Xu Nan and the machine ball were busy with their tasks, while Jiang Lin was engrossed in research.
In the blink of an eye, the 'Live Stream: Daily Healing in the Underworld, I Am Bai Wuchang' stream had not been broadcast for several days.
Jiang Lin had even set up a cooking station in the advanced cultivation room.
With a spatula in one hand and a wok in the other, he began to cook dishes using divine power and ghost qi.
Shredded potatoes, stir-fried green peppers with meat, smashed cucumbers...
Plates of hot dishes floated above the cooking station.
They smelled good, but their appearance wasn't very appealing.
Either they turned into a mush, or they cracked into pieces.
These ingredients were too weak.
They simply couldn't withstand both divine power and ghost qi simultaneously.
Jiang Lin looked at the latest plate of braised meat.
Each piece of meat was bright red, cut into small one-centimeter cubes.
But under the pressure of divine power and ghost qi, each piece of meat seemed to explode,
Splitting into strands of meat fibers.
"It seems this method won't work either..."
Jiang Lin crossed his arms, looking at the failed dishes around him.
He couldn't help but wonder if he had chosen the wrong starting point from the beginning.
Was his approach flawed?
However, he couldn't come up with any ideas for a while.
Seeing that the dishes in front of him were almost cold,
He simply put away the cooking station, sat on the ground,
Pulled the dishes closer, picked up a plate of shredded potatoes, and started eating.
The shredded potatoes had been stir-fried into a mush, and to be honest, the texture wasn't great.
But it was still within Jiang Lin's acceptable range.
When he couldn't get enough to eat in the past, he had eaten things ten times worse than this.
Shredded potatoes, braised meat, smashed cucumbers...
Jiang Lin ate them one plate after another.
The smashed cucumbers were crisp and crunchy in his mouth.
If he were to make smashed cucumbers with divine power and ghost qi in the future, he probably wouldn't even need to smash them.
Divine power and ghost qi would directly squeeze the cucumbers to explode.
However...
Why would they explode?
Didn't these two forces get along harmoniously?
Was it because the cucumber was too weak a medium?
Jiang Lin drew out a wisp of divine power that had just recovered and placed it before his eyes.
He watched it while eating.
What was the difference between this and ghost qi?
Why couldn't they fuse together?
Was it because their sources were different, and their cultivation methods were different?
How was divine power cultivated?
As soon as this thought arose, the cultivation memories from his past life as 'Jiang Lin' began to surface in Jiang Lin's mind.
Like a movie, they flashed by rapidly.
From entering the sect, testing his aptitude, causing it to enter the body, establishing the foundation, to forming the golden core...
To ascending to immortality in the later stages, and the various changes in the power within his body,
All presented themselves before Jiang Lin's eyes.
"The cultivation of divine power and ghost qi are two different paths."
"Different physiques are required, but..."
Jiang Lin murmured, reaching out to draw a wisp of Yin qi from the cultivation room.
He refined it into ghost qi.
"But at their core, they are all just a form of 'qi' in the world."
—'Qi' containing energy.
One was spiritual qi, the other was Yin qi.
Their essence was energy bodies.
After grasping this point, when Jiang Lin's gaze fell upon that wisp of divine power again,
His eyes immediately saw a different scene.
Divine Power - Spiritual Qi - 'Qi'.
That wisp of golden divine power seemed to be deconstructed,
Revealing the most primitive, the most essential thing before Jiang Lin's eyes.
Jiang Lin reached out, grasping that ball of 'qi'.
He merged it with the wisp of ghost qi he had just refined in his left hand.
This time, the two forces did not get squeezed into a pie.
Instead, they were like two streams of clear water, already flowing together.
When they met, they naturally merged,
Forming a chaotic gray gas.
It appeared restrained, yet it exuded an unprecedented terrifying aura.
Jiang Lin's expression flickered, and his vision blurred for a moment.
In his trance, he seemed to see a tall furnace.
The flames burning inside illuminated the room.
A tall figure in black robes was holding folded paper, meticulously folding something.
His hands were agile, but his movements were slow.
It seemed that every adjustment required a great deal of effort.
Gradually, the folded paper formed a slender human figure as tall as a real person.
Judging by its form, it seemed to be a female.
He didn't draw any facial features for it and stopped.
He stood up and placed the paper effigy into a pool that shimmered with water.
Then he took out an exquisite bottle from his robe.
He tilted it slightly,
And streams of light like a galaxy poured out,
Flowing into the pool below, which was etched with intricate patterns.
Whoosh—
In the furnace beside him, the flames burned even brighter.
...
As time passed,
The water in the pool became less and less, while the paper effigy...
Became increasingly lifelike.
Pale skin, slender ankles...
Even its face developed delicate features.
Behind its head, three thousand strands of hair floated in the pool.
Until one day, when the water in the pool completely dried up,
The tall man in black appeared again.
He gazed into the pool at the woman who was indistinguishable from a living person.
He extended a hand and lightly tapped her forehead with his index finger.
"...It's time to wake up."
Almost the moment his voice fell, the woman in the pool's eyelashes twitched.
She opened her eyes.
She had truly... come to life!
...
The moment she saw her face, Jiang Lin was stunned.
White eyebrows, white eyelashes, skin as white as snow...
Was that... the Yama King of the Northern Palace?!
He looked at the gray fusion in his palm, his heart unable to calm down for a long time.
What were those scenes just now?
Why did he know that the man was pouring soul fragments into the pool?
"Broken souls can actually be condensed and repaired with paper effigy techniques?"
Jiang Lin recalled the scenes he had just witnessed.
For some reason, it seemed that some information about paper effigy techniques had appeared in his mind.
Among them was also the method for using natal paper.
At this moment,
Jiang Lin remembered the memories that surfaced each time his realm improved.
The beggar, the swallow, Jiang Lin, the mute child...
In the past, he had thought it was due to the Meng Po soup, or his special physique.
Therefore,
As his soul body grew stronger, it could hold more memories.
And the reason he had no memories before was because his soul body was too weak.
But now, it seemed that was not the case.
If he didn't have the memories from his past life as Jiang Lin,
He wouldn't have been able to analyze the essence of divine power so easily, let alone fuse divine power and ghost qi.
The scenes he saw...
Did not seem to be unrelated.
"Are these memories mine, or... does someone want me to see them?"
...