Chapter Six: Not a Genius?

After being unconscious for so many days, Jiang Jingzhu wasn’t actually sleepy at all; she merely didn’t want to trouble her family’s concern, so she obediently closed her eyes.

Moreover, she wanted to speed up her recovery, so she regulated her breathing and began practicing the familiar Yuan Nourishing technique she had mastered.

This nameless Taoist method had come to her by fate in her previous life. Orphaned from birth, she cherished everything she had and followed the principle of not wasting what was given, so she learned it diligently.

This technique was absolutely safe and aimed to cultivate a kind of vital energy called “Yuan Qi” by regulating inner breath and outer exhalation, driving out evil and strengthening the body.

She persisted for a long time without feeling any extraordinary effects at first, but over time, she could clearly sense her body becoming healthier, rarely falling ill, and having more energy than ordinary people, which helped her recover from the fatigue of studying more quickly and effectively.

From a traditional Chinese medicine perspective, it meant her vital energy was abundant and well-nourished.

At that time, she couldn’t afford to be sick; she needed abundant energy to study intensively and change her destiny. This method was a great support, so she persevered.

In her past life, this practice helped her get through military training and daily exercises with ease, and eventually, it became second nature to her.

Perhaps it was an instinctual habit formed in her subconscious. From the moment she was born this time, she continued the habit of regularly calming her mind and steadying her breath.

Maybe her newborn body was pure enough that the practice truly generated a warm current, circulating through her system. Thanks to this subconscious nurturing, she became a famously healthy baby in an era when infant mortality was high.

Jiang Jingzhu gave this warm current a childish yet somewhat dramatic name: “Divine Yuan,” precisely defining it as a fusion of essence, energy, spirit, and vital qi.

Later, as she grew, she realized she had unknowingly captured the frequency of the Taoist innate breath. Since it benefited the body, she taught it to her family.

Her family’s results mirrored her past life, mainly showing improvements in physical health.

With long-term persistence, her parents recovered from chronic ailments of earlier years, her eldest sister felt refreshed and energetic, recovering from childbirth faster than other mothers, and her two brothers grew stronger, taller, and more agile.

It was all beneficial, so the whole family continued to practice regularly under her guidance. With limited access to medicine and medical care, they treasured whatever could strengthen their bodies.

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Since she could recognize all characters and read independently from a young age, Jiang Jingzhu loved reading all sorts of books. It was instinctive and a conscious effort to obtain knowledge from limited sources.

She read her siblings’ textbooks, borrowed books from the corps’ reading room, borrowed from brothers and sisters... and even some old, discarded books she had scavenged from the scrap recycling station. Her family only assumed she stumbled upon these books by chance and never questioned her about their origins.

Who doesn’t dream of becoming a martial arts master? Her two older brothers once even scavenged the commune and county scrap stations, hoping to find a martial arts manual to become great fighters. But that dream was dashed, as they found nothing.

Their rise was swift, and their fall was just as quick. In the end, the brothers had to obediently learn the basic boxing and grappling techniques their father had learned in the army and follow the corps’ daily physical training, laying a solid foundation for the eldest brother’s enlistment.

As Jiang Jingzhu’s Divine Yuan circulated within her, nourishing her body and accelerating her recovery, her consciousness once again sank into the depths of her mental sea beneath the starry sky.

Just now, as she was eager to awaken, her consciousness seemed to undergo a significant change—too sudden for her to fully grasp.

Why had she been unconsciously trapped here for so many days?

For some inexplicable reason, she just knew she was trapped!

Why was she so certain? Because she was smart! She had been praised for her intelligence all her life, so she had some confidence in that.

Her perception was correct—this was her mental sea, but where was her memory palace?

Everyone said she was a smart child with an excellent memory, able to remember things at a glance. Wasn’t that a basic trait?

She had a secret: inside her mind was a library-like palace with many bookshelves where every book she had read was stored as a volume of memory.

Sometimes, she could glimpse faint, mist-shrouded books high on the shelves, too blurry to see clearly.

At first, she thought they were just unnecessary structures she had added when building the palace. But sometimes she dreamed of things she couldn’t quite understand at the time.

The memory palace technique was trained during her early childhood, around two or three years old, when she recognized most common characters and could read fluently, gained through dream-like training.

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She had even used this method to teach her siblings, but only her eldest sister and two brothers showed some improvement in memory, each with different focuses. None reached her level of a fully formed memory library, readily accessible and capable of extension and inference.

She thought it was simply because she was more receptive to this training method; after all, it originated from her, so she was naturally more adaptable. She never boasted about this small skill; everyone in the family knew she had always had a good memory and was a naturally excellent student.

Now she understood: those indistinct, misty books on the higher shelves were actually her sealed memories from a past life—books she had read, information she had browsed, knowledge she had studied—organized and categorized.

That immense memory, too vast for a newborn’s developing brain, had been temporarily sealed deep in her mental sea due to childhood or temporal transitions.

Her memory palace was a continuation and evolution of deliberate training from her previous life.

Occasional inspirations in her dreams were subconscious reflections of the knowledge she had once learned.

Oh, so being a smart child was a misconception; she wasn’t a genius after all!

But that didn’t matter. If her mind wasn’t naturally brilliant, she’d make up for it with hard work. She could do it!

That wouldn’t stop her from becoming a useful person who fulfilled her parents’ strong patriotic hopes and served her country well. Of course, whether in this life or the last, her love for her homeland was deep and passionate. She wished for her country’s eternal peace, abundant harvests, and flourishing prosperity!

May the rivers and mountains be embroidered with splendor, and starlight shine upon every home!

This life, she had a much stronger physical foundation than before, innate potential for scientific research, and the aid of past-life memories. Broad knowledge was also a strength, wasn’t it?

Having gone from an orphan to a happy family, and known as the especially cherished eldest daughter of the northeast in her previous life’s online tales, this reincarnation skill was perfect! She was determined to achieve something great and become a source of pride for her beloved family!