Cultivation by Trial and Error

Wuyang Town Middle School, near the main gate, inside Ermao Restaurant.

Chen Hai and Lin Lan entered one after the other.

"Chen Hai, what would you like to eat?" Lin Lan asked.

"Just one of those one-yuan meals, any will do!" Chen Hai replied.

The fast food sold in this kind of small restaurant consisted of big pot dishes that had been prepared in advance.

Compared to individual stir-fry dishes, they contained less oil and their taste was considerably worse, but they were quick and cheap.

The schools nowadays did not follow any sort of closed management, and the food in the cafeteria was not only expensive but also poor in taste!

That was precisely why Chen Hai and Lin Lan had come outside.

These small restaurants near the school, if not during holidays, were usually packed.

In the classroom, they delayed for a while, but by the time they reached Ermao Restaurant, it was already fully seated.

Seeing how Lin Lan acted, she seemed to want to order two stir-fried dishes, but seeing the owner too busy, she had to give up for the moment.

There were absolutely no spare seats inside the restaurant, but outside, many people were squatting with their lunchboxes, starting to eat.

Eating in the cafeteria meant bad taste, but eating outside meant not finding a place to sit, which was the downside.

In a small place like Wuyang Town, there were plenty of bicycles but rarely could you find a car.

With no cars coming and going, squatting outside to eat meant you didn't have to worry about eating dust.

"Lin Lan, after the college entrance exams, are you going straight back to Yuedong?"

"I'm not sure yet, a few days ago when my parents left, they said they would come to pick me up, so I'll leave whenever they come!"

"They mentioned they were using their connections to get me to study abroad, I'm not sure how that's going yet."

"Studying abroad, congratulations, Lin Lan!"

"What's there to congratulate? I'd be in a foreign land, completely unfamiliar. If not for my parents' good intentions, which I can't just decline, I wouldn't want to go to such places!"

"After going back to Yuedong, I should go back to using my real name, I won't be called Lin Lan anymore."

"If not Lin Lan, then what?"

"My foster father's surname is Lin, originally, I should be surnamed Yang, called Yang Huilan!"

...

Chen Hai and Lin Lan were not fussy people, squatting by the roadside eating fast food was not something unacceptable to them.

While eating, they casually chatted.

In the morning, Chen Hai had learned about her background from Lin Lan and felt that she had a rough life.

But now, talking to her, he felt a sourness spread over him, feeling immensely lost inside.

With two to three months left until the college entrance exams, Lin Lan's future was already well-planned, ready to go abroad for studies.

But him? If he couldn't get into a university and didn't want to stay at home to tend to the land, his only option might be to head south, looking for factory work.

Thinking of these things, he suddenly felt a considerable distance between him and Lin Lan, as if they weren't even in the same world.

At the start of their casual talk, they laughed and chatted, but towards the end, Chen Hai was just focusing on eating, becoming completely silent.

"Wang Laoliu is really lucky, went up the mountain to chop wood and actually found a big snake!"

"That snake corpse, at least ten meters long and weighing over a hundred kilos, he was originally going to drag it back to cook a pot and cure the rest of the meat!"

"But on the way, he encountered a wealthy businessman driving a car, who said such a big snake was rare and its meat would definitely be nourishing."

"He handed Wang Laoliu a stack of banknotes, and that businessman directly bought the snake's corpse to take away."

"That's ten banknotes, a whole one thousand yuan. If only I had Wang Laoliu's luck, how great that would be!"

...

Not far away, several strong men, seemingly laborers, were squatting by the roadside with lunchboxes, chatting and eating.

At first, Chen Hai hadn't paid attention to them.

It was when he heard one of them talking about someone finding a more than ten-meter-long snake, which sold for a thousand yuan, that his thoughts suddenly became complicated.

"A snake that long must have become a spirit!"

"How could such a big snake suddenly die, leaving only its body on the mountain?"

"Last night, when I transformed into a leech, what I devoured was just the soul of the Snake Demon, but where was the Snake Demon's actual body? I didn't even think to look for it!"

"Could it be that the snake corpse Wang Laoliu found was the very Snake Demon's body that died at my hands..."

The more he thought about it, the more Chen Hai was convinced that his guess was the fact.

"That Snake Demon was probably from the Night Tour Realm."

"Its demon soul died at the cliff, so its body must have been nearby at that time."

"After dealing with the demon soul, why the hell did I leave? Why didn't I think to search around that area?"

"That was a whole one thousand yuan. Rounding up, I missed out on tens or even hundreds of thousands!"

Regret filled his heart, and thinking about that one thousand yuan earned by someone else made Chen Hai feel as if his heart were bleeding.

If he weren't in such a public place right now, he would have desperately wanted to slap himself several times.

Already somewhat depressed, he now looked completely filled with a sense of loss.

"Chen Hai, I'm done eating. Want to head back to the classroom together?"

Lin Lan, who had already finished her meal, noticed that Chen Hai seemed a bit off, so she tentatively spoke up and invited him.

"There's still some time before the afternoon class starts."

"Lin Lan, you go back to the classroom by yourself. I have some things to attend to, I'll return later!"

Chen Hai declined.

Right now, he was very annoyed and wanted to be alone.

"Chen Hai, are you alright?"

"What could possibly be wrong with me? I can eat, I can drink, I can jump, and I can run. I truly have some things to do, I'll head back to school later."

"Alright, Chen Hai. Then I'll go back to the classroom first!"

Since Chen Hai had already said as much, Lin Lan couldn't keep following him.

After greeting Chen Hai, she pouted and walked towards the school gate.

Aimlessly, Chen Hai wandered alone.

Wuyang Town was just that small, with only two streets intersecting; it was barely considered bustling.

When he reached an alley, Zhang Yong, wearing a navy blue school uniform and with a crew cut, sprung from behind him and stood in his way.

"Chen Hai, do you know why I'm looking for you?"

"Let me tell you, Lin Lan is the girl Brother Bing fancies; you better stop having any ideas about her."

"I'm warning you right now, toad, stop dreaming of swan meat. If I see you cozying up to Lin Lan again, I'll beat you up each time, got it?"

Zhang Yong was incredibly hostile.

As he spoke, his finger was nearly poking Chen Hai's nose.