174 Enchanted Forest
When Yao Qianjiang appeared at the Academy, he still had a distinctive air about him. He smiled and said, “I actually wanted to visit you as soon as you returned, but the past few days have been filled with c*ckroaches everywhere on the streets. It’s disgustingly nauseating to walk outside.”
Zhuang Yao nonchalantly responded, “The Prefecture Lord is anxious, I presume.”
Yao Qianjiang raised an eyebrow and chuckled, “Of course, I’m quite impatient. Yesterday, I met Officer Li, and he seemed even more energetic than before—like he’ll live for a long time. It seems that breaking through the second stage holds significant importance.”
“Oh? Did Officer Li have a terminal illness before?”
“That’s unlikely, but over a year ago, with his meager salary, he worked overtime until late at night and was constantly running around. He was very dedicated to his job. Though we’re not in the same line of work, I’ve had multiple interactions with him and always worried that this civil servant might die from overwork.” Yao Qianjiang smiled, “Seeing him doing so well, I feel relieved.”
Cong Xia felt that there was a bit of tension between Yao Qianjiang and Li Dao’ai. It was understandable, as lawyers and police officers were not industries that seemed to coexist peacefully. Even though the concept of “industries” had almost disappeared now, the subtle animosity between the two hadn’t diminished much, especially with Yao Qianjiang. Whenever he mentioned Li Dao’ai, there always seemed to be a hidden meaning in his words. However, he managed to make his sarcasm look quite elegant.
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Cheng Tianbi glanced coldly at Yao Qianjiang and lightly snorted through his nose.
“What should I do to prepare now? Should I deplete my energy first?”
“Yes, choose a safe way to deplete your energy. I’ll arrange it.”
Cong Xia sighed inwardly. He had to get busy again. Every time he helped someone break through the second stage, he expended a lot of energy. It would take at least a day to recover fully, and he wasn’t particularly eager to do it for selfish reasons.
Yao Qianjiang stood up, seemingly pondering how to deplete his energy without causing a major incident, such as flooding the place.
“Prefecture Lord, I have an idea,” Deng Xiao grinned at him.
“Oh? What is it?”
“Come over here, by the window.” Deng Xiao led him to the window, pushed it open forcefully, and shouted, “Abu!”
After calling twice, Abu rushed from the room to the courtyard, looking up at Deng Xiao and meowing loudly.
Deng Xiao blew a kiss at it, saying, “I’ll come down and play with you in a moment.”
Abu jumped up excitedly, but they were on the twelfth floor, and Abu wasn’t even three stories tall. It couldn’t reach them no matter how high it jumped. However, with its weight close to six tons, the ground trembled from its up-and-down jumps, and someone who didn’t know the situation might think it was an earthquake.
Deng Xiao quickly asked it to stop jumping. He turned to Yao Qianjiang and said, “Prefecture Lord, it’s scorching hot out. Let’s give my cat a bath.”
Yao Qianjiang smiled, “Alright.” He clapped his hands together, and suddenly a large mass of water appeared above Abu’s head out of thin air. It splashed down with a whoosh, scaring Abu away with a meow.
Deng Xiao burst into laughter.
Yao Qianjiang chased after Abu, pouring water down from above. At first, Abu was cautious, dodging here and there, but after realizing how refreshing it felt, it stopped hiding and happily bathed in the cool water.
Deng Xiao couldn’t resist the fun and simply took off his clothes, jumped from the 12th floor, and transformed mid-air. He grabbed the wall with his claws, quickly climbed down the building, and then leaped onto Abu’s back.
Abu happily meowed.
Zhuang Yao walked to the window, angrily saying, “Idiot, after this bath, it will roll in the mud on the ground and get dirty again.”
Deng Xiao chuckled, “It’s alright, I’ll wash it again.”
“Clean yourself too, or else don’t come back up here.”
Yao Qianjiang chuckled, “Truly a young man with vitality.”
Zhuang Yao arrogantly raised his chin, “Being young and being foolish are two different things.”
Yao Qianjiang quickly depleted his energy and calmly walked into the laboratory. Liu the butler looked worried, “My Lord, please be careful. There are over a thousand brothers in Jiujian Prefecture, and they all depend on you to survive.”
Yao Qianjiang patted his shoulder with a smile, “Don’t worry, you haven’t told my mother, have you?”
“No.”
“Good, just tell her that I’m on a business trip, so she won’t worry.” Yao Qianjiang took a deep breath, looked at the laboratory, and once again, Tang Yanqiu was there to guide him as Cheng Tianbi was unwilling to do it. Yao Qianjiang glanced at Cong Xia standing at the door, blinked, and said, “Aren’t you coming in to accompany me?”
Cong Xia explained, “Oh, for the first twenty hours, I won’t be needed much. If you encounter any problems, Little Tang will guide you on how to solve them. The critical time comes later, and I’ll keep a close eye on you.”
Yao Qianjiang smiled, “I’d feel more at ease if you were in the same room with me.”
Cong Xia hesitated, “Then I…”
“No.” Cheng Tianbi looked at Yao Qianjiang unceremoniously, “He’s not obligated to accompany you for over twenty hours without eating, drinking, or sleeping.”
Yao Qianjiang narrowed his eyes slightly, made a long “oh” sound, and said, “Alright then, I’ll see you after I succeed.” With that, he entered the laboratory without looking back.
Liu the butler stood beside Cong Xia, clasping his hands together and murmuring prayers. He was definitely praying for the protection of his Prefecture Lord.
Cheng Tianbi patted Cong Xia’s back, “Let’s go, someone is watching here. Let’s focus on our own matters and come back tomorrow.”
While waiting for Yao Qianjiang to break through the second stage, the others also stayed busy, using the time to cultivate.
Cong Xia felt that his energy core was becoming more and more full. At this rate, it wouldn’t take more than a month for him to reach the critical point of the second stage. He was a bit nervous, to be honest, as his situation was different from any other mutant in the world. He had pure and secure Cambrian energy within him, which seemed foolproof, but he still felt a bit uneasy. After all, the experiences of others might not apply to him, and when he encountered trouble, no one could help him.
So, he memorized every method and precaution about breaking through the second stage in the ancient jade, and he practiced the flow of energy in his body countless times. He imagined many changes after breaking through the second stage. The first thing he would try was to see if he could strengthen his brain with energy. He could already strengthen most parts of his body, turning into a true superhuman in a short period, but he couldn’t strengthen the thinking ability of his brain.
He didn’t know if it was due to the complexity of the brain’s structure or his insufficient energy, but he could only improve the visual and olfactory nerves, among other five senses, for now. What he wanted was to make himself smarter, at least when he entered the ancient jade, to have a highly intelligent brain capable of processing information faster and obtaining more valuable things from the ancient jade.
He had discussed extensively with Zhuang Yao before. Zhuang Yao had even personally taught him which parts of the cells needed to be stimulated to enhance intelligence. He had attempted to do so, but the improvement of intelligence required multiple parts of the brain to function simultaneously. He couldn’t simultaneously strengthen so many parts, so he always failed. This was also related to his insufficient energy reserves. Perhaps after advancing to the next stage, he might be able to change this.
The busy day quickly passed. After taking a nap and having a meal, Cong Xia hurried to the experimental area. It was about time for Yao Qianjiang to reach a critical moment.
Indeed, when he arrived there, he saw Liu the butler pacing nervously around the laboratory. Cong Zhenzhong and Zhuang Yao stood outside the laboratory with their arms folded, observing, while a pair of researchers recorded data.
As soon as Liu the butler saw him, he rushed over and said, “Mr. Cong, please go and see my Prefecture Lord. He doesn’t look too well.”
Cong Xia reassured him, “At this stage, one’s condition won’t be too good. Don’t worry.” He approached the laboratory and saw Tang Yanqiu standing beside Yao Qianjiang, urging him to persevere in a very low voice.
Yao Qianjiang was covered in sweat, and a transparent mist surrounded him, making him appear as if he were immersed in water. His skin seemed slightly translucent. Like everyone else, his face showed signs of pain.
Cong Xia walked into the laboratory and whispered, “Prefecture Lord, I’m coming in. I have already explained what will happen next. You must follow me and work hard to push this huge water energy into your energy core. No matter what happens during the process, you must not relax.”
Yao Qianjiang nodded gently.
Cong Xia infused water energy into his body, merging it with the safe Cambrian energy inside Yao Qianjiang. He forcefully suppressed the destructive Cambrian energy. While doing all this, he suddenly had an idea. He wanted to see if he could also see the contents of Yao Qianjiang’s brain.
When he helped Zhuang Yu break through the second stage a few days ago, he didn’t know if the information in Zhuang Yu’s brain was actively transmitted to him or passively. Perhaps, during the critical moment of breaking through the first stage to the second, the person undergoing advancement was very fragile, and their body could easily be invaded by various energies, including their brain.
Maybe, because Zhuang Yu’s brain was highly developed and contained so much energy, the moment his energy entered Zhuang Yu’s body, he immediately sensed Zhuang Yu’s brain. On the other hand, the energies of other people were mainly distributed throughout their bodies in other parts, such as muscles and internal organs. That’s why he didn’t sense anything before. However, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to sense it.
With this idea in mind, while slowly suppressing the destructive Cambrian energy, Cong Xia tentatively diverted some of the energy into Yao Qianjiang’s brain. As expected, the next moment, a rush of images and memories flooded Yao Qianjiang’s brain. However, Yao Qianjiang’s brain was just an ordinary person’s brain, at most slightly smarter than an average person. It couldn’t be compared to Zhuang Yao’s vast amount of information, so Cong Xia didn’t feel overwhelmed or nauseous.
Soon, he captured some familiar information from the images and texts, such as breakthroughs, Yao Qianjiang’s mother, some brilliant scenes and superior life in his career, the establishment of the level system in Jiujiang Prefecture, and even the pre-apocalyptic confrontations and heated arguments with Li Dao’ai, almost coming to blows. Despite being an ordinary person’s brain, it contained a lifetime’s worth of knowledge and memories, providing a substantial amount of information.
Cong Xia was like a visitor standing in the main hall of a museum, and around him were walls densely covered with mostly unfamiliar information. Picking out something he vaguely recognized from this vast array of information was a matter of luck. Yao Qianjiang’s brain was like a museum, while Zhuang Yao’s brain was like a library, with books of information spread out, something that would take a lifetime to finish reading.
Suddenly, Cong Xia discovered something strange in the corner of Yao Qianjiang’s thoughts. It wasn’t an image, text, or symbol; the carrier of that piece of information was… a piece of jade – black, transparent, and glowing!
A Puppet Jade?!
Cong Xia was shocked.
The carrier of that short piece of information was exactly the same as a Puppet Jade. But why would there be a Puppet Jade in Yao Qianjiang’s inner thoughts? Yao Qianjiang’s knowledge and memories were all presented in the form of images or texts. To Cong Xia, everything in his memory was expressed through images and texts. The Puppet Jade in his memory appeared in images and texts related to the Puppet Jade, but this piece of jade was different.
It was not carried by any image or text, floating on its own in the corner, just like an incongruous stone carving suddenly appearing in a museum filled with oil paintings and calligraphy. It seemed embedded in Yao Qianjiang’s brain, but Cong Xia had scanned every inch of Yao Qianjiang’s body, and he couldn’t possibly hide a Puppet Jade.
What was going on? Why did Yao Qianjiang’s brain have a Puppet Jade, or rather, why did that piece of Puppet Jade not have a physical form, being ethereal? It was neither Yao Qianjiang’s memory nor anything else; what was it?
“Prefecture Lord! Prefecture Lord!”
The loud shouts from outside the glass abruptly pulled Cong Xia’s thoughts back. He opened his eyes and saw Yao Qianjiang already coughing up blood, his breathing becoming weak. Cong Xia was shocked and quickly infused water energy continuously. He had been distracted by that ethereal “Puppet Jade” and nearly caused Yao Qianjiang’s life.
He quickly focused his mind and helped Yao Qianjiang break through the second stage. Yao Qianjiang completely lost consciousness, looking not much better than Shen Changze when he first broke through. An assistant of Cong Zhenzhong carefully carried him to the recovery room.
Everyone thought that Yao Qianjiang’s life-threatening situation was caused by too much destructive Cambrian energy in his body. Cong Xia felt somewhat guilty but more astonished. The ethereal glowing Puppet jade floating in Yao Qianjiang’s thoughts had left him in awe. It cast a huge shadow in his heart.
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