Fishing All Things, They Come Looking, Classmate Huang Tian

A little past five that afternoon, Huang Tian ended his deep meditation. He slowly breathed out a mouthful of clear qi, his expression calm. His cultivation was far too slow. He still needed the aid of spiritual herbs and pills. Otherwise, to say nothing of cultivating back up to the Heavenly Immortal or Golden Immortal realm, even Dao Foundation and Golden Core would take a great deal of time— He shook his head slightly, rose, and took out his phone to check the delivery status. The ginseng, lingzhi, and other things he had bought that morning had actually already arrived, so he went downstairs to the package station to collect them. This was just the hour when the university students came out looking for food, and there were plenty of people on the road. At the package station he picked up the parcel. As he walked back, a familiar voice suddenly came from behind him. "Old Huang, picking up a delivery? What'd you buy?" He turned. There was Zhou Dongqiang, backpack on, all smiles, the corners of his mouth lifting and refusing to come down. "I drank too much a while back. It was really hard on my body, and I haven't been feeling right, so I just bought a few things to nourish the spleen and stomach." Huang Tian answered offhand, then asked, "Look at you, beaming like that. Caught quite a haul, did you?" Zhou Dongqiang nodded again and again, then burst out laughing, smug. "My skill beats every angler on the planet! Of course the haul was huge!" Huang Tian looked at his empty hands and said, with a show of sympathy, "I get it. I understand." Zhou Dongqiang's face fell. "What's with that look? Old Huang, you don't believe me! You people just don't know what I can do. Hey! I'm telling you, don't go by my coming back empty-handed. The truth is I sold all the fish I caught, so—" Huang Tian gave his shoulder a light pat, then headed upstairs on his own. Zhou Dongqiang panicked and chased after him. "Hey! You don't believe me, is that it? Old Huang, you, you, you—" One after the other, the two of them entered Dorm 208. Murong Hao was leaning back in his chair, playing a game, flushed from his face to his ears and wildly worked up. Seeing Zhou Dongqiang, he looked him up and down, then roared with laughter. "Little Zhou, oh, Little Zhou. Out from dawn till dark every day, and you can't even fish up a glove or a sock, let alone a fish!" Zhou Dongqiang flushed. "Who says I can't fish up gloves and socks? I've not only caught those, I've caught better things! Today I caught—" There he stopped short. Seeing it, Murong Hao grinned. "Fooling your brothers is one thing. Don't go fooling yourself too. Relax, Zhouzi. I, your father, won't laugh at you. Haha." Zhou Dongqiang set his backpack on his own desk, gave two humphs, clapped his palms together, and spoke in high spirits. "Hah! No more talk. Tonight I'm treating! Xiaoshiju! Order whatever you like!" Xiaoshiju was the restaurant with the highest average prices on campus. In the past Zhou Dongqiang had never been willing to spend the money to eat there. It had always been the original body, "Huang Tian," who took them. Hearing this, Murong Hao was startled. "No way, bro. You really caught something good? This generous?" Zhou Dongqiang lifted his chin. "You won't believe a word I say, but my precious little money will speak for me! Give it to me straight. Are we going or not?" "Going, going!" Murong Hao shot to his feet. "Only a bastard skips a feast. And I haven't even had dinner yet." Huang Tian set down the parcel and nodded with a smile. "Today we eat off the moneybags." Zhou Dongqiang tossed his hair. "With me!" He turned, left the dorm room, and swaggered down the stairs with a sway in every few steps. Murong Hao and Huang Tian followed behind. The three of them sauntered over to Xiaoshiju in fine style, ordered six dishes in all, and ate a thoroughly comfortable meal. On the way back they even got a few cups of milk tea and drank them down, gulp after gulp. Along the road, Zhou Dongqiang stroked his belly with one hand and cradled a hot milk tea with the other, exceptionally content. "Now this is a damn life fit for a person!" Murong Hao kept chuckling. "Eat well, drink well, play well. Isn't that all there is to want in this life?" "Murong, ah, you've actually got a bit of wisdom about life, huh." Zhou Dongqiang took a sip of milk tea and went on, "If I hook something good again and sell it for a fine price, I'll treat you to a few more meals. We could even go traveling, you know. Every last expense, I'll cover it!" Murong Hao's eyes shone, and he spoke with heartfelt sincerity. "Sworn Father!" "Eldest Son!" Zhou Dongqiang was moved. "Sworn Father!" "Eldest Son!" "Sworn—" The two chuunibyou youths were acting out a "recognizing kin" routine. Amused, Huang Tian walked into the dormitory building a step ahead of them, thinking to himself all the while: Caught something good—if there really was something unusual about Zhou Dongqiang, then it was most likely tied to that fishing rod of his. Fishing all things? He had guessed a little, but he was in no rush to do anything. He meant to watch a while longer, and at the same time recover some of his strength. With strength, whatever he did would be more at ease. Back in the dorm room, Huang Tian opened the delivery box, took out the ginseng and lingzhi, gave them a simple preparation, then cut off a slice and ate it. It had hardly any effect in spiritual power, though it could just barely bolster his qi and blood a little. When essence was sufficient, qi would be complete. For the early stage of cultivation, it still had a slight use— Something was better than nothing, and he did not scorn it. Of course, if there were something better, he would certainly switch to the better thing. But in this world, anyone who wanted a treasure that could rapidly aid cultivation would, without question, have no way around this world's circles of the extraordinary. Zhou Dongqiang watched Huang Tian take the slice of ginseng, quite curious. "Old Huang, does this stuff really work?" Murong Hao said, "It should, right? When I was little I had a weak constitution, and my mom steeped me a cup of ginseng soup. Not long after I drank it, my nose started bleeding. Scared me half to death at the time." Huang Tian said with a smile, "It helps some." Zhou Dongqiang looked left, then right, puzzled. "Say, can you even tell these medicinal herbs apart? Aren't you afraid of being cheated?" "I can basically tell them apart." "Ohh—" Zhou Dongqiang nodded, lips pressed together, then turned, took out his phone, and searched for all sorts of precious medicinal herbs. As he searched, he secretly winced at the cost. He remembered that these past two days he had hooked things that looked a lot like radishes and wild weeds. Those couldn't have been some precious herbs, could they? Damn! If they really were, he'd taken a terrible loss— Huang Tian took some of the ginseng and lingzhi, then, looking no different from usual, quietly drew in spiritual qi through breath cultivation. Ten days passed in a flash. In those ten days, nothing major happened. Everything was as plain and ordinary as any other day. Zhou Dongqiang went out fishing every day as usual. Even on days when his classes filled the daylight hours, he still made a trip off campus at night, and he always came back all smiles. As for Huang Tian, he was cultivating at nearly every moment, even doing without sleep. But after these days, he was still some distance from the Dao Foundation realm. By a rough estimate, it would be several days yet before he could break through. Truly too slow— "Hu—" Slowly breathing out, Huang Tian opened his eyes, his gaze deep and still. "Click." Just then, the dorm door was pushed open, and Zhou Dongqiang came in with his head lowered. Huang Tian glanced sideways and saw, on the left side of his face, a red scratch six or seven centimeters long, as if a cat or a dog had clawed him. "What happened—" Zhou Dongqiang forced a smile. "It's nothing. Just now, by the roadside, I saw a cat hiding under a tree. I crouched down to tease it, and didn't expect it to jump up and scratch me." "You still have to be careful with stray cats and dogs." Huang Tian said that much, simply, and no more. Zhou Dongqiang set down his backpack, dropped into his chair, laid both arms on the desk, and pressed his head against them. His breathing was deep and slow, as if he were thinking something over— The next day, for all the daylight hours, Zhou Dongqiang was distracted, worry on his face. After afternoon classes he did not hurry off campus at all, but went straight back to the dorm. Murong Hao was astonished. "Old Zhou, you're not going fishing?" Zhou Dongqiang laughed it off. "A bit tired today. I'm going to rest." "That's fine too. The temperature's low today. Go out and you'll be blasted by the cold wind, frozen stiff as a dog, no? If you ask me, curling up in the dorm and playing games is where the happiness is!" Murong Hao sat in his own chair, took out his phone, and opened a game. Zhou Dongqiang did not answer. He only stared blankly into the empty air. Not going fishing—had something gone wrong with the rod? Or was it some other reason? Seeing this, Huang Tian guessed privately. Then his phone suddenly buzzed, and a news notification popped up. "Suspected wolf near Changnan University, several people bitten one after another—" Huang Tian's brows lifted slightly. A wolf? The scratch that had appeared on Zhou Dongqiang's face yesterday—this wolf was very likely connected to him. After thinking it over a little, Huang Tian straightened out the logic from start to finish. Zhou Dongqiang had fished up a wolf with that wondrous fishing rod. The wolf had scratched him, and because of that he was hesitating over whether to keep using the rod to fish—afraid of hooking some monster that could hurt him. This time it was a wolf. Next time it might be a tiger, a monster, an alien? Anything was possible, after all. He shot a glance at Zhou Dongqiang, sunk in a daze, and did not try to guess what he would do next. Instead he pondered something else: Did the Federation have an official organization for dealing with extraordinary incidents? Changnan University could hardly be called the city center, but it was by no means remote. In a place like that, for a wolf to appear out of nowhere, the authorities would certainly pull the surveillance footage and find out where the wolf had come running from, so that a wild beast injuring people would not happen again. And the moment they pulled the footage, there was a very good chance they would trace it to Zhou Dongqiang, and then discover what was strange about him. What was more, what Zhou Dongqiang had fished up might not truly be a wolf. It might be some creature that resembled a wolf, yet had never appeared on Canxing. In that case the authorities would certainly take it even more seriously. So even if he wanted to hide it, he would not be able to. Thinking this, Huang Tian sank into thought. He could just use this chance to take a good, careful look at how the authorities moved— At that very moment, in Changnan City, in a conference room, a whiteboard was covered with photograph after photograph. Liu Qingqing stepped closer and looked at a photo of a "wolf" with horns growing from its head, her brows tightly knit. "A wolf with horns—is this thing an oddity? A biological oddity?" A man just past thirty, with a square face, shook his head. "We've already caught it. Nothing special about it. Almost the same as the wolves on our Canxing. Mm—except for two extra horns, and white eyes." "You verified it carefully?" "Yes." The square-faced man replied, "The only thing left would be dissecting it." Liu Qingqing sighed. "So it is a byproduct of some oddity." "We can basically be sure of that." "Have you found where it first appeared?" "We've already pulled people on short notice to check the cameras and search the site. There'll be a result soon." Knock, knock. As they spoke, the conference room door sounded. "Come in!" the square-faced man called loudly. The door opened. A tough, sharp middle-aged man came in carrying a stack of documents and spoke without waste. "Commissioner Liu, Commissioner Zhang, we've found it!" Liu Qingqing's spirits rose. "Go on." "After we carefully reviewed the surveillance, we found that this—mm, let's just call it a wolf for now—its earliest place of appearance was Heping Park, near Changnan University. But Heping Park isn't connected to any mountain forest. It only borders a small hill. A wolf absolutely could not have suddenly come bolting out— "And because—ahem—because of how special this matter is, we then screened everyone who entered or left Heping Park over these three days. In the end, we narrowed it to five suspects. These are their respective files." The middle-aged man divided the documents in his hands into five sets and set them on the long table in the conference room. Liu Qingqing and the square-faced man came closer. She asked, "Who is the most suspicious?" The middle-aged man pointed at the third file. "This one. Zhou Dongqiang." "The reason?" "He went in and out of Heping Park many times. Not only these three days—more than ten days running. And before that, he had never gone into the park. "Besides that, he's a second-year student at Changnan University. We checked his records of entering and leaving campus. Over these ten-odd days, he left campus every single day, even at night. Far too persistent. And before this, he basically only went out the campus gate once a week—" "Could he have been going to the park to exercise?" the square-faced man guessed. The middle-aged man shook his head. "There are cameras in the park as well. From the footage, he didn't use the facilities to exercise. He went straight into the woods on the small hill beside the park." "Truly suspicious." Liu Qingqing nodded. "Tell us about the others as well." "All right—" About an hour later, Liu Qingqing's gaze settled on Zhou Dongqiang's file. "Nine chances in ten, it's him. Zhang Xiong, tomorrow morning we go to Changnan University." Zhang Xiong nodded. "As for the other four, send people to watch them too. Don't alarm them, unless someone suddenly runs." The middle-aged man answered, "Understood!" The next day, around eight in the morning. Liu Qingqing and Zhang Xiong brought a number of capable subordinates into Changnan University and stopped beneath a dormitory building. "You all stay here. I'll go up alone," Liu Qingqing said. "Be careful," Zhang Xiong said. "Don't worry." Liu Qingqing smiled. As an official member of the Oddity Management Association, she was naturally no ordinary person. She had methods to spare, and her ability was not weak. Tap, tap, tap. Under the astonished gazes of a crowd of young men, Liu Qingqing entered the dormitory building and came to the door of 208. The door stood half open. She knocked once. "It's fine, come straight in," Murong Hao called. Liu Qingqing pushed the door and went in. Seeing a woman walk in, Murong Hao went blank. "Uh—teacher?" Huang Tian's expression was calm. Zhou Dongqiang, though, grew tense for no clear reason. A strong premonition rose in him: She's here for me! And so it was. "Hello, Classmate Zhou Dongqiang. I'm a teacher from the Academic Affairs Office. There's something I'd like to discuss with you alone. Would that be convenient?" Liu Qingqing said, as gently as she could. Zhou Dongqiang was silent for several seconds, pressed his lips together, and slowly nodded. "All right." At that, Liu Qingqing quietly let out a breath and said with a faint smile, "Then let's go." Zhou Dongqiang rose from his chair and followed behind her. Murong Hao sensed that the air seemed a little off, and called out on instinct, "Old Zhou?" Zhou Dongqiang glanced back and forced a smile. "It's nothing." Liu Qingqing went on playing the part of a teacher from the Academic Affairs Office, and said gently, "Classmate Murong, Classmate Huang Tian, no need to worry. Classmate Zhou hasn't done anything wrong. We're only looking for him to learn a bit about the situation." "Oh, oh." Murong Hao rubbed the back of his head, embarrassed, feeling he had made a bit of a fuss over nothing. As for Huang Tian, he watched a voice line spreading toward him from Liu Qingqing, his face perfectly calm.