Young People Should Believe in Science!

Young People Should Believe in Science!

Zheng Fa looked them over again and again, but still could not make heads or tails of them.

The sheets were covered in chaotic, irregular lines, as though they had been drawn at random.

If Gao Yuan had not said this thing was related to the Immortal Sect, Zheng Fa would have believed his little sister had drawn them.

"Where did you get these?"

He set down the patterns in his hand and asked Gao Yuan.

"My father gave them to me." Gao Yuan stared blankly at the ceiling, looking utterly disheartened.

"Your father said these were talismans?"

"Not my father. Didn't I tell you Seventh Young Master had five bookboys before us?" Gao Yuan explained to Zheng Fa. "These were drawn by the very first one."

"Where did he learn about them?"

"My father said it was not really a secret in the residence. They say Seventh Young Master, for some reason, clearly has the aptitude to cultivate immortality, yet cannot cultivate."

Though there were only the two of them in the room, Gao Yuan still unconsciously lowered his voice.

Zheng Fa recalled that Instructor Xu had inadvertently said something similar before.

"But Seventh Young Master has never accepted it. He spends all day reading books about talismans, spells, and such."

Zheng Fa pointed at the patterns on the white paper. "These?"

"Exactly! One of the previous bookboys secretly copied them down. I heard that because of this, Madam drove him out of the residence without mercy." Gao Yuan frowned. "If you ask me, copying this stuff is useless! Who could possibly understand it?"

Zheng Fa quite agreed with Gao Yuan.

Even though he already believed these ghostly scribbles truly had something to do with those so-called talismans.

No matter how he looked at them, however, he could not see anything special about the patterns.

"Your father could even get his hands on these?"

"In the entire Zhao Residence, how many people want to curry favor with Seventh Young Master? Feed a man what he likes, and even rats have rat paths. This stuff is not some great secret; it is only that nobody can understand it!"

Zheng Fa could not help sighing again. The Zhao Residence truly did have ties to the Immortal Sect. Gao Yuan made it sound easy, but outside the Zhao Residence, these few sheets of paper might be something ordinary people could never encounter in their entire lives.

He looked at the patterns a few more times and silently committed them to memory.

That night, he saw Gao Yuan poring over the sheets again in deep thought.

"Didn't you say you were done looking at them?"

"If I stop looking, then the bookboy position will really be gone!"

Gao Yuan gritted his teeth. Zheng Fa nodded, lay down on the bed, and drifted into sleep beneath the lamplight.

When he woke again, he had returned to the Modern World.

The sky outside had not yet fully brightened. It was only a little past five.

Zheng Fa hurriedly filled his stomach, did not even take his schoolbag, and headed outside toward the school grounds.

There were very few pedestrians on the streets. Only sanitation workers in orange-red vests swept up fallen leaves.

Within five hundred meters of Qingshui Middle School was a small park.

When Zheng Fa entered the park, he found quite a few people already doing morning exercises.

They were mostly elderly men and women. A youth like Zheng Fa entering the place drew many curious looks from the old men.

He found an open patch of ground and assumed the posture of the Pine Crane Stance.

With his breathing, a familiar current of heat surfaced within his body.

It worked!

Zheng Fa cheered inwardly, nearly losing the rhythm of his breathing.

He had long wanted to practice the Pine Crane Stance in the Modern World as well, to make up for the disadvantage of starting late.

But he had worried that the rules of the two worlds differed, that cultivation might be impossible in this world.

That was why he had rushed to the park so early in the morning to try it. He had not expected it to go so smoothly.

Suppressing the excitement in his heart, he gradually immersed himself in guiding the heat flow within his body.

Only after he finished his daily standing practice and felt hunger gnawing at his belly did he slowly exhale. A clear, graceful cry of a crane emerged from his mouth.

When he opened his eyes again, he saw a wrinkled face close before him, its eyes brimming with curiosity.

The man looked to be in his sixties. His little curls were completely white, and he wore an old-fashioned sleeveless undershirt, standing before Zheng Fa with his hands clasped behind his back.

Seeing him open his eyes, the old man gave an embarrassed smile and took a step back.

"You were... warming up your voice? Learning to sing?"

He asked curiously, apparently puzzled by Zheng Fa's strange final breath.

"Uh, exercising."

"Exercising?" The old man chuckled, twisting his body into the posture Zheng Fa had just used. "This can exercise your body?"

"I don't really understand it either. I just learned it randomly."

Zheng Fa could not explain the effects of his Pine Crane Stance.

Another world and all that was already sheer nonsense. If he started talking about an Immortal Sect inheritance—

This old man would probably send him straight to a psychiatric hospital.

"I think you have watched too many short videos. Those ancient martial arts breaking bricks, internal styles and external styles, they are all scams. If you want to exercise, nothing beats running! The crackdown has not been strict enough these past few years, or I tell you, every one of those masters would be locked up!" The old man gave his assessment with great seriousness, then looked Zheng Fa over. "You live nearby too? Qingshui Middle School?"

Zheng Fa immediately sensed something was off. This old man sounded like he was from the school.

"What class are you in?"

Zheng Fa hurriedly said, "I'm from the neighboring city. I'm just here visiting!"

With that, he turned and headed out of the park.

"Exercise is a good thing, but you can't learn just anything!" the old man continued shouting after him. "You're so young—you have to believe in science!"

Only after leaving the park did Zheng Fa wipe the sweat from his forehead and swear inwardly that he would never come to this park again.

After morning self-study ended, Zheng Fa held a meat bun bought from the cafeteria in one hand and used a pen in the other to draw back and forth across a sheet of scratch paper.

Before long, several patterns resembling balls of yarn appeared beneath his pen.

They were precisely the so-called "talismans" Gao Yuan had been studying earlier.

Zheng Fa had not examined them closely at the time. First, he had noticed Gao Yuan's nervousness. Over the past few days, Zheng Fa's martial arts progress had always been just a little faster than Gao Yuan's. The youth was shallow in calculation after all, and had already begun to distance himself in secret.

On the other hand, Zheng Fa harbored some wariness toward everyone in the Zhao Residence, including Gao Yuan.

Immortal Sect talismans sounded enticing, but clearly not everyone was qualified to see them.

Otherwise, why would Gao Yuan's father have tucked those sheets of paper into a food box?

Zheng Fa knew he did not have a steward father behind him like Gao Yuan did. Gao Yuan might be able to openly hold several sheets of paper and study them, but Zheng Fa did not know what consequences might follow if he showed too much interest in this stuff.

So he simply brought them to this world to study.

His memory was fairly good. After only a few glances, the patterns had been imprinted in his mind.

But the longer he looked, the more he understood Gao Yuan's despair—

No matter how he looked at them, there was simply no clue to be found.

"What are you looking at?"

Wang Chen suddenly poked his head out from behind Zheng Fa and stared at the scratch paper before him. He frowned as he examined it. "What is this? Are you going to do Mathematics competitions?"

"Mathematics competitions?"

"Yeah. If you're not doing Mathematics competitions, why are you looking at these geometric figures?"

Zheng Fa perked up. "You're saying these figures are related to Mathematics competitions?"

"I don't know. I've never attended competition training either, but I've seen practice problems written by competition students..." Wang Chen rubbed his chin and looked over the patterns again. "Yeah, exactly this feeling of wanting to puke the moment you see them, like you're starting to wonder whether your brainstem is missing."

(End of Chapter)