Chapter 826: A Bird Takes Shelter

“This matter is more complicated to explain than I imagined…” Di She said, touching his white hair after hearing, “Where should I start?”

Qi Xia paused for a moment and replied, “Start with yourself.”

Di She nodded. “You’re right… If I start with myself, then what I’m about to tell you is the original problem, and it’s also the second direction my teacher researched—how to allow a person to acquire multiple Xian Fa at the same time.”

Qi Xia nodded lightly.

“If I have to explain it…” Di She’s eyes flickered for a moment, “Because my body already carries Xian Fa, it’s hard to accommodate other Xian Fa. But some people are different. They became Sheng Xiao as ordinary humans, so to speak, they’re like blank paper. My teacher could draw any color on them, but I’m like a piece of deep blue paper—many colors just won’t show up on me.”

The others, except for Qi Xia, began to think it over.

Qi Xia sighed and said, “Since you’re ready to be open… there’s no need to lie now, right?”

“I… lied?”

“According to what you said, Tian She found that the eye transplanted into you had a low survival rate, so he tried many times and eventually got leverage on you.” Qi Xia said, “Is that the logical connection?”

“Yes.” Di She nodded. “Is there something wrong with that?”

Qi Xia sighed after hearing this and just stared at Di She in silence.

“I’ll be damned!” Qiao Jia Jin suddenly seemed to remember something. “That doesn’t add up. Did that Tian She guy really need to go through all that trouble to find your leverage?”

“So that’s what you’re thinking. You believe he could just read my mind directly.” Di She nodded. “Qi Xia, the ‘logical relationship’ is correct, but the ‘timing’ is wrong.”

“Oh?”

“If my teacher couldn’t find the perfect way to crack it on me, how could he have the ability to ‘read minds’?”

“So their abilities came later…”

At this point, Qi Xia slowly narrowed his eyes, sensing that an important condition might not hold up.

“That’s right. It’s because of the contributions from us monsters that my teacher could gain the abilities he wanted.” Di She said, then shook his head. “No, not just my teacher—all the higher-ups here are the same.”

“Then theoretically…” Qi Xia thought for a moment and continued, “You also have two abilities?”

“It’s quite a remarkable coincidence, really.” Di She said, “Originally, my Zhi Ai wasn’t this powerful. I needed prolonged contact to make someone start feeling sadness. But my teacher somehow found the previous owner of Zhi Ai, who had become a ‘native resident,’ and during the experiment on me, he transferred that person’s eye to me. That eye ended my inhuman torment.”

Qi Xia let out a cold laugh upon hearing this, having pretty much uncovered the truth.

“The previous owner?” Qiao Jia Jin frowned. “Is this thing hereditary?”

“Saying it’s ‘hereditary’ isn’t quite accurate.” Di She shook his head. “Although Xin Xiang Shi Cheng has been split into thousands, my teacher has done the statistics—the maximum number of Xian Fa that can appear in the same period is just over three thousand.”

“Xian Fa… over three thousand kinds…” Qi Xia murmured.

“Yes, and the way Xian Fa are acquired is different from what everyone imagines.”

“How is it different?” Chen Jun Nan asked.

“You all think Xian Fa is something hidden inside your bodies, waiting for some ‘trigger’ to manifest, right?” Di She asked.

Qi Xia shifted his gaze aside without speaking, while Chen Jun Nan nodded. “Everyone’s always thought that. What’s wrong with it?”

“It looks like the same effect, but there’s a slight difference.” Di She said, “All Xian Fa aren’t hidden inside people waiting to be discovered; they’re like birds in the sky.”

Chen Jun Nan clearly didn’t understand the metaphor. “Birds in the sky? What do you mean?”

“For example, suppose your Xian Fa trigger is ‘despair,’ but at the same moment, many people are in ‘despair.’ In that case, the Xian Fa is like a bird circling in the air—it will choose and fly to the owner it likes best. From then on, that owner possesses the Xian Fa born from despair. Does that make sense? It resides in your body, and ‘despair’ is its food, which it uses to activate through you.”

Di She’s explanation clearly surprised everyone, but upon reflection, it didn’t seem entirely absurd.

“As for the remaining people in ‘despair,’ they’re the ‘candidates’ for that bird.” Di She continued, “When its chosen owner becomes a native resident, or abandons it to become a Sheng Xiao, or disappears for various reasons, the bird will fly to a ‘candidate’ and make them the new Xian Fa inheritor. But keep in mind, everyone understands Xian Fa differently, so being a ‘candidate’ doesn’t mean they’re not powerful.”

Qi Xia nodded slightly after listening. “Is all this from your teacher’s research?”

“Yes, and I helped out a lot.” Di She nodded. “After all, I manage the largest bookstore here, so it’s easier for me to access materials and knowledge.”

“So…” Qi Xia looked at Di She’s body and said, “You said this eye happened to survive in you because your constitution is already Zhi Ai, and the only eye that survived came from the previous owner of Zhi Ai. That gave you a stronger Zhi Ai than before—now, just a brief touch makes people extremely sad.”

“Oh! You’re the one who puts it concisely.” Di She nodded. “But what I don’t understand is what you said—those people’s sadness comes from their own stories being truly heartbreaking.”

“Fine, I’ll take that as an admission.” Qi Xia said, “Let’s just call it a huge coincidence. After all, your teacher isn’t exactly normal, so we’ll count it as something that happened naturally.”

“It did happen naturally.” Di She said a bit irritably, “If he’d known the eye could survive in me, he wouldn’t have implanted it—he wanted to test more possibilities.”

“That makes sense.” Qi Xia nodded. “Then comes the most crucial question.”

“What? After all this, there’s still a crucial question?”

“Of course.” Qi Xia nodded. “Tell me, where are the ‘eyes’ on their bodies?”