25: Chapter 25 Strange Light

During his morning study time, Chen Zhen clearly felt a difference.

It wasn't that his brain had become faster, but that his focus was easier to "sink" into the material.

Usually, when reading, it would take a few minutes to get into the zone.

Today, as soon as he sat down and took a few breaths, his mind naturally fell into the pages.

The sandalwood pendant pressed against his chest, rising and falling slightly with his breath, as if keeping time for him.

When he was working on the final math problem, he got stuck on a step.

Usually, he would get anxious and recalculate repeatedly.

Today, he stopped his pen, closed his eyes, and felt his breathing.

The ball of Qi in his Dantian was steady.

When he opened his eyes again to look at the problem, a solution suddenly popped into his mind.

It wasn't forced out through hard thinking, but naturally "floated" up.

He followed it and wrote it down; it worked.

［Deep Understanding triggered Extraordinary Performance］

［Learning Dimension experience + 25］

［Cultivation + 0.28］

At noon, before his mother left for the Library, she washed and chopped the vegetables for dinner and put them in the refrigerator.

"If your dad passes his assessment, we'll add a dish tonight," she said.

"What are we adding?"

"I'll buy a fish," his mother said, picking up her cloth bag. "Crucian carp, for soup; it's good for the brain."

"Dad likes red-braised."

"Then we'll do half for soup and half red-braised," his mother laughed. "I'm off."

The door closed.

Chen Zhen sat at the desk and took out a pencil and paper.

Today, he wanted to draw a "caisson ceiling."

That layered, lotus-like decoration on the ceilings of ancient buildings that converges toward the center.

This was even harder than dougong.

He had to draw a square frame first, then draw concentric octagons layer by layer inside, carving flowers on each layer, with the direction of each flower following the structure.

He ruined three sheets of paper.

Either the outer layer was drawn crookedly, or the inner layer's proportions were off.

On the fourth sheet, he stopped his pen and touched the wooden pendant on his chest.

It was cool to the touch.

He took a deep breath and suddenly remembered the "Embodied Listening" the old man taught him in the morning.

So he closed his eyes, not "thinking" about how to draw, but "feeling" how his hand should move.

Where the pen should land, and where the lines should go.

When he opened his eyes again, his hand moved on its own.

The pen tip rustled against the paper, lines flowing one after another, without hesitation or trembling.

The outer octagons were firmly framed, the inner layers receded layer by layer, and the patterns on each layer connected naturally.

After drawing the final stroke, Chen Zhen put down his pen and realized his palms were slightly sweaty.

On the paper, the caisson was as complete as if it had been traced from an architecture book.

No, it was even more "alive" than in the book.

The patterns seemed to be slightly raised, with light and shadow shifting within them.

［Hand-drawing skill Breakthrough］

［Skill Dimension (Hand-drawing) experience + 40, current progress: 100 / 100］

［Skill Dimension (Hand-drawing) upgraded to Lv.2］

［Ability unlocked: [Structural Perception] can intuitively grasp the internal structure of objects, lasts 10 minutes/day］

［Upgrade reward: Cultivation + 8］

A warm current surged from the wooden pendant on his chest, climbed up his spine, and dispersed when it reached the top of his head, like a warm rain.

Chen Zhen leaned back in his chair and let out a long breath.

Hand-drawing... maxed out?

No, it leveled up to two.

It seems every skill branch has an independent Rank.

He looked at the system panel; the Cultivation column had jumped significantly:

［Current total Cultivation: 48.92 / 100］

Almost halfway there.

Before going to the Bookstore in the afternoon, Chen Zhen detoured to the vegetable market and bought a crucian carp.

The fishmonger cleaned it for him, put it in a plastic bag, and even gave him a bunch of green onions.

When he arrived at the Bookstore, Old Wu was sweeping the steps at the entrance.

Seeing the fish in his hand, he lifted his eyelids: "Extra meal?"

"Yeah, my dad has his assessment today."

"Good thing." Old Wu swept the last bit. "Go on in, there's a lot of work today."

There certainly was.

Next to the counter, there were seven or eight stacks of old magazines, from "People's Pictorial" to "Radio," spanning from the seventies to the nineties.

"These," Old Wu pointed with his broom. "Sort them by year and month. Put the missing issues aside."

"Okay."

Chen Zhen started organizing the magazines.

This work was even harder on the eyes than organizing books.

Magazines are thin, easy to scatter, and the page numbers have to be aligned.

He picked them up one by one, checked the date on the cover, and stacked them.

When he reached a stack of "Science Pictorial" from the eighties, he suddenly paused.

The July 1983 issue had a comet on the cover.

The comet trailed a long tail against a dark blue night sky.

But what caught Chen Zhen's eye wasn't the comet, but a line of small, handwritten notes in the bottom right corner of the cover:

"Strange Light Reappeared?"

The handwriting was very faint, written in pencil, almost covered by the printing ink.

Chen Zhen stared at those four characters, the "Saw Strange Light" on the back of yesterday's map flashing through his mind.

He opened the cover.

The inside pages were normal, just popular science articles about comet orbits and observation methods.

He flipped through quickly and found no other notes.

But there was a newspaper clipping tucked into the back cover.

It was a small piece clipped from a local evening paper, dated August 2, 1983, with the headline: "Citizens Claim to Witness 'Colored Aurora,' Meteorological Bureau Calls It Rare Atmospheric Phenomenon."

The report was short, only mentioning that several citizens saw colored bands of light in the sky at night at the end of July, lasting for about ten minutes.

Meteorological experts explained it might be the refraction of sunlight afterglow under special conditions.

There was the same pencil handwriting on the edge of the clipping:

"Not aurora, location same as '53."

Chen Zhen's heart skipped a beat.

He picked up the magazine and walked to the counter: "Grandpa Chen, this…"

Old Wu was bookkeeping; he looked up and his gaze fixed on the cover.

After a few seconds, he put down his pen, took the magazine, and opened it to see the clipping.

"Where did you find this?"

"It was tucked in that stack of 'Science Pictorial.'"

Old Wu stared at the clipping, his fingers rubbing the edge of the paper.

The store was quiet for a long while, with only the creaking sound of the old electric fan.

"This magazine," Old Wu finally spoke, "belonged to an old regular customer. He loved collecting these. Later, after he passed away, his family came to sell the books and brought them over by the box."

"Then this old customer…"

"Surname Gu, a retired engineer from the Geological Bureau."

Old Wu closed the magazine.

"He loved researching strange and bizarre things. Celestial phenomena, geological anomalies... People said he didn't focus on his proper work."

"Is he still alive?"

"Passed away the year before last." Old Wu handed the magazine back. "If you're interested, there are a few more boxes of his things over there that haven't been sorted. Pay attention when you sort them; there might be more."

［Key clue discovered, exploration dimension experience + 20］

［Clue connection: 1953 map "Strange Light" → 1983 clipping "Strange Light Reappeared"］

［exploration dimension progress: 45 / 100］

Chen Zhen took the magazine and returned to the pile of books.

The confusion in his heart was like ink dropped into water, slowly spreading out.

Once in '53, once in '83, both were "Strange Light."

Both in July.

Was it a coincidence?

He thought of the "exploration dimension" unlocked by the System.

It seems this thing really wasn't given for nothing.