Steam Era: The Lord of 'Puluo'

Chapter 902 - 518: The Outside Provinces Are So Much Fun

In Fool’s City, Sun Tiecheng hugged a Teapot, raised it straight to his mouth and took a swig of tea, then hummed a couple of lines: "In the west of the city at Ink Shop lives a girl named Bai Junying, with a clever brush for painting scenes, this fine girl, nineteen winters, her husband’s gone south to study hard, and now it’s nearly mid-April..."

The little ditty was called "Fan Painting." Before Sun Tiecheng finished singing, Gui Jianchou, the Smiling Ghost King, came in: "City Lord, I’ve already checked it out. Over at Soda Kiln, a big Snail came out and strung more than fifty People from other provinces together like a skewer—took only the bones, left no flesh, scrubbed them spotless, and hung them right at the door."

Sun Tiecheng took another sip of tea and asked, "Those fifty-some People from other provinces, what’s their background?"

"All of them people with status, on par with the Defense Agency folks. This time the Outside Provinces will definitely raise troops and go to war—dogs biting dogs, who knows how many will get bitten to death!"

Sun Tiecheng chuckled: "Let’s see how much blood they can spill this time."

Ye Jianhuang, standing to the side, said, "City Lord, doing this kind of thing—doesn’t it count as offending Heaven and harming reason?"

Sun Tiecheng glanced at Ye Jianhuang: "The stuff you used to pull in Fool’s City, that didn’t count as offending Heaven and harming reason?"

Ye Jianhuang lowered his head and said, "Haven’t I changed? All these years I’ve been regretting what I did back then. I’ve decided to turn over a new leaf. This is what they call putting down the butcher’s knife and turning back to the shore."

Sun Tiecheng snapped, "You did every bad thing you could in Fool’s City and now you come tell me about putting down the butcher’s knife? And anyway, that’s not even how the saying goes! The original words are: put down the butcher’s knife and turn into an honest, simple man!"

Ye Jianhuang said, "Let’s not fuss about the original words, we’re talking about the idea."

"Don’t give me this ’idea’ crap. You never went to school and you still want to act like some scholar?" Sun Tiecheng was furious. He turned to Gui Jianchou and said, "Ah Gui, enforce the family rules!"

Gui Jianchou pulled out a stick and asked, "City Lord, where do you want me to hit?"

City Master Sun waved his hand grandly: "Hit the balls!"

When Ye Jianhuang heard that, he bolted, but Sun Tiecheng bellowed, "You can’t run. You can’t move!"

Ye Jianhuang kept his running posture, but really couldn’t move at all.

Gui Jianchou walked over with the stick. Ye Jianhuang shouted again and again, "Old Ghost, we’re friends, we’re our own people, you can’t do something this vicious to me, in the future we still have to..."

Bang!

Gui Jianchou brought the stick down from above in one blow.

Ye Jianhuang convulsed, clamped his legs together, and squatted on the ground.

Sun Tiecheng was very satisfied: "See? Isn’t this exactly putting down the butcher’s knife and turning into an honest, simple man!"

Ye Jianhuang lowered his head, tears in his eyes, and sobbed for quite a while.

Sun Tiecheng assigned him a task: "Go tell all the Local Deities of every territory: don’t go meddling in shit that’s not their business!"

...

Li Banfeng put on a plain, clean tracksuit, shaved his beard, and tried his best to dress himself to look a bit more green, then headed back to Yuezhou University.

Yuezhou had changed a lot in the past two years, but Yuezhou University seemed basically unchanged.

It was right before the start of the semester; campus was buzzing. As he walked to the east gate, two students came up to peddle phone cards. Li Banfeng had done this gig himself back in the day. Hearing them call him "handsome guy" over and over in that slick sales tone, which sounded decent enough, Li Banfeng actually bought a card.

Behind them were others selling washbasins, mosquito nets, thermos flasks, immersion heaters, and rechargeable desk lamps. They all started pitching to Li Banfeng.

"You’ve got the nerve to sell this rechargeable lamp for fifteen? You think I’m new here?" Li Banfeng was very unhappy with the price.

The lamp seller was a third-year student, who gave Li Banfeng an up-and-down look, with a hint of disdain in his eyes.

Li Banfeng had indeed tried to style himself in a more youthful way, but that didn’t mean they should take him for a freshman!

On second thought, he really had made a mistake only freshmen make—for example, buying a phone card the moment he walked through the gate.

And for another example, the way he was dressed.

Second-year guys care about appearances—there’s at least a bit of name brand on them.

Third-year guys care about individuality—there’s at least a bit of artsy vibe on them.

Fourth-year guys care about realm—on a day like this, just a basketball jersey, a pair of big shorts, and a pair of flip-flops: with that simple outfit they can project the bearing of a seasoned elder.

Li Banfeng, in his plain, clean tracksuit, looked exactly like a green-as-grass first-year.

Going to see Teacher Song, it wouldn’t do to show up empty-handed. Li Banfeng bought a washbasin, a mosquito net, and a pair of flip-flops, then went to the School of Science office building to find Teacher Song.

University teachers don’t keep regular office hours; bumping into Teacher Song like this was actually pretty lucky.

Teacher Song was a math teacher. Li Banfeng hadn’t planned on asking a math teacher about Dark Matter; he just hoped Teacher Song could recommend an expert in Dark Matter for him.

What he didn’t expect was that Teacher Song had done in-depth research on Dark Matter herself. She had a lot of research results and had even won awards internationally.

Li Banfeng didn’t reveal his identity; he only said he was a diligent, ambitious student.

Teacher Song very enthusiastically explained the latest results in Dark Matter research to Li Banfeng. She didn’t over-elaborate on those complicated derivations and calculations, instead using a more direct way to convey the research findings to him.

"Dark Matter basically doesn’t interact with electromagnetism, and doesn’t participate in the strong interaction. This used to be an iron law in the field of Dark Matter research,

but right now this iron law is very likely to be broken. Dark Matter hardly interacts with photons, which makes Dark Matter basically non-luminous. But there are still some disordered changes within it; it’s just that these changes interfere with each other, resulting in something close to unobservable..."

Teacher Song earnestly described her research results, talking for more than three hours straight.