Chapter 113: No Longer the Same

According to Katerina, even the Pacific’s waters had already been tainted by nuclear wastewater.

Now the Pacific was no longer a fit place for that salmon to survive, so after drifting through one ordeal after another, it had finally followed the current all the way to the Song River.

All for nothing more than finding a place where it could live.

Chang Yu felt that his own situation was no different from that salmon’s. In fact, he might even have it worse.

Once the entire Pacific was polluted, humanity would inevitably suffer tremendous harm.

At the very least, the salmon still had the Song River as a refuge. What about humans?

Were they supposed to leave Earth and go scrape by on Mars?

Burdened by all sorts of thoughts, Chang Yu’s lunch was eaten under a heavy cloud. He felt a bitter, pent-up frustration, as though a fire raged in his chest with nowhere to go.

“What happened to that big fish afterward?” Chang Yu asked.

“It was kept alive,” Katerina replied with an answer Chang Yu would never in a thousand tries have guessed.

“Huh?” Chang Yu was so startled his jaw almost dropped. “I thought you’d kill it, slice it up, and study it!”

Without even looking up, Katerina said, “Easy to say. But that thing was covered in radiation from head to tail. Who would dare cut into it?”

“Reliable sources say that the island nation has actually been secretly dumping nuclear wastewater into the Pacific for years.”

“It’s just that lately they really couldn’t keep it hidden anymore, so they publicly admitted it. Otherwise, with their character, why would they have had the decency to warn us?”

“Is that true?” Chang Yu couldn’t help setting down his chopsticks, feeling as though his entire worldview had been shattered.

“Satellite images show that the nuclear waste they had piled up by the shore one day had mysteriously vanished the next.”

“And there are also rumors that on nearby islands, radioactive plastic barrels often drift over to their shores.”

“Tell me, after all these years, if they weren’t secretly dumping nuclear wastewater, what else could they be doing?”

“Think about everything they’ve done over the years. They’re always doing things that hurt others without helping themselves. We shouldn’t overestimate the bottom line they’re capable of.”

“So I’m telling you, don’t eat seafood for a while. There’s no guarantee it isn’t contaminated with radiation.”

“Actually, after I learned this a few years ago, I stopped eating any seafood at all.”

“How did you come up with the idea of keeping that salmon alive?” Chang Yu rubbed his nose. “I mean, with a body that big, it must eat a lot.”

“Most importantly, that’s not the kind of idea an ordinary person would even think of. Anyone who could come up with it is a genius!”

“This was the director’s call. The moment he saw that salmon, he fell in love with it.” Katerina pressed a hand to her forehead.

“He kept insisting that the big fish and he were fated to meet, and no matter what anyone said, he had to get a giant tank and keep it as a lucky mascot.”

“Well, that’s really...” Chang Yu was at a loss for words. In the end, all his thoughts condensed into one sentence.

“The big boss is awesome!”

After lunch, Chang Yu went to the training room again.

Mostly because he could feel that ever since drinking that peach wine, his body had been undergoing earthshaking changes.

Though the change was hard to see from the outside, Chang Yu, as the one benefitting from it, naturally knew best.

His thoughts moved faster. The world before his eyes had become brighter. His mind felt crystal clear. These were changes he had never experienced before.

He even faintly felt that his own... intelligence had risen as well.

To get a rough idea of his current condition, Chang Yu went straight to the training room after lunch.

Katerina and Yangyang followed too. Yangyang had no choice but to come, and at the moment he still did not understand many things about human society.

Aside from following Chang Yu around and enjoying the good life, he seemed to have no other option.

As for Katerina, she came purely out of curiosity about the changes in Chang Yu.

She wanted to know whether his strength would increase after drinking that peach wine.

Putting on the VR headset with practiced ease, Chang Yu watched a rain of fruit begin to fall across the large screen.

With modern technology assisting him, Chang Yu felt as if he were standing in the real world, with all sorts of fruit crashing down from above his head.

It was still the three-times-speed test, and the fruit still fell at a terrifying pace.

The upper-right corner of the screen still displayed his previous high score for this game: 60.

That barely passing score had been the result of many days of effort.

Through that period of relentless practice, Chang Yu had successfully raised his score from 58 to... 60.

Even so, when he learned that he had improved by two points, he had been thrilled for several days.

After all, this game was brutally difficult.

The gap between each point was like an impassable chasm standing before everyone.

Only by ceaselessly pushing past one’s limits could one increase one’s score.

And this time,

Chang Yu moved with swift precision, his strokes as fluid as running clouds and flowing water, effortless and unrestrained.

He was like a master calligrapher whose brush danced like dragons and serpents, freely splashing ink in one uninterrupted sweep.

The fruit falling from the sky could not even get close to him. Before any of it could land on him, he had already sliced it cleanly in half.

Ease, comfort—that was Chang Yu’s greatest sensation now.

When he had played this game before, he always thought it was far too difficult.

There were too many fruit, and they fell too quickly. Chang Yu often found himself overwhelmed, watching helplessly as the fruit hit the ground, unable to stop it.

That helpless struggle had described his state back then perfectly.

But now, he could catch the fruit with complete composure, no longer that pathetic mess of scrambling and flailing from before.

At this moment, he even felt that the game was absurdly easy.

Especially when he noticed the shock and admiration in Katerina’s eyes as she watched from the side, Chang Yu could not help feeling smug, and proud.

My woman, do you see that?

Do you see how hard your man is working to slice fruit?

Do you see how much his strength has grown?

How majestic he looks, how imposing, how upright?

How resolute his face is, how elegant his movements are?

How focused his expression is, how formidable his power is?

After sweeping away all the embarrassment he had once suffered, Chang Yu finally held his head high.

Pride, self-satisfaction, and a faint intoxication—that was now his greatest feeling.

In short, today’s act had been performed to perfection.

Very soon, the game ended, and the final score appeared.

One hundred points.

Katerina stared at the number and froze completely, thinking she must have been seeing things.

Just a few days ago, the test result had still been 58 points. How had it become a perfect 100 in such a short time?

In Katerina’s brief and beautiful life, she had never once seen anything so outrageous.

In her understanding, growth required time and process.

No one could break through their old limits overnight and make their strength skyrocket like a rocket.

But Chang Yu had shattered that understanding of hers and shot upward just like a rocket.

This...

Was he really not cheating?

“So you’re saying you only drank a cup of wine in a dream, and then turned into this?” Katerina found the whole thing astonishing, though what she felt more than anything was happiness for Chang Yu.

“If what you obtain in dreams can all become reality, then what exactly would be beyond your reach?”

“I think I should request the bureau to make you, like Xia Lin, one of the people under special protection and close attention.”

“After all... your talent is truly too outrageous!”

Katerina’s amazement was not without reason. Ever since his soul power had grown, Chang Yu’s mind had remained in an exceptionally lucid state.

It was a very peculiar feeling, one that words could not fully capture.

He realized that the way he viewed all things in the world had changed.

He no longer wandered through life in the same dazed, muddled way as before. Instead, he now existed in a mysterious state of clarity, like the only sober person among a crowd of drunks.

In the past, he could only see the surface of all things. Now, he could see through many of the essences hidden beneath that surface.

He could even make out the tiny particles in the air, shimmering with faint white light.

Those were probably what people called spiritual energy, the minute substance he had to absorb into his body when cultivating the Poria Heart Sutra.

They drifted through the air, waiting for cultivators to draw them into themselves and transform them into true qi.

There was just... one discovery that had puzzled him to this day.

He had noticed that in addition to spiritual energy, the air also contained some granular matter that was either black or gray.

These particles often clung to the spiritual energy, obscuring its faint glow.

What were these black or gray grains?

Chang Yu vaguely suspected that they might be the very culprit behind the heaviness and pain in his chest every time he circulated the Poria Heart Sutra.

Could these black or gray particles be pollutants in the atmosphere?

Things like smog, exhaust fumes, and the like?

If that were really the case, then didn’t that mean...

The reason he had always felt heaviness and pain in his chest before was actually... smog poisoning?

“You still seem to have some reserve left.” Of course, Katerina could tell how light and at ease Chang Yu had been when he won with a perfect score.

“It seems your nerve response and thinking speed have both improved a great deal since last time.”

“You weren’t lacking strength or speed before. It was your reaction speed that was holding you back.”

“Even with enough power, you still couldn’t respond in time.”

“Now you’ve had a stroke of fortune, and your weakness has been made up. That will raise your overall strength by a huge margin.”

Every word of Katerina’s praise was sincere, and Chang Yu could feel that.

She was not the kind of girl who put on airs, nor could she have learned to do such things.

She always said what she thought. There was no deliberate flattery in it.

“With my current strength, even if I run into a disaster as powerful as that cat-faced crone again, I can pin it to the ground and beat it hard.”

Recalling how he had once been battered all over by that cat-faced old woman and even ended up in the hospital, Chang Yu still felt a lingering chill.

If not for Shi Chengjin arriving in time that day, he might have left his life in that dark, narrow alley.

Next time...

Next time, he absolutely would not be so disgraceful again!

Chang Yu swore this to himself.

He would continue, as always, to protect Katerina well, even if it meant laying down his own life without hesitation.