Chapter 3 The Mysterious Middle-aged Man
Fang Qiu put his schoolbag back in his dormitory and then went straight to the canteen to grab a bite.
Meanwhile, a post t.i.tled Student Rebuking Benz Vulgar Tyc.o.o.n, Making the Bodyguards Apologize and Pay Compensation Like a Lamb quietly appeared on the campus BBS.
The post contained a series of photos which described in detail how a student had called the father and son and their bodyguards riding a Benz to stop, how he body-blocked their way when they ignored his words, and how eventually he made the two st.u.r.dy bodyguards flinch purely with his uprightness, forcing them to apologize and distribute money as compensation.
The photos in the post made a very detailed record of every tense moment that had just occurred.
However, due to the rain, those photos were not very clear, so the viewers could only capture a blurred image of Fang Qiu but not his true appearance.
If it had not been so, Fang Qiu would have no chance to step out of his dormitory unnoticed anymore.
But this post sparked heated discussions on the whole campus BBS the moment it appeared.
Numerous comments flooded in.
“Awesome. Never thought in Dajiang Chinese Medicine University you could meet such a kick-a.s.s student! Give you my full support!”
“This great man actually did what I wanted but not dared to do, how impressive! Admire you! Admire you!”
“My idol! He is definitely my idol! Begging for his clear pictures! Factual data!”
“Me too!”
“Please calculate the psychological shadow area of the rich father and son and their bodyguards!”
Some comments were also seeking confirmation of the realness of the post, for they could hardly believe there still were such righteous students like him in the present society.
“Is it real? Could someone just make it up?”
“I also think most parts are exaggerated. How could a student like him still survive in society today?”
However, soon those who could not accomplish it and also suspect no one else could do it were slapped by the truth.
“You can’t do or dare not do doesn’t mean others can’t! I’m actually one of the students being sprayed with mud and water. Here are my clothes, and here is the 500 yuan!”
Below those words, there were two pictures. One was the clothes smeared with mud, the other was the 500 yuan which was a bit damped by the mud and water on the hands.
“I’m one of them, too!”
“I’m, too!”
More and more students on the scene also posted their pictures, instantly drowning all the voices of doubts and suspicions.
With the photos, witnesses, and the money, which were probably the main evidences, everyone finally bought it.
Discussions on the BBS continued hotly.
More and more people were asking for Fang Qiu’s information.
Everyone was very interested in such a man full of the sense of justice on campus.
But all these did not affect Fang Qiu at all.
After taking lunch, he had a short break and began to plough through the books he had just borrowed from the library.
“The youngest, why do I have a feeling that the student confronting the Benz vulgar tyc.o.o.n on the campus BBS is you?”
At 3 o’clock in the afternoon, Sun Hao, the third oldest guy in the dorm, who had just finished taking his lunch break, got out of bed and asked Fang Qiu while pointing at the pictures on the BBS site on his computer.
Fang Qiu merely gave a smile and went back to read without comment.
There were four students living in this dorm. According to their ages, they named themselves the oldest, the third oldest, the fourth oldest, and the fifth oldest. As for the second oldest, in light of its unpleasant correlations with some Chinese words, they just skipped it.
Therefore, Fang Qiu was the fifth oldest, the youngest of them.
Sun Hao murmured “the more I look at it, the more it is like you” before retreating to continue browsing the BBS.
Zhou Xiaotian, the fourth oldest, who was lying in bed playing with his smartphone, suddenly turned over and poked his head out to look at Fang Qiu and asked, “The youngest, I heard that you will play the flute tomorrow evening. Good for you! Hiding your talent so deeply. Show us some of it!”
“Yeah! You kid truly know how to hide yourself. Quick, play a song and entertain us!”
Sun Hao also quitted browsing his computer and directly turned around to stare at Fang Qiu with some sort of mischievousness.
Zhu Benzheng, the oldest, who had been reading at the desk behind Fang Qiu, adopted a more straightforward method. He simply turned his chair around and gazed at Fang Qiu silently, anxiously waiting for him to play.
“You guys, well, OK, I’ll just play one piece!”
Seeing the scene, Fang Qiu put down his book in resignation and said brazenly, “Today, I will let you hear what is the real sound of nature!”
“Humph…”
The three snorted at the same time.
Fang Qiu took a brief moment to organize his feelings, and then clasped both hands and started to play a song.
Five minutes later, the three were all wearing the same intoxicated expression.
At this, Fang Qiu knew that for now, he could no longer stay in this dorm quietly, so he put all the books he had borrowed from the library back into his schoolbag and headed out towards the library.
“Snap!”
The sound of the door shut close woke the three up from their intoxication state.
The three simply gazed at one another in utter amazement.
After a long time, Sun Hao, the third oldest, asked gingerly, “Say it, after tomorrow night, our youngest can get how many love letters? Will they be enough to cram the whole of our dorm?”
Zhu Benzheng, the oldest, and Zhou Xiaotian, the fourth oldest, seriously considered it for a moment and then nodded at the same time and answered, “Probably more than that.”
“My goodness, how come our dorm cultivated such a bewitching guy. He isn’t the youngest, but the most bewitching!”
Sun Hao looked as if he had lost his heart and soul. He clenched his chest and said, “How can we find girlfriends in the future? Look at the face of the youngest, look at the techniques he has to attract girls. We’re all living in his shadows now. When we walk along with the youngest, no girls will have eyes for us!”
“That can’t happen. We shall never walk along with the youngest after tomorrow night.”
Announced Sun Hao very seriously.
Hearing those words, Zhu Benzheng and Zhou Xiaotian both nodded resolutely.
Sun Hao still thought this was not enough. He added, “That alone won’t do. I have to ask the youngest to teach me how to play the hand flute. Even if I cannot be a brilliant player like him, as long as I master thirty per cent of his techniques, I’ll be able to pick any girl I like!”
Zhu Benzheng and Zhou Xiaotian nodded simultaneously again, their eyes gleaming.
As the three were plotting secretly, Fang Qiu was strolling in the rain in Jiangnan.
The rain of Jiangnan was light as silk and soft as cotton.
The pleasure of walking in such rain was beyond words.
He walked slowly all the way.
Soon, Fang Qiu arrived at the circulation desk of the library and handed over the books and his library card to the middle-aged librarian at the gate.
The middle-aged man obviously remembered Fang Qiu.
He had borrowed so many ancient books soon after the semester started, which made him hard to forget.
Seeing that Fang Qiu returned all the books he had borrowed that morning, the middle-aged man smirked and asked, “Is it because those books are so involved and abstruse that you no longer want to read them and turned them back?”
“No, it isn’t.”
Fang Qiu shook his head and answered, “I’ve finished my reading.”
“Finished?”
Halfway through sorting out the books, the middle-aged man gave a sudden pause. He shot an astonished look at Fang Qiu, but then broke into laughter, “Kid, it’s not good of you to tell lies.”
Fang Qiu smiled but did not make any replies.
The middle-aged man drew out one of the books at random, gently fondled its cover, and suddenly demanded, “One inch down the seventh joint of the back is called the s.h.i.+gu point. When it is. .h.i.t, the victim will spit phlegm and blood for ten months before he dies. How to cure this?”
At this, Fang Qiu’s eyes suddenly glinted.
Eying the middle-aged man from head to toe, he answered, “First take the Add-subtract Soup, add three grams of Eucommia and three grams of Rhizoma Drynariae, and then take three or four doses of Life-Clutching Elixir.”
As he was speaking, he ignored the Bonesetting Summaries the middle-aged man was holding but drew out the Traumatology Prescriptions from the stack of ancient books and stared at the middle-aged man beamingly.
Seeing the book Fang Qiu picked out, the eyes of the middle-aged man instantly shone brighter.
He straightened up, becoming fully intrigued.
The question he asked was not from the Bonesetting Summaries but the Traumatology Prescriptions. He took the wrong book out on purpose.
He never expected this kid standing before him could answer it. However, to his amazement, the kid did answer it. What was more, he even picked out the correct book.
“Interesting!”
For the first time, the middle-aged man became eager to question someone about the books. Having spent so many years in the library, this was the first time he had come across such an interesting student.
“For men, Qi turns left. It is easy to cure the injured upper parts, but difficult to cure the down parts, because Yang Qi rises up. And for women?”
Fang Qiu composedly drew out the Traumatology Achievements and answered, “For women, Blood turns right. It is easy to cure the injured down parts, but difficult to cure the upper parts, because Yin Blood comes down.”
“What’s the solution?”
Asked the middle-aged man.
“First soak Fructus Amomi and drink its soup with Ji Li powders, and then, take the Qi-guiding and Blood-activating Soup, and the sugared Flower Alcohol as well as five Wounds-healing Pills.”
Replied Fang Qiu.
“Most cases with the head injured and the brains spilled out are difficult to cure; cases with bones turned green are the same. If bones and flesh at other positions are smashed, what’s the solution?”
“Apply the Pain-emptying Powders on the injured parts, and take five or six doses of the Wind-dispelling and Qi-regulating Soup. When the wound heals, take the Blood-replenis.h.i.+ng and Qi-guiding Soup. If symptoms of teta.n.u.s, trismus or opisthotonus appear, immediately take the Flying-dragon Life-Clutching Soup.”
Fang Qiu pulled out the Secret Prescriptions for Fall Injuries.
“The horizontal bones over the heart are also called Renzi Bones. From bottom up, a man with the first joint injured will die in one year; a man with the second joint injured will die in two years; a man with the third joint injured will die in three years. This point corresponds to the lungs. Once injured, the patient is bound to spit blood and cough. Those who got severely injured in the chest and back will develop phlegm-fire and body-weakness. Injuries in the left breast incur coughs; injuries in the right breast incur hiccoughs. When the chest and the hypochondrium are both hurt, what’s the solution?”
“The Li Dong Pill and the Three Precious Yellow Wax Pill are both applicable, and then take the Lung-regulating Dose to close the practice!”
Fang Qiu drew out the Traumatology Amendments.
“Haha, not bad!”
Said the middle-aged man with a hearty laugh. He just asked four questions in a row, and the kid before him not only answered the questions without any hitch but also picked out four medical books accurately.
Even when he deliberately held the wrong book to mislead the kid during the first question, the kid still found the correct book.
What did all this represent?
It represented that the student already knew those books by heart.
What an interesting student!
“Could you tell me who you are?”
Asked Fang Qiu with all due respect.
He could not believe that the middle-aged man in front of him was just a librarian.
This man was able to repeat the contents in each book and judge the correctness of his answers, which was enough to demonstrate that he was not an ordinary guy.
Fang Qiu’s brilliant memory came from his martial practices. However, he could not detect any trace of cultivation on this man.
If his great memory was not a result of his martial practices, but he still had such a nature-defiant memory, then who was this man?
“I’m just an administrator who stays here for a living. I simply have a smart brain, and that’s all.”
Said the middle-aged man briefly, smiling.
Fang Qiu obviously didn’t buy it. But since the middle-aged man did not want to say more, he did not pose more questions. However, from now on, he knew the middle-aged man was not an average man.
And the middle-aged man also realized that Fang Qiu was not ordinary, either.
Now that the two men with secrets were not surprised at each other, that meant they both had their own secrets.
After handing the library card back to Fang Qiu, the middle-aged man took a look at the pile of ancient books and contemplated for a moment before saying, “On the third shelf in the Orthopedics Zone, at the bottom tier facing the south, the eighty-two book counting from the east—Traumatology Gist.”
“Yes?”
Fang Qiu looked at the middle-aged man in a puzzle, not knowing what to do next.
“If you’d like to read more ancient books on orthopedics, I suggest you reading that one.”
After finis.h.i.+ng these words, the middle-aged man paid no more attention to Fang Qiu and went back to attend his own businesses.
Fang Qiu cast a thoughtful look at the middle-aged man, and then considered the suggestion for a few seconds before entering the library.
The middle-aged man was watching Fang Qiu’s back profile with some sort of expectation.
“Eighty… Eighty-one… Eighty-two!”
At the place where the middle-aged man had told him, Fang Qiu really found the book t.i.tled Traumatology Gist.
As he picked up the book which appeared to have been there for ages with no one ever touched it, he felt more confused.
“Who on earth is that middle-aged man?”
“Could he just be an ordinary librarian?”
“Only those that are very familiar with the library are possibly able to tell me the accurate position of a book.”
“And most librarians actually can’t achieve that.”
With those puzzles in mind, Fang Qiu opened the book and looked through its content. On the whole, there was nothing abnormal in this book.
It was similar to other ancient books on orthopedics.
“If so, the middle-aged man would not have recommended it to me.”
He flipped through the pages again.
All of a sudden, a page fell out of the book.
Fang Qiu Immediately reached out and caught that page with his right hand at lightning speed.
His heart was also beating fast.
“Did I damage it? This is an ancient book, probably the only one in the world. If I broke it, no way could I afford the fine with such little money in my pocket!”
Taking another look carefully, it turned out to be a blank page.
But there was no sign of it being torn off.
Fang Qiu finally heaved a sigh in relief.
It seemed that this page was a separated one, just being placed in this book. And it probably fell out when he was turning the pages.
Just when he was about to put it back into the book, his finger touched the center of this page and he froze on the spot as if having an electronic shock.
Fang Qiu goggled at the seemingly blank page in astonishment.