Study Monster Cultivation System
Chapter 227 - 226 The Legendary Existence

A few of them bid farewell to their seniors and left McDonald’s, it was already midnight.

Even though the streets were alive with lights and decorations, they were now almost deserted.

After simulating the Wandering Planet Project, looking up at the stars felt like glimpsing distant hopes—so distant as to be despairing, but still hopes nonetheless.

For most people, such thoughts only cross their mind on rare occasions; more often, they’re striving to become enviable, admirable, important individuals.

But at least these four were still gazing at the stars.

They knew better than anyone that while movies may be beautiful, the Wandering Planet Project was a futile effort.

When those events truly happen, there will be no miracles, no heroes; Jupiter can’t be ignited, we can’t even nudge Earth closer to it.

The only path to evade Earth’s demise was—

Science.

Gathering enough scientific theory before disaster strikes is the only way.

This requires the effort of generations, not just a few superheroes getting a sudden rush of adrenaline.

The movie for science fiction enthusiasts had ended long ago.

Their own journey had just begun.

Ou Xing Zhuo looked up, dazed, and sighed, "That said... our generation is out of luck, right?"

"Ha," Li Zheng chuckled, "another pessimist."

"Another?"

"Lin Yujing thinks she won’t even see another moon landing in her lifetime, so she just wants to major in astronomy and watch the stars."

"That’s a pretty good choice though, already stronger than many geniuses," Ou Xing Zhuo lamented, "Do you know about Space God?"

Li Zheng and Lin Yujing shook their heads in unison.

Too many gods to remember.

Wu Shu breathed a sigh of relief and explained, "A legend from our school, a few batches before us, won the IPho championship in his first year and soon went to Princeton."

Li Zheng sighed, "There really are many gods..."

"Yes, there are gods every year, often more than one. Given our country’s population and the education system, these god-like beings can even be said to number in the hundreds or thousands," Ou Xing Zhuo said with a wry smile, "It’s just that they disappear after a few years..."

"So what happened to Space God later?" Wu Shu asked.

"He went to Wall Street, to a hedge fund company," Ou Xing Zhuo said expressionlessly, "I forget the name. It’s not important anyway. It’s one of those companies that casually offer you a salary of a few million USD a year."

"I see…" Wu Shu merely sighed noncommittally, with nothing in particular to say.

Li Zheng wanted to say something but held back.

Lin Yujing didn’t even bother pondering, she just kept looking at the stars.

There really wasn’t much to say about this.

The nation’s top brains choosing to go to the wealthiest country and receiving the highest-earning jobs—the process was very logical and beyond dispute.

Which was precisely why nobody had anything to say.

Especially for Li Zheng, he couldn’t possibly abduct all those gods with his own values, could he?

In the midst of the silent atmosphere, Ou Xing Zhuo, the one who initiated the topic, played the fool again.

"I heard a true story... It’s about a senior who went for a Wall Street interview and introduced himself by saying, ’I am a national math competition silver medalist.’ Then the interviewer turned around and randomly pointed at a few people and said, those two are gold medalists, those three are from the training team, the rest are IMO gold medalists, haha... haha..."

Wu Shu barely managed a forced laugh; Li Zheng couldn’t find it in himself to laugh at all.

Lin Yujing continued star-watching.

"I don’t care..." Li Zheng shook his head firmly, "I’m not going anywhere. Any of you who leave, I’ll disown you."

Ou Xing Zhuo playfully punched Li Zheng, "Don’t talk in absolutes. I just won’t talk about these things in the future."

"Those who should be disowned, must be disowned," Li Zheng said emphatically, nodding, "Right, I am value-kidnapping; leaving means we can’t get along, and if we can’t get along, then it’s a break-up."

"What if one studies abroad and then comes back?" Wu Shu asked with a smile.

"In that case... we’ll consider reconciling then," Li Zheng replied foolishly, waving his hand, "That situation needs to be discussed separately. One is wanting to stay but they don’t let you, the other is learning well and coming back to build the country, we have to analyze specific situations."

"Your friendship standards are stricter than political scrutiny," Wu Shu laughed, stretching lazily, "Alright, let’s all go home. Next time we meet might be at university."

"Wait..." Li Zheng frowned and pondered, "Wasn’t today supposed to be about coaching me for the physics competition? How about we schedule another day just for that?"

Upon hearing this, Lin Yujing also stopped looking at the stars, Ou Xing Zhuo stopped making jokes, and they both stared at the two.

"Haha," Wu Shu laughed and waved his hand, "Stop pretending with me. You don’t need my tutoring; we’ve already discussed everything that needed discussing during Chem Competitions, just go your own way."

Li Zheng could only laugh in response.

```

Yeah, all the academic fortune that could be absorbed has been absorbed.

As they were about to part ways, Ou Xingzhuo asked with a hint of urgency, "There’s no subway at this hour, are you two taking a taxi?"

"Mhm." Lin Yujing nodded, then picked up her phone and started fiddling with it.

Li Zheng, however, bulged his eyes out, as if he had discovered something, "What about you two?"

Ou Xingzhuo immediately became nervous, "We’ll... take the car."

"What car?" Li Zheng pressed.

"Take... a sedan..."

"A Porsche sedan?"

"Umm..."

"How many people can it fit?"

"Crap..." Ou Xingzhuo cursed, clutching his head, "How come you’re always so clever when it comes to hitching a ride..."

Hitching a ride with Ou Xingzhuo didn’t require any reason; who asked him to insist on driving out to show off?

According to the route, they should have dropped off Wu Shu first, but Ou Xingzhuo adamantly suggested dropping off the junior brother and sister first, then Wu Shu last.

Li Zheng was also quite touched. Although Ou Xingzhuo clearly disliked being mooched off for rides, in the end, he still cared a lot for the younger generation.

At this time of night, there weren’t many cars on the street, and they drove quickly, reaching Lin Yujing’s house in just over ten minutes.

After saying goodbye to Ou Xingzhuo and Wu Shu, the two of them walked leisurely into the courtyard.

Lin Yujing had basically stopped talking after they left McDonald’s, and continued in silence all the way into the residential complex.

As they were just about to reach the entrance of the building, she suddenly spoke up, "If that day really comes, would you truly bury yourself in the lab and research desperately?"

"What?" It took Li Zheng a while to respond, "Isn’t that an outdated topic?"

"Mhm, but I’m still stuck there."

Li Zheng had not expected that Lin Yujing was still pondering over that remark.

Back in McDonald’s, the senior from the Department of Physics had doubted whether the "Solar System travel role-play" was too bourgeoisie, and that was the response he had offered.

"I guess... I would..." Li Zheng pondered, "I’m very efficient, maybe I could make a breakthrough."

"What about the Solar System travel?" asked Lin Yujing, her back turned.

"That’s also possible. But if it really comes to an end-of-the-world scenario, it’s fine to think about playing, but doing it for real wouldn’t be quite right, like some fairy tale."

"But don’t you think that this fairy tale is the closest thing to our reality?" Lin Yujing looked up, "Only when I write this fairy tale, can I feel the genuine texture of reality."

"Damn... you’re serious…" Li Zheng swallowed hard, "Wanna do it for real?"

"...Forget it." Lin Yujing sighed, raised her hand and walked towards the entrance, "Let’s just consider it a fairy tale."

Li Zheng paused for a moment, watching Lin Yujing’s crestfallen figure. For some reason, he suddenly felt a rush of heat in his head and chased after her, grabbing her arm, "We must do it, we need to set a small goal first, Solar System travel."

Lin Yujing stiffened, stopped in her tracks, and without looking at Li Zheng, she said with a trembling voice, "Who begged for your help... who do you think you are, talking so big..."

"Hey, having a goal is better than aimlessly stargazing."

"Enough... I got it..." Lin Yujing’s voice trembled even more, "Can you... let go of my hand first..."

"Ah!"

Only then did Li Zheng realize he had actually grabbed her hand.

Startled, he quickly drew back his hand, looking flustered.

"No... I didn’t mean to..."

"It’s okay." Lin Yujing tousled her hair, softly said without turning, "Goodnight."

"Good... goodnight..."

As Lin Yujing hurried into the building, Li Zheng dumbfoundedly raised his hand.

Thinking back...

Her hand was so cold.

Maybe I should ask Old Li to have a look later.

...

For a long time after the Spring Festival, Li Zheng slipped into a routine lifestyle.

Studying for over a hundred hours daily, he allocated 60% to physics, 30% to mathematics, and split the remaining 10% between Chinese and biology.

As for chemistry, he probably wouldn’t touch it again until he went to university.

English could be reinforced while reading foreign materials.

```

Occasionally working on information programming and perfecting the learning system also serves as a form of diversion.

At the same time, I didn’t neglect the study guidance of Xu Mengxi, Zhang Xiaoke, and Jiang Qinghua.

As a middle school teacher, even the strongest can’t possibly know every student, every detail of their grasp of knowledge points.

But Senior Programmer · Ultimate Question Bank · Li Zheng did all that perfectly, and he always managed to provide personalized problems.

His study guidance was like patching up software, layer by layer, always targeting the current weaknesses. The longer the time passed, the more patches he applied, the closer it became to perfection.

During the short winter break, which passed like water through the activities of the study groups, time flew by.

Since I spent the entire holiday studying, I didn’t feel much about the start of the new term; the rhythm stayed the same, reading books and drawing pictures as usual.

Meanwhile, the Physics Jianghu in the Dragon Pearl Group was becoming more and more intense.

Training classes became the main theme, where famous teachers offered training spread quickly, and then everyone flocked to sign up.

Li Zheng and Lin Yujing, of course, had long passed that phase. By that time, they even rarely visited Tao Feifei’s office, instead heading straight to the school’s physics lab with keys after class.

Liu Xiaodong was indeed someone who got things done.

Even though he had good timing, location, people, and luck on his side, there was always room for improvement.

He spared no expense (200,000) during the winter break to fully upgrade the school’s physics lab, using his financial capability to create a lab bench environment comparable to those in physics competitions.

Without a doubt, it was tailor-made for Li Zheng and Lin Yujing.

Even if others wanted to use it, they wouldn’t understand it, they couldn’t get started.

With this lab, Li Zheng and Lin Yujing didn’t need any training classes anymore.

As long as they wanted, they could spend over a dozen hours there playing house.

But if they did that, the expenses for lab consumables would surely give Liu Xiaodong a hard time.

In addition, Liu Xiaodong actually poached a vigorous chem teacher, at the cost of letting go of a biology teacher.

When the new teacher arrived, they really started the Chem Competitions in the first year, and forcefully identified several promising students who could contend for provincial prizes.

On the other side, the senior three students entered the final sprint stage for the college entrance examination.

In the first mock exam of the new term, Xu Mengxi reclaimed the first place once again.

This time, the former first place couldn’t cry out no matter how they tried.

Of course, the regular classes for the second year were also about to finish one round and were gradually entering the examination preparation stage.

Zhang Xiaoke, unbothered by anything else, steadily gained weight.

Mother Ke had her own unspeakable difficulties; to some extent, a girl’s weight might be even more important than her grades.

But talking about all this was already too late. From the moment she transferred in, it had been a done deal that couldn’t be undone.

Jiang Qinghua fought with her back to the river, and she really never met with Du Shitong again. However, they still said good night to each other every evening and occasionally sent each other audio clips of their playing, then combined them with software into a duet to play together from afar.

In such a rhythm of study, time passed quickly.

Before I knew it, the weather had warmed.

On the first weekend of April, new buds appeared on the branches of the cherry trees at school.

But Li Zheng didn’t see them.

Because he was standing in front of Normal University Affiliated High School.

A banner was hanging on the door.

[The 36th National Middle School Student Physics Competition Preliminaries, Western Market District Examination Point]

Unlike the previous Chem Competitions,

this time, he came wearing his school uniform.

The four big characters [Lake Ying Middle School] were prominently displayed on his back.

His hair was also cut into an upright, sexy short style.

Plus long-term physical training,

he was now truly a hunk in a school uniform.

And the kind that definitely studies well.

He wore a light smile, stood firmly in the center of the school gate, with hands behind his back, emanating an aura of unprovoked authority.

This time, who dares to look down on me, Li Zheng?

Before the thought was even articulated, someone poked his lower back.

"Are you on guard duty?!" Lin Yujing looked him up and down with disdain, "It wasn’t mandatory to wear the uniform."

"You don’t understand," Li Zheng said with a cold laugh, massaging his waist. "What I lost, I will definitely take back."

"???"

"Look," Li Zheng squinted, surveying the competitors entering the venue. "See that look in their eyes? All awe. But do you know how they looked at me during the last Chem Competitions?"

"Well, you keep on scaring people… I’m going into the exam hall…" Lin Yujing glanced at her admission ticket. "I’m in Room 13."

Li Zheng hurriedly checked his own: "I’m in Room 7."

"Then see you next week," Lin Yujing waved her hand and sauntered off towards the building.

"Why the rush, we can just go in at the last minute," Li Zheng dropped the act and quickly gathered his things to follow her, slapping his backpack and suggesting, "We could pass this preliminary round with our eyes closed, better to play some basketball."

"You actually brought it…"

"Come on, let’s shoot some hoops."

"…Then, let me tie up my hair first."

And so.

The competitors entering after them watched the two playing basketball, utterly baffled as they made their way to the academic building.

Especially a pair of bespectacled boys, who watched with the utmost fascination.

"What are those two doing?"

"I see they have backpacks, so they must be here for the exam, right?"

"Do they look like they’re here for an exam? I won’t even mention the dopey guy, but the girl… why can she play so well?"

"Wait… that school uniform seems to say Lake Ying…"

"Could it be?!"

"The legendary…"

As they were talking, suddenly, a cold voice emerged from behind them.

"Yes, it’s them," Qi Yingnan said with an icy gaze at the basketball court. "The Lake Ying Duo, here to wreak havoc again."

Next to him, Duan Peipei simply sighed, "I’d advise you to watch less, it’ll definitely affect your scores."

"Ah, now that you mention it," Qi Yingnan quickly looked away, rubbing his eyes, "I shouldn’t have looked, damn…"

Only then did the tall bespectacled boy remember to ask, "Hey big guy… it looks like you’re from No. 4 Middle School, right? Just one question, are the Lake Ying Duo really as legendary as they say?"

The shorter bespectacled boy followed up, "Did they really turn down Jinghua’s offer? Across the whole world, their only rivals are each other?"

"Hmm…" Qi Yingnan thought for a moment before saying, "If that’s the most exaggerated scenario you can imagine, then I tell you, you’re almost there if you take it up a notch."

"Damn…"

"They haven’t even shown their full strength and they’re undefeated nationwide?"

Qi Yingnan shook his head with a smile: "Nationwide, I don’t know, but in Jijing, they should have rivals."

"Oh?"

"Don’t tell me... Brother, you?"

"Humph," Qi Yingnan’s lips curled up. "I’m fucking far from it."

"…"

"…So who else is there?"

"To defeat legends, only another legend can," Qi Yingnan left them with these words before sweeping away.

"Forget him," Duan Peipei quickly said, "They’re just messing around in their group, getting dumber. Don’t let it affect you guys, goodbye."

With that, Duan Peipei hurried off as well.

The bespectacled pair looked at each other in confusion.

"He’s rambling on so much, you believe him?"

"Nope."

"Right, he’s definitely putting on an act."

"Yeah, I don’t believe someone can be that good at basketball and still excel in their studies."

"Forget them, let’s focus and try to make it to the next round together!"

"Absolutely! Whatever demons or gods, all nonsense."

"Let’s work hard! Fortune favors the diligent."

"We’ve got this!"