Flipping Through Books and a Big Yellow Dog

All right, that was only Shen Bing's long-term goal.

The world had its rules. Building a Quantum Teleportation Technology device wouldn't mean he could take on Ferrari and Boeing overnight. If he thought it would, his brain hadn't been enhanced—it had been kicked by a donkey.

Going after someone else's profits without the strength to back it up was asking to die.

He had to take things one step at a time.

He could only bring out a world-changing product once he had enough standing to influence the world. Otherwise, someone else would reap the rewards.

Shen Bing sat there in a daze, his mind racing...

Damn it. He was hungry again.

Shen Bing raised his eyes and found that the streetlights had already come on.

"Little Doudou, let's find something to eat." Shen Bing called to Little Doudou and left the rental apartment again.

Only a day had passed, but Shen Bing had changed enormously, both in spirit and in outlook. It might not show on the surface, but deep in his eyes lay the confidence of someone who could look down on the world.

Something strange happened at the University of Electronic Science and Technology's Library that day.

A student carried over stack after stack of books, found a corner, sat down, and began... flipping through them.

Yes, flipping through them.

One page... two pages...

He finished each book in minutes, then picked up the next.

Some thought he was looking for information. Others suspected he was trying to attract a beautiful woman's attention in an unusual way.

After all, one of the librarians was indeed beautiful—a recent graduate who had stayed on to work at the university.

But one person was convinced the guy had lost his mind. That person was Old Yang, Shen Bing's roommate.

And the guy in question was, of course, Shen Bing.

"Old Shen, you're almost done with university. What's the point of cramming now? Did that job application the other day hit you so hard you've decided to work your tail off?" Old Yang couldn't resist a few jabs when Shen Bing came back with another stack of books.

The kid had to be here to annoy people. Every half hour, he brought over a stack, then returned it, as if the whole thing were a game.

And what kind of books was he picking up?

Pharmacology, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Compendium of Materia Medica.

What was all that about? He studied computer science, for crying out loud.

He had once sworn he would become the father of the next generation of computing.

There had to be a limit to how far he could stray from his field.

Shen Bing suddenly said in a mysterious tone, "Old Yang, last night an old beggar stopped me and handed me a secret manual. He said..."

"Did he say the Buddha's Palm manual was only ten yuan, and that saving the world was up to you? Old Shen, that joke's ancient."

Shen Bing gave Old Yang a look reserved for idiots. "When did I say that? The manual contained a medicinal formula. The old man said that if I made it, it could make animals smarter."

"And turn them into spirits, too? Don't do anything rash. Animals haven't been allowed to turn into spirits since the founding of the country..."

Looking at Old Yang's nervous face, Shen Bing remembered that his roommate was no bookworm. The bastard deserved an Oscar.

Shen Bing stopped bantering with Old Yang and returned to his great book-flipping endeavor.

By the end of the day—an ordinary day to everyone else—Shen Bing felt he could pass a pharmacist's exam without breaking a sweat.

How many pharmacists could recite over a thousand books on medicine by heart? More importantly, there was no repeated material among those books.

Shen Bing hadn't made the decision on a whim. It had taken him two.

He had transferred the Intelligence Potion formula out of the Gate to the Immortal Realm. This time, the technology transfer was free.

Normally, transferring a technology cost as much as the item itself. But because the Intelligence Potion formula was incomplete, its transfer fee was only one percent of its price.

The system had been generous about that: it had waived the 0.01 Immortal Jade fee outright.

Unfortunately, he knew next to nothing about medicine, so he had no choice but to bury himself in N/A Library books.

Three days later, Shen Bing's once-tidy rental apartment looked like a kennel. Chinese medicinal herbs, dried grass, crucibles, and other things littered the floor. There was also a dog and a cat.

He slumped into a chair, exhausted, dialed a familiar number, and put the phone to his ear.

"Dad..."

"Out of money again, kid?"

"Dad, can we have one pleasant conversation? Why do you bring up money every time I call?"

"Am I wrong?"

"Uh... usually, maybe. But not this time..."

"Fine. If you don't need money, I'm hanging up. You never have anything important to say anyway..." Beep. Beep. Beep.

Shen Bing stared at the phone, dumbfounded. What kind of unreliable father did that? He was definitely his dad, all right.

“Hmph. So you're ignoring me? Let's see who can hold out longer.” Shen Bing grinned smugly. He had always come off worse against his father growing up. At last, he had a chance to get even.

Shen Bing took out his phone and pointed it at Big Yellow, the dog.

“Big Yellow, bring me the remote.”

“Woof, woof...” Big Yellow trotted over to the remote, head bobbing, picked it up in its mouth, and brought it to Shen Bing with an eager, ingratiating look on its face.

"Now tidy the desk."

Big Yellow dashed off again. Using its head and front paws, it quickly sorted the things on the desk into place. Within minutes, the mess had become neat and tidy.

“That'll do!” Shen Bing chuckled, stopped recording, and blurred Big Yellow out of the video.

If Dad saw that this was a purebred Chinese Rural Dog, he would assume Shen Bing was trying to fool him. Better to hide it.

"Done! Send..."

"Knowing Dad, he won't even wait until the video's over..."

Sure enough, Shen Bing's phone rang less than two minutes later.

"Kid, what's with that video? When did you train a dog that freaking amazing?"

Dad kept up with the times. You could tell from the way he talked.

"Dad, I'll keep it short. I have a dog like that. Make me an offer."

Short, certainly. But was that even an answer to his father's question?

"Talking money with your dad hurts my feelings! I'll catch a flight over. Make sure you save that dog for me."

"Don't bother unless you're offering a million."

"You think that's a Tibetan mastiff? Even an ordinary Tibetan mastiff wouldn't cost that much."

"Is a Tibetan mastiff that smart?"

“Border Collies are smart, aren't they? And they only cost a few thousand.”

“Border Collies are nothing compared to my dog. Dad, do you want it or not? If you don't, I'll make soup out of it.”

"You little..." His father knew Shen Bing might actually do it. "Wait for me. I'm coming to take a look."

The call ended, and Shen Bing smiled.

Once his father arrived, Shen Bing was certain he could get him to pay for Big Yellow.

After all, he had spent three whole days making the Intelligence Potion. As for Big Yellow... well, it really was a purebred Chinese Rural Dog—in other words, a mutt.

It wasn't that Shen Bing hadn't wanted a valuable breed. He simply had no money.

All his meager savings had gone toward medicinal ingredients and equipment for making the potion.

Even if he still had every cent in his pocket, it wouldn't have been enough for a good dog.

Fortunately, Big Yellow hadn't disappointed him. After taking the Intelligence Potion, its intelligence was approaching that of a seven- or eight-year-old child.

And that meant an actual seven- or eight-year-old child, not the supposed intelligence of a five- or six-year-old attributed to Border Collies.

People only said Border Collies were comparable to five- or six-year-olds because of how well they responded to training, not because their intelligence truly matched. But Big Yellow could genuinely hold its own against a six- or seven-year-old.

With a little training, it could understand speech and write. The only thing it couldn't do was talk.

That was downright unsettling.

Even the smartest dogs could, at most, understand a few set commands or read people's expressions. A dog that could understand human speech outright belonged in a legend.

Shen Bing's father moved fast. Or perhaps he just loved dogs that much. He arrived from Qingyuan City, hundreds of kilometers away, that very day. He hadn't flown, of course; he had driven.

The following scene played out at the gate of the University of Electronic Science and Technology.

"Where's your dog?"

"Dad, you really don't care about your son, do you?"

"You only left home a few days ago. What's there to worry about? Hurry up and take me to the dog."

Shen Bing had only complained in passing. He hadn't expected much from his father anyway.

As he climbed into the passenger seat of his father's Magotan, his father noticed Little Doudou in his arms.

"You're raising a cat, too? A kitten that young? Can you even keep it alive? Do you know what it eats?" His father spared no effort in putting Shen Bing down.

Shen Bing rolled his eyes. "I honestly don't know what it likes to eat."

It was true. The little creature had been with him for four or five days, and Shen Bing had tried countless foods, including the most expensive cat food and milk powder in the supermarket. It had ignored them all. It would taste a little of the meat or fresh fish he bought, but even then it looked disgusted.

Cats from the Immortal Realm were picky eaters, and Shen Bing couldn't do anything about it. He couldn't exactly fetch it fish from the Immortal Realm. He didn't have that kind of ability yet.

"This kitten's got something special about it. Letting you raise it would be a waste. Give it to me." His father started the car, set the navigation, and drove toward Shen Bing's rental apartment.

Shen Bing immediately held Little Doudou tighter. "No way. Little Doudou only likes me."

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