Chapter 226: Devoting Oneself to the Immortal Art!

"Same-sex friendship? Who's same-sex? Who's making friends?!"

At the dinner table, the old white man cried out in grievance.

Mainly because Teacher Tian clearly had some emotions—he had only two plates of vegetables in front of him, while the meat dishes were far away.

Although the vegetables at the nursing home were delicious.

But these two green plates before him plainly screamed: "You started it, I'll finish it—don't say I didn't warn you."

The old white man's expression clearly showed panic.

Teacher Tian's face grew strangely cold.

"Teacher Tian, don't be like this—I believe Teacher Bai." Zheng Fa urged from the side.

The old white man nodded frantically, looking at Zheng Fa with gratitude, feeling for the first time the warmth of being a man together.

Zheng Fa added: "From what I know of Teacher Bai, that net friend is probably a woman."

Teacher Tian's face grew colder.

"..." The old white man glared at Zheng Fa: "Is this how you defend someone? I was facing twenty years in prison—you turned it into execution?"

"Not a woman?"

"No! A man! A real man!"

The old white man explained angrily.

"Then it's same-sex friendship," Zheng Fa declared firmly.

"... t's same-sex, and it's a friend," the old white man said quickly, realizing he couldn't explain it well and fearing Zheng Fa would keep causing trouble: "Not a new friend—a long-time one."

"Long-time friend?" Teacher Tian became curious: "Do I know him?"

The old white man shook his head, then turned to Zheng Fa: "Do you remember I once had a master when I was young?"

"I remember—the one who got arrested," Zheng Fa said, still quite clear on it.

"This guy... he's sort of my junior brother," the old white man recalled. "I was about twenty-eight or twenty-nine, not yet thirty. He was under twenty, just starting university—we were both disciples of that master."

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

"Not long," the old white man shook his head. "I was just practicing for fun. When my master got arrested, I panicked and hid at home for a few days."

"He was different."

"How?"

"He..." The old white man frowned. "You know those martial arts fanatics in movies?"

"He was one too?"

"No—he was a qigong fanatic," the old white man shook his head. "Our personalities were different; we weren't close at all—we hadn't seen each other in years. Only now did I hear that after my con artist master was arrested, he never gave up. He visited every Daoist temple and Buddhist monastery seeking true methods, earned his PhD and went abroad, traveled the world chasing ancient lineages—anywhere someone tried to trick him, he went."

"..."

"So why is he looking for you?"

"Oh, wasn't I famous online before?" the old white man shook his head. "After I began cultivating, my appearance became a bit like my younger self—I mentioned my surname was Bai in my livestream, and he recognized me."

"He thinks..." Zheng Fa guessed.

"Yes—he thinks I gained some opportunity and wants to ask me about it," the old white man said, sounding dejected. "He guessed wrong, that's fine—but he actually guessed right... So I went to meet him, to stop him from asking around and drawing attention."

Zheng Fa nodded.

The two turned to look at Teacher Tian—sure enough, during this exchange, her expression had softened.

The old white man secretly gave Zheng Fa a grateful glance.

Tang Lingwumin smiled beside them and moved a plate of chicken meat in front of the old white man; Teacher Tian pretended not to notice, lowering her head to eat.

"Actually, I'd also like to see if this person could be brought into the nursing home," Teacher Bai suddenly said, his tone hesitant.

"Huh? Is he also a scholar?" Zheng Fa was stunned—someone running around temples and monasteries, still into science?

"He studied physics in China," the old white man shook his head. "He told me he later got a tenured position abroad—he seems to be doing well."

"..."

Everyone fell silent.

"He does physics because he has talent—even exceptional talent. Experiments others can't complete, he easily achieves results," the old white man sighed. "But he only sees it as a job..."

Zheng Fa now understood Teacher Bai's thoughts.

Though Teacher Bai didn't say it outright, Zheng Fa could tell this man's academic ability was likely extraordinary.

But his personality sounded... unreliable.

On the other hand, though they were old acquaintances, according to Teacher Bai, they hadn't been in contact for years.

They couldn't really guarantee his character or background.

Even whether his personality and history were real or fabricated, none of them could confirm.

Zheng Fa didn't give this person much thought—he was still worried about the demonic clan's attack in three months.

He looked at the Fusang tree inside him, feeling a bit resentful.

The Fusang tree had helped a lot—mainly by attracting the Golden Crow, revealing the demonic clan's plot.

But on the other hand, it had made his cultivation much harder.

Before, with the thunder-type spirit materials he consumed, he should've reached Foundation Establishment's late stage by now.

Zheng Fa didn't care much about the speed of cultivation.

But when his realm advanced, his spiritual soul also strengthened.

Currently, Zheng Fa's spiritual power was at Foundation Establishment's early stage, yet his spiritual soul's strength had already subtly surpassed Foundation Establishment's late stage.

If he could advance to Foundation Establishment's late stage, his spiritual soul would almost certainly cross the Golden Core threshold.

With Golden Core-level spiritual soul strength, he might even master the Spirit Wood Thunder, gaining vast Heavenly Merit to accelerate his control of the Heavenly Tablet Realm.

Thinking of this, his gaze toward the Fusang tree turned distinctly hostile—the Fusang tree trembled, as if frightened.

"Come here!" One day, Zheng Fa was still studying Cloud Rain Thunder with the old white man, trying to further optimize the thunder technique, when Teacher Tian rushed over excitedly.

"What's wrong?"

Seeing her so eager, the old white man hurriedly asked.

"Come to my lab!"

Teacher Tian said nothing else, just beckoning them.

Zheng Fa and the old white man exchanged glances and followed her to her agricultural lab.

On the way, Teacher Tian explained: "You know, every day I take samples from the fields and examine them in the lab."

Zheng Fa nodded.

Although the spiritual energy environment hadn't yet generated spirit plants—Zheng Fa and Teacher Tian had discussed a possibility: that plants had indeed undergone changes, like genetic mutations, but hadn't become true spirit plants due to insufficient growth time.

Because of this hypothesis, they saved every harvest's seeds, and Teacher Tian took samples for observation.

"Look at these cell section images!"

Teacher Tian led Zheng Fa and the old white man to a computer; on its screen were several magnified images of cell interiors.

Zheng Fa looked through them one by one—he could recognize only the most basic things: cell walls, nuclei, chloroplasts, mitochondria.

Honestly, expecting him to deduce anything from these images with his high-school biology knowledge was impossible.

"Little Tian, what's wrong with these cells?"

Teacher Tian slapped her forehead. "Too excited—I forgot you're not familiar with this."

She pulled up several previous cell images, placed them side by side, and said: "Look again?"

Zheng Fa and the old white man stared for a while; the old white man frowned uncertainly: "There's a... new structure?"

Zheng Fa saw it too.

It was an unremarkable thing, near the cell wall—tiny compared to the nucleus and other components.

"Yes!"

Teacher Tian clapped her hands. "These past two days, this pea seedling's cells suddenly developed this new structure!"

"A spirit plant?"

The old white man exclaimed happily.

"I'm not sure—it's only shown significant change."

Zheng Fa immediately halted the operation of his Spirit Mountain Technique.

The three walked to the field and stared at the pea seedlings for a long while.

"Spiritual energy!"

"This pea seedling has spiritual energy!"

"We've actually cultivated a spirit plant!"

The old white man cheered.

Even Tang Lingwumin inside the house came over; the group surrounded the few ordinary pea seedlings, staring left and right, afraid they'd misread.

Finally, they confirmed: the pea seedlings indeed carried extremely faint spiritual energy—so faint it was indistinguishable in the spiritual energy environment.

They didn't overlook other plants.

They circled the experimental field, eyes turning green, but found no other vegetables containing spiritual energy.

"It must be just this one type—the other samples in the lab showed no changes," Teacher Tian said.

Everyone felt a bit disappointed.

But Teacher Tian comforted them: "Our field is different from old Bai's. They do math by studying people; we do agriculture by studying heaven."

"Studying heaven? Like weather and climate?" Tang Lingwumin asked curiously.

"No, it depends on whether heaven favors us," Teacher Tian shook his head. "Sometimes you don't even know when it will happen, or why it happened at all."

Zheng Fa fell silent; they didn't know either…

…

"This cellular tissue…" Old Bai stared at the magnified cellular structure diagram provided by Teacher Tian, stroking his chin. "It looks oddly familiar…"

Zheng Fa nodded, then suddenly said: "It resembles a tangle of fine threads—or rather, a tangle of spiritual runes."

"Exactly! That's the feeling!" Old Bai clapped his hands. "Too bad the image is too blurry to tell what kind of rune it is."

"Actually, I've been thinking…" Zheng Fa suddenly said. "Whether it's spiritual runes, our meridians, or even spells—all of them are fundamentally traces of spiritual energy. To become a spiritual plant, you probably need this same kind of spiritual energy trace."

"So you mean this is the 'meridians' of a spiritual plant?"

Old Bai immediately understood Zheng Fa's meaning.

"Yes, we just don't know why it takes the form of cellular tissue," Zheng Fa nodded.

Stroking his chin, Old Bai suddenly said: "Zheng Fa, didn't I mention before that you should go to Beijing University's Medical College…?"

Zheng Fa blinked, looking at Old Bai: "You want to examine our cellular structure?"

"Exactly. If we're not going to let outsiders slice us up, why not let our own people do it?" Old Bai gestured toward the lab. "We've got all the equipment here—it's time we devoted ourselves to the science of Immortal Arts!"

Zheng Fa thought for a moment, then asked: "Teacher Tian?"

"Wait a moment—I need to check the literature and review the experimental protocols," Teacher Tian sighed. "I'm an agricultural specialist—I've never done human trials before."

(End of Chapter)