... is there something wrong with this world?"
After Du Ruo closed his eyes, he had the idea of jumping out of his body to look around, and immediately he saw a different perspective.
For the first time, he saw the colors of the three flowers on his head. The golden flower, silver flower and lead flower were ready to bloom at any time. Moreover, these three flowers seemed to have life. When Du Ruo looked over, they would tremble in response.
Looking further down, the five energies in the chest were also materialized, and five colors of air currents circulated in the body.
This was the first time that Du Ruo saw the colors of the Three Flowers and Five Qi so clearly. Before, it was more of a concept and he only knew the details. This was the first time he "saw" it like this.
But... apart from these, Du Ruo could see the sun hanging in the sky and other stars, but he could not see any so-called spiritual energy.
How fast is Du Ruo's mind? Without the restraint of the body, Du Ruo only needs the command of the soul, and the mind can move without any resistance.
Almost in an instant, the mind searched all the places within reach around Du Ruo's body, covering almost any place within a radius of one kilometer centered on Du Ruo.
This is the place where the mind can leave the body, and it is also the maximum distance that Du Ruo can control the sword to leave the body. However, after searching through everything, Du Ruo could not find any trace of spiritual energy.
Du Ruo had never seen spiritual energy, but he had a vague feeling in his heart that he knew what spiritual energy should be like. He just hadn't found anything specific, so he couldn't make spiritual energy concrete.
"Hu~~"
The pen only rolled two and a half circles on the ground before Du Ruo opened his eyes. In such a short period of time, Du Ruo's mind carefully searched the area within a radius of one kilometer around himself.
This is the horror of using the soul to drive the mind. The mind is not bound by any laws of physics. The speed of exploration is not the speed of the mind's movement, but the speed at which your soul can process this information.
Du Ruo opened his eyes and was a little dazed, but before he could think about it, he felt a hunger in his stomach that he hadn't felt for a long time.
Du Ruo picked up the pen at his feet and put it back on the table without letting it continue writing. Then he turned around and slowly walked to the room.
Du Ruo took out several bottles of pills from the box, poured a few pills into the palm of his hand, and swallowed them all in one gulp.
After taking the pill, Du Ruo's brows did not relax, but instead became even more furrowed.
"This is so wrong. From what I've learned from practicing martial arts, it should be a process of refining essence into qi, refining qi into spirit, and refining spirit into emptiness. But how could this happen? Is it because I'm lacking 'spiritual energy'?"
The so-called refining of essence into qi is to strengthen the body, transform the essence into qi, and then nourish the spirit with the qi. Finally, the spirit will comprehend the nature and feed back itself with energy.
Logically speaking, this energy should be "spiritual energy". Du Ruo actually thought so before, but now think about it, how can it absorb "spiritual energy" and feed back to itself?
When he first practiced martial arts, his weight decreased instead of increased. Later, he slowly built up his body by eating large amounts of food such as beef.
Later, as Du Ruo improved, food became difficult to satisfy, so he used medicinal wine to make up for it. Later, medicinal wine also became difficult to satisfy him, so he invented elixirs.
This whole process is not about absorbing natural energy to feed itself, but about making up for its own consumption through eating.
"If it is said that there is a lack of spiritual energy, then everything makes sense."
Du Ruo returned to his seat, made some tea, and sorted out all his thoughts in his mind.
If this thing called "aura" exists, then everything can be easily solved.
If he had spiritual energy, Du Ruo wouldn't have practiced martial arts to the point of damaging his body, and all his methods wouldn't be incompatible with his level.
Flying a sword requires one to use his mind to control the sword so as to carry his body weighing several hundred pounds and fly.
The most lethal move, the roar of tigers and dragons, also relies on the vibration of sound plus a little "divine" power to shake out people's brains with pure sound waves.
Incarnation also requires the use of "essence" to create unexpected things to achieve it.
These things that seemed very magical to others, in his opinion, had nothing to do with the elegant and graceful methods of gods.
In the final analysis, even if one reaches the realm of terrestrial immortals where the three flowers gather at the top of the head and the five qi converge into one, it still seems that the warrior is hitting people with his body.
Logically speaking, a martial artist who has trained to this level should not use such means.
"So it's not me that's wrong, it's the world that's wrong."
This is the conclusion Du Ruo finally came to.
"That shouldn't be the case. I have a cheat. Logically speaking, the progress of the "Three Flowers and Five Qis" has reached 100%. Shouldn't the next cultivation realm appear on my panel? Do I have to wait until my body's transformation is complete before the next cultivation realm appears?"
Du Ruo's thoughts were spinning very fast, and his mind told him that this should be the case.
But instinctively, his eyes turned to the portal in the sky that was becoming more and more solid day by day.
"Wait a minute. I'm not in a hurry. I still have a lot of time. I'll know once my body has transformed."
Du Ruo smiled, took a sip of tea, reached out to grab the pen, and began to write.
Although Du Ruo did not find the spiritual energy just now, he was able to use his soul to focus his mind and make his thoughts no longer complicated.
It is no longer so detached, and the "human" feeling has returned to it. It is no longer as emotionally indifferent as a computer.
"Hey~ Qiqi, you're still practicing. Come and drink some water and take a rest. Husband, what fruit do you want to eat first? I'll go wash some."
Xiang Yuanyuan walked out of the room and felt a little distressed when she saw Li Qiyao who was still practicing. Then she saw Du Ruo writing furiously and didn't think there was anything wrong with it. She was still as considerate as usual.
Even though Du Ruo seemed a little less "human" in the past few days, her response to Xiang Yuanyuan did not decrease at all. It seemed that as long as Xiang Yuanyuan called her "husband", Du Ruo would come back to her senses.
"Cut a watermelon. When my sister came here earlier, she brought a watermelon and put it in the refrigerator. It should be just right to eat now."
Du Ruo turned around and smiled at Xiang Yuanyuan.
"Okay, watermelon is the most comfortable thing to eat in this weather."
Xiang Yuanyuan poured a glass of water for Li Qiyao and then went downstairs to prepare to cut the watermelon.
Four people shared one watermelon. After eating, Yaya took the watermelon rind and fed it to the two cats.
But the two cats ignored her and jumped onto Du Ruo and rolled around.
"Maomao, you eat!!"
Seeing this, Yaya stuffed the watermelon rind into Maomao's mouth, but Maomao ignored her. After all, there was a half-eaten watermelon under his paw. Who would eat the rind when there is flesh to eat?
"Honey, we haven't gone hiking for a long time. Should we go hiking tomorrow? The weather is a bit hot. Should we go up the mountain at night and stay overnight?"
Xiang Yuanyuan wiped her hands with a wet wipe and looked up at the sky as she spoke. The hot weather made her frown.
"Tomorrow, forget it. Mr. Wang should be here tomorrow. He will arrive in the afternoon and will probably have dinner at home in the evening."
However, Du Ruo did not agree immediately as he did before.
(End of this chapter)
