Chapter 374: The tenderness of the demon (8K2 chapter plus more)

Li Qi spent a full hour trying to understand what had happened before and summarized it.

In that endless torment of darkness, Li Qi tried countless methods to escape.

One of these methods was to transmit his mind through the True Knowledge Dao Resonance to the Demonic Clone outside.

But obviously, this attempt failed.

Li Qi transmitted his mind, but his mind did not go out; it remained trapped in the cage, firmly locked by the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood.

He had to find other methods.

Finally, after losing all sense of time and not knowing how long had passed, he found a potentially viable method.

This method originated from Buddha-Dharma, from what Kaiwen Chan Master said: "Sounds and forms are born from the mind. The mind of discrimination falls into the Evil Path. Buddha is not form, yet you mistakenly take it as form. Buddha is not appearance, yet you mistakenly take it as appearance."

Since 'appearance' among the five aggregates cannot be discerned or perceived, then discard it and face the true world.

This was very difficult, because without 'appearance,' he couldn't describe or perceive this world.

This was similar to...

A person who is literate and can use language flexibly, but is trapped in a cage, or more extremely, is blind and deaf-mute, able to read text only by touch.

He has a loyal servant who carves what he sees onto wooden boards and describes it to him, allowing him to understand what he has seen through text.

His only way to understand the outside world is through text, and his only way to describe the outside world is also through text. So, when he chooses to abandon text, how does he understand the outside world?

The answer is, he cannot understand.

Even if a red paper is placed in front of him, he wouldn't know it's red.

He doesn't know what 'red' is; he has never seen colors.

The only thing he understands is how to write the two characters for 'red'; he recognizes the characters 'red' but doesn't know what they represent.

Colors cannot be directly corresponded to text.

Li Qi had no way of knowing what this color truly looked like.

Li Qi was in this exact situation now.

Previously, his eyes saw the characters 'red'; that was the two characters for red carved onto a wooden board by the servant, the five aggregates, but Mortals would take that as reality.

In reality, they had never truly seen red; they only took the shape of the two characters 'red' as 'red' itself.

What Li Qi had to do was discard his original understanding of the characters 'red' and then re-establish his perception of the outside world.

The first and foremost point was to see red with his own eyes.

But can a blind person see red?

Undoubtedly, it's impossible.

But Li Qi was very lucky; he had a sixth sense beyond the five senses. This was his 'eyes,' allowing him to open them and see, not just see 'red.'

He first reconstructed his eyes using a spell.

This was very simple; it could be done with a spell. Shaman Dao has many spells that can observe things through thousands of mountains and rivers, and the principle is not complicated: create a fictitious spell eye, send it out, and see things through this eye.

A mere separate eye was meaningless. The information collected by this eye would still be sent to the five aggregates, which, being suppressed, couldn't process it, and Li Qi would still see nothing.

However, Li Qi changed the structure of the spell and transmitted what this eye saw to the True Knowledge Dao Resonance.

This too was a meaningless act; the True Knowledge Dao Resonance couldn't understand, it could only record this information as usual.

But the subsequent action was meaningful.

Li Qi prepared to directly inject this unprocessed information into his mind.

This was very dangerous.

A person who has never opened their eyes, looking directly at the sun, might see a rainbow, or they might go completely blind, or even faint or die.

Think about it, after staying in a dark cellar for three days, a person will faint when they come into the sunlight...

Not to mention a person who has never opened their eyes, receiving a large amount of information poured into their brain without any preparation; that feeling would certainly be much more stimulating than going from a dark place into the sunlight.

But at that time, Li Qi was on the verge of madness; he would try it even if it meant death.

In fact, he really almost died.

The 'true' information was much more terrifying than he imagined. The moment he came into contact with it, he realized the purpose of the five aggregates' existence.

Without the five aggregates, all Mortals would die.

The outside world is dangerous, so Mortals evolved 'skin' to resist external erosion.

And the five aggregates are the skin of the mind.

A person without the five aggregates is like walking around with their skin peeled off; even the gentlest touch would bring intense pain.

This was the source of Li Qi's endless torment.

His weak mind couldn't withstand this impact. Even though Li Qi was already at the seventh rank, he barely held on.

Red was not just red.

There were countless rays of light within it, each different, with different wavelengths and images.

This was merely one color, and the world is composed of countless colors.

That single eye received information so grand that it could be described as 'unspeakable.' This information itself wasn't particularly special, but there was simply too much of it.

He almost died under such a massive amount of information.

Unbelievable.

Reality... was so destructive.

However, Li Qi keenly realized.

This was like the thirty-two forms of the Buddha statue, the second layer of delusion.

What he now thought of as reality was still not reality.

Li Qi couldn't understand those information streams at all; they were pure garble. Although they could be decoded into the 'images' seen by the eyes, it was clear that Li Qi lacked the decoding ability; decoding was something only the five aggregates could do.

Such garbled code could perhaps be understood as 'pollution.'

Incredibly, incomprehensible, unspeakable information streams washed over Li Qi's mind, attempting to shatter it into complete fragments.

Fortunately...

For some reason, Li Qi felt somewhat accustomed and relaxed.

Years of information being poured into his brain had already accustomed him to massive information streams. Information containing infinite reality was indeed terrifying, but Li Qi was relieved.

It was like a weightlifter being blocked by a giant boulder; it was right up his alley.

Li Qi endured such an information stream, but he couldn't endure it forever. A weightlifter only lifts for three seconds, putting it down when the light turns on.

If he kept lifting, he would die.

He also held on for three seconds, then decisively ended that spell eye.

Enough information had already poured in.

Li Qi prepared to encode this information, restoring the fragmented information stream into image information.

The difficulty of doing this was roughly equivalent to translating an English book into Chinese without knowing English.

It was almost impossible to do.

But it wasn't without a solution. Li Qi was a clever man, and clever men are best at finding solutions. Before finding this method, he had already tried many, many others.

First, Li Qi could confirm that this was all image information, because it was forcibly read by the True Knowledge Dao Resonance from the spell-constructed eyes.

What is visual information? It can be roughly divided into color, shape, spatial depth, and light-dark contrast.

Therefore, this information can be entirely regarded as a 'jigsaw puzzle.'

With the aid of graphics and imagination, he first began to connect this chaotic information with graphic colors, establishing a 'connection' at the level of meaning.

Arranging from simple to complex, from concrete to abstract, he categorized simple, direct information, such as colors, as the first level.

Information whose meaning could not be determined was temporarily abandoned and labeled as the second level.

Based on what was obtained from the first level, he performed simple combinations to explore the basic organizational structure of the second level.

Based on the basic grammatical structure of the second level, he added more meaning by determining additional meanings and labeled it as the third level.

Combining the structures of the third level to form the final image, he checked the logical sequence, and used this method to verify his guesses from the first level. If a logical error occurred, it meant the assumption from the first level was incorrect, and he would re-hypothesize, making the final result conform to the verification of the third level and common 'logical cognition.'

There might be phenomena where the meaning cannot be determined, but repeated confirmation with multiple samples can probably eliminate most errors.

This was repeated.

Finally, he pieced together a picture from this 'information.'

This picture was not truly real; it was imagined by Li Qi.

What he could see and feel was still only a chaotic information flow.

But through these information flows, he could decipher what they represented, and what kind of picture each information flow represented.

To describe it, previously with the five aggregates, he could directly see 'images,' like the icons, mouse, and visual interface on a computer desktop.

But now, he could only see strings of code. He had to use these codes to mentally reconstruct the entire 'desktop' in his mind, and then operate it.

It was very troublesome and extremely difficult, but this was the only method Li Qi could think of at the moment.

An ordinary person's brain would absolutely not be able to do such a thing, but he was already at the seventh rank, and his mind far surpassed that of ordinary people, allowing him to complete such an extremely difficult thought process like a computer.

Fortunately, this time, he succeeded.

Li Qi successfully reconstructed his vision using this method, although it was fake.

He could only fantasize about what he 'should see' at that moment by real-time translation from a chaotic stream of information.

After reconstructing his vision, he successively reconstructed his hearing, and then, relying on these two senses, temporarily regained control of his body.

He still had no sense of touch; touching his body only brought incomprehensible information streams. He also had no sense of smell, couldn't taste anything, and even controlling his body could only be adjusted by vision.

As long as he closed his eyes, he could no longer feel his body, and even walking was somewhat shaky, unable to maintain balance.

But the good news was... he finally woke up.

However, according to tradition, good news is always followed by bad news.

The bad news was that after waking up, the Demonic Clone was gone, and according to Lingxiao Kingdom Lord, it had run off on its own, claiming to be Li Qi.

Li Qi didn't know what to say, but he felt... it wasn't good.

"Ahem, so, your Divided Soul gained sentience and ran off on its own?" Lingxiao Kingdom Lord said to Li Qi.

These words transformed into information in Li Qi's ears, then transmitted to his mind, arranging themselves into a pile of indescribable information.

Li Qi paused, that was him expending a great deal of effort to process this information. The information stream, which was originally quickly resolved by the five aggregates with no difficulty, now seemed exceptionally arduous.

He processed this information into vibration waves, then simulated the expected conditions of these vibration waves, finally reconstructing the sound in his mind.

After his daze ended, he manipulated his mouth, stiffly saying, "That's right, Country Lord, can you help me perform a demon suppression spell to suppress the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood?"

It was very difficult to speak like this because he didn't know the exact state of his mouth. He could only stiffly manipulate his tongue and confirm his words through skull resonance.

This made him sound like a robot when he spoke. For this hour, he and Lingxiao Kingdom Lord communicated in this inefficient way.

Hearing Li Qi's words, Lingxiao Kingdom Lord also saw that Li Qi's condition was not right, and nodded in agreement: "If you need it, then let's find a secluded place and rent an Immortal Cave."

"Thank... you." Li Qi nodded.

Having completed the conversation and reviewed the outlook, Lingxiao Kingdom Lord parked the Yulu (Jade Road) below, according to traffic rules.

Then, she helped Li Qi and rented a fifth-rank Immortal Cave.

The price was very expensive, costing a top-tier seventh-rank Spiritual Artifact, and it was only rented for one day.

However, it was a fifth-rank Immortal Cave after all, so it was normal for it to be expensive.

Upon entering the Immortal Cave, Lingxiao Kingdom Lord began to cooperate with Li Qi's actions.

Li Qi directed, telling her the specific situation of his five aggregates and the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood, asking her to suppress the demon.

It must be said that a fifth-rank expert is indeed formidable. Although she seemed somewhat disadvantaged in front of Li Qi, her power was undeniable.

Lingxiao Kingdom Lord reached out, and countless lingxiao flowers bloomed on Li Qi's body.

These lingxiao flowers rooted themselves in Li Qi's body, their roots piercing into his body, connecting to his nerves, emitting a profound fluctuation.

Li Qi knew that this was not a spell, but the true form of Lingxiao Flower Goddess.

She had personally rooted herself in Li Qi's body to suppress the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood.

With Li Qi acting as an inside contact, reporting the situation of the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood, Lingxiao Kingdom Lord began her pursuit.

Li Qi could feel something in his body chasing and fleeing.

The Five Aggregates Demonic Blood seemed to have a mind of its own, fleeing frantically, causing Li Qi's body to constantly emit painful groans, while the roots of the Lingxiao Flower Goddess continuously spread.

Those roots were not only moving through Li Qi's Physical Body, but were constantly becoming ethereal, even rooting themselves in his Spirit Soul!

Profound and ordinary, wondrous awareness, hungry bait, divine brilliance.

In the fleeting yin, there is no scenery in the yang.

Wandering in the northern mountains, Lingxiao leads the way.

Waving mist in the vast sky, abandoning the spirit to be at peace.

Under the rooting of countless flower tendrils, Li Qi was almost completely reduced to a vegetative state. The roots connected to his blood vessels, chasing and intercepting, forcing the demonic blood into a dead end.

Then, the Lingxiao Flower Goddess finally touched the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood, and a flower bloomed upon the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood.

She used the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood as a flowerpot, forcibly fixing it in place!

During this chase, many changes also seemed to occur within Li Qi's human microcosm.

First, countless flower bushes grew within his human microcosm.

But they did not spread; instead, they gradually formed spiritual peaks.

Lingxiao is clothing, spiritual transformation rides the smoke.

Breathing in the six Qi, ascending and descending the Nine Heavens.

Wondrous objects communicate with spirits, drawing from them does not deplete.

Filling them does not overflow, concealing their light and hiding their brilliance.

How vast their measure, containing truth and purifying filth!

Accompanied by Divine Abilities that Li Qi could not comprehend, countless flower bushes gathered within his body, then withered.

It bloomed continuously and withered continuously, just like the Reincarnation of life.

That drop of Five Aggregates Demonic Blood was also trapped in this Reincarnation, constantly fluctuating with the cycle of wilting and flourishing.

When it withered, the demonic blood shriveled, unable to escape.

When it flourished, the demonic blood surged, inevitably stirring up power to escape, but according to the method of wilting and flourishing, it would suddenly shrivel when its power reached its peak.

The flower clusters outside maintained this state, and the various spiritual peaks formed by the flower clusters within Li Qi's body sustained the wilting and flourishing technique.

It took a full ten hours for all of this to finally be completed.

After completing all of this, Li Qi felt that his suppressed five aggregates had returned.

The king of the mind finally had his loyal servants again.

As the five aggregates recovered, Li Qi's five senses also recovered.

He once again established an intuitive perception of the world, but... it wasn't so intuitive anymore.

This crisis was overcome with fright but no danger, except that the Demonic Clone was gone.

Even Lingxiao Kingdom Lord looked exhausted.

She wiped her sweat and said, "Alright... I have temporarily sealed the demonic blood with the method of the Four Seasons Cycle of Life and Death. It should be fine for a dozen years. During this time, Young Master, you can go find a Shaman. They should be able to completely remove this thing, and then you'll be fine. So, when shall we depart for Chang'an?"

She was a little anxious because the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood was not something she could solve. Using all her strength to suppress it for a short period was already her limit.

For the follow-up, let this Young Master's background handle it. She had no recourse.

"Give me some time, I need to... get used to it." Li Qi shook his head and unsteadily stood up.

Lingxiao Kingdom Lord frowned.

To be honest, even now, she still didn't quite understand what had happened to this Young Master.

But it didn't matter. If he said to wait a few days, then wait a few days. It was only a few days.

So, Lingxiao Kingdom Lord said, "Then I will come find you at the time we discussed before, three days... oh, two days from now."

"Who told you three days?" Li Qi looked up and asked.

"You, your Clone," Lingxiao Kingdom Lord said.

She was a little confused in her heart. What was wrong with this Young Master? Had his consciousness and memory become fragmented? Was it because of the demonic blood?

"Oh... I see. Alright, then let's go with the time you said." Li Qi nodded. He didn't dwell on it too much.

Because...

He needed time to compare.

Lingxiao Kingdom Lord left, and Li Qi moved into an ordinary Immortal Cave.

No choice, he couldn't afford the expensive ones.

Having moved into a new room, Li Qi sat down and began to recall the past, then compare it to the present.

The moment his five aggregates recovered, he once again had an 'intuitive perception,' but after experiencing the time without the five aggregates, he realized how illusory and even unreliable such intuition was.

This kind of sensory perception was very intuitive and useful, but not truly real.

This point, coupled with all the previous events he had encountered, made him realize one thing.

There indeed exists a spiritual entity, and it is extremely closely related to the material entity.

"In other words... the spiritual entity exists, but it does not operate according to the material world; however, it exists independently of the material world."

Li Qi tentatively touched, but he felt a 'boundary'.

The 'boundary' between spirit and matter.

One must know that even the Spirit Soul is essentially material, a material entity. Li Qi had never truly encountered a so-called 'spiritual entity' before.

But now, he had touched it. He clearly perceived the spiritual entity and touched the 'boundary' with matter.

The concept of a boundary now seemed to become especially important.

Li Qi felt that seeing through 'I am I' was crucial.

He had never realized that the concept of a boundary could play a role here.

It seems... all the things he encountered after reaching the Seventh Rank were paving the way for 'I am I'.

Coincidence? Or...

Forget about those.

As long as he returned to Chang'an, he would be able to personally see the boundary between matter and spirit.

In addition to his previous perception of the spiritual entity, these together formed Li Qi's current understanding.

Under the accumulation of these things, it seemed there was only a thin layer of paper left. Once it was pierced, he could witness the question of 'I am I'.

Because Li Qi was very curious about one thing, which was... how did that demon dragon in Tang Nation, which was dismembered and turned into an Immortal Cave, resurrect, and how did its Physical Body combine to form a 'mind'?

After piecing its fragments back together, how did its mind revive within the Physical Body, and how did the spirit break through this boundary?

Only this one answer is left. The puzzle of 'I am I' is missing only this one piece.

Besides these, this crisis also made him feel something that he wasn't sure if it was Celestial Eye.

He now had two types of vision.

One was the intuitive perception brought by the five aggregates, and the other was the data stream vision after discarding the five aggregates.

There was no superiority or inferiority, but it was indeed a heterogeneous sense.

Before Li Qi recovered his five aggregates, he could not understand what the data stream vision represented. He could only clumsily use exhaustive methods and logical deduction to barely reconstruct his previous vision.

Just as mentioned before, translating an English book into Chinese without understanding English would inevitably lead to errors and omissions.

But now, Li Qi simultaneously possessed both the data stream vision and the vision brought by the five aggregates. This meant he could understand both Chinese and English books, making mutual translation much easier.

Therefore, he discovered that as a Human Race, he was inherently unable to perceive and understand a part of the world's structure, and had to come into contact with the true vision to perceive it.

The five aggregates filtered and transformed this part of the information.

And this part of the information, perhaps, was what the 'Celestial Eye' saw. Li Qi temporarily didn't know what Celestial Eye was, but he guessed that this special data stream vision was a part of Celestial Eye's ability.

After all, only through this method could one truly 'see through all forms and colors,' be unhindered by any illusion, and even glimpse the mystery of Reincarnation.

Li Qi now felt that all illusions were useless against him, because if an illusion covered him, the data stream and what his physical eyes saw would not match, and he would immediately realize that he was covered by an illusion.

The data stream vision was seen by the 'mind'.

The intuitive vision was seen by the 'Physical Body'.

Together, they could indirectly depict a more realistic picture, just like Li Qi himself, who was an individual composed of both Physical Body and mind.

Only...

Currently, the data stream vision still required True Knowledge Dao Resonance as an 'interface,' which would occupy a part of True Knowledge Dao Resonance's power, weakening its scanning depth.

But Li Qi felt it was completely worth it, after all, he had only achieved data stream conversion for sight and hearing so far.

It was just a little dizzy.

The sensation after the two visions overlapped, and the familiarity with the data stream vision, all required time. He still couldn't handle it freely.

But practice makes perfect. He planned to spend a few days adapting, and coincidentally, he had two days. He would slowly try it in this relatively cheap Immortal Cave and try to get used to it.

——————

Just as Li Qi put aside all questions and prepared for habit training, 'he' finally escaped from fear.

A day ago, 'he' felt very afraid.

'He' discovered that he might not be Li Qi, although he had all of Li Qi's emotions, memories, techniques, and even the same body and thought patterns, two things did not recognize 'him' as Li Qi.

The first was The Axis of All Realms, the ultimate mechanism created by the Human Race, a Second Rank Spiritual Artifact. 'He' couldn't open Li Qi's account, which meant The Axis of All Realms considered 'him' to be another person.

The second was True Knowledge Dao Resonance.

Under the pressure of fear and panic, 'he' fled in desperation to Baiyue. After subconsciously using True Knowledge Dao Resonance to scan the surroundings, 'he' discovered—

True Knowledge Dao Resonance was gone.

The two pieces of evidence corroborated each other, both refusing to acknowledge 'him' as Li Qi.

'He' still remembered how 'he' was born.

'He' originally thought that he was Li Qi, but a day had passed, and 'he' had already figured it out.

'He,' who inherited all of Li Qi's thoughts, possessed the same wisdom as Li Qi, so a day was enough for 'him' to calm down and consider how to handle the current situation.

The birth of 'him' was due to Li Qi's desperate attempts to save himself in countless ways. At his most extreme, Li Qi even thought of abandoning this body, pouring his mind into the Demonic Clone, then resolving the Five Aggregates Demonic Blood from the outside, and finally returning to his original body.

It was a very useful method, but something went wrong.

True Knowledge Dao Resonance could transmit information, but it did not have the function of 'importing and deleting'.

In other words, Li Qi's mind didn't just leave; instead, it was read and copied by True Knowledge Dao Resonance and transmitted to the Demonic Clone.

Under normal circumstances, this kind of mind would not be effective, because the receiver would inevitably have its own mind, and this chaotic 'Possession' would be meaningless. Even the most ordinary Mortal could resist it with their five aggregates.

But perhaps it was a coincidence, there was none of this in the Demonic Clone.

If there wasn't, it actually wasn't a good thing, as this information would not have any effect.

Information needs a carrier.

Code engraved on a CD can be read and generate power; code engraved on a stone is just a string of patterns.

But... perhaps it really was a coincidence. In this Demonic Clone, there was a mind personally copied by a Shaman god. This mind was blank. According to the Shaman god, the design of this mind was to gradually read Li Qi's mind after a hundred years, eventually activating and giving birth to another Li Qi.

The purpose of all this was to urge Li Qi to comprehend 'I am I' within a hundred years.

However, without waiting a hundred years, True Knowledge Dao Resonance completely copied Li Qi's mind a day ago.

Thus, 'he' was born.

"Am I Li Qi?" 'He' muttered to himself, looking at his hands.

'He' had all of Li Qi's memories and emotions. 'He' even loved Shen Shuibi just like Li Qi, and had the same fervent curiosity for the unknown as Li Qi.

"Why is he Li Qi?" 'He' mumbled to himself, his eyes even becoming somewhat terrifying.

His eyes were filled with indignation and resentment at the unfairness.

'He' had a body and mind identical to Li Qi's. Even if he stood in front of Shen Shuibi, she wouldn't be able to detect the slightest difference.

Those loves were real, and those memories were real.

Then why say 'he' was fake?

Why was that 'Li Qi' sitting on the Yulu (Jade Road) the real one?

No one could tell the difference. If it was about the Qi, then replacing this Qi would be fine.

It wouldn't take much time. As long as he absorbed Qi from the outside world frantically, he could quickly make his Human Race's small world exactly like Li Qi's. Anyway, they both operated on the same 'Dao'.

'He' was Li Qi!

'He' roared, his cultivation erupting, revealing the mighty power of the Seventh Rank. The mountain beneath his feet cracked, and the mountain and water veins were all torn open. The mountain gods and water gods within them fled in panic, but they were crushed by the surging cultivation, shattering into pieces. Countless birds and beasts frantically fled from various corners of the valley, but most did not escape.

For tens of miles around, it was as if it had been struck by a Divine punishment, and natural disasters began to descend.

When a Shaman wanted to subvert a certain place, he only needed to use his Human Race's small world to oppress the existing world. Under the clash of rules, those weaker individuals who couldn't withstand the aftershocks would naturally suffer devastating blows.

Mountain ranges changed course, water veins were cut off, and the entire mountain lost its vitality.

'He' sat powerlessly amidst a pile of ruins.

The former Li Qi had never been so distraught. In fact, after reaching the Seventh Rank, Li Qi had always carefully controlled himself, never doing things with huge impacts, as doing so in the world was very dangerous and also impolite.

But 'he' no longer cared about those things.

The fact that 'he' could escape from fear and not go mad was enough to show the resilience of his mind. If it were an ordinary person, they would probably have fallen into self-destruction by now.

Actually, 'he' had thought about this too.

Self-termination, so there would only be one Li Qi in the world.

But just as 'he' had said a few minutes ago, why was that 'Li Qi' on the other side the real one?

Why?

'He' was no different from Li Qi.

Even if they swapped places, 'he' believed that the other Li Qi would make the same choice as him.

'His' eyes became firm.

'He' also had the right and desire to live, and 'he' didn't want to be a fake.

And so, at this moment, the world around 'him' turned black.

In the darkness, a charming woman appeared in 'his' arms, sitting on 'his' lap, gently caressing 'his' face.

"You are Li Qi, aren't you? I know, I know." The Heavenly Demon said softly.

(Still more than two hundred votes short of a thousand votes. Although it's unlikely to reach a thousand, I'll still add an extra chapter for everyone.)