Chapter 416
Looking at the old man with white hair, who had placed the tablet in front of him with a rather self-satisfied expression, Zheng Fa felt a bit puzzled.
"Take a look!"
The old man said mysteriously.
Zheng Fa opened the tablet, and to his surprise, it displayed an interface for a reading app.
Inside the app was a single book, a massive one, several hundred gigabytes in size.
The cover image bore a long title: "Topology in Talismans—Starting from the Xiaoyunyu Talisman."
As soon as he opened it, Zheng Fa understood why the file was so large.
In this book, the old man had completely integrated topology with the knowledge of runes.
In other words, the core content was a comprehensive understanding of topology, but each concept was accompanied by corresponding methods for rune analysis.
Moreover, it included various talismanic diagrams they had discovered over the years—hence the file's enormous size.
After flipping through a few pages, Zheng Fa realized:
Although the book didn’t contain any groundbreaking knowledge, it was a culmination of their years of research on runes!
Studying this book would not only provide a systematic understanding of topology but also offer the most comprehensive collection of talismanic diagrams. In fact, the two fields seemed to intertwine in a subtle way.
For the Jiushan Realm, this book was both practical and theoretical!
He even felt that, in the current search for the mysterious, only the old man could have written such a book in Jiushan or even in modern times.
"Professor Bai, when did you start writing this?"
This book was certainly not something that could be completed overnight.
"I was working on a textbook before, remember?"
"Yeah."
"But then I stopped." The old man chuckled.
Zheng Fa's eyes widened slightly. Hadn't the old man claimed that this was his lifelong ambition in mathematics? And just like that, he had given up?
Seeing Zheng Fa's expression, the old man laughed, "I can't just let you call me 'teacher' for nothing, can I?"
Only then did Zheng Fa realize what the old man had been busy with lately, and he felt a twinge of emotion.
"Actually, it’s no big deal. I can always write that book later..." The old man seemed to dislike overly sentimental moments and waved his hand dismissively. "I’m not going anywhere; I can wait."
Zheng Fa nodded.
Tang Lingwu suddenly asked, "Grandpa Bai, you can wait, but what about the editor from the Capital University Press who’s been trying to get in touch with you... can they wait?"
"…Ahem!" The old man puffed out his chest. "Let me introduce myself: I am the Honorary President of Capital University!"
"…"
(End of this chapter)
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Chapter 347: Returning from Learning, Unforeseen
In the nursing home.
The Zao Hua Yu Die floated above Zheng Fa's head, emitting a purple glow that illuminated the tablet in his hands.
In just a breath, the Zao Hua Yu Die retracted its light and obediently landed in his palm.
"Is it done?"
The old man beside him, holding his breath in anticipation, asked eagerly, his curiosity piqued by the Zao Hua Yu Die in Zheng Fa's grasp.
Zheng Fa chuckled lightly and handed the Zao Hua Yu Die to the old man.
With the Zao Hua Yu Die, he no longer needed to memorize everything...
The old man held the treasure, turning it over and over with the curiosity of a child.
It was easy to see that this was the first true treasure of its kind in modern times… if you didn’t count voltage regulators.
In modern times, treasures had always been the stuff of legends!
In the Xuanwei Realm, no cultivator would recklessly hand over their life’s treasure to someone else to play with.
Such an act was taboo; unless it was someone extremely close, it simply couldn’t be done.
Even Zheng Fa had never touched Senior Sister Zhang’s Feixian Pen.
But as he watched the old man squinting at the Zao Hua Yu Die, holding it up to observe the sun on the horizon, he felt no worry at all.
Close and dear ones...
Who said this old man wasn’t one of them?
The book "Topology in Talismans—Starting from the Xiaoyunyu Talisman" was still just the first edition:
The talismanic diagrams were not yet complete.
There were also some details that, due to time constraints, the old man hadn’t been able to perfect.
But the workload was already immense; while compiling the talismanic diagrams was one thing, providing corresponding analyses for each one took far more time than just a couple of months.
The old man had no idea how long he had prepared or how much effort he had put in, silently toiling through countless nights.
Thinking about it, it was quite possible that Teacher Tian’s lack of children was indeed his fault...
After a while, the old man handed the Zao Hua Yu Die back to Zheng Fa, seemingly bored. "This thing... isn’t that interesting!"
Zheng Fa, upon hearing this, lowered his gaze slightly.
Actually, there were interesting ways to use it—he had considered whether to create a few "Tongjian" (通鉴, a type of comprehensive reference) in modern times, so that the old man and the others could play around on the forum.
If Zheng Fa acted as the server, the feasibility was quite high.
But after thinking it over, he decided against it:
It wasn’t just about keeping the old man and the others from knowing about the other world; even setting aside his trust in them, Zheng Fa wasn’t afraid of exposing some secrets in modern times.
The problem was, the old man and the others were also his secrets!
The stones he had obtained from the Tianhe Venerable’s secret realm had made Zheng Fa realize one thing: the five sects of Xuanwei were searching for that Yin-Yang Fish jade pendant.
Did they know that the Yin-Yang Fish jade pendant was connected to the modern world?
If so, letting the old man and the others communicate directly with the Xuanwei Realm... would be too risky.
Zheng Fa took the Zao Hua Yu Die, and on the second page of the jade tablet, there was already a character that the old man and the others couldn’t understand—this was the character "符" (fu), from the ancient script of Xuanwei.
Using the old man’s book as a starting point, the knowledge base of talismanic studies within the Zao Hua Yu Die, or the internal knowledge network, had officially begun to take shape.
According to Zheng Fa’s plan,
In the future, users of the Tongjian could be roughly divided into two types:
One type would be anonymous users, who could only access relatively inconsequential pages like forums.
The other type would be non-anonymous users, who would need to be verified to gain access to the internal knowledge network that Zheng Fa was just beginning to establish.
In simple terms, it was the difference between an internal and external network.
"When you have the Zao Hua Yu Die, when are you planning to work on that... controllable nuclear fusion?" The old man’s eyes sparkled, as if he found that idea a bit more interesting. "Yang, the team leader, is waiting for it!"
Zheng Fa thought for a moment and replied, "This matter should indeed be prioritized after we resolve the issue with the spiritual roots."
What the old man referred to was the Jindan (金丹, Golden Elixir).
In modern times, its main use was as a factory for synthesizing spiritual materials—on one hand, it could supply the old man and the others for their cultivation, and on the other, it could optimize production processes in conjunction with modern industrial accumulation.
This would feed back into the spiritual material synthesis technology of the Jiushan Realm.
Zheng Fa had always kept this in mind.
The old man nodded lightly, suddenly seeming to think of something, and dashed outside in a hurry.
"Professor Bai?"
"I’ve been so busy with your book lately that I haven’t had time to spend with Xiao Tian! She hasn’t even been talking to me lately..."
Zheng Fa stretched out his hand, wanting to say something: "Is it possible... that Teacher Tian isn’t ignoring you because she’s busier?"
...
Teacher Tian was busy helping Zheng Fa nurture the next generation.
As it turned out, having children was no easy task, and for men, it was even harder.
"Another one dead?"
In the laboratory, Zheng Fa looked at the somewhat dejected Teacher Tian and asked.
"Yes, as soon as the spiritual energy structure from your cells entered those plant cells, not only did it fail to keep them alive, but they died very quickly."
Teacher Tian paused:
"Three seconds later, they’re guaranteed to die."
"Not just the mulberry cells... all plant cells are like this."
Everyone furrowed their brows, deep in thought.
Tang Lingwu slowly spoke up:
"There are three possibilities..."
"First, our theory is wrong; the spiritual energy structure cannot act as a cell nucleus."
Zheng Fa remained silent; this was the worst-case scenario, and the likelihood was quite high.
After all, this theory had no precedent in the Xuanwei Realm, meaning there were no successful samples.
And the reason for this failure was the most frustrating—because they couldn’t find a solution.
"Second, the species is wrong." Tang Lingwu seemed to feel that the first reason was unsolvable, so she moved on. "The mulberry trees and plants on the mountain are too different from the legendary Fusang tree."
"On this point, I’ll have the grain company continue searching for seeds, and Aunt Yang will help us keep an eye out. We might even call in some rare seeds from various seed banks."
Zheng Fa nodded.
This matter might really depend on the state...
However, the issue of species could still hold hope in the Xuanwei Realm.
Modern and Xuanwei were ultimately different; many species only existed in Xuanwei.
Perhaps the plants suitable for cultivating the Fusang tree couldn’t be found in modern times, but could in Xuanwei?
And then...
Zheng Fa suddenly had an idea: while the spiritual roots of heaven and earth were precious, could there be close relatives of the spiritual roots?
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