Hearing me say there was no need to answer, Duan Youlian at once threw her pen onto the floor, tore up her test paper, and threw it into the air.
The other students followed suit. Some threw pens, some tore up their papers.
Teacher Liu, however, used the test paper to wipe the ink off his brush, carefully put the brush away, then adjusted his Zhongshan suit, elegant and refined, just as if he hadn"t been the one boiling, feeding, and flaying just now.
With a heavy heart I said, "This is my mistake. I shouldn"t have tested you right away."
Though Duan Youlian had returned to school late, she seemed to hold the position of a leader in the cla.s.s. When she had quarreled with Mu Huaitong during the last cla.s.s, Mu Huaitong had seemed to be in the position of the cla.s.s monitor. Now that she had gone abroad, Duan Youlian had become the monitor.
As soon as I spoke, Duan Youlian led the cla.s.s in clapping. The sound of applause echoed in the cla.s.sroom.
Amidst their applause, I continued to speak: "I should have first had you memorize principles of legal common sense, and then tested you. I really didn"t expect your sense of the law would be so weak."
The applause came to an abrupt end, and Duan Youlian asked stupidly, "You want us to memorize?"
"Actually it"s not absolutely necessary for you to memorize them. At the very least you have to hear them and understand. In fact, I"m not trying to make you into lawyers, but there are some basic common sense principles you must understand. The law isn"t a set of regulations to limit your behavior, it"s a means of protecting yourself." With bitter resentment I said, "Today, I will deliver the third lecture. This will be about the second minimum requirement for establishing a correct world view — the law."
I took a breath and went on: "Of course, that isn"t to say that if the law doesn"t punish an action it means we can do it. It"s only the moral bottom line, not a moral standard. As a human being, to establish a correct world view, the first important requirement is knowledge and experience, and the second is law and morals. Only in this way will you establish a more comprehensive outlook."
Fortunately, I had prepared in advance. When I"d printed the test, I had also put together some common sense legal principles and printed thirty copies. After the lecture, I handed out these common sense principles to everyone and told them that this was their homework for this cla.s.s. In the next cla.s.s they would be tested on it.
I didn"t want them to memorize it or copy it however many times. I wanted them to read it and understand how to act in similar circ.u.mstances.
Xiao Ning asked me to go to his hotel after cla.s.s like before, but today I firmly refused.
"I have something to say to Teacher Liu," I said to Xiao Ning. "I have to go back to my dormitory today."
"Wh-what do you want?" Teacher Liu looked at me in horror.
"I want to have a serious talk with you."
"I"ll go, too," Ning Tiance said. "Can I go to your dormitory to rest? I"d also like to come along with you on the school bus. I"m interested in that bus driver you keep talking about."
"Of course you can come," I said with warm welcome towards Xiao Ning. "But what about your car?"
"I"ll come get it tomorrow," Ning Tiance said.
The three of us got on the school bus. When he saw us, the bus driver frowned. "Why is there another outsider on the bus? Last time that Xia Jin... Ah, forget it, anyway the unlucky one wasn"t Xia Jin."
He had to bring up last time. Last time I was the unlucky one, all right?
I was a little scared. I kept a close eye on Qi-dage, afraid that he would tell Xiao Ning what had happened. It would be bad if Xiao Ning misunderstood the relationship between me and Xia Jin.
"Manager Xia has been on this bus?" Ning Tiance asked with interest.
"He only caught a ride." I saw the driver was about to answer and forestalled him. "It was late one day, Xia Jin wasn"t feeling well. Princ.i.p.al Zhang had sent the school bus to pick me up, and I suggested that he should catch a ride."
Ning Tiance looked at the empty inside of the bus and said, "It"s all right, anyway. The inside of the bus is very clean."
It really was clean. The driver always had the bus cleaned up so that there wasn"t a speck of dust.
"I"m getting fewer and fewer customers by the day. Even a Celestial Master gets on my bus. How am I going to maintain my livelihood in the future?" The driver muttered these sentences then started the bus and drove onto the road.
When we reached the dormitory, I asked Xiao Ning to go wash up first. I pulled Teacher Liu into my bedroom and said seriously, "Teacher Liu, do you really not know how to answer that legal common sense question?"
"That..." Teacher Liu thought for a moment and said, "Ah, I got too worked up. I said I would let it go, but in my heart I"m still carrying resentment. During the test I inadvertently said what was in my heart. The answer should have been for B"s family to pay a vagrant to kill A, so it would have no connection to them?"
"They should go to the police!" I said. "a.s.sist the police by supplying pertinent evidence, use the law to get justice for B. No matter how deep the desire for revenge, you can"t take the law into your own hands!"
"Oh, r-really?" Teacher Liu scratched his head sheepishly. "How about you lend me your book about legal common sense? I can lay up some knowledge. For someone like me, after so much time has pa.s.sed, it may be impossible to reincarnate. If I learn about the law, I may be able to find part-time work in the underworld in the future."
"You"re only forty. Why are you talking about things after death? Though I can lend you the book." I didn"t feel comfortable lecturing Teacher Liu too much. I just put the book into his hands. He went back to his room with it to rest.
After Teacher Liu left, Ning Tiance stuck his head into the room. "You"ve finished talking?"
"Yeah." I nodded feebly and collapsed motionless onto the bed. It was one thing for the students not to understand, I really hadn"t expected that Teacher Liu would...
Wait! I sat up abruptly and said to Xiao Ning, "Give me your test paper, please. I saw you were also answering."
Ning Tiance took out his test paper and gave it to me. I scanned it. Most of the public common sense questions were right. The problem again was with the short answer about A"s wrongful killing of B. Xiao Ning"s answer was: B"s family should quickly find a Daoist priest to summon B"s spirit and help it transcend to avoid B becoming a fierce ghost after a violent death.
I returned the paper to him and said, "I"ll give you a copy of Legal Common Sense tomorrow, too..."
"All right," said Ning Tiance, "it"s helpful to learn more."
While we were chatting, Xiao Ning"s cell phone suddenly rang. After he looked at it, his face changed a little. He said, "My Shifu is here."
He showed me his phone. There was a WeChat message from "Maoshan Sect Leader": This master has arrived at the hotel, and you aren"t here. Have you gone somewhere to exorcise ghosts? Do you have enough strength? Do you need me to come lend you a hand?
Xiao Ning replied, "I"m with Teacher Shen. Teacher Shen is the elevated one I told you about, who transformed a hundred ordinary cleansing talismans into exorcism talismans at once."
Really, Xiao Ning, who was elevated now? I felt awkward hearing him say it, considering that Xiao Ning was 183 cm tall, and I was five centimeters shorter than him.
Where is he located? This master will go call on him!
"My Shifu wants to see you, at once. He wants to come to 404 now. Is it all right if I tell him your address?" Xiao Ning asked a little awkwardly.
It was very late. Xiao Ning"s Shifu was an elder, after all. I couldn"t make him come to me.
I had said just about everything I"d wanted to say to Teacher Liu. I thought for a moment and said, "I should be the one to call on the sect leader. Let"s go to the hotel."
Ning Tiance seemed very pleased. He quickly booked a car online, and we drove through the night to Xiao Ning"s hotel. Another two hours had pa.s.sed in all these comings and goings. By the time we got to the hotel it was already four in the morning.
As soon as we came in, we saw a middle-aged man with a long beard and long hair, dressed in Daoist robes, sitting upright on the sofa. When he saw us, he said, "This must be Mr. Shen? Tiance, help me up. I"ve sat on a hard seat for over thirty hours, my back is a little stiff. I"m unable to get up and pay my respects."
He was sitting very upright, his posture extremely elegant. I"d thought it was very worthy of the head of a big sect, but actually he couldn"t stand up because of a backache.
I just couldn"t understand it. The Maoshan Sect could afford such a large suite, so it definitely didn"t lack for money. Why didn"t they fly? What was this obsession about hard seats on trains?
"Don"t get up!" I hurriedly ran to the sofa and sat down. This way the sect leader wouldn"t have to get up.
Ning Tiance sat next to his Shifu and ma.s.saged his back for him. At the same time, he introduced us. "This is my Shifu, Ning Yi, the current leader of the Maoshan Sect. Shifu, this is Mr. Shen Jianguo."
"Greetings, Sect Leader Ning." I held out my hand to Sect Leader Ning.
Though Sect Leader Ning had a backache, he was still nimble. He grabbed my hand at once. But instead of shaking hands with me, he turned my hand over, looked at it, and said, "The left is for men, the right is for women. Please give me your left hand, Mr. Shen."
Who shakes hands with their left hand? I speechlessly held out my left hand. Sect Leader Ning touched the palm, nodding each time he touched. He said, "Mr. Shen"s horoscope... You lost both parents at a young age, your family financial situation was poor, you"ve drifted half your life with no one to rely on, you"ll never have children. Though you aren"t the bane of others" existence, with such a horoscope, why would you have such plentiful Yang energy? Even though you are a virgin, it shouldn"t be possible for someone who hasn"t cultivated to be so powerful..."
Sect Leader Ning had it fairly right. After my parents died, the inheritance they left behind was only enough to pay for me to attend university. After graduation, I was very poor. Not being able to buy a house in H City could be called drifting, and not having children was of course because of my s.e.xuality. I couldn"t get married just to produce an heir. It would only be harming some poor woman.
"When is Mr. Shen"s birthday?" Sect Leader Ning asked.
I told him my birthday. He pressed down on my hand several times, shook his head, and said, "Strange. Though you were born on a day with a gathering of dragon energy and were tainted with a bit of the nation"s fortune, it still doesn"t amount to being impervious to G.o.ds and ghosts, let alone being able to fill talismans with Yang energy. Could it be that you are the reincarnation of some G.o.d? Let me see your soul."
"See my soul... How?" I was a little dizzy from these strange actions from Sect Leader Ning. I rather wanted to counsel him against superst.i.tion. But he wasn"t Ning Tiance. With a man of Sect Leader Ning"s age, however superst.i.tious he was, I couldn"t directly point it out. I could only cooperate.
But as for my soul, it wasn"t like I could just sneeze it out…
I looked at Xiao Ning a little helplessly, using my eyes to send him the message, Quickly get your Shifu to go to bed, I can hear his back creaking and cracking.
Ning Tiance didn"t understand my painstaking efforts. He patted me on the shoulder and said, "Don"t worry. This so-called looking at your soul is just my Shifu is just going to open his third eye to have a look at the three flowers on your head. All you need to do is not turn your head away."
I watched Sect Leader Ning lick the index and middle fingers of his left hand, put the two fingers together, rub the saliva onto his eyelids, then say, "Ning Yi, 342nd generation disciple of the Maoshan Sect, invites the holy gaze and opens his third eye!"
Then he opened his eyes side and stared at me without blinking. The protruding eyes scared me. The old man"s eyes were bloodshot. He had sat on a hard seat for over thirty hours, and now it was four in the morning. If he didn"t go to sleep soon I was worried he would faint.
Sect Leader Ning"s face suddenly changed after he had opened his celestial eyes. He pointed at me and said, "Y-you... you"re... you"re actually..."
Before he had finished speaking, his head fell back, and he collapsed motionless onto the sofa.
"He... hasn"t really fainted?" I tentatively put my finger under Sect Leader Ning"s nose. I hadn"t touched him yet when heard I him snoring thunderously.
Ning Tiance said awkwardly, "Opening your third eye is a ceremony that requires a great deal of power. My Shifu used up his energy and fell asleep."
"Are you sure he"s tired because of the third eye and not because of over thirty hours on a train?"
"Well..." Xiao Ning wasn"t very sure either. He sighed. "Shifu"s strength really isn"t what it was. Ten years ago, he took me to Russia. He sat on the K2 line for seven days and seven nights, meditating from start to finish. There was no sign of back pain. Now... Ah... I"ll put him to bed right away."
He was afraid to touch Sect Leader Ning"s back and moved very carefully. Finally, I helped him by supporting Sect Leader Ning"s back. The two of us together carried him to the bed in the master bedroom.
I was extremely sleepy after getting Sect Leader Ning settled. Without even taking a bath I collapsed onto Xiao Ning"s bed and fell asleep.
I dimly sensed Xiao Ning taking my shoes off for me. I struggled a little, wanting to take them off myself, but I couldn"t shake off the demon of sleep.