Chapter 13: CH 13

Paracelsus’ words caused the equivalent of a magnitude ten earthquake in Zong Yan’s heart.

Although what the alchemical giant said was a bit indirect, as an educated Chinese, Zong Yan could easily extract the necessary information from these vague words, as this was an essential skill for every Chinese high school student who’d endured the torture of reading comprehension in literature class.

The meaning was quite simple. There were dangerous elements in this school. If they were human double agents or alien beings, he should set an example as the school chief and pull them out by the roots. Of course, if he found any abnormality because of his unique talent, with his limited individual strength he should be sure to report it to the top at once. Make good use of the power of snitching, little chief. Jiayou, we’re optimistic about you oh!

What, are you MU people playing spy games like it’s Mission Impossible?

Zong Yan couldn’t wrap his head around it.

He felt like a sacrificial goat. This wasn’t a university but a tiger’s den. At any moment an enemy might upend the situation.

But no matter how much he complained to himself he couldn’t escape the facts. The new student chief was an elephant on a tightrope.

Zong Yan, who’d just found out this important secret, trembled like he was on thin ice for the next three days. Everyone he saw looked like a spy.

“Yan Ge, what electives are you taking?” At noon Wang KeMing came up to him carrying his lunch plate, speaking very cordially.

Wang KeMing had been enthusiastic ever since Zong Yan became the new school chief. People who didn’t know better would think he was Zong Yan’s number one henchman.

“Basically everything.”

Wang KeMing was a little too excited about him, but at least his attitude was friendly. He never made himself a pest or crossed the line. Zong Yan couldn’t bring himself to give him the cold shoulder.

Because of the vice chancellor’s advice, Zong Yan even had a friendly conversation with him.

Wang KeMing announced somewhat pompously that he wanted to take Zong Yan to London’s red light district that weekend to have some fun. Zong Yan thought that this person and Ye JingMing were carved from the same mold. Both had a typical show-off personality.

Anyway, strike one from the list. There was no way he was a spy.

Zong Yan looked through the course list and pinched his nose. He checked off every subject except for physics.

Like Sir Isaac Newton said, life is important. It was better to learn as much as he could.

On the afternoon of the fifth day, Zong Yan once again experienced the uniqueness of elective courses.

The name of this class was Eastern alchemy. It was one of the most popular elective courses every year, and the instructor was said to be very knowledgeable.

An elegant man in Taoist robes smiled, lifted his fingers and stroked the fly whisk in his hand.

He didn’t look much older than Zong Yan. His long black hair was tied up with a jade hair crown, like an ancient costume drama actor who’d just stepped out of Hengdian. His image somewhat clashed with the school, which was full of Western classicism.

But his words made the students’ jaws drop.

“My surname is Xu. My single-character name is Fu, and my courtesy name is JunFang. This year I am about two thousand years old. You may have heard my name in the Records of the Grand Historian. I’m ashamed to say I have no virtue and no talent. I only held a minor post in the state of Qin.

“If I were to comment on what I’m most proud of in my life, it would probably be the success of His Majesty Shi Huang. Yes, after such a long time I still feel a sense of achievement when I look back on it.”

This group of freshmen had already weathered a series of great storms. After discovering their professor of alchemy was Sir Isaac Newton, the professor of biology was Charles Robert Darwin, the chancellor was Nicholas Flamel, and the vice chancellor was Paracelsus, everyone was easily able to accept a Taoist master who’d lived two thousand years.

Revered Daoist Xu Fu had a strong personality. After introducing himself, he put away his fly whisk and rolled up his Taoist robe, which revealed the dazzling sight of a T-shirt underneath. “Now that we’re in the twenty-first century, we no longer promote feudal superstitions. In the West there is Western alchemy, and in the East there is Eastern alchemy.

“You have chosen my alchemy class. In Buddhist terms this is known as fate. There’s no upper limit for this class. If you are especially gifted, I can even teach you how to refine the elixir of immortality. Yes, the very thing that Qin Shi Huang and Emperor Wu of Han searched for all their lives.”

Facing all the bright eyes in the classroom, the Revered Daoist smiled with satisfaction. “Well, each of you now stands before your own pill furnace. The first thing we must learn is to identify the orientation of the furnace.”

In the afternoon, the professor of the history class gave them a rundown of various professors at MU.

The lecturer was a Chinese Awakened with a witty and incisive way of speaking.

“The chancellor and vice chancellor are both known to history as holders of the philosopher’s stone. The most important effect of the philosopher’s stone is its ability to make people immortal. The same goes for Revered Daoist Xu Fu. They all achieved immortality through external objects.

“Before their deaths, Sir Isaac and Mr. Darwin entered the Dreamlands with strong obsessions. Their souls didn’t enter the afterlife but stayed here forever.

“Most Chinese Awakened either continue their studies or graduate and join the Dragon Group. As for me, after I thought about the housing prices in Yanjing, I decided I didn’t want to give up my ocean view room at MU, so I stayed on to teach.”

All of MU’s teachers were talented people. They were good communicators and utterly ruthless when it came to assigning homework.

After history class, Zong Yan sighed with emotion and headed to the library with a pile of books in his arms.

The vice chancellor had given him a school chief handbook. The first item said that the chief should lead by example and become a role model in every class; he should also unite the students and teachers, be passionate about school life, and be active in extracurricular activities.

In addition, there was a certain crucial provision in this little manual, which was how to replace the chief.

Being school chief wasn’t like sitting on a throne. He could also resign. Every year the chief was decided at the annual opening ceremony in June by drawing the Joker card, but he could also voluntarily give up.

The abdication system was introduced by the dean of the Academic Affairs Office a few years ago. In that year, the dean followed a research team to China to study the Xia Dynasty. After learning about the abdication system in that era, she was so amazed she wrote it into the school rules.

So much to complain about, so little time.

It might have been thanks to this abdication system that Zong Yan experienced the first campus bullying incident of his life.

“Hey kid, are you the new school chief?”

On the third day, Zong Yan got up early and went for a morning run around the dormitory area. As it turned out, he was stopped before he got halfway by someone calling for him.

Several vigorous young men in black suits and ties swaggered over. The one in the lead had his hand in his trouser pocket and a cigar in his mouth.

Zong Yan didn’t react immediately.

Miskatonic University was full of people who wore all kinds of clothes, which gave the atmosphere a strong flavor of nonsense. You could meet surprises on the road practically every day. For example, a group of girls liked to rush to class in court ball gowns, and there was a fraternity that banded together to cosplay as the Avengers.

“Good morning. If there’s nothing else, I’m headed to the library to do some homework.”

He nodded and was about to go around them. At the very next moment, the muzzles of several black handguns were aimed directly at his head.

Zong Yan: …?

After living in MU for a few days he’d learned a lot about alchemy from Professor Newton, and in the great Darwin’s classroom, he learned practical tips from investigators, like the fact that otherworldly beings couldn’t be attacked by conventional physical means. For a half a second, Zong Yan even forgot that a gun was the most effective weapon against a human being.

“Our young master doesn’t like to see blood. I think you get smart and give up the chief position before it’s too late.” The young buck with a gun in his hand spoke viciously.

These men hadn’t acted on a random impulse. They’d been secretly observing Zong Yan for several days. When they couldn’t find anything outstanding about this new chief, they decided to take a risk.

“Oh, so you’re here to pick a fight.”

Zong Yan nodded indifferently, spread out his fingers and repeated the scene from the helicopter.

Five elements floated quietly at his fingertips.

“Let’s find out what’s faster—your bullets, or my elements plugging your gun and making the chamber explode.”

First of all, the right attitude was crucial. The abilities he’d activated were just E-rank, but at the critical moment they absolutely couldn’t splutter out.

The gunmen on the other side began to tremble. “Boss… Boss, this, uh…”

They were freshmen who’d just arrived at school. All of them put together couldn’t control as many elements as they saw on this person’s hand.

This time they’d messed with the wrong guy.

The young master with a cigar in his mouth was silent for a long time. Finally he turned around and slapped his own man, and after nodding with excessive politeness he walked away.

“Sorry, sorry, it was all a misunderstanding. Sorry for the interruption, chief. We’ll get out of your way.”

Was it that simple?

Zong Yan was speechless. He lowered his hand and inconspicuously wiped the sweat from his palms.

Lucky, lucky.

If those men really did shoot just now, Zong Yan might not have had time to transform into the Child of the Wind.

Such a tender amount of intelligence and guts could basically rule them out as spies.

“That was the young master of the number one mafia family in the United States. If you mess with them, your life will probably become quite interesting.”

As he was about to turn around and leave, someone suddenly spoke in a cool tone.

Zong Yan looked up.

A teenager with short blond hair was sitting on the branch of a tree. His blue-green eyes surveyed Zong Yan with interest, and his eyebrows lifted openly.

“Thanks for the warning.” He nodded, took out his notebook from under his shoulder, and turned to go.

“Hey, why are you leaving?” Zong Yan’s attitude left the blond a little shocked. “What kind of attitude is that?”

Zong Yan was even more baffled. “Do I know you?”

When he said this, he made a point of sizing up the blond boy before him.

The Golden Lion emblem symbolizing Britain was pinned on his chest, and his face had the usual foreign features. Half a month ago, Zong Yan could have counted the number of foreigners he’d met on two hands, but absolutely none of them acted like this.

However, after giving him a couple of glances, Zong Yan couldn’t help but feel his face looked a bit familiar, though he couldn’t think of where he’d seen it before.

The other party showed an even more shocked expression, and he tried to find the slightest flaw in the black-haired boy’s face… Unfortunately, there wasn’t any.

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Edward was twenty years old, and this was the first time he’d encountered such a pure, calm, and unpretentious attitude.

Not only don’t you want to make friends, you don’t even recognize me?!

“Not bad. You’re really one of a kind.”

Zong Yan was planning to go around this strange student and leave when the person suddenly smiled. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Edward. From now on, you’re my only friend.”

Zong Yan: ? ? ?

He stood there as the baffling young man suddenly left, trying to decide whether to call the MU medical office.

MU’s medical facilities had world-leading technology, especially when it came to the field of psychiatry. That was, after all, an occupational disease of investigators.

Professor Darwin, who taught biology, told them on the first day of class that if you were on a mission, the most dependable way to survive a life and death situation was to close your eyes. As long as you weren’t too crazy, if you were sent to the electroshock chair in the medical department of MU, you could basically wake up.

The person just now was very suspicious. He needed to be considered for observation as a possible spy. So Zong Yan added Edward’s name to the top of his list of suspects.

When he was doing homework later and trolling through the library, Zong Yan opened his phone and glanced at the news. Only then did he realize why Edward looked familiar.

【Today’s headlines: Prince Edward, third in line to the British throne, is blasted for enrolling in a diploma mill】

So it turned out he was a prince of the British royal family. No wonder he was so egotistical.

Zong Yan shook his head with amazement and reached for a book on the shelf.

To test the quality of a university, the first place to start is its library.

As everyone knows, books are knowledge, and knowledge is a beacon. Especially in places like the occult world where tradition was taken very seriously, it was one thing for a teacher to give a lecture, but a lot more relied on a person’s talent and motivation to self-study.

The library of Miskatonic University had an unparalleled collection of books, and those books were divided into two categories: safe and dangerous.

Safe titles were all translated into English, while dangerous titles were basically an assortment of ancient languages.

Dangerous books could only be borrowed after a student proved they were fluent in the language and received the approval from their teacher. The chief had to follow the same rules. There were no exceptions.

In the world of investigators, knowledge was often the beginning of disaster. Those words were written on the entrance to the library.

The book Zong Yan wanted was the first in the freshman recommendation list—《My Understanding of the Great Booke》.

It was the first book that every new student had to read. Mr. Darwin strongly recommended they read a translation of the 《Sussex Manuscript》 as well. If they had the language skills, they could eventually borrow the original 《Necronomicon》, which was classified as “dangerous”.

“This book will give you the most intuitive exposure to the mysteries. There aren’t many incantations in it. The dangerous spells have been reviewed and removed by MU professors. What you will find is a completely harmless textbook version. It will give you insight into the real history of our world and the existence of terrors far beyond the stars. All your questions will be addressed in this book.

“It’s better to read the English translation. If you immediately attempt the original, you may end up visiting the university hospital.”

Those were the words of Mr. Darwin. “The 《Necronomicon》 will run through your entire college life. The translation you read will be different every year. Finally, you will come into contact with the original manuscript.”

After he heard the original was in Arabic, Zong Yan was eager to try it, but when he remembered his teacher’s words he reconsidered, deciding it was better to follow the rules.

He stood on tiptoe and was about to take down the book when suddenly a pale hand reached over from the side and took the book beside it.

Zong Yan reflexively glanced over.

A man with long gray hair stood quietly behind him. Maybe it was a coincidence, but when Zong Yan turned around, their eyes happened to meet.

The submerged gold in those eyes almost seemed to flow, a slowly drifting movement like the solar magma observed on Earth by human beings. Brilliant dots of sunspots gleamed brilliantly then disappeared beneath the drifting lava. And it seemed to pass through all things in the flux of time, arriving with the deepest, most ancient starlight in the universe, which one couldn’t directly observe.

Not gold! It was a color beyond all known colors, a color that couldn’t be distinguished by the eye. Zong Yan swore he’d never seen such a gorgeous and unpredictable glow within the scope of his existing memory, and was even less able to find words to describe it, for it was incompatible with the whole of three-dimensional space.

""

Dexterous weaving began again, like a switch had just been thrown. A novel series of concepts were generated out of nothing within his hippocampus. Zong Yan suddenly remembered everything.

The man in front of him was the school chief of the previous term. They shared the same advisor and were both considered students of the demon hunter Van Helsing. Zong Yan had a brief exchange with him at the entrance ceremony. The other party was an exceedingly elegant and easy-going senior who commented on Zong Yan’s course list. They had a pleasant chat and discovered they even shared some of the same life aspirations.

It turns out I know this person ah!

But, uh? Am I the kind of person who casually talks about my life goals with other people?

Zong Yan’s mind raised this question automatically, but all too soon it was washed away by a flood of consciousness, disappearing without a trace.

When it came to higher-dimensional creatures, no matter how powerful a lower-dimensional creature was, it couldn’t transcend the limitations of its dimensionality. Just like a human being in the three-dimensional world who faced a two-dimensional world of paper, it only took a whim to rip it to shreds with one hand.

What Zong Yan didn’t know was that in this moment of hesitation, the gray-haired man in front of him had ticked the corners of his mouth as if he were amused.

“Hello, Senior Tawil.” He greeted the man straightforwardly.

Since they were under the same advisor, he should call this person “senior brother” or “senior”. Zong Yan hesitated. He wasn’t sure exactly why, but he chose the more distant title of “senior”.

Obviously they had a good relationship. They were friends or at least neighbors.

Zong Yan suddenly thought he was behaving a little too coldly. He pursed his lips.

“Hello, Junior Brother Zong.”

Tawil narrowed his eyes and spoke in a low voice. The sound had a bit of a rasp, like a bow scraping softly across the lowest notes of a violin, while they stood between the narrow bookshelves.

They looked at each other and smiled.

—

The author has something to say:

After a long, long time—

Zong Yan: When I met an Outer God we even talked and smiled, lights cigarette.jpg

Part of this story mentions the British royal family, which is completely made up. Don’t connect it with reality. In the real world, the third in line to the British throne is less than seven years old.

Also, the real British royal family is a constitutional monarchy with no political power, but I changed it slightly in the story. Here it’s a bit like the Thai royal family with a certain amount of power in hand.

TL Notes:

elephant on a tightrope – 赶鸭子上架 – drive a duck onto a perch; force a donkey to dance; make sb. do sth. entirely beyond him

Hengdian – The name of a film studio where costume dramas are frequently made 

Eastern alchemy – 炼丹 – liàndān – Alternatively: “elixir alchemy” or “pill alchemy”.  Previously mentioned in Chapter 12. The word used for Western alchemy, 炼金 (liànjīn), includes the character for “gold”, like Western alchemists who were historically obsessed with transmuting lead into gold

Records of the Grand Historian – 史记 – Scribal Records, Historical Records. A historical work by Sima Qian

fate – 缘分 – lot or luck by which people are brought together, destiny

So much to complain about, so little time – from 槽多无口 – There are too many slots and not enough mouth – There are so many things to complain about, I don’t know where to start

diploma mill – 野鸡大学 – lit. pheasant university

My Understanding of the Great Booke – 对“伟大之书”的私人解读 – Referenced in The Keeper’s Companion, Vol. 1: Blasphemous Knowledge, Forbidden Secrets (Chaosium)

Image of the Sun’s surface (Wikipedia) – GIF version

Glossary of world terms—new in this chapter:

Outer God – 外神 – Vastly powerful beings that function on a cosmic scale. The Outer Gods are “mindless blasphemies” from outside the capacity of humanity to understand. Most of the time they are asleep and/or insane, and would like to see humanity dead, devoured, or made slaves. Ref. Cthulhu Mythos deities (Wikipedia)

Transliterated names, titles, and places—new in this chapter:

Sir Newton – 牛顿爵士 – Niúdùn juéshì

JunFang – 君房 – JūnFáng

Qin Shi Huang – 秦始皇 – Qín Shǐ Huáng – “First Emperor of Qin”

Emperor Wu of Han – 汉武帝 – Hàn Wǔ dì

Professor Newton – 牛顿教授 – Niúdùn jiàoshòu

The great Darwin – 达尔文大佬 – Dá’ěrwén dà lǎo

boss – 老大 – lǎodà

Edward – 爱德华 – ÀiDéHuá

Van Helsing – 范海辛 – Fàn HǎiXīn

senior brother – 师兄 – shīxiōng – senior martial brother – for a senior or older male under the same master/teacher

senior – 学长 – xuézhǎng

Senior Tawil – 塔维尔学长 – TǎWéi’Ěr xuézhǎng

Junior Brother Zong – 宗学弟 – Zōng xuédì – for a junior or younger male classmate

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