Finally, against Lu Chongyang’s great pressure, Zhou Bai temporarily got his consent.
Watching Old Lu leave, Zhou Bai let sighed with relief.
He thought, In two months…I must succeed.
Not long after Lu Chongyang left, a paper crane flew in front of Lu Chongyang. It gave off an inkling of primordial spirit power.
“Chongyang, how is Zhou Bai?
“What? You agreed to let him cut class for two months? What are you doing? Do you know you might ruin a genius like this?
“You’re being too irresponsible…
“Sigh. All right, I understand. You’re…really too soft. During the second round of exams, you were the only one to tell them about the three main codes of Tao practice.
“And now you’re being so lenient with Zhou Bai.”
Lu Chongyang responded quietly. “As I said once, Tao practice depends on one’s will. It’s one’s personal choice. Since Zhou Bai chose this path himself, then there’s no meaning in forcing him to take another path.”
The paper crane said, “What if he fails?”
“Then that means he chose the wrong path. Every practitioner has to pay the price for their choices.”
***
On the other side, behind the window of the police station, Li Xiuzhu watched with an intriguing smile on his face as Zhou Bai and Lu Chongyang went their separate ways.
One of his colleagues walked up behind him, “We found it. The man who was in contact with Sakurako is named Wei Dong. According to the records at the frontier inspection station, he left Donghua City this morning in a car.”
Li Xiuzhu asked, “Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. According to the driver, he disappeared halfway. They couldn’t find him after searching.”
Li Xiuzhu asked, “Did he escape into the wilderness? Show me the route of that flying car.”
“What are you going to do? There are traces of a second person helping to set up the formation at the dorm, and we found paper charms made by Wei Dong.”
“Wei Dong hasn’t returned to his dorm since last night, and now he’s escaped into the wilderness. He’s fleeing to escape punishment.”
Li Xiuzhu looked at the information and said, “Escape into the wilderness? Don’t you find that peculiar? With his practice level in the first realm, there’s no way he can survive out there.”
“Who knows? Maybe there are people from Overturn Heaven waiting to receive him.”
Lu Chongyang said, “Then why didn’t Sakurako’s room have signs from Overturn Heaven? If they left marks in Jian Xing’s and Sun Chuan’s rooms, why didn’t they leave them in Sakurako’s room?”
“Who knows? Maybe they forgot. Hey, you’re not thinking of continuing the investigation, are you?”
Li Xiuzhu said, “Get me a flying car…no, buy me a ticket for the flying car Wei Dong took.”
“What are you planning on doing?”
Li Xiuzhu smiled. “I think there’s something wrong with this Wei Dong. Why don’t I go ask him in person?”
***
Zhou Bai returned to his dorm, relieved. After a whole night, it was almost dawn.
“I’ll sleep first, then get up at night to self-study.” Zhou Bai sighed. “Two months from now, I must get first place.”
Elsa didn’t know what happened, but seeing how determined Zhou Bai looked, she started barking.
But once Zhou Bai lay down, he realized that he seemed to be too excited. He couldn’t fall asleep at all.
Christina, who had been curled up in practice in his mind, finally unfurled her body. She yawned while stretching her back.
Whoosh!
Seeing Christina come out from his mind, Zhou Bai said, “You’re finally awake. Do you know how much danger I was in last night? You were sleeping like a pig.”
Christina rolled her eyes at Zhou Bai. “How can you say that? What do you mean sleeping like a pig? Have you ever seen a pig as pretty as me? Don’t you know I’m practicing?”
As she said this, her tail perked up tall. Christina looked at Zhou Bai with pride, her primordial spirit power spread out of her body and surged toward Zhou Bai.
Zhou Bai also unleashed his primordial spirit power, blocking Christina’s attack. Then he exclaimed, “Your primordial spirit power…”
“Hahahaha!” Christina roared with laughter. “Ninety-nine! This genius has only practiced in lock-in for a couple of days, and I managed to raise my primordial spirit power to ninety-nine. Zhou Bai! Don’t ever think about…”
Thump!
Zhou Bai wrapped his body in primordial spirit power, then used his body and primordial spirit power to crash through Christina’s primordial spirit power.
“Silly cat, I’ve already practiced four star points on the Divine Map.”
“What?”
The next moment, Zhou Bai withdrew Christina into his cognitive sea. She jumped onto Zhou Bai’s Taiyi Disc and inspected the four illuminated star points carefully. She turned her head to the side bitterly.
“Tch, cheater.”
She thought that she would subdue Zhou Bai with her amazing practice speed once she came out, but this kid was very strong with his plug-in.
Christina had no choice but to adjust her arrogance and slowly search for new opportunities.
So that night, while Zhou Bai was looking frustrated as he read the basic textbook materials, Christina’s eyes lit up.
The white cat jumped lightly and leaped onto Zhou Bai’s desk. With her tail high in the air, she walked back and forth in front of Zhou Bai.
Zhou Bai swept Christina off the table. “Don’t disrupt my studying.”
Christina harrumphed, then said, “I see you’re not having much success studying. How about it? Do you want me to teach you?”
Zhou Bai scoffed, too lazy to pay any mind to Christina.
Hearing Zhou Bai’s scoff, Christina’s fur exploded.
She jumped onto the desk with a meow. “Listen up, after my primordial spirit power reached ninety-nine, I recalled a lot of things! My knowledge of Tao practice theories is much stronger than yours!”
Seeing Zhou Bai’s expression of disbelief, Christina jumped onto Zhou Bai’s book. She set her paw on a section of writing and said, “Hmph, the notes you took here are wrong! The concept of five elements in Spark refers to the five conditions—birth, growth, fruition, decline, and extinction—of Spark, not the five elements you understand!”
Zhou Bai’s eyes glimmered. His confusion over the past few days finally resolved itself.
Then Christina explained more. She put the difficult concepts into simple words. Zhou Bai immediately understood everything.
“What about the rest?” Zhou Bai asked Christina. “Why aren’t you continuing?”
Christina lay on the desk like a rug. She swayed her tail and sighed. “I’m too tired. I don’t want to continue.”
Zhou Bai quickly reached out his palms to massage Christina’s neck and back. Seeing the cat close her eyes in pleasure, he said, “Tina, let me give you a massage. Look how tired you are. You’ve been curled up for almost a week. How can you not be exhausted? How is this? Is this the right strength?”
Zhou Bai felt he had learned the same from what Christina just told him as what he would by reading books for several days.
Studying was really most effective with instruction. Unfortunately, he had to conceal the existence of his auxiliary system and hide the fact that his level of practice was rising so quickly. Naturally, he couldn’t expose the fact his foundations were poor.
Hearing Zhou Bai’s words, Christina sighed. “A cute little girl, a little girl who lost her memories, turned into a cat and fell into the hands of a stupid kid. Did she do anything wrong?”
“Uh…” said Zhou Bai.
Christina went on. “Yet such a poor little girl is forced to mop the floor, clean the bathroom, walk the dog, wash the underwear. She even has to cook as a cat, isn’t that excessive?”
“This…was all just a misunderstanding.”