Chapter 347: You Have to Start on Crispy Noodle Snacks As a Child

Looking at the barrier from the top of a tall building, it didn't actually encompass a wide area; it was a faint shimmer of light that took the form of a birdcage covering everything within line of sight. Even so, trying to catch a person in this complicated tangle of streets and buildings would still be a little difficult.

Odd Zhuo saw Wang Ming cross his arms as he faced the front, eyes shut in concentration as if he was pondering something.

Indeed, he couldn't sense any fluctuations of spirit energy from Wang Ming; this was a normal person through and through. But in some sense, he did feel that Wang Ming wasn't ordinary... during the combined military training exercise for the six schools, Wang Ming had entered the world of the survival contest as a magic treasure maintenance expert, but Odd Zhuo hadn't bumped into him at the time.

Now that he thought about it, Odd Zhuo suddenly felt a little frightened.

He remembered that when Wang Ling had entered the world of the survival contest, his signal had been blocked. This proved that Wang Ming must have been with Wang Ling at the time, and had used his authority to turn off Wang Ling's signal. Back then, Wang Ming must have been there when Wang Ling had closed the door of the Gate Between Worlds with his bare hands.

A person would rarely have such an opportunity in their whole lives to witness such a spectacular scene.

Odd Zhuo guessed that the things Wang Ming saw as an ordinary person weren't necessarily less than what true cultivators experienced.

The wind blew as the both of them stood on the rooftop of this tall building. Although it wasn't a large area, Odd Zhuo's spiritual senses alone weren't enough to cover everything within the barrier, and thus couldn't be used to detect Xiao Yuncheng's aura.

Wang Ming speculated that there was probably some sort of instruction contained inside Shuigou Sect's fruit; since the sect's ultimate aim was to create a spiritual explosion, the students who ingested the fruit would come under its control and be instructed to hide themselves.

The problem right now was determining Xiao Yuncheng's location.

After a long time, Wang Ming opened his eyes and couldn't help sighing. "Sure enough, it's still no good."

Odd Zhuo: "What was Brother Er doing?"

"There are over four hundred forks in the roads in this area behind the barrier, and five to six hundred buildings that Xiao Yuncheng could hide in. I was running simulations earlier by sending out fifty copies of myself in my mind to search the streets, but I couldn't find any trace of him."

Odd Zhuo was shocked.

"This is the Brain Deduction Technique." Wang Ming beamed at him. "Some say that normal people only use ten percent of their brains."

Odd Zhuo's expression turned curious, but just as he was about to ask if the brain truly had potential yet to be explored, Wang Ming's next sentence immediately threw cold water on his question.

"In fact, that's a lie."

"..."

"If you can't score on a test, or write from memory, or learn by heart, there really is something wrong with your brain. There are times when dunces have to acknowledge the truth... But if you work hard enough in this type of situation, only then will you gain true knowledge. Drinking Eight Walnut 1 won't increase your intelligence, and consuming Diamond Partners 2 won't help your brain develop. These are all lies, like when they say on TV that you can live up to ten percent longer if you drink Wang Lao Ji 3 ."

"..."

Odd Zhuo suddenly felt like he had been pierced through the heart!

Why did you have to tell me the truth?!

"A person's intelligence is already determined at birth. I learned to speak when I was about two months old; at three months, I could read the Xinhua Dictionary 4 , and after that, it wasn't difficult to memorize the Cihai [5.The Cihai is an encyclopedic Chinese dictionary.]."

"..."

"Later on, I also memorized the Three Characters Classic , Dao De Ching , Diamond Sutra , Great Compassion Mantra , Three Hundred Tang Poems 5 and also the complete set of the Hundred Thousand Whys 6 . If it wasn't for the fact that I was still unable to hold a pen back then, I would have copied all these out from memory."

"..." Odd Zhuo looked at Wang Ming lifelessly.

"But I didn't have a happy childhood."

Wang Ming sighed. "When I was five months old, it just so happened to be the Chinese New Year, and I was dragged from house to house in the countryside by my aunties to perform - do you have any idea how I felt?"

Odd Zhuo was silent; in fact, everyone would have gone through this as a kid. During the festive season, parents would force kids in particular to perform in front of their relatives and friends; it could be reciting poetry or singing, or even doing acrobatic stunts. The vilest thing about the situation was that if they didn't perform, they wouldn't get their red packets!

During the Chinese New Year, what the elders liked to do the most was to compare their kids in terms of their studies, abilities and character. As long as your child did better, it was like basking in the light.

"Ling Ling was probably the most miserable." When he said this, Wang Ming covered his face with a bitter smile. "When he was one and a half years old, his father dragged him in front of friends and relatives to break rocks on his chest."

"Oh my god..."

Odd Zhuo was deeply shocked.

Wang Ming: "Also, to save money back then, some of the elders would always take Lingzi to the mart next door to buy crispy noodle snacks. Until he was four, the New Year's money he received each year was all crispy noodle snacks."

Odd Zhuo finally knew why his shifu was so obsessed with crispy noodle snacks; it turned out that it had started when he had still been a child!

Just then, the ring on Wang Ming's hand flashed, and a pure black futuristic-looking helmet emerged.

Odd Zhuo: "What's this?"

"This is something I invented: it's a helmet that can amplify brainwaves. Once I put it on, it can amplify my brainwaves over fifty-fold. At the same time, I can simulate six hundred mind copies of myself with the Brain Deduction Technique," Wang Ming explained nonchalantly. "I believe that with this helmet, I'll be able to locate this kid very quickly."

Secretly, Odd Zhuo was apprehensive. The "Brain Deduction Technique" was a new kind of magic developed in the Spirit Energy Information era. Even ordinary people could use it as it didn't require the consumption of spirit energy. The main difficulty with this technique had to do with the probabilities to come out of the creation of these mind copies.

Generally, an ordinary cultivator could create five copies of themselves, and this was already the limit; furthermore, the probabilities derived from these five copies might not necessarily be completely accurate.

Before putting on this helmet, Wang Ming had effortlessly sent out fifty mind copies of himself. After his brainwaves were amplified, that number could actually climb up to six hundred! There was absolutely no way that an ordinary person would be able to handle the massive brain calculations involved... In some sense, Odd Zhuo thought Wang Ming was also a pretty scary guy.

Just as Wang Ming was about to put the helmet on, his expression suddenly froze when he saw something to Odd Zhuo's side.

Not long after that, a gentle and reserved, yet particularly unpleasant, voice sounded behind them.

"Actually just dispatching a normal person and a Golden Core cultivator here - this is looking down on our Shuigou Sect too much..."