Sai'en's fervor exceeded Su Zui's expectations. For an entire day, he kept pestering Su Zui with questions.
It was only after night fell that Su Zui finally got a chance to rest.
"Phew... I've been busy all day. It's finally over!"
Although Su Zui was deeply moved by Sai'en's dedication, he still had to complain.
This Deacon Sai'en was a truly fervent intellectual. Su Zui had spoken to him for at least twelve hours, and his throat was practically smoking.
Su Zui lay sprawled on the big bed like a salted fish, clutching his wine gourd and taking great gulps.
Only after drinking two or three jin of grape wine in a row did he close his eyes in satisfaction.
After Su Zui fell asleep, the Healing and Blood-Replenishing Grape Wine continued to repair his body.
A ceaseless stream of vitality flowed from the wine, constantly nourishing every inch of Su Zui's body, every cell.
When Su Zui woke up the next morning, he could feel that his body had returned to its peak condition.
After Su Zui finished washing up, a Spirit Hall staff member promptly knocked on his door and brought him a lavish breakfast.
The breakfast was full of local character, with a strong Barak flavor.
The main course was baked beef with caramelized onions and corn tortillas.
This was no ordinary beef. It came from a herd of Hundred-Year Earth-Splitting Bulls specially raised in Suotuo City. The meat was springy and chewy, without a hint of dryness.
Since the beef came from Hundred-Year Soul Beasts, it naturally contained a considerable amount of Soul Power and vitality. It was also a specialty of Suotuo City, and its price was naturally steep.
A single jin of beef was worth several thousand Gold Soul Coins. One bite cost an ordinary Soul Master several years' wages.
Had Su Zui not been an honored guest today, Sai'en would never have been willing to serve such a premium ingredient.
Beside the baked beef was a vegetable and fruit salad to cut through the richness, with a few sprigs of Blue Silver Grass on the plate as garnish.
The final dessert, however, gave Su Zui something of a surprise.
The dessert looked like an ordinary cheese pudding, but to Su Zui's surprise, it actually contained Snowdrift Flowers.
These flowers were ice-attribute Soul Beasts. With Snowdrift Flowers added, the pudding actually had the texture of ice cream.
If the chef who made the dessert had been there, Su Zui would definitely have rewarded him with a bag of Gold Soul Coins. He might even have imitated the young masters in books, clapping his hands and shouting, "Fine work! You deserve a reward!"
Still, Su Zui only entertained those thoughts in his head. If he actually put them into practice, that would be a little too extravagant.
After breakfast, Su Zui found himself somewhat troubled.
He figured there was a ninety percent chance that Sai'en would definitely come back to discuss that high school political studies knowledge with him again.
It wasn't that Su Zui was unwilling to teach Sai'en. It was just that, for Su Zui, who was still a high school student in mental age, transmigrating to the Douluo Continent only to teach an old man high school political studies was enough to make his scalp tingle.
Especially since the old man was so eager to learn that he would sit there for hours at a time.
Just yesterday afternoon, Su Zui had even had a nightmare.
He had dreamed that he was back in his own world, in his familiar high school classroom.
What terrified Su Zui most was that his political studies teacher had unmistakably acquired Sai'en's face.
It could be said that Su Zui had been scared awake.
In psychology, there was something called Murphy's Law. It roughly meant that when you were extremely afraid or fearful of something happening, it would often happen.
Su Zui was just about to go out for some fresh air when he opened the door and saw Sai'en's rather apprehensive face.
The old man, who was past sixty, was looking at Su Zui with pleading eyes like a primary school student who had done something wrong.
Even though Su Zui had a hundred reasons to send the old man away, such as falsely claiming he was tired and needed rest today, or simply using his status as an offering to force the old man to leave,
looking into his eyes, Su Zui still respectfully invited him into the room.
For a moment, Su Zui felt that there was a light in the old man's eyes, a light that seemed capable of piercing through time and space.
Across the vast world and the countless long rivers of history, so many such lights had shone through the ages, eternal and undying.
That light was called hope.
After another full day, Su Zui saw Sai'en off.
This time, he didn't collapse onto the bed. Instead, he sat upright on the sofa, reflecting on his experiences over the past two days.
This was the first time an elder had treated Su Zui as a peer or a teacher.
It was a very novel feeling. After all, in the past, everyone had always treated Su Zui as a child.
Even Hu Liena treated Su Zui as a little brother who needed looking after, often scooping him up and carrying him away.
As for Sister Xue and Sister Pope, that went without saying. In their eyes, Su Zui was an oversized body pillow.
In such an environment, Su Zui naturally saw himself as a child too.
Even when Su Zui proposed establishing the Law Enforcement Department, he was classified as a child prodigy. In the end, he had never escaped the category of "child."
But before Sai'en, Su Zui felt for the first time that he really had grown up.
As it turned out, the knowledge he had brought really could influence the balance of power across the entire continent, and the principles he had proposed for the Law Enforcement Department had genuinely benefited the people of the Douluo Continent.
Something called a sense of responsibility took root in Su Zui's heart.
But Su Zui was also thinking about something else, something that left him a little uneasy.
"Sigh, I wonder if bringing all those ideas and knowledge to the Douluo Continent will hasten the coming of war."
In fact, back when the Spirit Hall's Law Enforcement Department was first established, Su Zui had already sensed the smell of gunpowder filling the entire Douluo Continent.
The Heaven Dou Empire and the Star Luo Empire had fiercely resisted the establishment of the Law Enforcement Department.
Both countries were textbook examples of feudal dynasties, whereas the principles of the Spirit Hall's Law Enforcement Department belonged to a new era. Whether the offender was an ordinary Soul Master or a noble Soul Master, Spirit Hall arrested them all the same.
It was a conflict at the level of their underlying code. If Grandpa Qian hadn't paid the two emperors a visit that night, war would likely have broken out then and there.
The book Su Zui subsequently compiled from his previous life's textbooks could even be called a dragon-slaying art for feudal dynasties.
Set against the present-day, rotten Douluo Continent, those thoughts and ideas were nothing less than a strike from a higher dimension.
Su Zui had always known that his Sister Pope was an enormously ambitious politician, and to her, that book was like a dragon-slaying manual delivered to a dragon-slaying warrior.
War was inevitable.
Su Zui only hoped that it would come a little later.
Ideally, it would wait until he and Sister Xue had broken through to Limit Douluo, so that the four Limit Douluo could directly carry out a decapitation and infiltration plan against the two empires.
They could bring the two empires under control in one stroke without having to wage a large-scale war.
At that thought, Su Zui's desire for power reached its peak once again.
In the end, I'm still too weak. I really don't have much time left!