Can Researcher's Business Be Called Molestation?

Wang Qi hurried back to the dormitory, filled with boundless sympathy for Zhen Chanzi.

The Yao Ding Suanjing would be of enormous help to him. As a modern cultivation method, both the total amount of spiritual power it could provide and its recovery speed were beyond anything the Daluo Hundiantianjing could match. Though the Yao Ding Suanjing held no particular advantage in any specific field, when it came purely to computational ability, it absolutely stood supreme through all ages!

On Earth, scientists had always called mathematics "the queen of sciences." Without mathematics, no research of any kind could proceed.

Without Fourier transforms or calculus, how could one gain a foothold in electromagnetism?

Without Taylor series expansions or genetic algorithms, one could not even study genetics.

Without mathematical modeling, no mechanics research could be carried out.

Therefore, when choosing a cultivation method, Wang Qi had chosen the Yao Ding Suanjing first. No matter what he switched to cultivate in the future, the Yao Ding Suanjing would remain useful.

Thinking of this, his mood greatly improved. He strode quickly to his room, intending to sleep first and begin cultivating tomorrow.

Just as he reached his door, he stopped, because he could clearly hear what seemed to be voices inside.

An illusion?

Wang Qi pressed his ear to the door. This time, he heard it even more clearly. It was unmistakably the sound of a girl humming. Her voice was warm and soft, sweet enough to make one melt, and exceptionally pleasant to hear. Wang Qi took two steps back and looked up at the room number. Geng 414—no mistake. He rubbed his eyes again, confirming that he had not misread it.

"Blind student, you've discovered the highlight." Wang Qi muttered a joke only he understood as he pushed open the door.

Having ruled out the possibility that he had taken a wrong turn, and being certain he had not ordered any special services, only two possibilities remained.

First, the girl humming inside had entered the wrong room.

Second, a thief had set her sights on him.

He would set the first possibility aside for now. If it was the second, then this was simply delightful news. He had to give her credit for having the nerve to sneak into the Immortal Alliance's territory to steal things, but for her to come to a dormitory area inhabited at most by mid-stage Qi Refining disciples, this thief must have been doing terribly—well, humming while on the job showed an utter lack of professional ethics!

Dealing with a pretty female thief was exactly the sort of delightful development one found in novels! At that thought, a wicked—or rather, lecherous—smile crept onto Wang Qi's face.

Unfortunately, Wang Qi did not share these thoughts with Zhen Chanzi. Otherwise, the old man in the ring would have mocked Wang Qi's crooked train of thought at once.

Besides, it had to be said that Zhen Chanzi, reduced from a lofty Mahayana cultivator to an item whose sole purpose was making snide remarks, was indeed worthy of sympathy.

After pushing open the door, the first person Wang Qi saw was the girl who had been humming. He froze for a moment, then could not help muttering, "Brother Heavenly Dao... I finally understand your preferences..."

First, the girl's hair color was bizarre. The humans of Divine Land all looked like Asians from Earth, though there were quite a few "ethnic minorities" with different skin colors, so hair and eye color were not the sole criteria. But vivid orange hair like this girl's had far exceeded the bounds of humanity. Yet that orange hair looked extraordinarily natural, nothing like the gaudy fashion of the cultivation world.

Furthermore, the girl had no ears on either side of her head. Instead, a pair of cat ears sat atop it.

Her slightly parted lips, as though the corners of her mouth could never close, and that voice with sugar content off the charts... Yes, this was an authentic cat-eared girl.

For a brief moment, he suspected she might be one of those legendary Transforming Demon Beasts. But a Transforming Demon Beast had to possess at least the realm equivalent to the ancient method's Divine Transformation or the modern method's Void Refinement. No matter how one thought about it, such a great demon would never break into the empty home of a Qi Refining cultivator.

However, Wang Qi forcibly suppressed his thoughts regarding the girl's identity. A curiosity born purely from academia took hold of him. To put it in the language of certain comics, he felt some switch within his body click on.

"May I touch your ears?"

"Huh?" Upon hearing Wang Qi enter, the girl had already put on a professional smile. But Wang Qi's words froze her expression in place.

"You're smiling, so that means you don't object?" Wang Qi was greatly excited. The physiological structure of such a bizarre creature was simply too fascinating. And the feel of touching them...

"Huh! Wait, meow! I... mmph, meow!" Only then did the girl react, loudly protesting. But Wang Qi was quick-eyed and quicker-handed, snatching hold of one of her ears.

Not bad at all!

Wang Qi inwardly cried out in delight. Something he had wanted to do since childhood in his previous life had actually been accomplished today!

As Wang Qi handled her ears, the girl's face grew redder and redder. She struggled desperately, trying to escape the villain tormenting her ears. But Wang Qi could tell that she possessed no spiritual power. Her strength was only around the Learning or Heaven-Reaching stage, nothing to fear. Unable to break free, the girl cried out anxiously, "Someone! Save... save me!"

The time for a classic line had arrived! Inspiration struck Wang Qi, and he "grinned viciously." "Scream! Scream until your throat breaks, and no one will come save you!"

Suddenly, Wang Qi felt a pain in his back. His body flew into the air and crashed toward the wall. Quick-eyed and quick-handed, Wang Qi thrust both palms against the wall, mitigating part of the force. He naturally exerted himself, dispersing the force across his body, then landed steadily on the ground.

Damn it, someone really came to save her after she screamed her throat out!

Cursing inwardly, Wang Qi turned around. He saw Xiang Qi shielding the cat-eared girl behind her, fury written across her face. "Wang Qi... I never thought you were this kind of person!"

"What kind of person?"

Xiang Qi pointed at Wang Qi's nose with one hand and angrily cursed, "You actually used force on a girl! Open molestation!"

Wang Qi's mouth twitched. "I just had never seen this young lady's... uh, ears be so unusual, so I wanted to touch them. How did that become molestation?"

"Even if she is a Half-Demon, she is still a citizen under the Immortal Alliance's rule! Could it be that you do not regard her as human?"

"So... I was merely curious and touched her ears. It isn't some terrible crime, is it..."

Su Junyu poked his head in through the doorway. Wearing a strange smile and an expression that said I understand, he said, "For Half-Demons, those ancestral traits are exactly what must not be touched."

"What is with that smile of yours, like we're fellow travelers?" Wang Qi's face stiffened. "And what is a Half-Demon?"

"A Half-Demon is the offspring born after a Transforming Demon Beast mates with a human," Zhen Chanzi explained in Wang Qi's mind. "For tens of thousands of years, the immortal path and the Demon Race have stood opposed. Neither the human nor demon races could tolerate them. But it seems things have changed now."

That was not scientific! Wang Qi looked at the cat-eared girl—frightening her into shrinking farther behind Xiang Qi—then asked, "Humans and demons can actually break through reproductive isolation through love? That feels so **."

Xiang Qi eyed him suspiciously. "You really have never seen a Half-Demon?" Wang Qi hurriedly shook his head. Xiang Qi then looked at the ring in Wang Qi's hand and asked, "Old man, didn't you tell him about Half-Demons?"

Zhen Chanzi laughed. "Ten thousand years ago, whenever cultivators encountered a Half-Demon, who among them would not cut one down with a single sword stroke?"

At the words "cut one down," the cat-eared girl's body trembled.

Xiang Qi patted her back and softly comforted her for a few moments. Su Junyu, meanwhile, carefully explained things to Wang Qi.

So-called "transformation" was a divine ability demons could learn after cultivating to a certain level. Without changing one's bloodline, this divine ability altered the body's bloodline structure, thereby changing one's form. In Earth's terminology, it meant changing the way DNA was expressed without rewriting the genes.

After the way DNA was expressed changed, the Demon Race's body became no different from that of a human, and the reproductive isolation between humans and demons temporarily disappeared. During that period, if a human and demon mated, there was a very small chance they would produce offspring. That was the original origin of Half-Demons. If a Half-Demon then had a child with a human, there was a fifty-percent chance that child would also be a Half-Demon.

When Half-Demon infants were born, they looked exactly like humans. Only around the age of twelve, after secondary sexual characteristics began to develop, would they gradually display different ancestral traits—the most common being hair color, ears, and tails.

It was worth mentioning that after cultivators from Spirit Beast Mountain, led by the True Person Tian Gu named Valier, deciphered this divine ability, they had once proposed giving Transforming Demon Beasts a new scientific name. The principle behind demon transformation was nearly identical to the principle by which caterpillars emerged from cocoons as butterflies. The only difference was that demons relied on spiritual power, while caterpillars relied on hormones.

Unfortunately, this suggestion, brimming with scientific rigor, was jointly rejected through earnest remonstrance by other Free and Unfettered Cultivators. Several Mahayana-level great demons who had originally enjoyed good relations with Spirit Beast Mountain also declared that if Spirit Beast Mountain dared use that term as academic terminology for the Demon Race, they would immediately turn hostile.

In short, thanks to those seniors' persistence, people today did not call transforming demons "perverted demons."

Wang Qi keenly caught the crucial point. "Wait, 'only appearing after secondary sexual characteristics begin developing'—that means..."

Su Junyu raised a thumb. "That's right! For Half-Demons, their ears and tails are, to humans..." As he spoke, he glanced at Xiang Qi's chest. "Ahem, somewhat regrettably..."

Xiang Qi summoned her Heavenly Order Sword Disc with a smile that did not reach her eyes. "Dead rich brat, come here. I promise not to beat you to death."

Wang Qi covered his face. At that moment, all he could think was: This time, I really screwed up...

After a round of explanations, the situation finally calmed down.

Xiang Qi summarized, "In other words, you, Wang Qi, because you had never seen a Half-Demon, acted out of curiosity and felt up this Half-Demon junior sister, Mao Zimiao, all over, openly molesting her."

Wang Qi's mouth twitched. "I reserve judgment on the openly molesting part..."

This was to satisfy curiosity! This was a scientific activity! Can a researcher's business be called molestation? Can it?

"Apologize, anyway."

Wang Qi honestly apologized to the girl named Mao Zimiao. Blushing, she hurriedly waved her hands. "It's fine, meow! Senior Brother, you also... didn't mean it, meow!"

"Uh, I've been meaning to ask since earlier... Is that inexplicable 'meow' a special sentence ending unique to Half-Demons?"

Mao Zimiao grew anxious and hurriedly waved her hands. "Of course not, meow! I... I just... meow... just..."

Xiang Qi came to her rescue. "It is a physiological instinct of Half-Demons. Demon beasts at the Core Formation stage can temper the Twelve Storied Tower and alter their throat structure, but Half-Demons cannot."

The girl blushed even more fiercely. "I... I really am not unable to control it, meow!"

The reason the Half-Demon girl had appeared in Wang Qi's room was because she wanted to accumulate "merit points." She had accepted an Immortal Alliance task to clean the dormitories before students moved in.

Immortal Alliance merit points were something like contribution points or credits. As long as one accumulated enough merit points, one could exchange them with the Immortal Alliance for anything one desired.

After every misunderstanding had been cleared up, Xiang Qi instructed Mao Zimiao to leave first, then looked at Wang Qi. "Your skills have improved. Have you decided on a cultivation method?"

Happy New Year, everyone!!!