Chapter 783: Li Qi's hometown

Li Qi’s Spirit Soul was too powerful, making it difficult for the Medicinal Pills Shen Shuibi refined to truly take effect.

However, since his inner body spirits were gone, they could now take effect, but pure medicinal properties alone would make treatment very difficult.

Therefore, Shen Shuibi decided… to expose Li Qi’s Spirit Soul and then personally awaken him.

She decided this, and so she did it.

Doing so carried significant risks.

Because Li Qi was a Fourth-Rank, his Spirit Soul’s subconscious resistance could easily injure Shen Shuibi; she had to ensure that her calming Medicinal Pills could soothe Li Qi’s Spirit Soul, so she wouldn’t be killed by his subconscious mental activity the moment she entered.

Moreover, there were other risks, such as… the merging of souls, which could easily lead to mutual erosion of memories.

How could an infant withstand the mutual erosion of memories with an adult? It would definitely cause unforeseen damage.

However, regarding this, Shen Shuibi was still confident.

Li Qi’s cultivation time was too short, and he was not as old as Shen Shuibi; although he was a Fourth-Rank, Shen Shuibi was confident that she could still endure it.

Having completed the risk assessment, she merged their Spirit Souls without hesitation.

But—

At that very instant!

Countless memories exploded directly! Billions of years of complex memories surged out from the chaotic soul!

The remnants of memories were chaotically piled up here!

So complex and bizarre! Li Qi’s exploding Spirit Soul was like a water balloon that was already about to burst, and the moment Shen Shuibi entered, its contents seemed to find a Breakthrough point, becoming a tangled mess and rushing towards that single opening.

Shen Shuibi was almost instantly submerged by memories, completely unable to discern the situation.

Wh-… what’s going on?

Why does Li Qi have so many memories?

As she stood in astonishment, the endless negative emotions and memories swirled around Shen Shuibi, with boundless emotions being a part of them.

The erosion of demonic thoughts, the vile and malicious hostility, the fervent desire for the Dao, the pain of being washed away by endless time, the loneliness of repeating the same time for hundreds of millions of years.

All of these, mixed together, were as if the Spirit Soul and True Spirit were torn into pieces, crushed, and then stirred together!

Shen Shuibi was entangled by these memories, then grabbed by her limbs, unable to resist, turning into a vortex, like a swirling eddy in a hodgepodge soup of personalities and memories, unable to move, difficult to resist.

These were all things Li Qi had experienced.

Although his life was only a few thousand years, having achieved substantiality, he had already gone through too many Reincarnations.

Billions of Reincarnations in the Immortal Heaven, endless cyclical battles experienced as a Fifth-Rank, and even the decades of thousands of years spent in distorted space—all of these memories constituted more than ninety-nine percent of Li Qi’s memories.

Now, these fragments churned, sublimated, and finally condensed into the chaotic vortex of the present moment.

Shen Shuibi’s Fifth-Rank mind, bathed in the complex and chaotic fragments, was almost unable to move—

Bad, something’s wrong!

She immediately realized that the time Li Qi had experienced was far more than a few thousand years.

In comparison, Shen Shuibi’s ten thousand years of life were less than one ten-thousandth in front of Li Qi.

Li Qi… had truly undergone Reincarnation in the Immortal Heaven for ten thousand times ten thousand years; although on a general timeline he had only experienced a few thousand years, within the cycle… it was already an unknown amount of time.

Shen Shuibi was directly trapped by such a Chaos time plate, unable to move.

‘I must… find a way.’ She gritted her teeth, thinking this in her heart.

That’s right, that’s right… myself!

Although it might be a bit embarrassing to say, Shen Shuibi had always felt that she should be… relatively important… in Li Qi’s memories, right?

Now deeply trapped in the vortex of Li Qi’s memories, the only bargaining chip she could probably present was herself.

Thinking of this, she no longer panicked, but instead pulled out the hairpin from her head, let down her hair, and then concentrated, immersing her Spirit Soul into it.

The surrounding storm grew even more frantic!

The raging memory vortex began to make Shen Shuibi feel somewhat dazed.

The deafening noise gradually subsided.

The sound hadn’t stopped; it was just that Shen Shuibi gradually couldn’t hear it anymore.

The scene before her eyes also gradually darkened, but it wasn’t truly dark; it was just that her vision began to blur.

She was like someone falling into a coma, gradually losing perception of the outside world.

All the surrounding scenery was like the surface of water after a child skips stones, with layers of ripples expanding, and with each ripple, the color of the entire world would diminish by a few points.

But the next instant—

A high-frequency and violent localized tremor wave tore through these fluctuations, and huge ripples burst out in all directions!

Suddenly, this world shattered like glass! Countless fragments scattered, flying everywhere, turning into pages, each recording a memory; Li Qi’s entire life thus turned into fragments filling the sky!

Such a commotion almost instantly woke Shen Shuibi.

And the moment she awoke, the surrounding scene changed.

It worked.

Through the direct contact with memories, and the calming Medicinal Pill given earlier, it had taken effect.

The calming effect took hold, allowing Li Qi’s chaotic and violent consciousness to settle, and Shen Shuibi was finally able to arrive here.

This place was Li Qi’s ‘surface consciousness’.

It might sound incredible, but in reality, surface consciousness is a person’s true core of thought, more important than any subconscious.

The subconscious, hidden instincts, and various memories are actually like warehouses, stored deep within the True Spirit and thinking organs, usually unseen.

Surface consciousness is all the aspects a person displays, and it is also the most important thinking part for a cultivator.

If the surface consciousness is gone, that person becomes a vegetable.

But if the deep consciousness is gone, it’s merely amnesia or loss of instinct; the person is still conscious.

Now, Li Qi’s chaotic Spirit Soul was calmed by Shen Shuibi’s calming Medicinal Pill and the memories she herself symbolized.

The originally chaotic, tide-like memories gradually receded, becoming the ‘edge of the world’, like a squirming Chaos, forming a cocoon.

Inside the cocoon, the scene presented was a peaceful and serene white space.

However, although white, it wasn’t pure white, because there were many… landscapes within it.

This was inside Li Qi’s Spirit Soul, the manifestation of his surface consciousness, naturally manifesting what he valued most.

First to catch the eye were vast quantities of books.

Books, many books, floated like butterflies in the white space, constantly fluttering their pages, flying around, scattering various scholarly fragrances.

Surrounded by these books, Shen Shuibi walked forward.

Further ahead, she saw various people from Li Qi’s memories.

First were his close friends like Bo Yue, Yan Ke, Zhong Minglou, and Liu Canzhi.

Then came elders like Zhu Fengdan, Empress Luofu, Yun Fang, and Mixin.

And in the far distance, she could glimpse Niu Huang and the previous Baiyue Kingdom Lords, who were likely more peripheral figures.

Following these, as she walked along, the white space suddenly turned black.

Shen Shuibi frowned slightly, but ignored the darkness and continued to walk forward.

In a state of mental fusion, there was actually no concept of ‘moving forward’; its essence was getting closer and closer to Li Qi’s thinking organ.

In other words… Shen Shuibi was approaching Li Qi’s Nascent Soul, which was heavily injured and unconscious, that most mysterious and formless of his inner body spirits.

The Nascent Soul controls Li Qi’s consciousness, is Li Qi’s first body god, and also his Eighth-Rank Dao Foundation, belonging to a very fundamental Dao Foundation, second only to the Inner World, and can be considered his vital point.

However, at this moment, the darkness suddenly materialized into the previous storm!

This was an attack!

It could be seen that even in a desperate fight with Qiu Zhi, he had not cut off his Nascent Soul; that would truly lead to death.

Therefore, Shen Shuibi’s attempt to approach the Nascent Soul provoked Li Qi’s instinctive resistance!

These dark storms quickly transformed into a black cloud composed of lightning and fire flowers, and the surrounding environment instantly became harsh; the temperature was too high to stand, and furious winds wrapped around the black cloud, forming tornados! Thunderstorms and catastrophic hurricanes spread out!

The hurricanes occasionally subsided amidst this hellish roar, and the black clouds occasionally dispersed and re-condensed into masses, with layers of scale-like cloud surfaces continuously surging and rolling, and then large masses of black clouds were swept into the surging strong winds, lightning flashed between the clouds, and the sky resounded with terrifying roars produced by the collision of lightning and thunderclouds!

Shen Shuibi stopped, and the storms remained still.

When Shen Shuibi wanted to continue forward, the storms began to move, with ball lightning and forked lightning continuously and randomly bombing the covered area; the mutual touch between certain psychic powers caused sparks to flash, and Shen Shuibi felt a tingling sensation in her body, but she did not stop.

The lightning only flashed around her; it didn’t actually strike her, which was her confidence to continue forward.

She continued to advance.

So, the storm intensified!

Within this primitive, unrestrainedly displayed storm, two eyes faintly appeared in the sky.

That was the true form of Li Qi’s Nascent Soul!

It was neither a storm, nor a black cloud, nor any other divine body.

This Nascent Soul was merely… a pure natural phenomenon; the form of the Nascent Soul was not any known life form! He was simply the Incarnation of natural phenomena!

The Incarnation of natural phenomena… Shen Shuibi looked at that Nascent Soul, suddenly understanding.

Indeed, it should have been like this all along.

Li Qi was a Invoker of the Di Qi lineage.

His Nascent Soul should inherently exist in every inch of space within his Inner World, being the Incarnation of natural phenomena, just like all Di Qi.

And the current storm was merely the resistance produced by the Nascent Soul’s reactive state.

Seeing this, Shen Shuibi voluntarily stopped and softly said, “It’s me…”

It’s me.

Who am I?

The Nascent Soul, with sentience but no consciousness, couldn’t distinguish; he only knew that someone wanted to grasp him, and he couldn’t be grasped—this was a typical characteristic of sentient things, just like the Heavenly Dao of the world, knowing nothing but being able to seek good fortune and avoid disaster, making moves beneficial to itself.

But the next moment, this Nascent Soul distinguished ‘good fortune’.

Because Shen Shuibi stood, a jade flute appeared in her hand, and she began to play a flute melody.

The flute melody was melodious.

That was her Fourth-Rank Dao Foundation, the lingering sound of creation, and the ‘Celestial Pole’ represented by the Return to Nothingness Singularity.

The flute melody was distant and clear, winding and ethereal, like a beautiful moonlit night.

Smoke is hazy, intestines are aching, do not let the flute melody blow it all away; the stars in the sky are autumn-clear, by the bright window, a life of lonely thoughts.

As is well known, the lingering sound of creation can communicate with Earthly Spirits, who are Incarnations of nature.

Moreover, this sound, to the Nascent Soul, was so familiar…

Is it me? Is it me???

Who is this ‘me’?

It’s…

It’s, Yu’er.

When this term emerged, the storm around the Nascent Soul suddenly dissipated, returning to a gentle white space.

The Nascent Soul didn’t know what Yu’er was, but his instinct to seek good fortune and avoid disaster compelled him to abandon resistance.

Everything dispersed.

Shen Shuibi reached out her hand.

A formless energy appeared in her hand; it was the manifestation of the formless Nascent Soul.

“Take me to him,” Shen Shuibi softly said to the Nascent Soul.

The Nascent Soul had sentience but no consciousness; he didn’t know what Shen Shuibi was saying, but instinct compelled him to begin dragging Shen Shuibi’s hand, moving towards the true core of thought.

The true core of thought, the location of Li Qi’s lifeline, where his True Spirit was contained.

Led by the Nascent Soul, Shen Shuibi quickly arrived here.

Li Qi’s True Spirit was in this place.

In a pure white space, Li Qi’s True Spirit floated in mid-air.

The True Spirit is the deepest mark within the Spirit Soul, the ‘self-awareness’ itself.

This has nothing to do with memory or anything else; even a paramecium without memory, or a newborn infant, though they know nothing and only possess bodily instincts, can clearly be aware of the existence of ‘I’.

And this ‘I’ is the True Spirit within the Spirit Soul.

The True Spirit is what distinguishes the self from the outside world; a machine doesn’t know the difference between itself and the outside world, while the True Spirit can distinguish between living organisms and other living organisms.

Unless a machine also gives birth to a True Spirit, they cannot be aware of themselves.

When you can recognize that the reflection in the mirror is yourself, you have a True Spirit.

The True Spirit was not Li Qi’s appearance, but just two or three faintly glowing runes; this rune could also be summarized as Li Qi’s ‘Honored Name’—through this name, one could directly contact Li Qi in rituals and ceremonies.

Shen Shuibi gently touched this rune.

The surrounding scene suddenly unfolded!

The next moment—

Soft sunlight slowly and patiently spilled onto the asphalt road nearby, the tree shade was neither too large nor too small, just perfectly covering one side of the distant sidewalk, and the school’s main road extended all the way up the mountain.

Several girls, walking together and chatting, passed lively by the basketball court, while a few boys played ball, sweating profusely, looking deeply immersed.

“This is… deep within memory?” Shen Shuibi looked around.

This was an ordinary world, seemingly very mundane; there were many worlds like this beyond the realm.

This was… Li Qi’s home world?