The Road to Slaying God Chapters 5-6

He looked here and there with regret. Soon, he reached the school before an hour had gone by.

“Uncle Wang. Uncle Wang…”

He decided to go through the gate instead of climbing over the wall. It was easy to get mistaken by the security at this time of the day and get beat up.

“Stop yelling. I have been waiting for an hour. Heard you went to work in the big city during summer?” A skinny old man with glasses came out from the guard’s room.

“Hehe. Hi, uncle Wang! Yes… I was late a few days to get my pay. How’s your summer break?”

Zhang smiled trying to please this old man. He wasn’t one that liked to talk but he couldn’t not show respect to this old man who guarded the gate. They had to get his permission when they wanted head out to the net cafes.

“What is there to be happy or not as a single person…”

The old man sighed and opened the gate. The sound of friction was gnawing his heart. He never understood why the old man never get it fixed. It was as simple as a few drops of oil.

“Hehe. You should find an old mate.” Zhang walked in with his head low and replied. The old man’s mate died early. He was lonely so he liked to grabbed the students for talks, sometimes late into the nights. Zhang was a frequent victim. Worst of all, he had to listen to the old man’s history with smiles.

“Hehe. I found my target…” The old man’s expression suddenly brightened.

“Oh. You do?” Zhang had no choice but to stop. If he left when the old man was in the mood to talk, the old man would probably hold a grudge for his whole life.

“Yes. Yes. Professor Li who taught Chinese died.” The old man said happily.

“Professor Li died?” Zhang knew about professor Li but he didn’t know what that had to do with the old man finding a mate.

“Hehe. His wife is around the same age as me…” The old man said shyly.

“Ahem…” Zhang was speechless.

“Hehe.” The old man felt a little embarrassed and laughed. “Sleep early. You should be tired from sitting on the train for so long. Oh, why are you so late? There was a girl on the same train as you and she came back way earlier.”

“Oh… I walked here since there wasn’t much to do.”

He ran as if he was pardoned. He guessed that girl had come back or that old man wouldn’t have said he was waiting for so long. The girl probably told the old man about him.

“Ah.. uncle Wang?” The old man’s arm blocked him.

“That girl is pretty good. Why aren’t you going after her?” He asked.

“Ahem… I don’t even know her…” Zhang cursed this stupid old man.

“Don’t know her. Then why did she ask me to tell you she’s looking for you?” The old man stared at Zhang.

“Oh… I left my mone… thing at her.” He faked a slap at his head and said.

“Is that so. Then go sleep. Remember don’t do those things again. It’s embarrassing. You should just get a regular girlfriend. I understand. Men at your age have needs.”

“Right. Right. Thanks for your consideration. Good night. Uncle Wang. I am going to sleep.” He ran off as soon as the old man’s hand moved.

“Sigh. Such a good kid. Walked an hour to save a little taxi money. Too bad he lacks a little courage. The girl obviously likes you, yet you are too scared to advance. Even if you do those things, you shouldn’t upload it to the internet. See, things gone out of hands now… Hehe. But the kid is smart. Knows how to peep at the girls’ dorm with a digital camera. Why didn’t I think of this when I was young?”

The old man talked to himself as he looked at Zhang’s back. In the end, he sighed and walked back to the guard’s room. He began contemplating how to date professor Li’s wife.

Zhang spent another round of talking getting through the dorm’s door. This old man wasn’t as nice as uncle Wang.

The men’s dorm felt heavy in this night. The lights in the hall were dim. Zhang climbed to the fifth floor lightly. It was the last floor. He spent a few happy years here.

It was also in this fifth floor that he secretly photographed thousands of photos. The targets were in the girl’s dorm on the other building.

Zhang was lucky that room 512’s door was open because of the heat. In fact, most rooms opened their doors throughout the night when the days got hot.

He climbed into his bed lightly. It was still the same as when he left. He touched the mattress. A lot of dust but he still lied on it. If he woke up his roommates while cleaning, he might get beaten into the last eunuch of China.

Zhang was getting drowsy. He thought of that knife dripping with blood, that smooth and white skin, the beautiful face, and that softness… The events that happened in the train replayed in his head like a movie. In the end, uncle Wang’s face filled his head. It grew larger and larger and larger…

Finally, Zhang fell asleep dripping in saliva. He was too tired.

It was almost like an instant or just a little while. The alarm woke Zhang up. He opened his eyes to see his roommates brushing their teeth and making the bed.

“What are you doing?” Zhang sat up and asked, still slightly dizzy.

“Oh… our prince is back…” A guy came out with the toothbrush in his mouth.


6---

“I’m back… What are you doing?” He felt a slight burn on his face. Every time he heard this nickname, it was like a cut on his face. The roommate was nice enough to not add another adjective in front of prince.

“Dude, are you still dreaming? It’s time for the morning exercise.” The guy on top of the bunk bed jumped down.

“Morning exercise? Aren’t we seniors already?” Zhang asked with surprise.

“…”

The room fell into silence. The guy washing face stopped, the guy brushing teeth stopped, the guy making his bed stopped. They looked at each other. No one thought of this question after coming back to school for a few days. They didn’t need to do morning exercises anymore. What did seniors mean? It meant goofing around and not having to do anything.

Everyone dropped their items. The guy wiped the bubble off his face, and lay back on the bed…

The room was back to quiet again. Zhang opened his mouth but couldn’t say a word.

He also closed his eyes. But in just a minute, he sighed and got up. Even though his body wanted to rest, his mind felt like being controlled by a strange force. A strong desire to go out and exercise. It seemed like one of the memories had the habit of exercising early…

“What are you doing?” The other guys said at the same time.

“Morning exercise.”

“…”

He walked to the door and glanced at the open window. He suppressed the desire to peep and walked out. Wasted such a nice summer morning.

Zhang stretched by himself within the crowd. Though it was quite nice. The September breeze was cool. The sky was lit and gave people a refreshing feel.

There were many new faces in the field and many old faces gone. Zhang took a deep breath. “Good to be a senior. No more getting bullied by someone a year higher.” He felt lucky that he was found out at the right time, right before summer break and the seniors graduated. Or his school life would have been darker.

“Hu…Huu… So tired.”

He ran two laps after some stretching. He never liked to exercise and the month of lying in the hospital made his body worse. He could barely catch his breath.

The fact was, he came out to confirm if he inherited the stamina from those memories. But it was obviously not. His body was still so weak, actually worse than before.

“Sleep. Sleep.” He felt bored and began jogging back to the dorm. He always looked forward to the senior life but then it was boring when he got it. He actually didn’t know what to do in the morning. Zhang sighed.

Xx school was an extremely strange third tier school. When seniors from other schools were looking for jobs, students in this school were still motionless. Of course, the reason was it was pointless to look for jobs being students from a garbage school. Since they weren’t going to get any, they might as well just wait it out. Perhaps some no name companies would pick them near their graduation.

Don’t be mistaken though. This school was third tier but admission applications were full every year. The environment was elegant and had a rather long history. The school never worried about a lack of students. Many black sheep tried to get themselves in for the beauties and environment.

“Zhang Yang?” Someone shouted as he was thinking.

“Ah…”

He was surprised to see that at least forty pairs of eyes turned to him. Most of them belonged to girls. Of course, those were tender nor love but hatred.

Run… or I will get torn to pieces!

Zhang saw a lot of movies. Experience told him that girls, especially beautiful girls were extremely dangerous when they were thinking without reasons.

He couldn’t be bothered to look at who called him. He covered his head and ran. He was gone before the girls could react.

Pa!La! He ran into a girl holding books as he reached the men’s dorm. The books scattered on the ground.

“I am sorry. I am sorry.”

Zhang quickly got down to help her pick up the books. He couldn’t even dare to look at her face in case she recognizes him and assumed he just wanted to take advantage of her. The only ones that didn’t know about him was the freshmen. His photo from freshmen was shown in the newspaper and uploaded to the internet. That was how the girl on the train recognized him but he didn’t know her.

This girl had long hair and a slender figure. She was going to curse but then seeing the guy apologized and began picking up the books, she became quiet. It wasn’t convenient to get down in skirts so she waited for Zhang.

His hand suddenly froze in mid hair as he stared at a book on the ground.

What Is Mathematics? An Elementary Approach to Ideas and Methods, a world famous mathematics book. It contained many classical ideas and concepts. Both math majors and enthusiasts could read it. It was also a great reference for middle school teachers, high school and college students.

Zhang felt a shock as he stared at the book. He heard about it long before but he never liked math. Even though he was a senior in college, he couldn’t even figure out high school math. Yet, he had an intense urge to read this book. So intense that he couldn’t control himself. It was like a strong force was governing his mind…

Zhang put down the books on his hand and carefully picked up this mathematics book. He felt a summon from deep within himself. The intensity made his fingers tremble.

P.S. Let me know if the Index pages are working.