Bad Feng Shui and a Chill? Watch Me Set Up a Miniature Spirit Gathering Array with My Bare Hands!

On a tree-lined path at Jinghai University.

Ruan Qingwu walked ahead, pulling a silver suitcase.

Although she wore only the simplest white T-shirt and light-colored jeans that day, her cool, ethereal bearing made an ordinary concrete path feel like a red carpet.

Along the way, countless male students stared, their eyes practically glued to her.

One upperclassman on a bicycle was so busy watching her that he crashed into the landscaping, bike and all, with a clang, drawing a burst of laughter from everyone nearby.

Lin Bei walked beside her with one hand in his pocket, while Fatty Wang huffed and puffed behind them, pushing two large suitcases.

"All right, you can leave me here."

Ruan Qingwu stopped outside Women's Dormitory Seven.

She turned to Lin Bei, a rare, exceedingly faint smile appearing on her cool face.

"I'll message you on WeChat once I've settled in."

Lin Bei nodded and casually pushed down her suitcase's telescoping handle.

"Go on. Call if anything comes up."

Watching Ruan Qingwu enter the dormitory, Fatty Wang plopped down on the edge of a flower bed, panting heavily.

"I'm dying here. The sun in Jinghai is brutal."

Lin Bei nudged the side of his shoe with his foot.

"Come on. Let's go find our room."

Room 502, Men's Dormitory Three.

The door wasn't fully closed, leaving a crack.

Lin Bei pushed it open and went inside.

It was a standard four-person room, with loft beds above desks.

The two spots by the window were already occupied.

On the left, a boy with a bird's nest of hair wore headphones, his keyboard clacking furiously.

"Jungler! Are you blind, jungler?! Baron's already gone, and you're still farming Gromp!"

On the right sat a boy wearing black-framed glasses.

He held a massive book as thick as a brick, reading so intently that he didn't even look up when Lin Bei and Fatty Wang entered.

Fatty Wang made himself right at home, dropping his luggage and greeting them expansively.

"Hey, brothers! I'm Wang Kai, from Jiangzhou."

The gamer's hands paused just as his screen turned gray with the death screen.

He took off his headphones, turned around, and grinned.

"Liu Chen. Local. Brother, you play League? I'll carry you tonight."

The boy reading closed his book as well and adjusted the glasses on his nose.

"Chen Mo. From Linhai."

Few words, with an air of efficiency.

Lin Bei tossed his black backpack onto the empty bed near the door.

"Lin Bei. From Jiangzhou."

That counted as an initial introduction between the four roommates.

Liu Chen wasn't one to sit still, and having just lost his game, he simply turned his chair around to chat with them.

"What took you guys so long? You missed it while it was hot. Something huge happened online today!"

"What happened?" Fatty Wang leaned closer curiously.

"An immortal! A real, living immortal!" Liu Chen pulled out his phone and opened several blurry screenshots, practically shoving the screen into Fatty Wang's face.

"Someone on a plane filmed a sword immortal today, flying through the sky on a battered sword. They even scrambled fighter jets, but they couldn't even catch his exhaust! The moderators are deleting posts like crazy now, but I was quick and saved a few pictures."

That got Fatty Wang fired up.

"That's nothing! Let me tell you, Lord Fatty here was on that very plane today!"

At that, even the previously silent Chen Mo couldn't stay put and rolled his chair over.

"Seriously?" Liu Chen's eyes widened, disbelief written all over his face.

"If I'm lying, I'm a dog!" Fatty Wang took out his own phone and opened his treasured video.

"See that? I filmed it through the window. That guy was wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt and riding a rusty iron sword. Whoosh, and he overtook us. The airflow even sliced a gap right through the clouds!"

Liu Chen sucked in a breath as he watched the video. "Holy shit, it's real!"

Chen Mo stared at the screen, his brow knotted tightly.

"There are no signs of editing, and the light refraction follows the laws of physics. If it's fake, the production costs would be far too high. Could cultivators really exist in this world?"

Fatty Wang grew more animated as he talked, embellishing the details of Zhou Zihao wetting himself in terror on the plane and the sword immortal giving the middle finger, leaving Liu Chen stunned.

Lin Bei didn't join in.

Holding a damp rag, he leisurely wiped the dust off his bed.

Listening to Fatty Wang go on about how awesome and imposing that "sword immortal" was, he couldn't help the corners of his mouth lifting.

Hiding his deeds and fame away-this was the highest realm of a cultivator.

Having talked himself dry, Fatty Wang turned and walked over to Lin Bei's desk to get a bottle of water.

The moment he approached Lin Bei's bed, he shuddered violently, cold sweat breaking out uncontrollably across his back.

He rubbed the goose bumps on his arms and frowned, looking around.

"Brother Bei, why's your spot so chilly? It's the middle of summer, but I feel like I've walked into an ice cellar. This is creepy."

Hearing him, Liu Chen came over and held out a hand to feel it.

"Brother Fatty, you feel it too? I thought I was imagining things."

Lowering his voice, Liu Chen pointed mysteriously at the corner.

"This bed's in a shaded corner, right across from the corridor's ventilation opening. It never gets any sun."

"An upperclassman from the previous year lived here. I heard that after a month, he was having nightmares every night and constantly going to the hospital with colds and fevers. Eventually, he couldn't take it anymore and rented a place off campus."

"This spot has bad feng shui. Seriously sinister."

Chen Mo stood up too and spent a moment beside the bed.

Frowning slightly, he pointed at the angle between the ceiling and the doorframe.

"In architectural terms, it's called 'hall-piercing sha.' Combined with the lack of light, the moisture can't escape. Living here long-term will lower your immunity. Getting sick is only a matter of time. Lin Bei, you'd better ask the dorm supervisor for a different room."

Fatty Wang grew anxious at that and grabbed Lin Bei's arm to pull him outside. "No way, Brother Bei. Let's get it changed right now. If living here does anything to you, Qingwu will skin me alive."

Lin Bei tossed the rag into the washbasin and dusted off his hands.

"No need for the trouble."

Of course he knew something was wrong with this spot.

He had sensed it the moment he entered.

There was a slight problem with the building's structure, which happened to create a small gathering ground for yin sha in this corner.

Ordinary people who stayed here too long would indeed be susceptible to yin energy entering their bodies.

But for a cultivator at the qi refining first layer like him, this little bit of yin sha energy wasn't worth a damn.

A slight adjustment to the layout would dispel it.

"Brother Bei, this isn't a joke..." Fatty Wang kept trying to persuade him.

Lin Bei didn't answer. He walked over to the iron bed frame and pressed both hands against its posts.

"What are you doing? This bed's wedged into the gaps between the floor tiles. It's dead heavy..." Before Liu Chen could finish, his eyes went round.

Seemingly without exerting much effort, Lin Bei casually twisted his wrists sideways.

Creeeeak-

With a shrill scrape of metal, he forcibly shifted the iron bed frame, attached desk and all, weighing over a hundred jin, three inches to the left.

Those three inches were just enough to avoid the cold draft rushing straight in through the doorway.

Next, Lin Bei walked to the window and pulled aside the heavy blackout curtain.

He didn't open it completely, instead leaving it at a particular slant.

The afternoon sunlight followed that angle and fell precisely in the center of the bed.

Finally, he walked to the desk, gripped the solid-wood bookcase with both hands, and rotated it ninety degrees, books and all, placing it between the head of the bed and the balcony door.

As he performed those three actions, spiritual energy from Lin Bei's dantian flowed silently out through his fingertips.

Faint wisps of azure light entered the gaps in the bed's feet, the windowsill, and the bookcase respectively.

The moment the arrangement was complete.

The chilly, oppressive feeling that had filled the room vanished completely.

In its place came a refreshing, gentle breeze.

Fatty Wang drew a deep breath, and his chest, which had been tight from hauling luggage, instantly felt clear.

"Holy shit..." Liu Chen looked as though he'd seen a ghost. "Why does it feel like... the air's turned sweet? Where did that moldy smell go?"

Chen Mo stood rooted to the spot, staring fixedly at the shifted bookcase and the angle of the curtain.

He frantically calculated wind direction, flow rate, and architectural principles in his head, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't understand how merely moving a few objects could produce such an immediate change in the room's energy.

It completely defied scientific common sense!

"How... did you do that?" Chen Mo stared at Lin Bei, the emotion called "shock" appearing in his eyes for the first time.

Lin Bei sat down on the bed, casually picked up a bottle of water, twisted it open, and took a gulp.

"The bed was blocking the airflow, creating a negative-pressure zone that trapped moisture. Moving it three inches broke up that zone."

He pointed at the curtain. "Opening the curtain at a particular angle uses Bernoulli's principle to accelerate convection between the indoor and outdoor air. Once fresh air comes in from outside, the moldy smell naturally disappears."

Finally, he patted the bookcase. "The bookcase blocks the through-draft, creating an indoor microcirculation. As for your heads feeling clearer and the air tasting sweet..."

Lin Bei paused, a teasing smile curling his lips.

"That's psychological suggestion, combined with a normal physiological response to a sudden rise in oxygen levels. Read more books and fewer fantasy novels. What feng shui and sha energy?"

That barrage of scientific theories left all three of them completely dazed.

Liu Chen scratched his head, unable to come up with a single reason to argue.

"Ber-Bernoulli's principle? Did we learn that in high school physics? Why don't I remember any of it?"

Fatty Wang gave him a thumbs-up, his face full of admiration. "Brother Bei, you're awesome! You secretly evolved behind my back! Changing feng shui with your bare hands, then explaining it with science-that's fucking brilliant!"

Chen Mo adjusted his glasses and gave Lin Bei a long look.

Although he felt something was off, Lin Bei's explanation really was logically watertight.

"Lesson learned." Chen Mo returned to his chair and reopened A Brief History of Time, but his mind was clearly no longer on the book.

Lin Bei pulled out his chair and sat down, stretching contentedly as he enjoyed the refreshing breeze.

When it came to fooling ordinary people, science worked best.

University life seemed far more interesting than he had imagined.