Chapter 1723 - 312

In the courtyard's open skywell, Tan Wenbin was holding a bowl of some kind of soup whose name no one knew, eating with a spoon as he walked in circles, admiring his favorite lotus vat.

Lin Shuyou also went to ladle a bowl, planning to ask the others if they wanted any. When he looked up, he saw Run Sheng sitting motionless in a shadowed corner, while Brother Xiao Yuan sat on a stool by the water channel, eyes closed in thought.

Ah You had no choice but to carry his bowl over to Tan Wenbin's side.

"Brother Bin, since you like this vat so much, why don't we get one just like it at Mr. Li's place?"

"We'd have to get Mr. Li to agree to level the yard, knock down the house, dig the foundation ten meters down to lay out an Array, then repair and maintain it every year."

"It has to be like that? Then forget it. Brother Bin, you really know a lot."

"Mm, you can be like me and read more Array Books when you've got time."

Li Zhiyuan was currently retrospecting his own memories.

The first node was that three-incense-stick incident on the way to Fengdu last time. Back then Zhao Yi managed to snatch his life back, but in truth he benefited from the first two sticks as well.

The second node was Zhao Yi being sent by him to Su Luo, to deal with the Bodhisattva's backhand. Zhao Yi used the Black Book Secret Technique he'd left in Tomb Master Su Luo's body, which brought side effects down on himself.

But setting the side effects aside, the experience of being able to actually use the Black Book Secret Technique was already extremely precious. Even if he wasn't going to study it, it would certainly push his own Puppetry Technique to a much higher level.

On Ghost Street, facing the gate-crashing swarm of ghosts under the Bodhisattva's control, he had secretly swapped the lock on the Ghost Gate, squeezing Zhao Yi's energy in advance, which kept Zhao Yi from going out in a blaze of glory.

The memory froze here—Li Zhiyuan stood on Ghost Street, with Zhao Yi right in front of him at the instant before death.

Lin Shuyou died earlier, in very heroic fashion, matching perfectly that sort of Mind State of Ah You's. Zhao Yi's death, by contrast, was frankly rather sloppy.

In the memory, the boy's hand gave a slight forward wave, and Zhao Yi died; waved back, and Zhao Yi lived again.

Back and forth many times—after Zhao Yi had died and come back to life over and over, the boy finally let this image go.

Next came the gift from the Great Emperor.

In the early stage it truly was a gift; later it turned into "retaliation." Originally it had only been Su Luo's initial side effect, but the Great Emperor endowed it with higher activity.

No matter what Zhao Yi was doing, Su Luo could very naturally wake up and seize control of this body. That meant, in terms of comparative strength, Su Luo was in fact on par with Zhao Yi.

In the new memory, Li Zhiyuan stood on the truck's front bumper, looking through the front windshield at the person in the cab.

Besides Zhao Yi, his own self was also sitting in the passenger seat.

The memory moved forward, then back, then forward again, then back again; each time Su Luo appeared very naturally and took control of Zhao Yi.

After that, it was his passenger-seat self stomping the brakes in time, which kept the truck from plunging off the slope.

In the next memory, Zhao Yi was hanging in the Peach Forest getting beaten, beaten until spirit and flesh were nearly torn apart. Then Qing'an peeled "Su Luo" off onto a peach tree—though in truth it was transferred onto Qing'an himself.

Li Zhiyuan stood beneath the peach tree, side by side with the "him" in the memory; both of them were witnessing the process of Su Luo "walking out" from the tree.

Then Li Zhiyuan shifted his attention back onto Qing'an.

With Qing'an's temperament, either he wouldn't help at all, or if he did help he wouldn't care about the price, because he was already seeking death—there was nothing he couldn't bear to lose.

So Qing'an couldn't possibly still covet that bit of "Su Luo's" Power. He should only have stripped "Su Luo's" personality onto himself, while Su Luo's Power was left entirely in Zhao Yi's body.

Broadly speaking, Zhao Yi had two major gains from that wave in Fengdu:

First, his Life and Death Door seam stepped up a whole tier, undergoing a qualitative change; second, he devoured Su Luo's strength, tantamount to swallowing another version of himself.

As for minor improvements, one was in Puppetry Technique; another likely had to do with Su Luo's innate tendency to be possessed. After all, Zhao Yi had once entered Su Luo's body, and Su Luo later entered his. With such deep and thorough exchange, if he failed to comprehend and retain anything, then he wouldn't be Zhao Yi.

By comparison, purely quantifiable strength gains weren't the key—like swallowing power and advances in Puppetry Technique.

It was instead the effects of the Life and Death Door seam's qualitative shift, and the grasp of Su Luo's traits… things that couldn't be concretely measured.

The last memory was the recent thunderstorm night when he killed Zhao Yanglin and his gang.

Zhao Yi had clearly reined in his Power, given that their side had more people and a full advantage.

The memory dissolved, and Li Zhiyuan slowly opened his eyes.

This meant Zhao Yi had been continually gaining and accumulating recently, yet had never truly displayed his current concrete strength.

It wasn't that Zhao Yi was deliberately hiding anything from him—people like them had restraint as a basic instinct.

Every time Lin Shuyou had a boost in strength, he'd itch to find someone to fight right away; Zhao Yi didn't.

Li Zhiyuan stood up.

This made Lin Shuyou across from him a bit embarrassed—he was just using the ladle to scrape the last bit of soup into his own bowl.

"Brother Xiao Yuan, you want some?"

"You go ahead."

"Oh, okay." Lin Shuyou ate as he spoke, "Three-eyed sure was domineering at the table today in broad daylight."

Tan Wenbin: "You could be even more domineering next time you go back home, if you can throw off the shackles of ethics and morality."

"Koff, koff, koff…"

Lin Shuyou choked on the soup.

Tan Wenbin: "I'm not kidding—at your family's temple, there aren't many Divination Children who can still succeed in Divination now, right?"