He fetched a basin and portioned some out for Yan Feifan.
Lu Ding left the rest to cool completely, meditating to restore his condition while he waited. Once the temperature was about right,
he rolled up his sleeves and picked up a bowl, his chopsticks a whirlwind and his mouth a shovel, shoveling in huge mouthfuls.
The spiritual qi of heaven and earth instantly erupted, gathering into the eye of a storm overhead. As the medicinal effects spread through Lu Ding's body, the tornado-like storm of spiritual qi plunged straight into him.
With the medicinal effects of the ginseng doll, the aged reishi, and the Wrathful Rooster protecting his meridians,
Lu Ding had no fear whatsoever of damaging them again.
With the Unity of Heaven and Humanity skill active, he immediately went full throttle.
He absorbed as much as he could, swallowing it straight into his body.
The qi vortices in his empty apertures rapidly filled, one after another.
In less than half an hour, Lu Ding broke through from the sixth level of Illuminating the Jade Pivot to the seventh.
Then came the eighth level of Illuminating the Jade Pivot.
The ninth level of Illuminating the Jade Pivot.
Until the qi vortex in his final empty aperture was filled.
All the vortices began spinning in the same direction.
A surging heat appeared out of nowhere, rising from his Bubbling Spring points, traveling through Great Ravine, passing Yang Mound, piercing the Sea of Blood, and converging in his lower dantian.
Then he felt a chill blowing in through the fontanel at the crown of his head, entering the Spirit Court, circling the Niwan Palace, and traveling straight to his lower dantian, where yin and yang converged.
A crisp crack rang out.
A gleam of light penetrated his dim lower dantian.
Heaven and earth gradually separated.
This was the third realm of cultivation: the Spirit Sea.
Lu Ding already cultivated very quickly with Unity of Heaven and Humanity active. With powerful medicinal ingredients such as the ginseng doll assisting him, charging into the Spirit Sea in one go was hardly unusual.
And upon reaching this realm,
true cultivation had only just begun.
If talent was a qi refiner's first watershed, then the Spirit Sea was the second.
The larger and sturdier the Spirit Sea, the more spiritual qi it could store, the higher its quality would be, and the better one's foundation would become.
The reverse meant worse results.
In the Spirit Sea Realm, talent, resources, and time were all indispensable.
Talent determined the upper limit of a Spirit Sea's size, while resources determined its lower limit-its sturdiness and the quality of its spiritual qi.
A newly opened Spirit Sea was just a small, dried-up puddle.
A qi refiner needed to liquefy the spiritual qi in the vortices within their body and gather it in their Spirit Sea.
Afterward, they would continuously use heavenly materials and earthly treasures to help expand and reinforce it.
Of course, they could do without heavenly materials and earthly treasures and cultivate through talent alone, but that would only leave their Spirit Sea inferior to others'.
It was like building a house.
Some used bricks costing thirty cents apiece, while others used bricks costing three yuan each. Some chose to install underfloor heating and soundproofing, while others thought a house was usable as soon as it was built.
In truth, only the owner knew its practicality, comfort, and lifespan.
Lu Ding's talent was beyond question.
What he lacked were resources: all manner of heavenly materials and earthly treasures with miraculous effects.
Aside from finding these things through his own fortuitous encounters, he could mostly only obtain them through exchanges with Bureau 749.
Lu Ding actually had another plan.
Hadn't he just met Cao Ying, a treasure diviner? He wanted to see whether he could get some good things from him to properly build up his Spirit Sea.
After all, the man was generous and looked like someone with substantial wealth.
Lu Ding would not pass up Bureau 749's heavenly materials and earthly treasures either. It was just that he had too few contribution points right now. Everything he had added up to fewer than a hundred points, not enough to exchange for much. He needed to think of something.
But that was all for later.
What he needed to do now was liquefy his qi and fill his Spirit Sea. Before that, however, he had to deliver the chicken soup he had set aside for Yan Feifan.
Whether it was killing the Flying Centipede in Baiyao Ancient Town or tearing apart the Living-Molt Living Corpse in the subsidence zone, Yan Feifan had accompanied him and even helped devise plans. Lu Ding would not keep all the food to himself.
Yan Feifan was deeply moved when he received the chicken soup, declaring that he would cultivate hard and had to break through to Aperture Opening in one push.
After offering him a few words of encouragement, Lu Ding returned to his room and began liquefying his qi.
Time ticked away, and the sun rose and set.
As night fell,
a white SUV with its hood buckled upward crashed into the Baofan District Public Security Administration. After smashing into several peacefully parked vehicles,
a woman ran out of it.
Her expression terrified and her face deathly pale, she ran toward the Public Security Administration building, screaming herself hoarse, "Help!!!! Help!!!!"
The sentries behind her ran up and restrained her.
The woman remained unresponsive, still crying for help over and over.
Soon, a group of public security officers hurried out at the noise.
Even Gao Zhengliang was drawn out by the commotion.
He quickly instructed his subordinates to take the woman to an interview room, then summoned a doctor to give her a sedative injection. Only then did her emotions settle.
She held a cup of warm water, a blanket draped over her shoulders.
Looking at the public security officers in the room, the woman said in a trembling voice, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do this. I'm sorry. I'm really scared. They... they all say I'm crazy, but I'm not."
"I saw it. I saw everything. My child, my husband, my father-in-law, and my mother-in-law-they aren't human. They aren't human... sob..."
The officers exchanged glances before finally turning their gazes toward Gao Zhengliang.
Before he could speak,
Lu Ding approached from outside the door and asked, "What happened?"
The room he was staying in faced the courtyard, on the sunny side.
The crash just now had been so loud that it disturbed Lu Ding while he was refining his qi into liquid to fill his Spirit Sea.
He stood up and looked through the window, only to see the government SUV he had borrowed from Bureau 749 knocked sideways across its parking space.
Although it was nothing serious,
the paint had definitely been scraped off.
Not knowing what had happened, Lu Ding was rather angry and immediately came downstairs. Only after asking did he learn that a woman had driven in seeking help and accidentally hit his car.
She was now in the interview room, along with Director Gao and the others.
And so Lu Ding came over.
Seeing him arrive, the people at the doorway hurriedly made way.
Gao Zhengliang also rose from his seat and briefly repeated what the woman had just said.
This time, Lu Ding took a seat.
He asked, "So what happened? Could you tell me?"
Although the terrified woman had no time to appreciate Lu Ding's handsome appearance, having a handsome man take over did ease her emotions a little.
"I... the wardrobe in our home eats people. No, no, no, no, it doesn't eat them. It replaces them. Everyone in my family has been replaced. Nobody believes me. Nobody believes what I say... You don't think I'm mentally ill, do you? I'm not mentally ill. It's true, it's true. The public security station in Linhua didn't believe me. They even called my husband to take me home."
"They'll eat me. They really will eat me. Please believe me."
Lu Ding spoke gently. "Don't worry. I believe you. So could you tell me what happened?"
Some of the unease faded from the woman's eyes. "Okay. I'll tell you. I'll tell you."
"My husband and I have been married for ten years. A while ago, he went out of town on business. After summer vacation started, our child said he missed his grandma, so I took him to her house. Neither of them was home."
"I was home alone. That night, while I was sleeping, I hazily saw what looked like a pair of eyes on the wardrobe. But the room was too dark, and I wondered whether I'd seen wrong. I didn't dare go over to check. I was scared. On TV, it always happens like this."
"Someone notices something wrong somewhere, then goes over to look, and in the end something suddenly leaps out and scares them or drags them away."
"So I called my husband. I told him to replace the wardrobe at home, that I'd seen eyes on it. We'd bought that wardrobe separately later because our old one was too small to hold all our clothes."
"My husband agreed and said he'd replace it after he got back from his business trip. He also comforted me, saying there was no such thing as a wardrobe with eyes. We were on a video call, and he told me to put my phone on a selfie stick and hold it over so he could look for me. So I did."
"My husband said there weren't any eyes. He also said that if I was really scared, he'd replace the wardrobe when he got back."
"A few days later, my husband came home. It was too late that day, and neither of us remembered about replacing the wardrobe. Later, while we were sleeping that night, I groggily saw the wardrobe open, and a pair of long, slender hands reached out from inside."
"Then a bald head and half a body wearing a black top emerged, and just like that, it dragged my husband off the bed and into the wardrobe. He was inside in an instant."
"Then I suddenly woke up and found it was already daytime. I thought I'd had a nightmare. My husband called me to breakfast from outside the door, so I didn't think much of it. Later, I brought up replacing the wardrobe again, and my husband smashed his bowl in anger right then and there. He said we'd already grown attached to it, so why replace it?"