Cultivation by Trial and Error

"You go over first, and I'll hold the wooden frame steady for you!"

Chen Hai called out to Lin Lan and quickly walked over to the wooden frame by the wall. After testing its sturdiness, he turned to Lin Lan and suggested.

"Okay, Chen Hai!" After a moment's hesitation, Lin Lan nodded.

She climbed onto the wooden frame, placed both hands on top of the wall, and with a push, she was over.

"Chen Hai, let me help you up!" Once she was steady on the wall, Lin Lan turned back, looking down at Chen Hai, and reached out her arm.

"No need, Lin Lan, just go on down!"

"We boys are tough-skinned, not as delicate as you girls."

"With this frame here, climbing over this wall is a piece of cake for me."

Chen Hai chuckled, politely declining.

While they were talking, he quickly climbed up onto the frame.

However, Lin Lan was still on the wall, blocking his path.

He paused, waiting for Lin Lan to climb down into the schoolyard before he proceeded to climb over the wall himself.

"Alright then, I'll go down first!" Seeing Chen Hai skillfully climb onto the frame, Lin Lan nodded.

On the other side of the wall, an old desk was conveniently placed for climbing up and down.

By the time Chen Hai climbed over the wall, Lin Lan had already used the old desk to make her way into the campus.

Seeing this, Chen Hai didn't delay further; he landed on the old desk first and then leapt down from it.

"Chen Hai, can you keep it a secret that you saw me behind the school tonight, and not tell anyone?"

As they were about to part ways and head back to their respective dorms, Lin Lan suddenly stopped and made a quiet request to Chen Hai.

"Fine, if you say we didn't meet, then we didn't meet, I have no problem with that!"

Chen Hai laughed, tossed a few words over his shoulder, and strode away.

The boys' dorms and the girls' dorms were in opposite directions, one south, the other north.

Chen Hai didn't know what the girls' dormitory was like; after all, he had never been there.

He only knew that in their boys' dormitory, the dorm manager, Auntie, showed her face only a few times at the beginning of the school year, and then she was rarely seen.

It was said that the Auntie was related to the principal and, with that connection, didn't need to work much while still getting paid.

Whether that rumor was true or not, Chen Hai didn't know!

Their dormitory doors were never locked.

After all, there were always people who didn't come back at night. If they returned in the middle of the night and couldn't get in because the door was locked, there would be hell to pay!

When Chen Hai got back to his dorm, his roommates were sleeping like logs!

He moved quietly, freshened up a bit, and then dived straight under the thin cotton quilt of his bed.

Though it was nearly two in the morning, Chen Hai felt not the slightest bit sleepy and lay awake for a long time.

For some reason, the image of Lin Lan kept popping into his head.

At seventeen or eighteen, when young love buds and hormones surge.

Lin Lan was beautiful, and she was the object of his secret affection. After climbing the wall into the school and parting ways, Chen Hai left cleanly, seemingly without a care.

But what he was really thinking inside, only he knew.

"From the moment I began Tao Cultivation, worldly affairs of love have had nothing to do with me..."

To calm his restless heart, Chen Hai silently chanted to himself, beginning to self-hypnotize.

However, while he wished it to be so, whether he could actually achieve it was another matter entirely!

At some point, he finally fell into a deep sleep.

Just like Chen Hai, Lin Lan lay in her dorm bed tossing and turning, equally unable to sleep.

"Something's off, Chen Hai took sick leave and didn't come to school, right?"

"Why would he suddenly appear behind the school wall in the middle of the night?"

"Claiming that boys go out to play games at night, but it seems like he was deliberately misleading me."

"Qian Bing, that beast, shouting and running away in a panic all of a sudden, couldn't have been Chen Hai's doing, could it?"

"Otherwise, how do you explain him suddenly appearing there at that time?"

"This guy, there's always something secretive about him; if he really did that, I ought to really thank him!"

...

Before, Lin Lan felt guilty, afraid that Chen Hai would notice her strangeness and find out that she was nearly violated by Qian Bing.

After all, as a girl, if such a thing were known and spread around, it could have a great impact on her reputation.

But now, after calming down and thinking back on those events, she immediately noticed something off about Chen Hai.

"Tomorrow, when I get up, I should find a chance to test the waters and see if it was him who made Qian Bing flee..."

Thoughts swirled in her head, and amidst her pondering, Lin Lan fell asleep without realizing it.

The morning wake-up bell in the campus roused Chen Hai from his sleep.

With a flip, he bounced up from his bed.

"Chen Hai? When did you come back? I didn't notice you returning to the dorm last night."

"I heard you were seriously ill before, the hospital even said you might become a vegetable, never to wake up. But looking at you now, you're more spirited than I am and don't look sick at all. Don't tell me you were just faking illness to avoid coming to school!"

"Hu Yong, what are you saying? How can you joke like this with Chen Hai? He's just recovered and returned to school. If you're not going to comfort him, that's one thing, but you're actually rubbing salt in his wounds!"

...

Seeing Chen Hai, several of his roommates were startled.

Although they were classmates with Chen Hai, they weren't in the same class, and even as roommates, their relationship could be described as acquaintances rather than close.

"I did get seriously sick a while back, but luckily, I've recovered now!"

"I returned to the dorm last night. It's normal for you not to notice, as I tend to keep a low profile."

"With the college entrance exam only over two months away, I have to start studying hard!"

Chen Hai responded with a laugh, fielding questions from his roommates.

Amidst the pleasantries, he quickly finished washing up, greeted his roommates, and hurried to the cafeteria.

He hadn't had dinner the previous night to save money.

After tossing and turning for most of the night, perhaps due to excessive energy expenditure, he felt extremely hungry when he woke up.

Usually, his breakfast consisted of a single large bun.

But today, because he was so hungry, he decided to splurge and bought two buns, each costing a dime.

Pouring himself a cup of hot water, Chen Hai took his buns and had just sat down at a table.

Not far away, Lin Lan, seeing him voraciously biting into his buns, hesitated only briefly before walking straight over.