Early mornings, blackouts, dieting, power outages… these were the four great tortures applied to modern man and cultivators alike.
After Rocket Launcher Senior Sage Immortal returned to the chat group, someone in the group chat instantly stirred up fuss, purely as poking fun. "Shock! Cultivation chat group owner Senior Sage Immortal's absence was caused by a…. Wi-Fi outage?!"
Life without WI-FI had made this owner exceptionally angry, and he publicly declared in the group chat that if he ever found out the person who destroyed the lab; he would deplete their balls and snap their Burj Khalifa in half…
Hence, after Rocket Launcher Sage Immortal's roar, Xero silently logged off…
He decided to properly sort out the questions he wanted to ask about the spirit mask and then look for Rocket Launcher Sage Immortal after he had calmed down a little. Otherwise, given the man's attitude, if he directly went up to him and said the truth, he would most definitely launch a missile at the Zhang family's small villa.
The chessboard behind the matter was complicated, so Xero decided to take things slow, as the smallest mistake could cause irreversible damage.
…
After dinner, Jian Beibei showed up a little after seven o'clock.
The Zhang family had a habit of not closing the front door when it was dinner. Jian Beibei, who didn't consider himself to be an outsider, took off his shoes and put on the flip flops Father Zhang had arranged for visitors.
When Jian Beibei entered the house, Mother Zhang was washing the dishes in the kitchen and Father Zhang and the old man were watching TV, on which the news broadcasted the latest update in Yunzhou nation, "Quad Alliance." The old man was getting along in his years and his hearing was a little bad; The TV's volume was loud and Father Zhang didn't hear Jian Beibei approach him from the door. It was only when Father Zhang turned his head a little since he heard a small sound, did he see Jian Beibei.
Father Zhang gestured to Jian Beibei, pointing upstairs. Instantly understanding what he meant, Jian Beibei went upstairs to wait for him in the study room on the second floor.
Father Zhang knew this probably had to do with Professor Liang's psychological diagnosis. Grandfather Zhang would be nervous to hear it, so Father Zhang intended to listen to what he had to say first.
After closing the chat group window, Xero saw Jian Beibei and Father Zhang go into the study room one after the another, and the two of them began talking about the "Ovsiankina effect."
The Ovsiankina effect was a phenomenon where people tend to return to unfinished tasks because the mind keeps them active.
The topic had first emerged in a research report on the psychology of love which Professor Liang had written when he was a student. The title of the report was, "The Real Reason On Why Most Don't Forget Their First Love."
When Jian Beibei entered the study, he kept Father Zhang guessing at first by throwing Professor Liang's thesis at him. After Father Zhang finished reading it, he was still puzzled. "What does this mean? What does this have to do with my dad?"
"Teacher Liang thinks that while a small part of the old man's illness is due to age, it's actually a major psychological problem."
"To put it simply, Brother Ouyang, your mother was very important to the old man, who wanted to grow with her. Very unfortunately, his request couldn't be fulfilled, so he suffered a short state of brain rewiring. This is a type of regret over unfinished matters and is also the Ovsiankina effect we were previously talking about…"
Listening to them in study, Xero was stupefied; it was the first time he realised how amazing Jian Beibei must have been in his psychology research studies. He had heard of Professor Liang, full name Liang Wushen, before. Renowned as the Emperor Of Minds, the professor had students everywhere. As of right now, more than eighty percent of counselling psychologists in schools could more or less trace a connection back to him at the top of the order. Whenever they saw Professor Liang outside, they would call him Grandmaster.
In contrast to these people, Jian Beibei was even more amazing as he had direct connections to him and was even lectured!
Given Jian Beibei's genius, it's highly possible that he could be the next Professor Liang in the field of psychology if he had felt that he could make money off of it. Otherwise, there was no way he would receive a reply so soon, which proved that this professor hadn't forgotten him at all even after all those years.
However, it was very unfortunate in this era, it was useless to be gifted with academic genius rather than cultivation prowess. Professor Liang wasn't just deeply knowledgeable in psychology, he was also an expert cultivator, and thus very well known.
Xero honestly felt for it to be a real pity for Jian Beibei. The need to be gifted in cultivation was really an irritating point. And the legend of eating a Foundation pill to further grow into Foundation Establishment… this thing didn't exist at all!
Of course, Jian Beibei wasn't the only one with such a case in where current society meant that a lack of cultivation talent meant that there was a limit to one could do, and those who couldn't do the work they loved had to find something else. After all, not everyone was like Tianrui, who couldn't cultivate but received a brain from God that even the government feared.
"So… Lovely Expert, your point is?"
"No, no, no, this is just a thought Professor Liang had. I'm just passing the message onto you." Jian Beibei said, with a serious expression. "The best thing to do right now, is to fight chemicals with chemicals. Have the old man completely resolve his feelings in order to make up the psychological trauma. This is called the subsistence effect in psychology, but it isn't one hundred percent foolproof…"
Father Zhang thought for a moment and then asked, "What should we do then?"
"It's very simple; did the old man have a… first love? If at this time, he is able to see his first love, the subsistence effect might work. Even if his unique brand of dementia can't be fully cured, I think making up for his psychological trauma will nevertheless decrease it slightly."
First love?
After hearing this, Father Zhang pondered and remembered the "angel girl" Grandfather Zhang had mentioned. "I heard my dad talking about a girl before. It was someone that he liked back in his days as a chef, but I don't know whether she was his first love or not…"
"That's it!" Jian Beibei snapped his fingers with a " pa " "The old man's dementia can flare at any given time, and if he can still remember that girl under those circumstances, that's enough to prove that he had a deep fixation on her!"
"Oh? Then what we have to do is to think of way to find this angel girl, and make her meet up with my dad?"
Jian Beibei nodded. "Precisely!"
Realisation suddenly dawned on Father Zhang.
He looked in the direction of Xero's room and gestured encouragingly. "Alright, Xiaoluo, go! Whether grandpa can be cured or not entirely depends on you!"
Xero: "…"