Striving for Science C22

"No way," Shen Chang'an said instinctively, "It won't kill him."

The words had barely left his mouth when the lightning struck the man. This time, he failed to dodge, his entire body charred black, lying motionless on the ground.

"Dead, dead?" The young man following behind Shen Chang'an widened his eyes in terror, instinctively grabbing onto Shen Chang'an's sleeve.

He turned his head to look at the hand that was tightly gripping his sleeve: "Wu Wei, take your hoof off my sleeve."

"Hand is hand, hoof is hoof..." Wu Wei reluctantly retracted his hand, but he dared not stray too far from Shen Chang'an.

Shen Chang'an ignored him, cautiously approaching the person lying on the ground, stopping two or three meters away: "Hey, buddy, are you still alive?"

The "charred corpse" lying on the ground remained motionless. Shen Chang'an looked up at the sky, taking several steps back before daring to take out his phone and turn it on.

"Chang'an, what are you going to do?"

"What else can I do, of course I'm calling the police and an ambulance." Shen Chang'an said impatiently, "What else can I do?"

"Don't, don't call an ambulance." The black, charred mass on the ground suddenly moved, as if it had come back to life. Even Shen Chang'an, who considered himself quite brave, couldn't help but take a few steps back.

"I'm fine." The black "charred corpse" stretched out a trembling hand, slowly getting up from the ground. The clothes that had been scorched to ash by the lightning fell off, revealing his pitch-black skin.

"Wait." Shen Chang'an turned around and pulled off Wu Wei's jacket, throwing it into the "charred corpse's" arms: "It's indecent exposure, put it on."

"Chang'an, why are you taking my jacket?" Wu Wei mumbled softly, "This jacket is hard to wash if it gets dirty…"

"Because I don't have a jacket." Shen Chang'an raised an eyebrow, "Or do you want to see his black, shiny body?"

"Then forget it." Wu Wei found the scene too much to bear, hiding behind Shen Chang'an and asking, "Brother, what happened to you just now, were you going through a tribulation?"

"That's right." The man tied the jacket around his waist, "I finally got through it, it almost cost me half my life." After finishing, he looked at Shen Chang'an and Wu Wei, "I set up a boundary here, you shouldn't have come in, how did you get in?"

Wu Wei: "Just riding a bicycle, riding... riding... and we came over."

"I went through a cultivation tribulation, I shouldn't have been seen by you, especially since you're just ordinary people." The man looked down at the jacket around his waist, "I'll pay you back the money, but you can't keep this memory."

After finishing, he suddenly reached out and waved his hand in front of the two of them.

Shen Chang'an looked at the person in front of him with a blank expression. He could understand every word he said, but when they were put together, how could they be so unscientific?

"Chang'an?" Wu Wei shook his head, "Will you forgive me? About the thesis, I've already explained it to the school, but I couldn't get in touch with you afterwards."

"You..." Shen Chang'an looked at Wu Wei with a complex expression, "Do you remember what happened just now?"

"Of course I remember, we just met a homeless man, I felt sorry for him so I gave him my jacket." Wu Wei was overjoyed, Chang'an was finally willing to talk to him.

Hearing this, Shen Chang'an's mind went numb.

It was like a clown and a fairy were dancing together, and they wanted to drag him into the dance. He stood in the middle of the dance floor, the whole world was noisy and unreal.

Perhaps the buzzing in his head wasn't the sound of his shocked heart, but the sound of his worldview shattering.

In that moment, he wondered if Wu Wei was in cahoots with someone, putting on a show. But he had ridden this road himself, how could Wu Wei have arranged for someone to act in advance? More importantly, Wu Wei didn't have that kind of money to hire people to perform stunts with special effects that rivaled a world-class blockbuster.

So... what's wrong with this world?

"Chang'an, Chang'an?" Wu Wei saw that Shen Chang'an's face was pale, as if he had encountered something he couldn't accept.

Shen Chang'an pulled out money from his pocket and stuffed it into Wu Wei's hand: "Money for the jacket, take it."

"What's going on…"

"Let me be alone for a bit." Shen Chang'an pushed Wu Wei away and sat down on a nearby stone, his whole being lost in confusion.

Memories from his childhood surfaced in his mind like a fleeting glimpse. His parents' death, his grandmother's madness, and the howling wind outside the courtyard of their rural home.

He knelt before his father's portrait, night after night, forced to drink useless talisman water by his grandmother, who held his chin.

There are no ghosts in the world...

Or are there?

If there are, why has he never seen his parents' spirits?

If there aren't, what is he seeing now?

Shen Chang'an took off his glasses, looked up at the person who was bending over to adjust their jacket, and asked in a hoarse voice: "Are there ghosts in the world?"

"Of course there are..." The person, completely black, paused, turning their head to look at Shen Chang'an with suspicion, "Why are you suddenly asking me this?"

"What was with the lightning just now?" Shen Chang'an looked up at the sky, "What's in there?"

"You..." This person turned their head to look at Wu Wei, then quickly approached Shen Chang'an, whispering, "Do you still have your memories?"

Shen Chang'an looked at him without speaking.

"Strange, how come it didn't work on you?" This person didn't quite believe it, waving their hand in front of Shen Chang'an again, "Do you remember?"

"I remember." For Shen Chang'an, the other person had simply waved their hand in front of him. There were no special effects with light and mist like in fantasy dramas, nor the dizziness and blackout of psychological dramas.

It was just a simple, even silly, waving motion.

"Strange, did I cross a fake cultivation tribulation?" The other person squatted down in front of Shen Chang'an, his face full of frustration.

Shen Chang'an stared at him for two seconds, then said with disdain: "Go squat somewhere else."

"Do you know who I am? I'm a Daoist Master, show some respect."

"Even if you're a Daoist Master, I'm not interested in your dirty flesh." Shen Chang'an turned his head away mercilessly, "It's an eyesore."

The other person: "..."

After a brief silence, the young man who called himself a Daoist Master spoke, "My name is Zhang Gu, and I'm from the Zhang lineage." Seeing that Shen Chang'an didn't respond, he continued, "What's wrong? Are you speechless from my identity? If you want to consult about feng shui or fortune-telling, you can come to me. It's fate that we've met, I can give you a 9.5% discount."

"I just don't want to talk to someone who's shattering my worldview." Shen Chang'an looked at the few weeds beside him, his face emotionless.

"Don't be like that, didn't Newton say that the end of science is theology?" Zhang Gu comforted him, "You'll get used to it."

"Newton never said that." Shen Chang'an retorted, "That quote was fabricated by others."

"Is, is that so?" Zhang Gu was unsure, "I was a terrible student growing up, maybe I got it wrong. If it wasn't him, then it must have been Einstein."

"Einstein didn't say that either." Shen Chang'an suddenly fell silent. After a long pause, he asked in a trembling voice, "After people die, are there really souls?"

"There are." Zhang Gu said, "But this life's matters are to be settled in this life. Death is the end of everything. We Daoists focus on this life, not the afterlife."

"If someone did a lot of good deeds in their life, will they have a good life in the next one?" Shen Chang'an asked.

"They should, I think. Buddhist practitioners understand karma and reincarnation better." Zhang Gu felt a little embarrassed. He wasn't just a terrible student in school, he wasn't particularly talented in the Daoist world either. Otherwise, he wouldn't have started his tribulation without any preparation.

Shen Chang'an saw some pedestrians passing by in the distance. They walked away laughing and chatting, seemingly oblivious to the disheveled figure not far from them.

"Your constitution is a bit special, I can't erase your memory. I can only wait for the masters to return from the north and hand you over to them." 

Zhang Gu looked at Shen Chang'an, then at Wu Wei who was squatting at the base of a tree, peeling bark, "The most urgent matter is, can you please ask your friend to buy me a set of clothes? I'm afraid that if I leave the barrier, I'll be arrested by the police for violating public order."

"I thought you could move objects with your mind or fly on a sword." Shen Chang'an glanced at Zhang Gu.

Zhang Gu felt that this look was filled with the disdain of "I thought you were a king-level, but you're just a bronze-level."

He touched his nose and said, "What's with this 'taking objects from afar' and 'flying on swords'? We cultivators also value scientific theories."

"So the conclusion is that you can't do it." Shen Chang'an stood up and patted the dust off his pants.

"Where are you going?" Seeing Shen Chang'an about to leave, Zhang Gu felt a little anxious. He couldn't just stay here squatting, waiting for someone from his sect to bring him clothes, could he?

"To buy you clothes." Seeing the other person sitting on the stone with his knees hugged, looking pitiful, Shen Chang'an felt that the legendary aloofness of those who cultivate the Dao was about to be ruined by Zhang Gu.

He rode his bike to a nearby store and bought a set of sportswear. When he came back, Zhang Gu was still sitting on the stone in that same position.

"Take it and wear it." Shen Chang'an threw the clothes into Zhang Gu's arms and turned to leave.

"Wait, wait." Zhang Gu put on his pants and chased after Shen Chang'an while putting on his clothes. "You can't leave yet. You have to promise me that you won't tell anyone about what you saw."

"Who would believe me if I told them?" Shen Chang'an asked back. "They'd just think I'm bragging."

"That's true..." Zhang Gu finished putting on his clothes. "Then if you need to do some geomancy in the future, you can come to me. Although I haven't learned to observe qi and facial features yet, I can still do geomancy."

"Chang'an." Wu Wei also came over, his eyes fixed on Shen Chang'an. "Where are you staying now? Can I come see you tomorrow?"

For the past year, he didn't know why, but everything he did was going wrong. His internship unit wouldn't give him an internship certificate, his work unit withheld his salary, and he finally found a decent job, but he was transferred to Wuming City, a remote city. He wanted to take a couple of days off before officially starting work, but he was locked up in a strange and eerie mountain spring villa.

If Shen Chang'an hadn't accidentally stumbled in, he and the other tourists might not have been able to escape at all.

***

At the police station, Yao Huailin and Captain Li were still working overtime. Especially since they had found dozens of skeletons in the villa. According to the forensic doctor's preliminary judgment, the skeletons had different times of death, with the earliest ones possibly dating back hundreds of years.

However, there were no accurate results yet, and they had to wait for the forensic examination.

"This case is really strange." Yao Huailin flipped through the photos of the skeletons at the scene and called the head of the scenic area.

"When you accompanied us up the mountain to find this villa today, your expression was a little off." Yao Huailin tapped on the table. "Do you know any of these suspects?"

"Officer, how could I possibly know any criminals? My expression was off because... because..." The head of the scenic area gritted his teeth. "There's no such villa in our scenic area. It's like it suddenly appeared out of nowhere."