40: Chapter 40 Abnormal Aurora

On the way home, the [Sharp Senses] state was still active.

He could clearly hear the echo of footsteps on different road surfaces:

Asphalt was muffled, stone paths were crisp, and puddles were splashing.

He could hear the bustle of the morning market in the distance, the crying of a child in some apartment upstairs, and the steady thumping of his own heartbeat.

The world had become... richer.

But at the same time, he also felt a subtle burden.

There was too much information, and his brain needed to work harder to process it.

It was like a computer running too many programs at once; although it could still function, energy consumption had increased.

It seemed that heightened perception was also a double-edged sword.

Used well, it was an advantage; used poorly, it was a distraction.

He had to learn to control it, to learn to filter it.

He arrived home at 7:20.

His mother was already up and collecting laundry on the balcony.

"You're back?" his mother turned around. "Did you get wet?"

"No, I finished running after the rain stopped." Chen Zhen changed his shoes.

His mother brought the collected laundry inside. "Have you eaten?"

"Yes, Dad boiled some dumplings."

"That's good."

His mother put the clothes on the sofa and began to fold them. "Your dad has been... troubled lately. Don't ask him too much; let him process it himself."

"I know."

His mother's hands paused as she folded the clothes. "Xiao Zhen, you've grown up. There are some things that, even if Mom doesn't say, you can see. Your dad's job... it wasn't easy to come by. Our family can't afford any more turmoil right now."

Chen Zhen nodded. "I understand."

"As long as you understand." His mother continued folding the clothes. "Mom doesn't ask for you to be wealthy or prominent; I just want you to be safe and steady."

...

For his morning study, Chen Zhen first boiled mugwort water to soak his feet.

A few dark green mugwort leaves tumbled in the hot water, and a crisp, medicinal fragrance steamed up.

As he soaked his feet, the warmth spread up from the soles, and soon his whole body was warm.

His pores opened slightly, as if forcing out all the dampness from the rainy day.

After soaking his feet, he felt refreshed and clear-headed.

He lit the calming incense, held a Mint leaf in his mouth, and opened his English workbook.

Today's content was reading comprehension.

Four long articles, covering various Domains such as technology, humanities, society, and nature.

Usually, when doing these types of problems, he needed to read repeatedly, find keywords, and analyze the structure.

But today, under multiple buffs and the [Sharp Senses] state, he found that both his reading speed and quality had improved.

It wasn't the kind of speed where you glance over ten lines at once, but rather, his comprehension efficiency was higher.

His eyes scanned the sentences, and his brain automatically grasped the core information, analyzed logical relationships, and discarded redundant modifiers.

It was as if an invisible pen was highlighting the key points in the article.

Four articles, finished reading and completed the questions in twenty minutes.

He checked the answers and only got one detail question wrong.

[Efficient reading triggered information processing optimization]

[Learning Dimension experience + 80]

[Cultivation + 0.49]

[Special Note: Under multiple buffs and special states, learning efficiency has reached a new peak]

Peak.

Chen Zhen stopped writing and rubbed his temples.

His brain was indeed a bit tired.

It wasn't sleepiness, but the mild fatigue after high-load operation.

Just like running earlier, his body wasn't tired, but he could feel it deep in his muscles.

He rested for ten minutes and drank a few sips of the hundred-flower pollen water.

The gentle sweetness melted in his mouth, and then that warmth slowly seeped in, relieving much of the fatigue in his brain.

It seems that Cultivation, like studying, requires a balance of tension and relaxation.

Constant high intensity would actually decrease efficiency.

For the rest of the morning, he didn't do any more problems but instead organized his notes.

He organized the knowledge points he had learned during this period into a system using Mind Mapping.

This process was slow, but very solid.

Every time he organized a module, his understanding of this Domain deepened, and his knowledge network became denser.

By the end, his Learning Dimension experience had increased by another 60 points.

...

His mother didn't come back at noon; she sent a message saying she was helping out in the community and would eat lunch outside.

Chen Zhen heated up yesterday's leftovers for himself, finished eating, and cleaned up.

Before going to the Bookstore in the afternoon, he first sent a message to Zhou Shu: "I've asked; I can teach you some simple Breathing Method. Are you free this weekend?"

Zhou Shu replied quickly: "Yes, yes, yes! Saturday morning? I'll come find you!"

"Okay, come to my house."

"Thanks, Brother! [Happy]"

Putting his phone away, Chen Zhen made a decision:

To teach Zhou Shu the most basic Abdominal Breathing and standing posture adjustments.

These two things had been taught by the old man, he had verified their effectiveness himself, and they were gentle and unlikely to cause issues.

As for things like the shouzhong token and calming incense, he wouldn't mention them for now.

Once Zhou Shu had a foundation, if she was still interested, he would take it slowly.

...

When he arrived at the Bookstore, Old Wu was flipping through a thick ledger behind the counter.

Seeing Chen Zhen, he lifted his eyelids: "You're here?"

"Yeah."

"Not much work today." Old Wu closed the ledger. "Just organize those few stacks of newly acquired old magazines over there. Once you're done... you can read some books."

There was a hidden meaning in those words.

Chen Zhen nodded and walked over to the stacks of magazines to start organizing.

They were all expired magazines from recent years, such as National Geographic, Scientific American, and Archaeology, and they were in good condition.

As he organized, he occasionally activated [Anomaly Perception].

Most magazines were just ordinary paper, with near-zero energy residue.

But when he got to a stack of National Geographic, he sensed a faint, anomalous fluctuation from one of them.

It wasn't energy, but more like... some kind of mark; it was very faint, but it definitely existed.

He pulled that one out; it was the July 2010 issue, with an aurora on the cover.

He opened it and browsed through it quickly.

The content was very normal, just popular science and photography of auroras.

But when he turned to a certain page, the feedback from [Anomaly Perception] suddenly intensified.

That page was the reader letters section, featuring a letter from a small town in northern Canada.

The content of the letter was: The reader claimed to have observed an "anomalous aurora" for three consecutive nights at the end of June 2010.

The color was not the common green or red, but "blue-white with gold edges," and the "form was not like a natural aurora, but more like... some kind of pattern."

The end of the letter said: "I took photos, but they all came out blank when developed. I wonder if your publication has any experts who can explain this phenomenon?"

The editor's reply was very official: It might be a rare aurora variant caused by special atmospheric conditions; it is suggested to consult the local meteorological department.

But Chen Zhen noticed that in the blank space of the letter, someone had written a few words in pencil, the handwriting very faint and almost illegible:

"Not aurora, same frequency?"

The handwriting... looked a bit like Engineer Gu's, but more scribbled.

Chen Zhen took the magazine to the counter: "Grandpa Wu, look at this."

Old Wu took it, glanced at the line of pencil writing, and was silent for a few seconds.

"This is Old Gu's handwriting from his later years." He said. "His hands were shaking back then, so his writing was crooked."

"This letter... he said 'same frequency,' what does that mean?"

Old Wu shook his head: "I don't know. Old Gu's ideas became increasingly... esoteric in his later years. He said that many strange things happening in the world might just be projections of the same 'Source' in different places and at different times. It's like a radio; if you tune it to a frequency, you can receive the program for that frequency."

"So this 'anomalous aurora' and the 'strange light' here might be from the same 'Source'?"

"That's what he guessed." Old Wu handed the magazine back. "But there's no evidence. And... Canada is so far away, how is that possible?"