Holding the scroll, Ming Xiao Fei sat cross-legged on the bed with a convincing air, copying a pose she had seen on television as she closed her eyes and focused on gaining insight.
She soon fell silent, her breathing steady and slow.
A little while later.
Everyone in the room was certain.
Ming Xiao Fei had fallen asleep.
Ming Xiao Fei blushed.
"Big brother, I can't feel anything at all."
"Am... am I just terrible at understanding things? Am I not qualified to cultivate?"
Gu Zhe looked at her.
He had a pretty good idea of what was going on.
"Relax a little. Don't get so nervous, and don't get hung up on going through the motions. Truly empty your mind and sense the elusive aura of spirit nature in the void."
"Yes, just like you did last time."
"Xiao Fei, think about what you did last time. Just do the same thing now..."
Ming Xiao Fei did begin to recall it.
Tilting her head, she thought back to how she had felt then.
After some thought.
"Mom, I need a bowl of sticky rice."
Then she looked a little embarrassed.
Looking at Gu Zhe, she blushed and explained:
"This was what I did last time. I feel like this is the only way I can get into it."
Gu Zhe understood. A sense of ritual?
That was hardly strange. Many mysterious rituals were designed to use that sense of ceremony to help people cast aside distracting thoughts and awaken their inner conviction and will.
There were also more mysterious rituals that conformed to unseen rules, allowing people to connect with the mysterious during the ceremony as their aura gradually aligned with some supernatural law.
As for the rituals passed down by spirit mediums who practiced planchette divination and rice divination, were they merely about creating a sense of ceremony, or did they truly conform to some rule?
Gu Zhe wasn't sure either. After all, even if ordinary Rice Diviners were merely deceiving the public.
The person performing the ritual now was no ordinary Rice Diviner, but someone with astonishing spiritual sensitivity who had been influenced by her family since childhood and was deeply obsessed with rice divination. More importantly, this world really had changed, allowing rituals and spiritual sensitivity to have an effect.
Whether the ritual procedures produced mysterious effects or the mysterious itself created a sense of ritual, who could say for sure?
Entangled with each other, the two no longer had a clear boundary.
Ming Xiao Fei sat on the floor.
First, she thought back for a moment.
Then she reached out and picked up the bowl of rice.
"Heaven is clear, earth is numinous; yin and yang are the two energies. The six realms hold yin and yang, bringing all beings into harmony. I have a bowl filled with white rice, nourishing all beings, awakening true spirits... Ghost spirits, ghost spirits, hear my words, obey the rites, heed my command at once. All ghosts before me, swiftly appear before me, partake of rice and heed my orders, carry them out without delay."
She was still a little embarrassed when she spoke the first line.
But as she uttered these words steeped in ceremony and mystery.
The little girl seemed to find her rhythm.
She truly resembled a little spirit medium, growing more and more serious, more and more focused.
It seemed her "family atmosphere" had left a deep impression on her.
She grabbed a handful of rice with one hand.
And tossed it into the air.
Her voice even imitated her mother's folk-song-like calls.
"A handful for Heaven, oh, Grandpa Heaven says yes!"
She tossed rice onto the floor.
"A handful for the earth, oh, Granny Earth calls you home!"
Another handful of rice scattered.
"Come, come, come. You ghost, come over here. You soul, come back. Come back, oh, come back... Come back and possess me, come back and tell me what's in your heart... Come back..."
"Come, oh, come... I have white rice, I have lovely rice. You can fill your belly, you can protect your three souls... Come, oh... Come..."
Her voice gradually lowered, and her expression grew increasingly "entranced."
Slowly, slowly.
Her voice began to fade, and everyone felt an inexplicable stillness...
Her little head slowly drooped.
Her lips were still murmuring, but no one could tell what she was saying.
Just as the others thought Ming Xiao Fei had fallen asleep again.
The next instant.
She abruptly raised her head.
Her features seemed to have stiffened.
There also seemed to be a vacant look in her eyes.
She seemed to have become a wooden puppet, her whole demeanor both dazed and eerie.
Ming Xiao Fei seemed to pause in her daze, then tugged her stiff face into a smile.
The sight made her parents' and older cousin's hearts tremble with worry.
The corners of her mouth twitched:
"Hehe, hehe, hehe..."
Her voice grew increasingly wooden, like a robot speaking, her childish voice overlapping with a dull, lifeless one.
"Greetings, everyone. Greetings, my lord..."
"Hehe, hehe, hehehe..."
"Ah..."
Her mother screamed in fright.
Ming Xiao Fei's father and Ming Xuan also stared in terror.
Suppressing their fear.
They hurriedly turned to Gu Zhe.
"Master Gu, what's wrong with Xiao Fei?"
"Master Gu, please save Xiao Fei! Xiao Fei, what's wrong?"
"Wah... Xiao Fei, what's happened to you?"
"Mr. Gu, didn't you say there was no danger? What's going on?"
Gu Zhe was speechless.
Of course he knew what was going on.
He rubbed his head.
Ming Xiao Fei had been pitifully calling him big brother earlier, making him think she was a delicate little girl who inspired sympathy.
He hadn't expected her to forget all her earlier panic and fear the moment something changed.
Thinking about it, that made sense. Could a little girl who played around with planchette divination and spirit channeling in her spare time really be meek and obedient?
Still, this little girl had changed far too quickly.
Were kids nowadays really this adaptable?
"Ming Xiao Fei, that's enough!"
"Okay, big brother! No, my lord, hehe!"
Then she looked at her worried parents.
She knew she was in trouble.
Yet she pretended not to care.
"Tch, no fun!"
"Hehe, Mom, Dad, and Cousin, you're such scaredy-cats! Hehe, what do you think? My acting was really convincing just now, wasn't it?"
The three adults of the Ming Family looked utterly incredulous.
Ming Xuan looked at her younger cousin.
Her voice was still trembling.
She pointed at her, unsure whether she was furious or relieved.
"So you were trying to scare us."
The next instant, she gritted her teeth.
And roared.
"Ming Xiao Fei, you little brat! Are you asking for a beating? Is your backside itching for one?"
Ming Xiao Fei's parents also breathed sighs of relief.
Then they looked at their daughter, their anger boiling over.
"You little brat, you little brat! You nearly scared me to death!"
"Xiao Xuan, teach her a proper lesson! She's only just out of danger, and she's already causing trouble again! Back to her old tricks, pretending to be possessed. She's forgotten the pain the moment the wound healed!"
"Ah, Mom, Dad, let me make excuses-no, let me show you..."
Ming Xiao Fei really was a mischievous brat.
And she really had always enjoyed playing at ghosts and spirits.
Otherwise, why would a twelve- or thirteen-year-old girl have ended up in danger like this? It was precisely because she liked copying her parents' mystical antics.
She often played at ghosts and spirits in front of her classmates and friends, swindling a little pocket money and making herself seem more mysterious at school.
Had she forgotten the pain the moment the wound healed?
No!
It wasn't that simple.
Because.
She had just successfully channeled a spirit, sensing an entity with a strange, mysterious spirit nature, yet no hint of danger. An instinctive understanding had risen from deep within her: I can tap into and guide its power.
This time, she had felt real, tangible power.
From an ordinary little girl, she had become a supernatural girl who could truly touch and directly control the mysterious.
How could she possibly keep her emotions in check? How could she not be excited?
Because, with Gu Zhe's tacit permission, the eerie lord Paper Figure she had truly sensed had neither resisted her nor rejected her, nor had it displayed any other independent will.
Perhaps because that eerie Paper Figure had already acquired a certain quality, she had truly drawn it from the Du Xiao Secret Realm into her spiritual consciousness.
To some extent, this had given her a measure of authority over the eerie Paper Figure.
She felt the instinctive changes in her body and its seamless harmony with that "blank" power.
Seeing that her parents looked ready to give her a hard slap.
Ming Xiao Fei's eyes darted.
"Don't underestimate me. I'm no longer the Ming Xiao Fei I used to be."
"You little brat! You're old enough to know better, yet you still don't know when to stop! Just watch me teach you a proper lesson. Your mother's spoiled you rotten. An indulgent mother raises a wayward child!"
"Honey, give her a good beating. I won't plead for her this time. And you little brat, if your name isn't Ming Xiao Fei, what is it? Are you going to take my surname?"
"Hmph, please call me Super Fei!"
"You're a girl, for goodness' sake..."
The Ming Family parents had intended to give their reckless daughter a thorough scolding.
The next instant.
They froze.
Their daughter giggled.
Then she started moving, so fast their eyes couldn't keep up. All they could make out was her figure turning into a blur, appearing all over the room.
Occasionally, they even saw their daughter running laps along the walls.
This was just as frightening!