As he was about to land, Feng Qi used his telekinetic power to support his body from below.
His figure hovered about half a meter above the ground, and then, using his telekinesis, he floated to Xiao You's side.
Under Feng Qi's gaze, Xiao You blinked curiously, then, with a silly grin, she stretched out a white flower she had been holding in her hand and offered it over her head.
When she saw that Feng Qi didn't react, Xiao You lowered her hand, demonstrating by plucking a petal and popping it into her mouth, then continuing to stare at him with her big eyes.
[Let me translate for you. What Xiao You is trying to express here is that she wants to share food with you. She hopes you don't turn her down, or else when she grows up, she'll chop you up with her magic knife.]
Feng Qi certainly knew what Xiao You meant by this.
The first part of the narrator's translation was accurate, but the last two sentences were entirely its own addition.
Feng Qi turned his gaze back to Xiao You and gave her a radiant smile.
When he first encountered Xiao You in the previous timeline, she was just as innocent and naive as she was now, and she couldn't even speak at the time.
He had personally taught her to communicate through language.
Xiao You often says that she is part of the human race, and one important reason for that is that her first language, as soon as she became aware of things, was the human language.
Landing on the ground, Feng Qi squatted down in front of Xiao You and plucked a white petal from the flower she was holding, putting it in his mouth.
As he chewed, he noticed Xiao You's face lighting up with a smile.
[Tsk tsk, although Xiao You isn't as lively as she was in my memories, she still looks very diligent. Every day, she picks her own petals to eat, surviving by self-sufficiency. There's not a hint of her being lazy. From this, it's clear that someone failed in their education, turning the hardworking Xiao You into a lazy one.]
Feng Qi: ...
Hearing the narrator's sarcastic and indirect remark, Feng Qi felt a vein throbbing on his forehead.
He felt like his tolerance for the narrator had increased significantly.
In fact, after returning from this timeline, he hadn't been angered by the narrator at all, but now he realized he had underestimated it. It always managed to find a chance to mentally mock him.
"My negative emotions might be partly due to you."
[Slander, outright slander! This narrator is just helping you train your resistance to negative emotions. How could you say I made your negative emotions worse? This is called a dog biting Lü Dongbin, not knowing the kindness of the narrator!]
Ignoring the narrator, Feng Qi found that Xiao You had already turned and was walking away.
He immediately stood up and followed her.
As he moved through the sea of flowers, Feng Qi was curious about where Xiao You was living now. Did she really survive alone here all this time?
Xiao You's origins were a mystery, and even she didn't know much about her own racial background.
From the limited information available, one thing was clear: when Xiao You arrived in the human world, she wasn't alone. She must have had another kin or companion with her.
But for some reason, by the time Feng Qi arrived in this domain realm in the previous timeline, the family member or companion who had been with Xiao You had already passed away, leaving only a corpse.
There were two things Xiao You had strong memories of in this domain realm.
The first was the hat on her head.
The second was the now blurry corpse.
His initial analysis was that Xiao You's race was likely similar to the Mist Lord's. They may have encountered an ambush by the Celestial Warriors while climbing the Heavenly Road, and Xiao You was the only survivor, coming to the human world alone.
But the exact truth remained unknown.
The inheritance knowledge in Xiao You's mind didn't contain any historical information about her race, so even Xiao You didn't know her specific origins or why her race had perished.
Following Xiao You through the flower sea, they climbed a small hill after a while.
At this point, Feng Qi noticed a familiar-looking body lying in the distance, its face blurred, and most of the body had been scorched, revealing white bones.
It was clear that the body had been severely burned by high temperatures before its death.
The bones were surrounded by white and blood-red petals, creating a bed-like circle of petals.
Xiao You, holding a fresh flower, ran over to the bones. She carefully placed the flower down.
Perhaps because of the bloodline connection, even though she didn't understand anything, Xiao You still felt a sense of closeness to the corpse, offering the petals, which she considered food, to share with it.
At this moment, Xiao You clearly didn't understand what death was.
Her gaze toward the corpse was innocent, without any fear, sadness, or even a sense of loss.
Approaching Xiao You, Feng Qi placed his hand on her hat.
"Eh!"
Xiao You looked up and gave him a silly smile.
Seeing Xiao You like this, memories flooded into Feng Qi's mind.
The first encounter in the previous timeline, Xiao You was just as innocent as she was now. Even though she was used as an energy sacrifice, she didn't resist or struggle. She even treated the ghostly beings who executed the sacrifice as friends.
This time, his arrival was earlier than in the sacrifice timeline, and the ghost-like beings hadn't yet come to occupy this domain.
At this point, Xiao You was still alone.
Feng Qi's gaze turned to the corpse lying in the sea of flowers. He noticed that the third rib on the left side of the corpse had a faint blue crystal embedded in it.
Curious, he leaned closer to take a look.
Just as he wondered what the crystal was, the narrator's mischievous voice echoed in his mind:
[I've investigated. It seems to be a crystal used for recording, containing quite a bit of information. However, it's severely damaged, and much of the data has been destroyed for some reason.]
After hearing the narrator's explanation, Feng Qi reached out, trying to pry the blue crystal free from the rib.
What he didn't expect was that the recording crystal was surrounded by an energy barrier. As his finger drew near, the barrier automatically triggered, and a burst of energy shot out.
However, the energy barrier had already become very thin.
Feng Qi's strength was enough to push through the barrier before it quickly dissipated.
He successfully pried the blue crystal out and tried to inject his consciousness into it.
Suddenly, his consciousness shifted, and before him appeared numerous bubbles, each containing a segment of recorded footage. Most of the footage, however, was already shattered, making it fragmented and incomplete.
This was clearly something Xiao You's kin had left for her, an attempt to help Xiao You understand her own race and history through the images stored in the crystal.
But with the crystal damaged, the information left for Xiao You was now incomplete.
In the sacrifice timeline, Xiao You hadn't received this visual inheritance; most likely, it had been taken away by the ghost-like beings.
From these broken images, Feng Qi understood something important.
Xiao You's origins were extraordinary—she was the sole descendant of the Grand Priest of the Underworld Clan, destined to become the next Grand Priest of the Underworld Clan.
The Underworld Clan's social structure was quite unique.
The Grand Priest, though not in charge of the clan's development or direction, was the keeper of the clan's knowledge and traditions, much like a historian for the human race. However, unlike humans, they did not record history but rather the knowledge gained during the clan's development, which was passed down through generations.
The Grand Priest was also a clan's symbol, revered and worshipped by the entire Underworld Clan.
In one of the video fragments, the day Xiao You was born, the Underworld Clan held a grand celebration.
For all the members of the Underworld Clan, this was a day that would be recorded in their history.
Xiao You's birth marked the confirmation of the next Grand Priest for the Underworld Clan. She was a gift from the heavens, destined to be the new Grand Priest.
The footage showed the Grand Priest holding the infant Xiao You, standing on a high platform under the watchful eyes of thousands of onlookers. As the Grand Priest, wearing a purple ceremonial robe, raised Xiao You above their head, a wave of cheers erupted from the crowd below.
At the end of the fragmented footage, the priests performed the Underworld energy baptism for Xiao You and injected the crystallized inheritance into her mind.
This was why Xiao You had the inherited knowledge in her mind.
It made sense now.
Creating these knowledge inheritance crystals was undoubtedly a costly process. If every member of the Underworld Clan had one, their potential for growth would be terrifying.
Even though it wasn't quite on the level of the Psionic Clan's Sacred Spirit Consciousness Vault, it still provided a powerful means of passing on and refining the clan's knowledge.
Another piece of footage recorded that the Underworld Clan had encountered a powerful enemy before entering the human world. The opposing force was immensely strong, pushing the Underworld Clan to the brink of destruction.
This was the reason the Underworld Clan had chosen to enter the human world early.
However, the fragmented footage did not provide enough details to confirm whether the Underworld Clan's demise was directly caused by their enemies.
There wasn't much useful information in the crystal.
Most of the data had already been destroyed, and after searching through the remaining information, Feng Qi withdrew his consciousness from the crystal.
When he opened his eyes, he saw that Xiao You had curled up beside the corpse and was now asleep.
At this moment, Feng Qi was faced with two choices.
First, he could give this incomplete footage to Xiao You in the future.
Second, he could destroy the footage and allow Xiao You to continue living blissfully, unaware of her past.
Out of selfishness, he didn't want Xiao You to carry the burden of her race's blood feud.
[Don't hesitate. Xiao You is the last of her kind. The Underworld Clan will have no future. Since that's the case, why let Xiao You carry so much? It's better to let her live innocently and happily. The future for her lies with the human race and with you.]
The narrator's words reinforced Feng Qi's decision.
He no longer hesitated and immediately crushed the crystal in his hand.
The blue crystal turned into sparkling dust in his hands and scattered in the wind. From this point forward, the Underworld Clan became a thing of the past, and Xiao You's future belonged to the human race.
He picked Xiao You up from beside the corpse.
Looking down at the bones, Feng Qi's thoughts lingered for a moment.
After a moment of thought, Feng Qi pressed his left hand down, and immediately his telekinetic power extended out, flipping the dirt beneath his feet.
A few minutes later, the corpse was buried in the soil, with flowers blooming above it.
Looking at the confused expression on Xiao You's face, Feng Qi reached out and pinched her nose, speaking gently:
"Xiao You, let's go home. I'll take you to eat something delicious."
As the words left his mouth, his telekinetic power lifted his body, and he flew straight toward the suspended space portal in the sky.
At that moment, the narrator's voice echoed in his mind:
[Why don't you take some of the local plants with you? The greenery here, though not very rich in spiritual energy, can still be considered spiritual plants. If you bring some back, it could offset the energy consumption of this trip, and you might even make a profit.]
Hearing the narrator's suggestion, Feng Qi paused in midair.
Without hesitation, he switched to his bone form.
His gaze shifted toward the swaying flowers, and his telekinetic power exploded.
Countless white and red flowers were uprooted from the ground below, gathering like a sea and flying upwards, following Feng Qi into the space portal.
At that moment, in the Energy Research Institute.
Silver Bell, who had been observing the space portal, suddenly noticed a change in the numbers displayed on the space compass. She immediately looked up toward the space portal, her expression turning surprised.
Countless flower petals surged from the portal, sweeping toward the lab like a tidal wave, and in the blink of an eye, the experiment square was submerged in a sea of flowers.
At the same time, Feng Qi, carrying Xiao You, emerged from the portal.
...
The next day, at the Crimson Research Institute.
Xiao You, with a clueless expression, was bound to the operating table, her big eyes blinking sadly, her cheeks constantly changing shape as Wei Wei rubbed them.
"Wei Jie, stop messing with Xiao You. Let's start the operation already," Feng Qi said.
Wei Wei rolled her eyes upon hearing this:
"She's too nervous right now. I'm just helping her relax her muscles."
Feng Qi: ...
He could tell that Xiao You was only getting more nervous, and there was no sign of her relaxing.
After a long while, the memory implantation experiment began.
The memory information had already been edited by Wei Wei, removing memories of him growing old and even dying.
These memories had caused Xiao You endless pain in the past, almost leading her to choose self-destruction.
Out of selfishness, Feng Qi hoped that the Xiao You returning would be carefree.
There was no need for memories tied to pain to remain.
During the procedure, Feng Qi sat quietly in the corner, watching in silence.
He felt both anticipation and a bit of nervousness.
The memory implantation procedure seemed incredibly long, and every second felt extremely clear.
After being injected with an anesthetic, Xiao You had fallen into a deep sleep.
Time passed slowly.
Xiao You's operation took an incredibly long time.
A whole day passed, and Wei Wei was still busy monitoring Xiao You's physical data.
The memory needles had been injected three times, and the procedure was still not complete.
The complexity of the process was greater than when Lin Ran underwent memory implantation.
This was due to the depth of Xiao You's memories.
Xiao You had spent more than a century together with him on the Divine Ascension Journey.
That century's worth of memories were far more than Lin Ran's.
Therefore, several injections were needed, and during the procedure, Xiao You was also injected with nutrients to keep her body in a stable state.
Several hours later, the machines on the operating table stopped, and Wei Wei took off her mask and pressed the shutdown button.
Instantly, the bandages binding Xiao You automatically loosened and retracted into the grooves on either side of the operating table.
The operation was complete, but the anesthetic still hadn't worn off, so Xiao You had not woken up yet.
Feng Qi stood up and walked to the operating table.
At that moment, Xiao You was sleeping soundly, her mouth slightly open, breathing evenly, with a bit of crystal-like sheen at the corner of her mouth.
After observing Xiao You for a moment, Feng Qi turned his head and asked Wei Wei:
"Wei Jie, how long until Xiao You wakes up?"
"Based on her physical condition, it should take about three more hours. No need to rush. With all the updates and improvements from so many timelines, the memory implantation technology is now very mature. The operation was very successful. We just need to wait for Xiao You to wake up."
After hearing Wei Wei's answer, Feng Qi nodded seriously.
His gaze shifted back to Xiao You, and he stood quietly by, waiting.
Three hours later, Xiao You's eyelids fluttered, and then she slowly opened her eyes.
The confusion in her gaze gradually faded.
She blinked twice, then slowly stood up from the operating table.
Looking down at her body, Xiao You's expression turned confused. She seemed a bit dazed about why, after a nap, she had become slightly shorter.
After a brief moment of confusion, she looked up at Feng Qi standing before her.
Their gazes met, and Xiao You placed her hands on her hips, a proud smile on her face:
"Ah, Boss! Xiao You is suddenly hungry. I want to eat roasted meat!"