Cultivation: I Have Studied Abroad in the Modern World
Chapter 238 - 131: Devote Oneself to the Immortal Law!

Chapter 238: Chapter 131: Devote Oneself to the Immortal Law!

"Homosexual friendships? Who’s homosexual? Who made friends!"

At the dinner table, Old Man Bai pleaded loudly with a sense of grievance.

The main reason was that Mrs. Tian apparently became a bit emotional, there were only two plates of green vegetables in front of him, and the meat dishes were far away from him.

Though the green vegetables in the retirement home were quite tasty.

But the two plates full of greens in front of him practically screamed, "I start at the beginning of the month and you follow at the mid-month, consider yourself warned."

Old Man Bai’s expression was clearly a bit panicked.

Mrs. Tian’s face inexplicably had a tinge of coldness.

"Mrs. Tian, don’t be like this, I believe Mr. Bai," Zheng Fa persuaded from the side.

Old Man Bai nodded frantically, looking at Zheng Fa gratefully, feeling for the first time the warmth of male solidarity.

Zheng Fa added, "From what I know about Mr. Bai, that netizen should be a woman."

Mrs. Tian’s face became even colder.

"..." Old Man Bai glared at Zheng Fa, "Is that your idea of persuasion? I was originally facing twenty years in prison, and now with your defense, I’m sentenced to firing squad?"

"Not a woman?"

"Not a woman! A man! A real tough guy!"

Old Man Bai explained furiously.

"So it is a homosexual friendship," Zheng Fa confirmed.

"...Yes, it’s with someone of the same sex, and he’s a friend." Old Man Bai, seeing that things weren’t clearing up and fearing that Zheng Fa might continue to make things worse, quickly added, "But he’s not a new friend, he’s an old friend."

"An old friend?" Mrs. Tian became curious, "Do I know him?"

Old Man Bai shook his head, but turned to Zheng Fa and said, "You still remember, I had a master when I was young, right?"

"Yeah, the one who got arrested," Zheng Fa had a clear impression.

"That man... consider him my junior brother," Old Man Bai reminisced, "Back then I was twenty-eight or twenty-nine, not yet thirty, and he was under twenty, just started university; we were both disciples of that master."

Zheng Fa nodded: "That’s a long-standing connection."

"Not really," Old Man Bai shook his head, "At that time, I was just practicing for fun, and once the master was arrested, I chickened out and hid at home for several days."

"He’s different."

"How so?"

"He..." Old Man Bai furrowed his brow, "You know the type of martial arts fanatic in the movies?"

"Is he one of them?"

"No, he’s a Qigong fanatic," Old Man Bai shook his head and said, "Our personalities are different; in fact, we are not very familiar with each other, haven’t seen each other for many years—only this time did I hear that after my swindler master was arrested, he never gave up, he went around visiting Taoist temples and Buddhist monasteries to seek the true teachings, pursued a PhD abroad, and also searched for ancient traditions around the world, chasing after any place that might deceive him."

"..."

"So why is he seeking out Mr. Bai?"

"Oh, didn’t I become popular online before?" Old Man Bai shook his head, "After I began my cultivation, I started to look a bit like I did when I was younger, I even mentioned in the live broadcast room that my surname is Bai, and he recognized me."

"He thinks..." Zheng Fa guessed.

"Yes, he thinks I had a stroke of luck and wanted to inquire with me," Old Man Bai said somewhat despondently, "It would have been okay if he guessed wrong, but he actually guessed it right... that’s why I went to see him, to prevent him from asking around and catching the attention of others."

Zheng Fa nodded his head.

Both turned to look at Mrs. Tian, sure enough, during the question and answer exchange, Mrs. Tian’s countenance had softened.

Old Man Bai stealthily sent a grateful look to Zheng Fa.

Next to them, Tang Lingwu moved a plate of chicken meat towards Old Man Bai, and Mrs. Tian pretended not to see, simply lowering her head to eat.

"Actually, I also wanted to see if it’s possible to absorb this person into the retirement home," Mr. Bai suddenly said, his tone very hesitant.

"Hm? This person is also a scholar?" Zheng Fa blinked, a bit confused, this person who goes around praying to gods and worshipping Buddha, could also be involved in science?

"He was into physics in China, from what he said, he later got a lifelong teaching position abroad, seems to be living quite well," Old Man Bai shook his head, "It’s just that this person... let me put it this way, physics is his short-lived recourse, but he yearns for Qigong and the distant unknown."

"..."

Everyone was speechless.

"He went into physics because he has the talent for it... even stupendous talent, experiments that others can’t do, he easily achieves results," Old Man Bai sighed, "But he only regards it as a profession..."

Zheng Fa also understood Mr. Bai’s thoughts.

Although Mr. Bai didn’t say it, Zheng Fa could infer this person must have admirable academic capabilities.

It’s just that his personality sounds... not quite reliable.

On the other hand, although they are old acquaintances, according to Mr. Bai, they have not been in contact for many years.

They can’t really vouch for the other person’s character and background.

Even whether the other person’s personality and experiences are true or false is uncertain for them.

Zheng Fa wasn’t too concerned about this person for now; what he was really worried about was the Demon Race’s attack in three months.

He looked at the Fusang Wood within his body, feeling a bit of resentment.

Fusang Wood had indeed helped a lot, most importantly in attracting the Golden Crow, which let them learn of the Demon Race’s intentions.

But on the other hand, it made his cultivation practice a lot more difficult.

Had it been before, with all the Thunder elemental spiritual materials he consumed, leaving other things aside, he should have achieved late-stage Foundation Establishment.

Zheng Fa wasn’t too concerned about the speed of cultivation.

But after a breakthrough in realm, the Divine Soul also strengthens.

Now, Zheng Fa’s level of Spiritual Power was in the early stages of Foundation Establishment, but his Divine Soul strength had vaguely surpassed late-stage Foundation Establishment.

If he could advance to the late-stage Foundation Establishment, it was almost certain that his Divine Soul would surpass the threshold of the Golden Core.

With the strength of a divine soul at the Golden Core Stage, maybe he could master the Spirit Tree Thunder and thus gain a massive amount of Heavenly Merit to quickly take control of the Heavenly Stele Realm.

Thinking of this, he looked at the Fusang Wood with a rather malicious gaze...

The Fusang Wood trembled, as if it were afraid.

...

"Come here!" On this day, Zheng Fa continued to research Cloud Rain Thunder with Old Man Bai, trying to further optimize this Thunder Skill, when Mrs. Tian suddenly rushed over excitedly.

"What’s going on?"

Old Man Bai, seeing her urgency, quickly asked.

"To my lab!"

Mrs. Tian, however, said nothing but gestured for the two to follow.

Zheng Fa and Old Man Bai exchanged a glance and headed towards Mrs. Tian’s agricultural laboratory.

On the way, Mrs. Tian began to explain: "As you know, I usually take some samples from the fields every day and examine them in the lab."

Zheng nodded.

Although the spiritual energy environment hadn’t yet produced any Spirit Plants—Zheng Fa and Mrs. Tian had discussed a possibility that the plants might indeed have undergone some changes, such as genetic mutations, but due to insufficient growth time, could not truly transform into Spirit Plants.

Because of this hypothesis, they would save seeds from each harvest, and Mrs. Tian would also take samples for observation.

"Look at these cell slice images!"

Mrs. Tian led Zheng Fa and the other to a computer, where several magnified images of cells’ interiors were displayed on the screen.

Zheng Fa looked at them one by one—okay, what he could recognize were very rudimentary, things like cell walls, nuclei, chloroplasts, mitochondria, and the like.

But to be honest, asking him to discern anything from those images with his high school-level biology knowledge was really beyond his ability.

"Mrs. Tian, is there something wrong with these cells?"

Mrs. Tian slapped her forehead and said: "I got so excited, I forgot you guys aren’t familiar with these."

She pulled up a few previous cell images, arranged a few pictures side by side, and said, "Take another look?"

Zheng Fa and the others looked for a while, with Old Man Bai frowning in uncertainty and saying, "There’s a... new tissue?"

Zheng Fa saw it too.

It was an inconspicuous thing, located next to the cell wall, very small compared to the nucleus and other structures.

"Yes!"

Mrs. Tian clapped her hands and said: "Just these past few days, this new thing suddenly appeared within the cells of the pea seedlings!"

"It’s turned into a Spirit Plant?"

Old Man Bai was also delighted.

"I’m not sure, I can only say that it has undergone significant changes."

Zheng Fa immediately ceased the operation of the Spirit Mountain Technique in his body.

The three of them walked to the edge of the field and watched the peas for a long while.

"Spiritual Energy!"

"There’s Spiritual Energy on these peas!"

"We’ve really cultivated a Spirit Plant!"

Old Man Bai cheered.

Even Tang Lingwu from inside the house was attracted, and a group of people surrounded a few ordinary pea seedlings, examining them closely, afraid they might be mistaken.

Finally, they confirmed that there indeed flowed an extremely faint Spiritual Energy on these peas, indistinguishable in an environment of Spiritual Energy.

They didn’t overlook other plants either.

After looking around the experimental field and turning their eyes green, they couldn’t find another vegetable that contained Spiritual Energy.

"It should just be this one kind, the other samples in the lab don’t show any changes either," Mrs. Tian also said.

Everyone was a bit disappointed.

But it was Mrs. Tian who comforted, "Our line of work is different from Old Bai’s, they rely on people for math, we rely on the heavens for agriculture."

"Rely on the heavens? As in weather and climate?" Tang Lingwu asked curiously.

"No, rely on whether the Heavens bless us or not," Mrs. Tian shook her head and said: "Sometimes you don’t even know when it will happen, or even understand why it happened."

Zheng Fa remained silent; they didn’t know either...

...

"This cellular tissue..." Old Man Bai looked at the cell structure image that Mrs. Tian had enlarged a great deal and said while stroking his chin: "It looks kind of familiar..."

Zheng Fa nodded, then suddenly said: "It resembles a tangled bunch of fine threads—or rather, a tangled spirit talisman map."

"Yes! That’s the feeling!" Old Man Bai slapped his palm: "It’s a pity the image is too blurry to make out the specific Spirit Talisman."

"I’ve been thinking..." Zheng Fa suddenly said: "Whether it’s Spirit Talismans, our meridians, or even Spells—at their core, they’re all trajectories of Spiritual Energy. To become a Spirit Plant, it probably needs this kind of Spiritual Energy trajectory."

"You mean, these are the ’meridians’ of the Spirit Plant?"

Old Man Bai immediately understood what Zheng Fa meant.

"Yes, it’s just that I don’t know why it exists in the form of cellular tissue," Zheng Fa nodded.

Touching his chin, Old Man Bai suddenly said: "Zheng Fa, didn’t I mention to you before about going to Beijing University’s Medical School..."

Zheng Fa was startled, then looked at Old Man Bai: "You want to check out our cellular structures?"

"Yes, we don’t want outsiders to take our cell samples, it wouldn’t hurt if our own people did a little slice-and-see, right?" Old Man Bai pointed to the lab: "This place has all the equipment we need, it’s time we dedicated ourselves to the cause of making Immortal Law scientific!"

Zheng Fa thought for a moment, then turned to ask: "Mrs. Tian?"

"Wait for me, I need to check the literature, look at the experimental standards," Mrs. Tian shook her head and sighed: "I’m in agriculture, never really did human experiments before."