Things Are Not What They Were, In the Mottled Ancient Village

"This time, everyone did pretty well on the exams. Those of you who failed, take heed—your college life shouldn't be so dissolute." The counselor lectured from the podium.

Zhu Zhengwei still attended classes during the day, occasionally glancing at the scenes within that world.

He concealed his aura, used concealer to hide that teardrop mole, and tried as much as possible to keep up his usual daily routine.

Of course, he also kept searching for various animals in his spare time, pulling them into the dream to log them into his "Biological Root Database."

Sometimes he could travel quite far.

To the zoo in the neighboring city—lions, tigers, wolves, bears.

As for those farther away, Zhu Zhengwei pulled them in just once to log them into the database, registering them in the "Biological Gene Atlas" to leave real genetic data and make them part of the world's foundational programs.

As for capturing them, keeping them as permanent server residents?

How much computing power could an animal's brain capacity provide?

He might as well find a few more failing students and get them to exercise their brains.

Thinking about it this way, just collecting various atlases without capturing anything was like playing Pokémon.

In the afternoon, Zhu Zhengwei planned to leave the city again.

Not just to collect some animals along the way, but also to fully follow through on a previous idea—to go to the real Zhujing Village and see 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, even though he had been abandoned as a child, blood ties still ran deep.

He thought it over, put on a mask and a baseball cap, exposed the teardrop mole covered by concealer, and headed for Zhujing Village.

Zhujing Village.

Old buildings and houses were overgrown with plants all around.

In recent years, this had become a left-behind village, nearly half abandoned.

Shancheng City wasn't a big city to begin with, and its population had been draining severely. Even in Shancheng, many able-bodied adults went to other provinces for work, let alone this remote mountain village. Only about a dozen households remained at the village entrance, all with elderly people left behind.

The golden afternoon sunlight quietly bathed the land in stillness.

Several professors got out of a sedan, their expressions complicated as they took in the scene.

"Grandfather, take it slow."

Accompanied by the call, a pretty girl helped an old man slowly step out of the car.

Zheng Linshou looked at the old buildings before him, fragmented and familiar memories surging into his mind. "So many years have passed, and Mr. Zhang Zhi's village is still the same. As his students, we've come back to visit."

Another old professor gazed with deep nostalgia. "Yes, the same buildings, but they're already weathered, and some have collapsed."

"Grandfather, have you been here before? I've never heard you mention it." Zheng Weiwei helped the old man and asked curiously.

She had grown up listening to her grandfather's stories, but had never heard of this place.

Although they were all born locally in Shancheng City and had visited most of the nearby villages, she had passed through Zhujing Village a few times but had never heard her grandfather mention any connection to it.

Professor Zheng said, "It was only these past few days, when I happened to hear some interesting stories outside the academy—an urban legend about a man with a teardrop mole—that I started to piece together some vague memories from my youth at night. Or maybe it's just that, suddenly and inexplicably these past few days, my mind, which was nearly senile, has cleared up quite a bit. I remembered that we were Mr. Zhang Zhi's students. It might be a final burst of clarity."

The sudden clarity of his mind was due to the brain being exercised by mining, and now, the events happening in their Local Area Network seemed to be leaking into reality.

"When people get old, they always like to reminisce. It made me think of dusty memories." The old man smiled, a trace of nostalgia showing. "The three of us, in our middle age, were forced to go to the countryside as educated youth. We had a connection here, took a local senior as our teacher, and came to take a look."

The memories were very fragmented.

They kept pondering, recalling, and eventually, with their subconscious, rationalized some contradictory memories.

It seemed that due to some accidental reason, some Root Dreams from their "Rational World" had leaked into reality, and they could no longer distinguish certain fragments of dreams and reality.

"Yes, he was a teacher worthy of respect. Unfortunately, we only followed him for a little over ten years before he drove us away, back to the city."

This old man said, "After cutting ties, we never saw each other again. What happened here later? We don't know."

"Ah?"

Zheng Weiwei was puzzled.

She never imagined there was such a hidden past.

Her grandfather was a nationally renowned professor in the field of chemistry, with immense contributions to the chemical industry. His disciples taught at universities everywhere, and many students in related fields could be considered his academic grandchildren. It was only in recent years, after retiring, that he returned to Mountain City University to spend his remaining years.

She was curious about who this old gentleman, whom even someone like her grandfather admired, could be.

That era was chaotic. She had heard there were many extraordinary people and strange scenes. The educated youth being sent to the countryside always seemed to give rise to many stories.

"Grandfather, I've never heard you talk about this! You have to tell me!" Zheng Weiwei's sweet talk flowed as she helped her grandfather walk forward.

The few old men walked along, their eyes filled with memory as they looked at the village.

Some paths were completely overgrown. Zheng Weiwei picked up a machete and hacked away some thorns and weeds ahead to barely open a way.

They crossed a stone bridge covered in moss, looked up, and saw a mountain.

That peak was still lush and green, just as it had been back then.

Zheng Linshou sighed with emotion, pointing at the mountain. "I remember that back then, the teacher took us up the mountain almost every year to visit a reclusive senior."

"We still remember that gentleman living in seclusion up the mountain. He tested our knowledge, and we were so foolish, unable to answer a single question, utterly embarrassed. After that, we were very strict with our own students."

"Almost every year, the teacher took us up the mountain to pay our respects. In the more than ten years that followed, every time we came down the mountain, we felt both joy and melancholy, torn between gain and loss."

"Until that year, the teacher suddenly went wild with joy, laughing like a madman."

"The teacher grew younger. I'll never forget that day's scene—it was dusk, with Rosy Cloud Qi in the mountains and flocks of birds flying in all directions."

As the old man spoke, Zheng Weiwei felt as though a sealed story on his person was being unveiled—a chapter from the deepest years of his life.

"A few years later, we all fully realized it: the teacher had obtained the Way. The other students grew covetous. The teacher sensed our strangeness 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?" Suddenly, another old man beside him asked.

"Right, right. Huh? I can't remember."

"I only remember that on the day the teacher drove us away, the village children were still watching the 1986 version of Journey to the West."

"Then the year the teacher drove us away, judging by the living standards I recall, it was probably the eighties or nineties."

"I see. The teacher drove us away around the nineties. In the blink of an eye, twenty or thirty years have passed. We old fellows are now seventy or eighty—maybe we don't have many years left."

"I wonder if I'll ever meet the master again in my lifetime."

These old men discussed the timeline as they walked along the stone path, talking among themselves. It landed on Zheng Weiwei's mind—at first she thought it was fine, but the more she listened, the more eerie it felt!

Rosy Cloud Qi.

Growing younger.

A mysterious figure in the mountains from the last century's eighties and nineties!

A strange, unknown sensation rushed at her, filling Zheng Weiwei, a history student, with intense curiosity. She knew these old men were exceptionally learned.

Even they felt such nostalgia for that time in Zhujing Village—it couldn't be simple.

"Grandpa, how could you not remember that specific period?" Zheng Weiwei probed cautiously.

"Yeah, how could I not remember? It was the happiest time of our lives. But I just can't recall it. There's always a voice in the depths of my memory that makes me forget it, as if the teacher tampered with it. For us back then, some things weren't worth remembering."

As her grandfather walked, he kept muttering under his breath.

"In my eyes, the teacher was already a figure comparable to the ancient sages and great scholars—someone who could order heaven and earth. But he was always chasing his elder brother's footsteps. We often wondered, what kind of person was that?"

"We also thought about whether the teacher was too tired, always chasing that person's shadow. But—" At this moment, the old man was no longer the erudite professor, but an old man looking back on half a wasted life, unable to stop himself from sighing: "Later, the teacher got what he wanted. We were driven away, but we were quite glad the teacher obtained what he sought."

"My dear granddaughter, this isn't a story—it's reality that happened twenty or thirty years ago."

Zheng Linshou's heart vaguely returned to that incredible mountain village time, when he followed that admirable figure everywhere, learning all kinds of knowledge.

The gradual decay of his body over the years had made him understand all the more the teacher's feelings back then.

It was the fear of death.

If you'd never seen it, you wouldn't be afraid. But having seen hope, having seen that tranquil figure living in seclusion in the mountains—how could you ever let it go?

He felt this way himself, and the teacher, who had grown up in that household and seen it from childhood, felt it even more. It had become the teacher's lifelong obsession, but in the end, the teacher succeeded.

"I wonder where the teacher is now?" He gazed at that mountain and couldn't help asking.

"Maybe he went abroad."

"Or perhaps he's living in seclusion in some mountain village, on some mountain." The two accompanying old men chimed in.

"Maybe he's already passed away from old age?" Zheng Weiwei ventured softly.

After all, counting the years, her grandfather was over seventy. His teacher would have to be at least ninety to a hundred.

"Nonsense!! The teacher has already stepped onto that path—how could he go before us old fellows?" The old man shook his head with a smile, continuing forward along the wilderness.

That path?

What on earth was it?

Zheng Weiwei's mind was blank.

This was superstition—probably these old men were just senile.

But she still held reverence for them and dared not ask recklessly, afraid of angering them again.

At their age, getting angry would be a big problem.

Forget it!

I'll hold it in!

They reached their destination.

Crumbling walls and broken tiles—it was already a ruined house.

No one had lived there for ages; moss and weeds were everywhere.

As they walked, the old man spoke of what had happened at every building here, each memory exceptionally vivid, making Zheng Weiwei fully certain that her grandfather had indeed lived in Zhujing Village for a time.

Finally, the old man caressed the red lacquered door from back then—this was the childhood home where he had once visited the teacher. "I wonder where the teacher has gone now? He finally became a long-lived one. After leaving us behind, his life must have been splendid, right? I still remember the teacher's habit of keeping a diary."

A long-lived one?

Zheng Weiwei's pupils dilated.

But she dared not ask more, continuing to support her grandfather as they walked.

They passed the house and reached the backyard, where three graves were piled up.

"His real parents and elder brother—they've long since..." And before the graves stood a young man with a straight, tall figure. He wore a cap and mask, quietly bowing his head as he offered up fruits.

The old man leaned on his cane, suddenly trembling all over. He raised a finger, and the surging emotions of years past flooded his heart, causing crystalline tears to flow unbidden from his eyes. "You! You!!!"

The man slowly turned his head, revealing a tear mole at the corner of his eye.