Wasn't Leonardo da Vinci a Painter?

Early the next morning, the morning mist had yet to disperse from the campus of Jiangcheng No. 7 High School.

Li Dong and Liu Liang each wolfed down two large meat buns in the cafeteria before heading together toward the Senior Three Class 2 building.

All the way there, Li Dong held a mandatory high school Chinese textbook in his hand, muttering as he walked.

"Riding a small boat like a leaf, raising a gourd cup to toast one another. I entrust mayflies to heaven and earth, a mere grain in the vast sea. I mourn the briefness of my life, and envy the endlessness of the Yangtze River..."

He recited it with perfect rhythm and flow.

Meanwhile, Liu Liang, walking beside him with an English vocabulary book in hand, was muttering like he had gone mad.

"Abandon, give up, a-b-a-n-d-o-n, give up... abnormal, unusual, a-b-n-o-r-m-a-l, unusual..."

Such a sight was extremely rare at No. 7 High School.

Most of the students here only talked about which class had the prettiest girls or which internet café was cheaper for an overnight session.

Talking about studying? Were they insane?

Liu Liang used to belong to that majority too. But ever since Li Dong's forceful rise, he had been deeply provoked, and the competitive fire in his heart had been thoroughly ignited.

Just then, a crisp female voice called out to Li Dong.

"Li Dong."

Li Dong was reciting Ode to the Red Cliffs. Hearing someone call him, he did not even pause before smoothly continuing.

"Traveling with flying immortals, embracing the bright moon for eternity... Huh?"

He turned around and discovered that the person standing at the stairway was Mi Xia.

Mi Xia wore a neat, high ponytail today, and her fair face was slightly flushed.

She glanced at Li Dong and asked softly.

"Li Dong, the thing you promised me yesterday... can you come to my house this week?"

Silence.

Liu Liang's jaw dropped.

This week... come to my house... can you?

What kind of wild line was that?!

Li Dong, however, did not think anything was strange. What he was thinking was...

I'm about to have twenty thousand yuan. Do I still need to earn tutoring money?

He rubbed his chin.

But on second thought, he had indeed promised her yesterday, and Mi Xia had not said how much she would pay per lesson.

He could just tutor one session first and test the waters. If they could not agree on a price, he simply would not go next time.

"Sure."

"Send me the address this weekend."

"Mm, okay!" Mi Xia heaved a sigh of relief when she saw him agree.

In truth, she had been feeling anxious all along. She knew Li Dong should be very busy now; after all, he had entered the finals of the physics competition in first place.

He'll probably be attending intensive training next, right? I didn't expect him to still be willing to make time to tutor me... At that thought, Mi Xia's face inexplicably reddened.

In fact, not many people at No. 7 High School had paid attention to Li Dong's victory in the physics competition.

For some reason, the school had yet to officially announce the good news. Perhaps it had some other plans.

So Mi Xia had not known at first either.

It was not until last night, when her academic-achiever younger brother—who attended Jiangcheng No. 6 High School as a first-year student and had always been "someone else's child"—suddenly called her and asked.

"Sis, is that monster called Li Dong from your school? Do you know him? He's incredible! In this Huaxuan Cup physics competition, he crushed the upperclassmen from our No. 6 High School and the top students from Tianli High School! Even those freaks from Chengdu No. 7 High School got stomped by him!"

Only then did Mi Xia truly realize what Li Dong's "first place" actually meant.

So after receiving Li Dong's affirmative answer, she was truly delighted. She nodded at him, then quickly turned and disappeared around the end of the corridor.

Once Mi Xia's figure had completely vanished, Liu Liang finally could not hold it in any longer.

He hooked an arm around Li Dong's neck and shook him wildly.

"Dongzi! You bastard! You never told me getting good grades could help you hook up with Mi Xia! You've already gotten to the point of going to her house?!"

Li Dong rolled his eyes from the chokehold, shoved him away, and shot him an annoyed glance.

"Hook up with Mi Xia, Mi Dong, whatever? I'm only going if she pays me!"

After hearing that, Liu Liang was completely thrown into disarray.

He stood there blankly, watching Li Dong's retreating back.

What?

Mi Xia asked you to go to her house, and she was even paying you?!

No... Li Dong, what kind of job do you even have now? Is it legitimate?

Liu Liang roared internally.

A full day of classes flew by.

Li Dong now hardly needed to listen during math, physics, and chemistry. He devoted all his energy to rote memorization for Chinese and English.

With his 0.2 memory attribute, he force-fed ancient poetry, classical prose, and difficult grammar patterns into his brain.

Before school let out that afternoon, Old Yang called Li Dong into the corridor.

"Li Dong, the official notice for the next round is here." Excitement colored Old Yang's voice.

"The finals have been set for three weeks from now."

"The venue is Shanghai."

As one of the country's top semiconductor equipment giants, Huaxuan Technology had its headquarters in Shanghai's Zhangjiang High-Tech Park.

Old Yang patted him on the shoulder.

"Prepare well on your own for these three weeks. If you need the school to cooperate with anything, just say so. Strive to bring back a first prize from Shanghai!"

First prize!

The school had promised him before that if he won first prize, not only would all his senior-year school fees be waived, but he would also receive an additional ten-thousand-yuan scholarship! Added to the twenty thousand yuan for advancing through the previous round, that would be a full thirty thousand yuan!

"Don't worry, Teacher Yang. I'll be completely prepared!" Li Dong said firmly.

But after Old Yang left, Li Dong began to worry again.

"When I went to Chengdu for the previous round, I had just promised my mom that I wouldn't take part in any competitions that didn't add points to the college entrance exam."

"And now, not only do I have to participate, I have to go all the way to Shanghai..."

Li Dong scratched his head.

"But counting the time, the twenty-thousand-yuan prize money from the previous round should have arrived in three weeks."

"If I slap twenty thousand yuan down in front of Mom then, she should be much easier to talk to, right?"

After all, there was nothing in this world that a stack of cash could not solve. If there was, then two stacks would solve it.

"Bzz bzz."

The phone in his pocket suddenly vibrated.

Li Dong took it out and saw a notification from the Azure Dragon Study Group.

Someone had sent a red packet!

[Leonardo da Vinci has sent an exclusive red packet]

Li Dong's eyes immediately widened.

Leonardo da Vinci?!

Only then did he remember that, in order to help Dmitri Mendeleev save face, he had previously sent a set of materials about aircraft principles based on Preliminary Exploration of Heavier-than-Air Aircraft Design to the group.

At the time, Leonardo da Vinci had been so excited that he said he would richly reward him if the information proved workable.

Sending a red packet now meant that this Renaissance-era universal genius had surely drawn something extraordinary in his blueprints!

Li Dong was delighted, but he also had some doubts.

"What can Leonardo da Vinci give me? He wouldn't send me a painting- or sculpture-related skill, would he?"

"But I'm not taking the arts-track route!"

Though he complained inwardly, Li Dong's hands were anything but slow.

[You have received Leonardo da Vinci's generous reward]

To Li Dong's surprise, what he received had absolutely nothing to do with art!

[Passive Skill Obtained: Light-and-Shadow Insight (Basic Version)]

Li Dong was utterly confused.

"Light-and-Shadow Insight? What does Leonardo da Vinci have to do with optics?"

To ordinary people, Leonardo da Vinci was the peerless painter who created Mona Lisa and The Last Supper.

But many people did not know that, as one of the most terrifying polymaths in human history,

Leonardo da Vinci had observed the phenomenon of light interference more than a century before Newton!

The famous principle of pinhole imaging, the refraction of light through different media, and the physiological structure behind visual image formation in the human eye had all been documented in detail in his manuscripts.

[Description: A gift across time from a Renaissance polymath.]

[In an age when most people saw only colors, he had already perceived the refraction and diffraction of light through anatomy and geometry.]

[Effect: From now on, you can capture interference fringes, diffraction limits, and the physical essence of interwoven light and shadow like a master painter.]

After reading the description, Li Dong felt a sudden coolness in his eyes.

He raised his head and looked at the setting sun slanting in from the end of the corridor.

In that instant, the once ordinary sunlight appeared in his eyes as though it had been split apart by a prism.

Li Dong took a deep breath, his heartbeat accelerating.

"Holy shit... this skill..."

Combined with the "Two-Beam Interference Lithography" he had written about in the experimental question during the previous round, and now with this [Light-and-Shadow Insight],

he was practically cheating when it came to optical physics!

The Shanghai finals, right?

Ten thousand yuan, right?