CHAPTER 667: 1+1=3_2

Half a month ago, Feng Xing bought a medium-sized truck, which reminded Xiao Xian of her time in Guizhou and Uncle San Gouzi’s profession.

That little Auto that once led Xiao Xian to encounter Xuerou and, by a stroke of fate, get to know Mr. Bai, had been out of use for a while, and was mostly parked at the farmhouse in Yanqing.

"Time really does fly, it looks like my plan to visit Grandpa again this year is not going to happen," Xiao Xian tidied up the balcony, swept the scattered soil into her pocket, and then took it downstairs to put it back in the flower bed.

Soil is only called soil when it can nurture and moisten plants.

While tidying up downstairs, Xiao Xian ran into the women’s director of the community, a middle-aged woman with a round face like fermented dough, who recognized Xiao Xian at a glance.

"Isn’t this the young girl who used to live on the fourth floor? Why have you come back? I heard that your aunt and uncle moved to the countryside, are they doing well?" Her tone carried the distinctive arrogance of city dwellers.

Xiao Xian smiled at her smug tone, but did not answer. She did not intend to let too many people know that she was temporarily staying in Bai Juyi’s old house. What’s more, there was no point in talking with people who were predisposed to power.

Whether it’s Yanqing or Ge Village, no matter where, you look up to see the stars, look down to see green grass, not smelling car exhaust, not seeing the flowing earth trails, that is where the heart’s refuge truly lies.

Without saying more, Xiao Xian just nodded her head and pretended to walk towards the exit of the community.

After the women’s director was out of sight, Xiao Xian turned back and re-entered Bai Juyi’s old house.

It’s time to stop living in the past. Immersing yourself in memories only stops you from moving forward. The most urgent thing for Xiao Xian now was to start experimenting as soon as possible. She took out a few bags of ginger. The trick Zhou Ziang performed during the day, making the plum trees bloom so splendidly, had benefited Xiao Xian immensely. A spark of insight flashed in her mind, and she suddenly understood what "Spirit Stacking" meant. The so-called "Spirit Stacking" was just a way to control Spiritual Power, stacking upon stacking, meaning the accumulation of Spiritual Power.

Ginger, as an important auxiliary spice, is both edible and medicinal. Typically, ginger soup made at home to prevent colds is made with fresh ginger.

The ginger in "Plum Rice Ball" was sliced dried ginger, and Xiao Xian selected pieces that were plump in shape, not very dry, bright yellow in color, and with a strong spicy aroma when held up to the nose.

Although Zhou Ziang did not make it explicit, being able to calculate so precisely the blossoming of plum flowers without wasting even a bit of Spiritual Power, his Spirit Control Technique must have been practiced thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of times.

Xiao Xian had only been exposed to Spirit Control Technique for half a year, and previously, she had tried to cram it all in hurriedly, only after coming across weaving mats and taking basic courses by chance, did she practice it multiple times.

Xiao Xian took Zhou Ziang’s words and Huang Yaoshi’s words to heart, pondering them again to come up with new ideas.

"Injecting one stream of Spiritual Power first, then another into the same stream, while maintaining the original volume of the Spiritual Power, enhances its purity and concentration, and then finally injecting it into the corresponding plant. Such a practice could make a one-year-old herb stack to become two, three, or even ten years old." Xiao Xian picked up a slice of ginger and easily drew out a strand of Spiritual Energy Silk from it.

The Spiritual Energy Silk was similar in color and smell to the ginger itself, a bright yellow with a spicy aroma. Xiao Xian chose the most ordinary ginger slices, which were essentially new slices dried this year. The extraction of the first ginger silk went smoothly, the real test for Xiao Xian was the second strand of Spiritual Energy.

With focused thoughts, she quickly extracted a trace of Spiritual Energy from the second slice of ginger, with the two slender strands of Spiritual Energy floating lightly in mid-air. Both strands of Spiritual Energy Silk were nearly the same length and consistency.

Under Xiao Xian’s control, the two strands of Spiritual Energy Silk slowly approached each other, one attempting to merge into the other. Throughout the process, the two strands of Spiritual Energy Silk churned like waves, requiring Xiao Xian to concentrate even more, as the furniture in the room and the noise from outside the window all disappeared, as did the entire room itself.

In front of Xiao Xian, only those two seven-to-eight-centimeter-long strands of Spiritual Energy Silk remained, and with each bit they fused, a drop of sweat would burst from Xiao Xian’s forehead. She placed her hands flat by her side, not daring to move, for fear that any slight disturbance would obstruct the merging of the strands of Spiritual Energy Silk.

After a full ten minutes, with a "drip-drop" sound akin to two drops of water merging together, the two strands of Spiritual Energy Silk completely fused into one entity, still seven or eight centimeters long, and roughly the same thickness, the only noticeable difference was the color—its bright yellow intensity had advanced by another level.

After re-injecting the Spiritual Energy Silk back into the ginger slice, Xiao Xian took an unprocessed slice of ginger and one that had been processed, placed them in her mouth one after the other, and with a slight chew, the processed slice of ginger was so spicy that it made her tremble incessantly.

"So spicy, it’s just two years old?" Xiao Xian looked at the ginger slice again and found that the one-year-old new ginger had changed, becoming a three-year-old preserved ginger slice.

"1+1=3?" After her first attempt at Spirit Stacking, Xiao Xian could not rest and successively processed bamboo shoots and orange peels as well. For a time, Bai Juyi’s old house was brightly lit every night. The new neighbors who bought Zhuo Feng and his wife’s house passed by the staircase and could always smell a variety of scents—sometimes as fragrant as oranges, sometimes as spicy as ginger, and occasionally the refreshing scent of bamboo leaves.

"This house was said to be empty for a long time, why is there always such strange smells coming out? It can’t be haunted, right?" The neighbor hurried upstairs, couldn’t help but glance at the door of the house. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for it with a recommendation ticket or monthly ticket at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation.)