Let the true energy circulate for a while

……

Chen Ye advanced easily in the preliminary rounds, making rapid progress.

Although it was a preliminary round, and the event was purely commercial in nature, the actual skill levels of the competitors varied greatly.

Tang Long, a retired combat sports athlete and professional, was secretly observing. He realized that Chen Ye was indeed a formidable fighter! Could it be that Chen Jianbin's distant nephew was a hidden talent?

When Chen Ye came out of the audition site, he scanned a shared bicycle and drove all the way to the hospital entrance.

There are two hospitals near Zhongshan Road, and many food carts and stalls along the street. In the past, when the city was being evaluated for its civilized status, if provincial officials came to inspect, the urban management officers would often shout through loudspeakers to chase people away.

Things have become much more relaxed in recent years. As long as street vendors don't block the roads, the urban management officers hardly care anymore. The policies from above are also changing. Many of those who set up stalls are middle-aged unemployed people. They don't even have the qualifications to be male prostitutes!

Chen Jianbin sat at a cold noodle stall near the hospital and ordered a bowl of noodles.

The price is reasonable, 6 yuan a bowl, enough to fill you up about 80%.

Chen Jianbin scanned the QR code to pay on the greasy little table. The Alipay account received the payment of 12 yuan.

The vendor selling cold noodles asked in surprise, "Brother, you ordered one bowl of noodles, why are you paying for two?"

Chen Jianbin gestured with his chin: "Make another bowl."

"Okay!"

Chen Ye parked the car, went to the stall, pulled up a chair, and sat down opposite his father.

"Dad, don't listen to that old devil Ouyang from Weishan's side of the story. He loves to spout nonsense. That old bastard still owes me two lives! Where is he?"

Chen Jianbin said calmly, "Let's eat first."

"Oh." Chen Ye didn't say anything. After a while, the boss brought two bowls of noodles and placed them on the table.

Chen Jianbin took out a pair of disposable chopsticks, broke them apart, rubbed them together a few times, and blew away the lint.

Chen Ye ate his noodles in silence, seemingly lost in thought.

"You really have seven women?"

Chen Ye thought for a moment and slowly said, "To be precise, they are my confidantes, mostly close friends like Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya, not what you think."

"I originally thought you only had one senior sister you grew up with, son, but I underestimated you. Actually, I'm very proud of you!"

Chen Ye said calmly, "Dad, maybe you misjudged me before, but I want to say that you still misjudged me now. I am still me."

"Do you have children over there?" Chen Jianbin suddenly asked.

Chen Ye's eyes widened: "No!"

"How many of them actually got married formally?"

Not a single one!

"You didn't touch them?"

Chen Ye, head stiff, said, "Dad, that's not funny. I'm already 24!"

Chen Jianbin then asked, "I'm just curious."

"Some were touched, some weren't! You wouldn't understand the ways of the underworld."

Chen Jianbin fell silent. He wanted to say, "I really envy you," but he swallowed back the words after taking a big bite of cold noodles.

"Where is Ouyang Zhaoming?"

"He's locked up in the hospital," Chen Jianbin said, pointing to the inpatient building next door.

"Old Demon Ouyang's martial arts skills are very high; the hospital can't possibly contain him!"

Chen Jianbin recounted the whole story of how Song Weiguo transformed into Ouyang Zhaoming in the hospital.

After listening, Chen Ye fell into deep thought: "So, he's different from me, more like a soul transmigrating from a novel and possessing the body of a dying person? He's lost all his martial arts skills, what a pity."

Chen Jianbin said, "We'll go see him in a bit. You can ask him anything yourself."

Chen Ye asked, "Is my mom coming back soon?"

When Sun Xiaojuan was mentioned, Chen Jianbin said, "She probably won't be back this month. Your mother just called me and said that her exploration team discovered something amazing in Los Angeles, and many experts from Kyoto have come."

"What did you find?"

"I don't know either. They signed a confidentiality agreement and can't say anything over the phone, but judging from your mother's tone, it's probably related to our family's teleportation array."

How did you know?

"It's my guess, or rather, my premonition," Chen Jianbin said confidently.

"This is really interesting," Chen Ye exclaimed.

After finishing their cold noodles, the father and son returned to the mental hospital together.

Downstairs in the inpatient building, a few patients were out for some fresh air; the trash-collecting competition was over.

Under the big tree, the two patients began a new argument.

As Director Li approached, he took the initiative to greet Chen Jianbin.

"Officer Chen, you're back again?"

Chen Jianbin asked, "What were they saying?"

Director Li said, "These two old buddies debate every day. The one on the left is named Yang Qiming, he used to be a physics PhD from Huazhong University of Science and Technology. The one on the right is surnamed Zhou, I don't know exactly what he did before, would you like me to look him up for you?"

Chen Jianbin smiled and shook his head: "You're busy, I'm just taking a stroll."

Chen Ye curiously leaned closer.

The two men, dressed in hospital gowns, were having a heated discussion: "Old Zhou, you don't understand at all! Consciousness is essentially quantum information, and soul travel is a trans-universe transfer of quantum states!"

Another person countered, "I'm not denying quantum information, but you're ignoring carrier adaptability! Without a specific neural structure, conscious information simply cannot exist stably."

In the past, Chen Jianbin would usually avoid these kinds of things, but now he couldn't help but stop and listen to his son. They exchanged a glance and the two of them stopped to listen in tacit agreement.

Yang Qiming squatted down and drew several complex symbols on the ground with a stone.

"A spacetime micro-wormhole—a brief membrane collision between our universe and a parallel universe amplified the micro-wormhole, providing a pathway for quantum consciousness transfer!"

Old Zhou was silent for a few seconds. "So, according to you, not only can consciousness travel through time and space, but matter can too? What about life forms with consciousness?"

"Our universe is a three-dimensional 'membrane' that floats in a higher-dimensional 'bulk universe.' When the 'membranes' of two parallel universes resonate, theoretically, parallel worlds exist."

The two of them talked for quite a while, using a lot of technical jargon that I couldn't understand...

Yang Qiming seemed to have won the debate, summarizing, "Therefore, both physical and spiritual time travel have a probability of happening!"

Just then, a nurse called out from not far away, "Lunch is ready, everyone come back!"

Many patients began moving toward the entrance of the inpatient department.

Yang Qiming looked regretful. "If you agree with my point of view, I'll give you my chicken leg."

Old Zhou said with a stern face, "No, even if you give me a hundred million, I still won't agree."

"One hundred million? Why don't you just rob someone?"

"Do you have a hundred million?"

"no."

"Then why are you getting so excited!"

"You're so boring. Can't you just pretend to agree with me for once?"

"Truth is my belief! I don't believe in time travel until I have conclusive evidence!"

"Yang Qiming! Zhou Youde! Hurry up!" A burly caregiver, holding an electric baton, shouted.

"Here!" the two said in unison, their faces showing fear, and they quickly ran over!

Chen Ye said, "Although I don't understand what they said in detail, it seems to make a lot of sense."

Chen Jianbin, for the first time ever, swore: "Damn it, the line between madness and genius is really thin!"

"Dad, did you understand?"

"I didn't understand the gibberish at the beginning, but I understood the last sentence."

Chen Ye said, "Let's go upstairs and find Old Devil Ouyang!"

Chen Jianbin nodded, gazing at the retreating figure of Yang Qiming, and sighed:

"I'll keep an eye on this guy; who knows, he might become a national-level academician someday!"