Attempt

"Bang!"

Jiang Hengshan's body flew out like a cannonball, slammed heavily into the wall, then slid down and crashed to the floor. The lime-plastered wall cracked on the spot, sending stone chips flying.

"Pfft!"

Jiang Hengshan, sprawled on the floor, opened his mouth and spat out a mouthful of bright-red blood.

He struggled, trying to climb back up, but the slightest movement brought pain beyond what his nerves could endure. It felt as though all the strength had been torn from his body, making him collapse to the floor again, his face deathly pale and his entire body icy cold.

"Baili Qingfeng... I hate..."

Jiang Hengshan let out a roar of unwillingness.

When his voice faded, so did his breath.

"Phew!"

Baili Qingfeng let out a long sigh of relief.

He glanced at a smashed cabinet. Three or four pistols had slid out from inside, with more than a dozen bullets scattered here and there. Every one of them was a lethal weapon capable of easily taking a person's life.

Fortunately, he had been cautious and struck first, killing all five one after another before they had a chance to draw their guns. Otherwise...

Who would have ended up dead was still anyone's guess.

Getting shot a few times would have hurt quite a bit.

"They're finally dead."

Baili Qingfeng sat down on a nearby sofa and rested for a moment.

Several corpses lay in the room, which made him feel somewhat uncomfortable.

But after a while, his expression had already hardened.

"Everything I did was for self-preservation! Jiang Hengshan kept firearms hidden at home, so he must have been utterly vicious. On top of that, the Jiang Family Three had a reputation in Sumen City... They were practically the underground emperors. How could an ordinary citizen like me, a Xia'er University student who had only just reached adulthood, possibly match wits and courage with them? They kept pressing me relentlessly and refused to let up, so I had no choice but to kill all three members of the Jiang Family."

Thinking of the Jiang Family's tyranny, his actions could even be considered ridding the people of a scourge.

After resting for a while, Baili Qingfeng's gaze fell on the more than ten stacks of hundred-yuan bills on the table.

Each stack held ten thousand yuan. There were eighteen stacks in total, amounting to one hundred and eighty thousand.

"Jiang Hengshan hired assassins to kill me, nearly costing me my life and causing me immense mental trauma. It's already nine or ten at night, yet I still came all the way from Xia'er City to Sumen City, without even having time for dinner. I'll just treat this money as their compensation for my mental distress."

Baili Qingfeng collected the money.

Eighteen stacks of bills were inconvenient to carry. He needed to find a box; if there was no box, a bag would do.

Thus, he walked toward a room that seemed to be a bedroom.

After searching for a while, he found not only a safe but also a vault.

The vault was one meter tall, built into the wall and connected to the foundation. It was extraordinarily sturdy.

Baili Qingfeng turned around and searched Jiang Hengshan's body for a moment. He soon found a key, inserted it, and turned it...

"Click."

It opened.

The vault had three levels.

The first level held some worthless books, notebooks, and discs.

The second level contained diamond jewelry and similar items, along with a pistol made of gold.

The third level...

Was piled high with stacks of banknotes, their blue-green color dazzling to the eyes. Baili Qingfeng counted roughly and found around eighty stacks.

"..."

Baili Qingfeng's gaze lingered on the piles of banknotes before he said, "By the time I've eaten, it'll probably be after ten. I won't be able to return today, so I'll likely have to spend the entire night in Sumen City. That means I'll fall behind in my studies by one night. To prevent my grades from dropping, I'll have to buy more exercise books and study materials to catch up. So this money can count as compensation for the books I need to buy."

Baili Qingfeng opened the vault and began placing the money inside the chest, one stack at a time.

There were eighty-six stacks of banknotes in the vault. Together with the one hundred and eighty thousand outside, that made one million and forty thousand yuan in total. The chest was just large enough to hold it all.

One million and forty thousand was quite a lot...

But knowledge was priceless.

Looked at that way, it was nothing much after all.

After packing the one million and forty thousand yuan away and stuffing the scattered hundred-yuan bills into his pockets, Baili Qingfeng left the courtyard.

Before leaving, he also locked the iron gate for them, so no one would see it open and wander into the courtyard, disturbing the dead.

Carrying the chest, Baili Qingfeng ate dinner at a late-night food stall. The owner had a taste for strong flavors, and the food was somewhat spicy. Baili Qingfeng ate only a little before checking into a hotel not far from the stall.

The night passed peacefully, aside from answering a few phone calls.

He was able to sleep soundly without worrying about suddenly being shot by someone from the shadows.

The next morning, after eating a basket of steamed buns, Baili Qingfeng went to Sumen City's bus station and took a coach back to the University City in Xia'er City.

Xia'er City had been in an uproar a while back because of the Aurora Empire's consulate, but the storm had now completely died down. The city had returned to its former tranquility and peace.

And this kind of life...

Was exactly what he wanted.

When he arrived at the house he rented, Baili Qingfeng discovered that the corpse in the Small Woods had already been cleared away, saving him some trouble.

Francolin had been an assassin from the underground world, a wanted criminal with a certain degree of notoriety in the Xia Kingdom. After his corpse was discovered, Baili Qingfeng had no idea who would benefit from it and get promoted and receive a raise.

After putting the chest of money beneath his bed, Baili Qingfeng took out one stack and headed to the computer mall, spending a full five thousand yuan to assemble a computer.

The computer's specifications were not particularly advanced. The main reason was that such things were considered high-tech products at present, so their prices were high to begin with.

After spending five thousand yuan, he also had to pay for a broadband connection, making the miscellaneous expenses quite considerable.

In the end, while passing a bookstore, he also bought more than a hundred yuan's worth of books.

Since he had said he would study hard, he naturally kept his word.

Baili Qingfeng opened the books, took out his notebook, and studied patiently.

Electric charge and electric fields, electric potential, electric fields in conductors, electric current, magnetic fields, electromagnetic induction, Maxwell's equations, and electromagnetic waves...

The atoms that made up matter themselves contained charged particles.

Positively charged protons and uncharged neutrons formed the atomic nucleus, while negatively charged electrons existed outside it. The number of positive charges in the nucleus equaled the number of negative charges in the electrons, causing the atom to appear electrically neutral at relatively distant positions from the outside world.

Because of the factor of distance, electrons were easily affected by external forces and could break away from their atoms. When two objects rubbed against each other, some electrons that were not bound tightly enough would transfer from one object to the other. Thus, the originally electrically neutral object became negatively charged after gaining electrons, while the object that lost electrons became positively charged. This was triboelectric charging.

Electric charge could transfer, but it could not disappear. During the process of transfer, the amount of charge remained unchanged. This was the law of conservation of electric charge.

"Elementary charge..."

After studying for a while, Baili Qingfeng said, "The Thunder Sovereign's method of Spirit Refinement Manifestation is to visualize the Ancient Thunder Beast, then use Nine Heavens Thundering to intimidate the soul. When I visualize the Ancient Thunder Beast, my own life form and spiritual form will be influenced by it, so my electric potential difference should change as well... If I can perfectly master this change, I'll be able to control the current output through changes in electric potential difference. That way, I won't need to buy eight or ten resistors and carefully divert the electricity every time I cultivate..."

Baili Qingfeng had always been a man of action.

Measuring electric potential difference was simple.

Baili Qingfeng bought a metal ball, a metal rod, a pointer...

Before long...

A simple pointer electroscope was completed.