"This time, everyone did quite well. Those of you who failed, take this as a warning. Your college life shouldn't be such a mess." The counselor lectured from the front.
Zhu Zhengwei continued attending classes during the day, occasionally checking on the sights within the world.
He concealed his aura, covered the tear mole with concealer, and tried to maintain the same daily routine as before.
Of course, he also kept searching for all kinds of animals during his spare time, pulling them into his dreams and logging them into his "Biological Root Database."
Sometimes, he could go very far.
To the zoo in the neighboring city, where there were lions, tigers, wolves, and bears.
As for these more distant animals, Zhu Zhengwei only pulled them in and logged them into the database once, then logged them into the "Biological Gene Atlas," leaving behind their real genetic data and making them part of the world's source code.
As for capturing them and making them permanent residents of the Servers?
How much computing power could an animal's brain provide?
He might as well find a few more classmates who had failed and let them exercise their brains.
Thinking of it this way, simply collecting various entries without capturing them was practically playing Pokémon.
That afternoon, Zhu Zhengwei planned to leave the city again.
He wasn't merely planning to collect some animals along the way. He also wanted to finally carry out an idea he'd had before: visit Zhujing Village in the real world and take a look at his real-world parents and eldest brother. His third brother had been born in the dream, so he probably didn't exist in reality.
After all, although he had been abandoned as a child, they were connected by blood.
After thinking it over, he put on a mask and baseball cap, leaving the tear mole covered by concealer, and headed for Zhujing Village.
Zhujing Village.
Plants grew all around the old buildings and houses.
In recent years, this had become a village of those left behind, practically half-deserted.
Shancheng City wasn't a major city to begin with, and its population had suffered severe losses. Even many able-bodied adults from Shancheng City had gone to other provinces to work, let alone this remote mountain village. Only a dozen or so households remained at the village entrance, all occupied by elderly people left behind.
The golden afternoon sunlight quietly shone over the land, filling it with serenity.
Several professors got out of a sedan, their expressions growing complicated as they looked at everything.
"Grandpa, take it slowly."
Amid the calls, a beautiful girl supported an old man as he slowly got out of the car.
Zheng Linshou looked at the familiar buildings. Scattered, fragmented memories surged through his mind. "So many years have passed, yet everything in Mr. Zhang Zhi's village remains the same. As his students, we've come back to pay our respects."
Another elderly professor's eyes were filled with deep remembrance. "Yes. The buildings are exactly the same, but they've become weathered. Some have even collapsed."
"Grandpa, have you been here before? I've never heard you mention it." Zheng Weiwei supported the old man, her curiosity piqued.
She had grown up listening to her grandfather's stories, but she had never heard him mention this place.
Although they had all been born locally in Shancheng City and had visited most of the nearby villages, they had passed through Zhujing Village several times without ever hearing her grandfather mention any connection to it.
Professor Zheng said, "It was only these past few days. I happened to hear some interesting things outside the academy—a city legend about a man with a tear mole. Only then did I gradually recall some memories from my youth. Or perhaps, for some inexplicable reason, my mind, which had nearly slipped into senility, suddenly became much clearer these past few days. I remembered that we were Mr. Zhang Zhi's students and had come back from the brink of death. I suppose it was a final rally."
Their sudden mental clarity was due to their brains having been exercised through mining. As for the events occurring in their Local Area Network, it seemed that some of them had leaked into reality.
"When people grow old, they always like to reminisce. They can't help recalling memories buried in the past." The old man smiled, a trace of remembrance in his eyes. "When the three of us were middle-aged, we were sent to the countryside as educated youths against our will. We formed a connection here and took a local senior as our teacher, so we came back for a look."
Their memories were very scattered.
They carefully pondered and recalled things over and over, eventually rationalizing some contradictory memories along with their subconscious minds.
It seemed that, due to some unforeseen circumstances, some Root Dreams from their "Rational World" had leaked into reality. They could no longer distinguish certain fragments of dreams from reality.
"Yes, he was a teacher worthy of our respect. Unfortunately, we followed him for only a little over ten years before he drove us away, sending us back to the city."
One of the old men said, "After we severed ties, we never contacted each other again. We don't know what happened here afterward."
"Huh?"
Zheng Weiwei was puzzled.
She had never imagined that there was such a hidden past.
Her grandfather was a renowned professor in the field of chemistry across the country, with immense contributions to chemical engineering. His disciples taught at universities everywhere, and many students in related majors could be considered his grand-disciples. It was only after retiring in recent years that he had returned to Mountain City University to spend his twilight years.
She grew curious about exactly what kind of person this elderly gentleman was, someone even her grandfather revered.
That era had been chaotic. She had heard that many extraordinary people had appeared, along with all kinds of disorderly events. When educated youths were sent to the countryside, it always felt as though countless stories must have taken place.
"Grandpa, I've never heard you mention any of this. You have to tell me!" Zheng Weiwei had a sweet smile as she supported her grandfather forward.
The elderly men walked along, gazing at the village with eyes full of memories.
Some of the paths had become completely overgrown. Zheng Weiwei picked up a machete and hacked away the brambles and weeds ahead, barely clearing a way through.
They crossed a stone bridge covered in moss and raised their heads to look toward a mountain.
The mountain peak was still lush and green, just as it had been back then.
Zheng Linshou sighed inwardly and pointed toward the mountain path. "I remember that our teacher took us up the mountain almost every year to visit a recluse."
"We still remember that gentleman who lived in seclusion on the mountain. He even tested our knowledge. We were fools and couldn't answer a single question, which was terribly embarrassing. That's why we later became so strict with our own students."
"Almost every year, our teacher took us up to pay our respects. For the next decade or so, every time we came back down the mountain, we were both delighted and dejected, constantly caught between hope and disappointment."
"Until that year, when our teacher suddenly became ecstatic and laughed like a madman."
"Our teacher had become younger. I'll never forget the sight that day. It was dusk, there was Rosy Cloud Qi in the mountains, and birds were flying in every direction."
As the old man spoke, Zheng Weiwei felt as though a sealed story in his life were slowly being unveiled, revealing the most profound years of his life.
"After a few years, we all realized it completely. Our teacher had obtained the Way, and his other students began coveting it. He noticed something strange about us and gradually distanced himself from us. That year, we were forced to go our separate ways."
"That year, we went our separate ways. What year was it again?" an old man beside him suddenly asked.
"Yes, yes... Huh? I don't remember."
"I only remember that on the day our teacher drove us away, the children in the village were watching the 1986 version of Journey to the West."
"Then, judging from the standard of living at the time, the year our teacher drove us away was probably sometime in the 1980s or 1990s."
"So that's how it was. Our teacher drove us away around the 1990s. In the blink of an eye, two or three decades have passed. We old men are already in our seventies or eighties. Perhaps we don't have many years left."
"I wonder whether we'll be able to meet our teacher again in this lifetime."
The old men discussed the timeline as they walked along the stone path. Their conversation weighed on Zheng Weiwei's heart. At first, she thought nothing of it, but the more she listened, the stranger it felt.
Rosy Cloud Qi.
Becoming younger.
A mysterious figure in the mountains during the 1980s or 1990s!
A mysterious, unknown feeling swept toward her, filling the history student Zheng Weiwei with curiosity. She knew that these elderly men were extremely knowledgeable.
If even these old men felt such deep emotion over their years in Zhujing Village, then it was surely not as simple as it seemed.
"Grandpa, how could you not remember the exact time?" Zheng Weiwei asked tentatively.
"Yes, why can't we remember? It was the happiest thing in our lives, yet we simply can't recall it. Deep in our memories, there always seems to be a voice making us forget. Perhaps our teacher did something. For us back then, perhaps some things were better left forgotten."
Her grandfather kept walking, muttering to himself.
"In my eyes, our teacher was practically a sage of ancient times, a great scholar who could comprehend heaven and earth. Yet he was always following in his elder brother's footsteps. We often wondered what kind of person his elder brother must have been."
"We also wondered whether following that person's shadow all the time had been too exhausting. But..." At that moment, the old man seemed less like a learned professor and more like an old man looking back on a life half-wasted. He sighed helplessly. "Later, our teacher achieved his wish. We were driven away, but we were glad that he had obtained what he wanted."
"Dear granddaughter, this isn't a story. It really happened two or three decades ago."
Zheng Linshou's heart seemed to return to that incredible period in the mountain village, when he had followed that admirable man everywhere, learning all kinds of knowledge.
As his body gradually aged over the years, he came to understand his teacher's feelings more and more.
It was the fear of death.
If one had never seen it, one would never be afraid. But once one had seen hope, seen that indifferent figure living in seclusion among the mountains, how could one possibly give it up?
He had been the same, and the teacher who had been born into that family and watched that man grow up had been even more so. That man had practically become the teacher's lifelong obsession. Yet in the end, the teacher had succeeded.
"I wonder where our teacher is now." He gazed at the mountain and spoke involuntarily.
"Perhaps he went abroad."
"Or perhaps he's living in seclusion in a mountain village, somewhere on another mountain."
The two elderly companions spoke one after another.
"Perhaps he has already died of old age?" Zheng Weiwei asked softly.
After all, judging by the timeline, her grandfather was already over seventy. His teacher had to be at least ninety or even a hundred.
"Nonsense!! Our teacher had already set foot on that path. How could he possibly leave this world before a few old men like us?" The old man shook his head with a laugh as he continued through the mountain wilderness.
That path?
What exactly did that mean?
Zheng Weiwei was dumbfounded.
This was superstition. Could it be that the old men had all become senile?
But she still held them in awe and didn't dare ask recklessly, afraid of making the elderly men angry again.
At their age, getting angry could lead to serious trouble.
Forget it!
I'll endure it!
They reached their destination.
Broken walls and ruins stood where a derelict house had once been.
No one had lived there for a long time. Moss and weeds covered everything.
Along the way, the old men had described what had happened in every building. Their memories were so vivid that Zheng Weiwei became completely certain her grandfather really had lived in Zhujing Village for a time.
At last, the old man stroked the red-lacquered door from the past, the former residence where his teacher had grown up and where they had once paid their respects. "I wonder where our teacher has gone now. He eventually became an immortal and left us behind. He must have lived a spectacular life, right? I still remember that our teacher had a habit of keeping a diary."
An immortal?
Zheng Weiwei's pupils widened.
But Zheng Weiwei didn't dare ask more. She continued supporting her grandfather as they walked on.
After passing the house and reaching the backyard, they unexpectedly found three graves piled together.
"The parents and eldest brother in the real world had already..." A tall, upright young man stood before the graves. He wore a baseball cap and mask, quietly lowering his head as he placed fruit before them.
The old man leaned on his cane and suddenly began trembling all over. He stretched out a finger, and the tangled emotions of the passing years surged into his heart. Tears unconsciously welled in his eyes. "You! You!!!"
The man slowly turned his head. A tear mole rested at the corner of his eye.
Before you continue