My Enemy Became My Cultivation Companion

Qin Yue suddenly didn’t dare to hit her father again.

Chen Yi was quite satisfied, gently caressing Qin Yue’s back, and Qin Yue snuggled closer, asking:

"Dad... does it hurt?"

Ah, such a personality.

Chen Yi suddenly had a familiar feeling, blinking his eyes.

"No, it doesn’t hurt, Yue’er be good, don’t hit Dad, okay?" Chen Yi comforted.

"Yue’er knows very well."

.........

After comforting Qin Yue, Chen Yi sent her back to the old maid and then turned a few corners to find the silhouette of Miss Donggong.

Miss Donggong squatted by the lake, holding her face, watching the fish swimming in the pool.

No longer a ghost, the stupid girl had a dazed look from afar, seemingly even sillier. Chen Yi wanted to rush over to ask, but he didn’t hurry, his brows furrowing slightly. He couldn’t help but think, the stupid girl had finally returned to her body, why suddenly did she want to become a ghost again.

The stupid girl was easy-going, so since being a ghost wasn’t impossible, then being human shouldn’t be impossible either?

Clearly, there was something suspicious going on; perhaps someone deliberately seduced Miss Donggong.

Who?

Yin Weiyin?

Chen Yi almost instinctively thought of his Great Yin.

The grass snake has left tracks for so long, whenever something happens, suspecting Great Yin first seemed more likely than not. After thinking it over, Chen Yi realized that Great Yin had just suffered a setback before, probably not planning too soon.

While Chen Yi was pondering and hadn’t approached yet, Donggong Ruoshu seemed to notice his arrival first, turned around, and called out:

"Chen Yi!"

Chen Yi walked over and stood beside her.

The lake’s surface shimmered, reflecting Donggong Ruoshu’s slightly silly yet clear and beautiful profile. Ideas churned in his mind, hesitant about how to delicately broach her sudden thoughts.

Unexpectedly, Donggong Ruoshu needed no prompting from him, directly turning her head and saying:

"Chen Yi, I want to remain a ghost."

The straightforwardness of her words rendered useless all the turns and twists Chen Yi had prepared. He quickly adjusted, realizing that with this silly girl, any probing was redundant.

Thus, he directly tackled the core, frowning and asking:

"Why?"

Donggong Ruoshu blinked, seemingly finding the question redundant, but still earnestly replied:

"No reason. Being a ghost is much more interesting than being human."

She paused, seemingly savoring something, then added:

"I can eat qi."

Chen Yi was dumbfounded for a moment, almost thinking he misheard, but then he thought about it and couldn’t hold back, chuckling incredulously and asking:

"Just for this?"

For the reason of being able to "eat qi," she wanted to abandon the hard-won vibrant flesh and return to being an unconscious, drifting ghost?

Donggong Ruoshu was oblivious to the complex implications in his laughter; seeing him question her, she nodded matter-of-factly, her black-and-white eyes revealing pure confusion, asking back:

"Really, what else?"

As if saying, besides this, is there any more important reason?

Her logic was astonishingly straightforward, leaving Chen Yi momentarily speechless, unsure how to continue.

However, Chen Yi did know that ghosts were highly attached to eating qi, perhaps Donggong Ruoshu, recently turned human, hadn’t yet adjusted.

Looking at Donggong Ruoshu’s eyes, pure without a hint of impurity, Chen Yi knew that entanglement over the "eating qi" issue would be fruitless.

He was pondering how to approach it differently when Donggong Ruoshu held her cheeks with her hands, sighed softly.

Her sigh was as if from a poetic beauty, a rare sight from the stupid girl.

"Actually... not entirely." She still gazed at the lake, her voice lowered, "I don’t really want to be human. Another reason is... because of this body."

She paused, seemingly organizing her words, then pointed at her chest:

"It... it has borne the power passed down by a very high-level master, always suffering from... Buddhist Bone Burning Sound, remember?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Yi suddenly understood.

He indeed knew, and in both lives knew, the stupid girl never kept secrets. Shortly after they met, she had vaguely mentioned it to him.

"Yes, I know." Chen Yi responded calmly, "Didn’t I give you the Li Pearl later? It should have alleviated it significantly."

Donggong Ruoshu obediently nodded, admitting, "It has alleviated it, not as painful."

But immediately, she frowned slightly, showing a clear trace of confusion, maybe even a little unease:

"But... although it alleviated, I always feel... something’s off."

"Off?" Chen Yi caught the oddity in her words, pursuing: "Off where?"

Donggong Ruoshu lowered her hands from her cheeks, hugged her knees, thought seriously for a moment, and uncertainly replied:

"I’ve become... very food-driven."

Chen Yi blinked, not reacting at first.

Food-driven? What kind of off does that count as? In his view, this silly girl having a good appetite only counts as... cute?

He was about to laugh when Donggong Ruoshu herself refuted the idea, shaking her head vigorously, her tone becoming a bit urgent, trying to explain clearly:

"Not the normal wanting to eat! It’s... it’s something I never had before!"

She looked up at Chen Yi, her eyes, usually somewhat vacant, now showing a similar to... recollection and bewilderment.

"And... and the former... I..." She seemed hesitant but still said, "I was actually a well-educated lady from a grand family, had many tutors, nearly mastering astronomy and geography..."

Coming from her mouth, paired with her current adorable squat by the lake, the contrast was truly stark, Chen Yi’s expression became somewhat complex.

Donggong Ruoshu didn’t notice his expression, continued to sink into her thoughts, her voice getting lower,

"But... don’t know when it started, things got weird. As I grew older, I got dumber... things that I understood at a glance, later take a long time to figure out, and often didn’t make sense..."

Hearing the stupid girl admit she was "dumb," an extremely peculiar feeling welled up in Chen Yi’s heart.

When he met her, she already had this non-bright appearance, he never imagined she wasn’t born this way.

Donggong Ruoshu hugged her knees tighter, burying half her face in them, a muffled voice saying:

"But after becoming a ghost... suddenly, there weren’t such troubles, those gooey things in my mind seemed to clear up. It was like... escaping a heavy cage, the body is like a cage."

Upon hearing the word "cage," Chen Yi’s eyes narrowed sharply.

He had only assumed she had a child’s mindset, missing the carefree feeling of being a ghost; but if it’s related to mental changes, Divine Sense entrapment, even using the term "body is like a cage"...

Is this a term Miss Donggong can use?

In this light, things indeed seemed strange.

Chen Yi’s expression turned serious, he pondered a moment, asking:

"That Buddhist Bone Burning Sound, exactly how did it originate? Do you remember the person who passed you the power?"

Donggong Ruoshu looked up, trying to recall, "When I was little... met a traveling Bhikkhuni. She seemed... named Master Linghui? Back then she looked at me, and told my family, as a monk, having such Martial Arts is useless, might as well... pass them to me."

Chen Yi listened, his brows knitted tighter.

She paused, her face showing slight disbelief, "Then... that Bhikkhuni truly passed her powerful abilities to me, but I seemed unable to digest them; since then, there’s always been chanting in my body, and my bones often felt as if roasted by fire."

Master Linghui?

Chen Yi searched his memory, didn’t find a corresponding Buddhist Sect figure, but maybe he wasn’t knowledgeable enough, if Little Fox were here, perhaps he’d remember immediately.

He often interacted with the Buddhist Sect, even fought with Bodhisattvas, understanding Buddhist methods far beyond normal; the Buddhist Sect values "heart nature," focusing on "none outside the heart."

Thus, this Buddhist Bone Burning Sound, even her later mental entrapment’s root, likely doesn’t lie in the physical shell or meridians, but deeper... within her Heart Lake.

Thinking this, Chen Yi’s mind formed a plan.

He looked at Donggong Ruoshu, softened his tone, offered a slightly invasive suggestion:

"Miss Donggong, if the problem truly lies in the heart... would you let me enter your Heart Lake to take a look?"