Theory in a Humble Room

(This chapter's strict length limit: 2,025-2,475 Chinese characters.)

Lu Yuan stood in an alley in the old quarter in the west of the city. The flagstones beneath his feet were pitted, and plaster peeled from the walls.

He checked the note and raised a hand to knock.

"Come in."

He pushed open the door and stepped into dim light. The room had no windows. Stacks of books lined three walls, reaching the ceiling beams. Plans and notes lay scattered across the floor, and an old wooden desk was crammed into a corner, its surface buried beneath ink bottles and papers. Shen Moxin sat behind it in a faded gray cloth shirt, her sleeves rolled up to her forearms and her long hair pinned up with a wooden chopstick.

"Sit." She pointed to a stool piled with books.

Lu Yuan moved the books aside and sat down. The stool's legs wobbled.

Shen Moxin studied him, then pulled a sheet from a pile of papers and pushed it over-the very sheet of scratch paper from the library. "I spent a long time thinking about this model last night." Her fingertip tapped the steep and gentle sections. "The environmental Soul Power field interference factor, β, and the Martial Soul characteristic coefficient, k. How did you come up with them?"

It was a direct question.

Lu Yuan was silent for two seconds. "Observation, and guessing," he said. "When Soul Masters in town sparred, their Soul Power fluctuations affected their surroundings. When I cultivate myself, I can also feel that the Soul Power in the environment isn't constant."

"Observation?" Shen Moxin leaned forward. "How old are you? What level is your Soul Power?"

"Seven. Level two."

Shen Moxin's eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "At Soul Power level two, your perception is precise enough to distinguish distortion points in a decay curve?" Her voice was soft. "Lu Yuan, tell me the truth. Where did these ideas really come from?"

The room fell quiet. Faint clinking came from somewhere in the distance.

Lu Yuan met her gaze. There was no malice in her eyes, only a burning curiosity and a trace of suppressed longing.

He suddenly understood. This woman was like him in his previous life, trapped in a cage of knowledge, wanting to chisel through the wall but unable to find a hammer.

And he held half a hammer in his hand.

"Assistant Shen," Lu Yuan said, "what do you think Soul Power really is?"

Shen Moxin was taken aback. The answer was on the first page of the textbook: Soul Power was a special kind of energy found between heaven and earth.

But she didn't recite the textbook. "What are you getting at?"

"The textbook says Soul Power is energy." Lu Yuan traced circles on his knee with a finger. "But energy takes many forms. Light, heat, vibrations... Which one is Soul Power like?"

"Soul Power is Soul Power, unique in its own right."

"But it can be absorbed, it can flow, it can decay, and it can interfere," Lu Yuan continued. "Some of its properties are like particles: it can be captured and stored. Others are like waves: it can spread and overlap." He paused. "Could it be both a particle and a wave? Could it show different aspects at different scales of observation?"

Shen Moxin's breath caught.

The idea was utterly unorthodox. Current theories treated Soul Power either as "Qi" or as "points of light"; no one had ever proposed "duality." Yet on closer thought, many contradictory phenomena seemed to leave room for explanation within this framework.

Her fingers trembled slightly as she grabbed a charcoal pencil and a blank sheet of paper. "Go on."

"It's only a conjecture. There's no empirical evidence."

"Never mind the evidence for now!" Shen Moxin spoke faster. "Following that line of thought, what about Martial Souls? A Martial Soul absorbs Soul Power and transforms its attributes... What role does it play in this 'particle-wave' picture?"

The question struck at the heart of the matter.

Lu Yuan drew a breath. "A Martial Soul..." He weighed his words. "It might be a composite structure. One part is material, like the limbs of a Beast Martial Soul or the physical form of a Tool Martial Soul. That part determines a Martial Soul's 'form.'"

Shen Moxin swiftly wrote down "matter-form."

"But the more fundamental part is the energy structure," Lu Yuan continued. "That part determines the efficiency of Soul Power conversion and its attribute inclination. It's the 'soul.' Finally, there's the spiritual connection-the Soul Master's control and perception of the Martial Soul, and their emotional resonance with it. That part is the 'spirit.'"

He raised a finger and tapped the air three times. "Matter, energy, spirit. All three are entangled to form a complete Martial Soul. A useless Martial Soul might not have a truly 'useless' material component. Its energy structure might be inherently incomplete, or its spiritual link too weak, leaving it unable to effectively convert and control Soul Power."

Clatter.

The charcoal pencil fell from Shen Moxin's hand onto the desk. She didn't pick it up. She stared fixedly at Lu Yuan, her chest rising and falling.

The humble room fell deathly silent.

After a long while, she finally spoke, her voice hoarse. "The energy structure... inherently incomplete... Is there a way to complete it?"

Lu Yuan shook his head. "I don't know. It's only a conjecture. Even if it can be completed, it would require extremely delicate control of Soul Power and a thorough understanding of the energy structure of the particular Martial Soul. Right now... it can't be done."

He was telling the truth.

But Shen Moxin seemed not to have heard the second half. She sprang to her feet and paced a couple of steps back and forth in the cramped space, nearly kicking over a stack of books in the corner. "So those Mutated Martial Souls... A beneficial mutation is very likely the result of the energy structure accidentally forming a more stable, efficient configuration during awakening! A harmful mutation, on the other hand, is caused by distortions and conflicts in the structure!" She spoke faster and faster, her eyes frighteningly bright. "If we can map out the basic energy structure templates of common Martial Souls and compare them with mutation cases, couldn't we identify the patterns of mutation? Even... guide mutations?"

She spun around to look at Lu Yuan. "Your two-variable model! What if fluctuations in environmental Soul Power don't just affect decay? What if, at crucial moments during Martial Soul Awakening or cultivation, they can subtly 'shape' the energy structure, like a hammer striking an iron billet? β and k might not just be interference coefficients, but shaping factors as well!"

Lu Yuan's heart jolted.

He hadn't expected Shen Moxin to grasp the implications so quickly and deduce a possibility he hadn't even dared to think about deeply. This woman's academic intuition was frighteningly powerful.

"It's possible," he admitted cautiously. "But we need data. Vast amounts of awakening data for different Martial Souls in different environments, as well as long-term cultivation tracking and comparisons. That would take..." He paused. "A lot of people, a lot of resources, and a long time."

The fervor on Shen Moxin's face cooled slightly. She slowly sat back down, pressing her fingers between her brows.

Yes. They needed resources, manpower, and a research environment free from interference. And those were precisely the things most scarce within the academy system, and most easily stifled.

Silence spread.

But this time, there was no cautious probing or distance in the silence, only a heavy sense of kinship, of having found a kindred spirit despite the long and uncertain road ahead.

After a long while, Shen Moxin let out a long breath. She picked up the charcoal pencil again and pulled over a fresh sheet of scratch paper. "Come on." Her voice had regained its calm, with a gentleness born of exhaustion. "Tell me more about your 'particle-wave' conjecture and your idea of a Martial Soul's threefold structure. Let's draw a sketch and list every connection and question we can think of."

Lu Yuan nodded and moved his stool closer to the desk.

After that, the only sounds in the humble room were the rustle of charcoal on paper and the two of them speaking in low voices. The light gradually slanted westward, and the shaft of light coming through the translucent roof tile shifted from the desk to the corner. Shen Moxin lit a small oil lamp, and its dim yellow glow cast their shadows against the book-lined walls, swaying and overlapping.

They used sheet after sheet of scratch paper, covering them with symbols, arrows, and hasty writing. Arguments broke out from time to time: Shen Moxin sharply pointed out leaps in logic in Lu Yuan's conjectures, while Lu Yuan tried to make his case with more basic analogies. Sometimes both fell into thought at once, staring blankly at a curve; at other times, they looked up together after thinking of a way to test an idea, their gazes meeting as they saw the same spark in each other's eyes.

It was the joy of a pure collision of ideas.

No one knew how much time had passed before the oil lamp's flame began to flicker weakly.

Shen Moxin put down the charcoal pencil and rubbed her wrist. She looked at the sheets of scratch paper covering the floor, filled with conjectures, her expression complicated.

After quite a while, she suddenly spoke, her voice very soft.

"Lu Yuan."

Lu Yuan raised his head from the papers.

Shen Moxin looked at him, her gaze behind her glasses gentle and serious in the flickering lamplight.

"Would you... like to enroll at Nuoding Junior Soul Master Academy?" She paused. "As a work-study student."

Lu Yuan was taken aback.

Shen Moxin continued evenly, "Work-study students don't have to pay tuition, but they have to take care of odd jobs at the academy: sweeping, tidying, and helping in the kitchen. It's hard work, and it cuts into cultivation time. They're also... looked down on by some regular students."

She looked into Lu Yuan's eyes. "But at least you'd have a legitimate status that would let you stay in Nuoding City. You'd have access to the most basic Soul Master education-even if only the public lectures. You could use some of the academy's public facilities openly, such as the physical training grounds or the most ordinary library room open to work-study students."

She paused, her voice growing softer.

"You could also... come here often."

A tiny spark burst from the oil lamp with a crackle.

In the humble room, the dim yellow glow enveloped the two of them and the papers strewn across the floor, bearing fantasies that surpassed their age. The night wind passed through the crack in the door with a faint whimper.

Lu Yuan looked at Shen Moxin. There was no charity or pity on her face, only an invitation that was almost solemn, and behind it, the value she placed on a "fellow traveler" and her hopes for one.

The fingers resting on his knee curled slightly.