Lesson One: Matter and Energy

By noon, Hui looked like he hadn't slept well, but was still full of energy as he led Amber toward the dining table.

"Meow~ Let me sleep a little longer," Amber said, her ears drooping.

"Amber, thanks for helping me yesterday. Father made a meal especially to your liking today." Hui rubbed her cheeks as he spoke.

"Meow! Where is it? Where?" Amber perked up at once and dashed toward her Secret Grilled Fish.

"Haha! Amber, didn't you say you wanted to sleep some more?" Hui burst out laughing.

After the meal, Hui and Chuanhe sat facing each other. "Are you ready? Class is about to begin," Chuanhe said with a slight smile.

Hui, fully prepared, raised his right hand and said, "I'm ready!"

"Then follow my train of thought as I explain why chakra is matter."

"At first, I was just like you. I had no doubts about the statement that chakra was formed by mixing spiritual energy and life energy in equal proportions. Then one day, I thought of kinetic energy. I wrote those three kinds of 'energy' on the same piece of paper, and no matter how I looked at them, something seemed off."

"This question bothered me for a long time. Then one day, I went over energy conversions again using the methods of physics."

Chuanhe tore a page from Hui's notebook, crumpled it into a ball, and dropped it onto the table. Then he looked at Hui and asked, "Based on what I taught you before, tell me how the energy of this paper ball changes during the process."

Hui was silent for a moment, then said, "Gravitational potential energy turns into kinetic energy. When it lands on the table, the kinetic energy turns into internal energy in the table and the paper ball."

"Perfect! Now think about this: what is energy in this process?" Chuanhe asked.

This time, Hui couldn't answer. He couldn't understand what his father was asking at all.

"Father, why make this so complicated? Why not just tell me the definitions of matter and energy?" Hui asked, voicing his confusion.

"Haha! It's precisely because you can't understand them that way that this has to be so complicated," Chuanhe said with a hearty laugh.

"Why? If you don't tell me, how can you know I won't understand the definitions?" Hui was even more confused.

"I can only tell you one definition. I've forgotten the definition of matter."

"Energy is a measure of the degree to which the spatiotemporal distribution of mass can change. That's a relatively concise description. So, do you understand what energy is?" Chuanhe asked, watching Hui with an amused expression.

Hui furrowed his brow, but for a long time, he couldn't grasp it. He understood every word, so why couldn't he make sense of what energy was when they were put together?

"Didn't understand? Do you need me to say it again?" Chuanhe asked. Hui remained silent.

"Do you know why you don't understand what this definition is saying?" Chuanhe asked again.

Hui's little head was full of questions. What was Father talking about? After struggling for a while, Hui's brain finally kicked back into gear.

At that moment, he really wanted to go back to yesterday and tell his father that all he actually liked was using skills to smash his opponents to death.

"I don't know." After a long silence, those were the only words Hui could manage.

"Calm yourself and think carefully. Why don't you understand that sentence?" Chuanhe said, ignoring Hui's embarrassment.

Minute by minute, time passed. Hui went from avoiding the question to facing it directly. After a few minutes, he finally spoke.

"It's because I don't understand what mass, time, and space are," Hui said with absolute certainty.

Chuanhe smiled and nodded. "Exactly. Unfortunately, I only remember the definition of energy. It would be best to take your time and work through the rest of the questions."

"I don't remember the definition of each one, but I do remember how matter, energy, time, and space are defined—or, more accurately, described. Each of the four descriptions includes at least one of the other three. That means trying to understand these abstract concepts through definitions is like the question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. You end up trapped in an endless loop."

"That's why you can't understand energy through its definition." Chuanhe took a sip of tea.

"But if I can't understand it through a definition, what other way is there?"

"I already showed you." Chuanhe pointed to the paper ball on the table.

Minute by minute, time passed again. Chuanhe drank his tea and watched Hui repeatedly pick up and drop the paper ball. He didn't interrupt, just watched in silence, hoping Hui would come up with the answer he wanted.

Hui fell into deep thought, repeatedly dropping the paper ball. Then he stopped experimenting and began to think quietly.

"Does energy seem not to exist? No, it isn't matter? No..." Hui began saying things that sounded completely illogical. But Chuanhe understood that Hui had probably grasped it already; he just needed one final push.

Hui finished his answer and looked nervously at his father. He wondered if he was too stupid and had disappointed him.

"Hui, you already understand. You just need time to sort out your confused thoughts."

"Take the games you used to enjoy as an example. Think of matter as equipment, and energy as the equipment's attributes. It doesn't exist as a real 'physical object.' Instead, it exists by depending on matter."

After Chuanhe said this, Hui seemed to have a sudden breakthrough. He gained a whole new understanding of energy. While Hui was still mulling over what he'd just thought through, Chuanhe continued.

"Remember the writing I taught you when you used to play ninja games? (Chinese) Even after figuring this out, I still felt something was missing, as though one last layer of mist stood between me and understanding energy."

Chuanhe wrote the words "energy (Chinese)" in Hui's notebook.

"In the end, I understood energy through language. The world really is amazing."

"Energy—if you quantify 'can,' you get energy. (Chinese)"

"Here, 'can' means both possibility and ability. So, can you understand what energy is now?"

"I don't know who translated this word, or whether it was already there. That doesn't matter. It fits remarkably well," Chuanhe said with a sigh of admiration.

Hui looked at the words on the page: "Energy is a measure of the degree to which the spatiotemporal distribution of mass can change." At last, he understood them. He also understood why chakra wasn't energy.

A sense of accomplishment from deep within enveloped Hui.

After savoring the moment, he turned to Chuanhe, excitement in his voice. "Father, I understand!"

Then he asked another question. "I understand energy now. Father, what are matter and spacetime?"

Chuanhe answered helplessly, "As I said earlier, my understanding of matter isn't as deep as my understanding of energy. I can only give you an answer that has some problems, but it should be enough for now. As for spacetime, that's for a later lesson. I won't cover it today. You can't absorb too much at once."

"Everything you see, hear, smell, touch, or perceive through any other sense is matter."

"That answer only describes a subset, and the description itself has problems. We'll discuss it again when you encounter a real example."

"All right, that's it for today's lesson. You still have your schoolwork to finish, and I have things to take care of, so I'll leave you to it."

Hui took his notebook back to his room, still feeling a little dazed. He felt as if his brain might not be up to the task today. After finishing his homework and eating dinner, he went to bed early.

That night, Hui dreamed of all sorts of strange and bizarre things.

After Hui fell asleep, a white snake darted out from a corner.

"Has the thing I wanted arrived?" Chuanhe asked without looking up, still inscribing a Flame Explosion Talisman.

"Of course, Chuanhe," the white snake said, speaking in human language. It spat out a scroll.

Chuanhe didn't mind the slime on it. He opened the storage scroll and inspected its contents, then nodded with satisfaction. "Everything's in order. You can go."

The white snake didn't leave. "Chuanhe, not paying me would go against my principles." It flicked its scarlet tongue.

"Payment? You've already been paid. I didn't give that lesson for free." Chuanhe ignored the white snake, used Water Release to wash his hands, and continued inscribing the Flame Explosion Talisman.

"Heh, Chuanhe. You're clearly not as simple as you seem. Can you explain what the last two lines of the coded text mean?" The white snake flicked its tongue.

"I can't explain that to you. If it could be explained, it wouldn't be coded text. I've run out of gamma material. Bring me more next time. Today's payment has already been made," Chuanhe said calmly.

The white snake's voice turned cold, but it didn't argue. "As expected of you, Chuanhe. You're the same as always. When do you plan to act?"

"It's not a question of when I plan to act, but when they plan to act. It should be soon, probably in about a year and a half," Chuanhe said after a pause.

"Heh, then I'll await good news. Until we meet again. I'll deliver the materials you asked for in a month." With that, the white snake vanished in a puff of smoke.

Chuanhe acted as if he hadn't seen a thing and continued working on his Flame Explosion Talismans.