016 Spirit Drawing

The sky was still pale when Lin An didn't return to the company.

He rushed home, glanced around furtively as if he had a guilty conscience, then pressed his face against the peephole of the security door to look outside.

Finally, he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

He casually placed his laptop backpack on a table nearby and, unable to wait any longer, supported himself with his hands on the floor and struck the pose of the 'Spirit Cat Body Stretching Skill' as taught by Doctor Zhang, pursing his lips to feel the sensation carefully.

When Doctor Zhang was guiding him, there was a special circumstance he did not mention. Once he fully entered the state of the 'Spirit Cat Body Stretching Skill', he inexplicably felt a strange liquid swaying inside his body.

The sensation was fleeting, and Lin An did not act rashly.

Instead, he hurried home, again assuming the stretching posture of a cat, recalling the image of the little deer leaping off the rocks, and quickly entered that mysteriously agile state once more.

Whoosh~

Whoosh~

It's really there!

He slowly closed his eyes and carefully felt the strange sensation as if water in a cup were swaying, and, following Doctor Zhang's guidance, gently twisted his spine.

With his eyes closed, the field of vision was pitch black, yet there was an inexplicable light—a nebulous glow with a hint of dark gold.

He had no idea how much time had passed when Lin An suddenly saw a pool of dark gold liquid floating in the void, as if splashed by the tidal waves of the ocean.

The dark gold liquid, carrying a chilly aura, was restless amidst the coolness.

What is this...

It must be the blood of the dark gold statue of Suxin, the female software company CEO!

Or could it be said—this was a part of Suxin's spirit?

Or was it the power of some form of witchcraft?

Regardless of its nature, it seemed to be lying quietly in some corner of his body. Now, however, it was being stimulated by the 'Spirit Cat Body Stretching Skill' or perhaps the 'Deer Play Breathing Technique', and it began to sway rapidly.

It lifted high waves, hitting the banks that Lin An could not feel, splashing a large amount of nebulous dark gold mist.

This mist seemed to be dissipating.

Lin An could feel it slowly moisturizing every part of his body, like soil absorbing rainwater or the stomach digesting food.

What was going on?

What was the use of all this?

Lin An didn't know; he didn't feel any change in himself.

He slowly opened his eyes, and suddenly countless indistinct visions appeared before him.

"Hiss~"

There were heads bleeding terribly...

There were deer in dark gold flames...

And even more things that although he saw, he immediately forgot and couldn't recall, bustling around him, creating quite a lively scene.

These hallucinations all stared at him quietly, and then quickly faded away.

"These..."

Lin An blinked, "are all my spirit?"

It turns out that a person's spirit is not unique, taking on many forms. Reflecting on it, this seemed right—human hearts are fickle, a mix of good and evil, constantly changing with time and circumstances; there could not be a constant.

He didn't know whether his ability to glimpse into the spirit was considered a type of transcendent power.

It seemed that after entering the state of 'Deer Play Breathing Technique,' these spiritual hallucinations disappeared.

Yet when he touched the magic of the Wizard, it became more complex. Sometimes these disappeared too, and other times they were exceptionally clear.

"That being said..."

Lin An pondered, raising an eyebrow, "The Witch-hunting Knight's Breathing Skill seems more suitable for me!"

He wasn't asking for much, just the ability to freely control and shut off that hallucinatory ability.

Not only did these hallucinations cause him great trouble in his life, sometimes they might even harm him, like the time he was in the car with the young boss who turned into a massive lion, almost squashing him into a pancake.

But then, the Witch-hunting Knight's Breathing Skill didn't seem so easy to practice either.

He remembered Professor Cao's chastisement for his opportunistic, incorrect methods, and learning just to be lonely? Suggesting that he should observe the agility of cats more, instead of coordinating with the agility of the Deer Play?

"Cat..."

He couldn't help but think of that huge black cat in the office again.

Lin An was full of initiative and once more assumed the position of the 'Spirit Cat Body Stretching Skill,' coordinated with the 'Deer Play Breathing Technique,' but instead of thinking about the drawing of the deer leaping down from the rocks, his mind was filled with the image of the black cat in the office.

Unfortunately, it just wasn't possible.

"Give me back my eyes, give me back my eyes~~~" An ugly head was hopping around next to him, making Lin An feels a wave of irritation.

He rolled over from the 'cat stretching' position to lie on the ground and turned his head to look at the head, "Tell me, why doesn't it work?"

"How would I know!" The head shook, splattering blood everywhere.

Indeed.

It was truly mad to ask such a head.

He carefully recollected all the details, and finally his eyes lit up.

"Do you think it could be because my memory is three-dimensional and then the portrait is two-dimensional?"

"I don't know." The head shook again; it seemed to have discovered a new amusement, hopping around the room and flinging its hair, splashing blood everywhere.

Lin An paid no attention to it, flipped over, and got up from the ground. He moved swiftly to the large desk, grabbed a sheet of paper meant for learning to draw, and took up a pencil to prepare to draw the black cat.

As he was about to start, he didn't know where to begin.

"Memory can deceive you!"

He realized he actually didn't know the details of the black cat's physique. Maybe it was like that in his memory, but when he really tried to draw it, he found those memories to be so vague.

This was a very unique discovery.

It turns out we really don't observe everything around us that carefully.

Lin An carefully recalled everyone he had encountered in life, colleagues, the junior boss, Professor Cao, Doctor Zhang, Suxin the software company female boss...

He could recall each one of these people, but when asked to articulate each physical trait, he found he couldn't describe them at all.

For example, the software company female boss Suxin, what was her body proportion like, what was the proportion of her head to her body, even the face of this close contact matron seemed extremely vague.

He only remembered her phoenix eyes and lips painted with dark red lipstick, nothing more.

If he thought carefully, he could also recall her twinkling, delicate long earrings.

That's all.

Unless there was a photograph, but these hallucinations couldn't be captured in photos; they didn't truly exist, and even Lin An wouldn't see them in a mirror reflection.

"There's always a way!"

Lin An thought for a moment, kicked off his shoes and squatted on the chair, trying to enter a state using this distorted version of the 'Spirit Cat Spinal Stretching Technique.'

Soon, he felt that pool of dark gold spiritual blood again.

He remembered, when he first absorbed this spiritual blood, all his memory, thinking ability, and everything else became extremely powerful, which is how he quickly mastered the 'Deer Play Breathing Skill.'

Lin An had evidently found the right method.

Feeling the sway of the dark golden light within him, the cool yet restless breath filled the air and the black cat in his mind suddenly became clear, especially that curious baby-like charm; he grasped it all at once.

Not only that, but the dark gold force was at work, and he found himself involuntarily moving his arms and wrist, sketching bit by bit on the paper.

His ability to draw was truly poor, but at that moment, he was not troubled by that.

Lin An felt like he had fallen into some sort of marvelous sensation.

It was as if the whole world had become blurry, and the only things clear to him were that black cat seen through his misty, dark gold eyes and the paper in front of him.

The tip of the pen moved bit by bit on the paper in his hands.

He couldn't even feel the passage of time, completely lost in a unique, trance-like sensation.

Golden light spilled through the window; time had quietly moved into the evening.

Lin An, with his eyes vacant and not focusing anywhere, half-squatted on the chair, silently drawing, with only the sound of the pen scratching across the paper remaining in his ears.

He did not see that it had actually turned night outside the window.

The dark golden light that flew in through the window was like a gigantic hand tearing the curtain of the sky, revealing a world of dark gold, where in the midst of the dark gold mist, a pair of eyes, a hand, appeared now and then.

Clearly, without realizing it, he had entered the state of performing witchcraft like a wizard.

Spirit surged.