Chapter 24 Screening One by One!
“After overcoming all kinds of hardships, I obtained the list of the one hundred suspects. I now post it here, hoping everyone can try to find the mysterious man among the list.”
“Now, we can screen out those who meet either of the following two conditions. First, those who prove that they were not on the sports ground at night the day before yesterday.”
“Second, those who prove to be absent on the scene when the mysterious man appeared this morning.”
“Those who are on the list, please give it a thought that whether you satisfy the two conditions. If you meet one of them, you’re out. Everyone, please leave your comment to help us screen out the wrong suspects.”
“PS: the post will be constantly updated. I swear I won’t give up until we find the mysterious man! I kindly ask all of you to immediately check whether the listed persons are on the scene when the mysterious man turns up in the future!”
Below was the list of the one hundred suspects.
“Gong Pan, Class One, Major of Chinese Medicine Philology, School of Information Management.”
“Sun Long, Class One, Major of Information Management and Information System, School of Information Management.”
Once the list was posted, everyone started to search the list for the names from their classes.
“If the mysterious man is from my class, how freaking awesome it will be!”
“If so, in the future, I will be able to admire him closely!”
“Even if he is not from my class, it will be amazing as well if he studies the same major as I do!”
“Anyway, even if he doesn’t share the same major with me, it will still be great if he is from the same school as I am!”
“Search!”
All the people who read the post began to search down the list frenetically.
Some who found his or her classmates on the list became very excited; some who did not find names from his or her own class but from his or her own major or school were also rather thrilled.
When the excitement faded a little, someone rapidly replied with a comment.
“Sun Long was doing the self-study in the self-study room at night the day before yesterday, who did not appear on the sports ground. I’m Li Xiang from Class One of the Chinese Medicine Philology major, who can testify that.”
The first name to be screened out appeared.
Seeing that reply, many turned hectic.
“In this way, soon the true identity of the mysterious man will be dug up.”
“And the person who wrote the reply clarified his own identity, which means you can contact him for proof, and the mysterious man can’t write a reply anonymously to screen out himself.”
It should be noted that those comments were all made anonymously or under a fake name, which would not expose the writer’s identity. Based on that act, you can tell how eager those people were to know who the mysterious man was.
Very soon, a second reply came up.
“Gong Pan had been with me this whole morning. He was by my side when the mysterious man appeared, so he should be scrapped off from the list. I’m Wu Tianxiao, from Class One of Information Management and Information System major.”
Then, the third came, and the fourth...
More and more replies flooded in. Every time a new reply popped out, the post writer “Other Fish in the Sea” would edit his post on time and turn the color of the names that had been screened out from red to black.
Up to half-past ten that night, a total of twenty-seven names were scratched out, leaving seventy-three on the list.
For a while, no one stepped forward to ask more names to be ruled out.
That result slightly disappointed those who had been waiting anxiously for the final answer.
“They still did not find out who the mysterious man is!”
But anyway, the scope had been narrowed down further. He had to be among the remaining seventy-three suspects.
In the future, whenever the mysterious man turned up again, more and more names would be scratched off, and the scope would become smaller and smaller, until the mysterious man was found.
There was no hurry. They had plenty of time for it. They could wait for a while.
Out of curiosity, many also turned to look at the freshmen column on the celebrity ranking list.
They were surprised to see that all the one hundred suspects were on the list.
Of course, they could not surpass the five big names at the top—”the mysterious man”, “Jiang Miaoyu”, “Fang Qiu”, “Chen Cong”, and “the upright man”—but they ranked precisely from the tenth to the one hundred and tenth.
Looking at the ranking list, a lot of people were amazed.
Include students from the second, the third, the fourth, the five grade, and even the postgraduates. Now, they knew how capable this year’s freshmen were!
At this time.
Seeing the result of the post on the campus BBS, military officer Li Ji, who led the students away that morning, breathed a sigh of relief.
At the thought of being unexpectedly stopped by a school official from investigating each of the one hundred students that morning, he felt rather depressed.
The official of the University of Jiangjing Chinese Medicine truly took sides with his students. Once he heard that the officer wanted to investigate the students for the sake of finding the mysterious man, he forbid it thoroughly!
“It’s fine to search for the mysterious man. But I’ll never allow you to investigate my students!”
“My students have done nothing wrong. For what reason do they have to be investigated?”
“You think who you are! Dare to investigate my students!”
Helplessly, he could only give it up.
But what one lost on the swings, he got back on the roundabouts. It turned out that a student was more curious about the identity of the mysterious man than him, and even called on the entire university to screen the suspects.
Now, all that he needed to do was wait for the result.
Although it might take a little longer, he felt it not a big deal. When it came to discovering a guru leveled mysterious man, it was worth the wait, no matter it was how long.
He already made up his mind—he must drag such a talent to join the army!
Not every student of the University of Jiangjing Chinese Medicine just sat there waiting for the mysterious man to be discovered. Instead, they planned to take the initiative.
Thus, on the next day, when Fang Qiu held his books in arms and went for his very first class in the university, he saw the way heading for the teaching building was lined with loads of banners.
“Mysterious man, six o’clock this afternoon, at the rostrum on sports ground, come and fight me. If you don’t show up, you’re a coward!”
At the sight of the banners on both sides of the road, Fang Qiu instantly went startled.
“What the heck?”
He only stayed in the library to read books for half a day. But how did the world change like that?
Fang Qiu turned to look at Sun Hao and asked, “The third oldest, what’s going on here?”
Sun Hao whispered with restrained excitement, “Challenging the mysterious man! Yesterday afternoon, a post appeared on the BBS, which attached the list of the one hundred suspects the drill master picked out yesterday, and call on others to screen out the names to find out who the mysterious man is.”
After saying those words, he quickly lowered his voice and murmured, “I presume that this challenge thing is a method to force the mysterious man out, which will allow them to immediately check who on the list is possible to the mysterious man and who is not.”
“Hey, I guess once the mysterious man accepts the challenge and turns up, he will expose himself.”
Fang Qiu gazed speechlessly at Sun Hao, who was wearing an expectant expression.
“Is it really appropriate for you to leak such confidential information to the mysterious man himself?”
“What if the mysterious man doesn’t show up?”
Asked Fang Qiu.
Sun Hao pouted his lips at the huge word “coward” on the banner, and replied, “If he doesn’t go there, he is a coward. I believe a figure so frank and righteous like the mysterious man will absolutely go there!”
Obviously, he was also eager to know who the mysterious man could be.
After hearing those words, Fang Qiu decided not to go at once.
“I won’t go!”
“Hell righteous!”
“Do you really think I am a dumbass?”
“if I have some time to spare, I would prefer to read more rather than play with you!”
As he admired the banners on the two sides of the road, he heard various discussions of many people around. Some thought the mysterious man would show up, some not. Finally, Fang Qiu and his roommates arrived at the classroom.
At the sight of the classroom, Fang Qiu was taken aback.
He actually thought he would be the earliest one to be in the classroom. But to his surprise, there was as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it—almost all the class were already present and took up all the seats in the first three rows.
“Seems that at the beginning of the semester, everyone is really thirsty for knowledge, not like those sophomores I’ve heard who always scramble for seats at the back and leave the first three rows empty.”
With no other choice, Fang Qiu sat in the totally empty fourth row with his roommates.
As the bell rang, Fang Qiu’s first class for college—the Basic Theory of Chinese Medicine—started. A man in his thirties, who was wearing glasses and looked quite refined, walked onto the platform holding a couple of books.
“Hello, everyone, I’m your teacher for Basic Theory of Chinese Medicine. My name is Qiao Mu.”
The young teacher calmly turned on the multi-media equipment and the projector at the front of the platform and made that self-introduction.
Applause promptly broke out.
Qiao Mu stuck out a hand to gesture them to quiet down. Then, he said with a smile,
“Thanks, you guys. I’m honored to teach you the very first lesson in college. You’re Chinese Medicine majors. You’ll certainly be treating patients, saving lives, and healing injuries. But even a skyscraper shall be built from the groundwork, so the base is the most fundamental.”
“And this class—Basic Theory of Chinese Medicine—is designed precisely for helping you to build up a good base. But how steady your base can be is up to how serious you treat this class.”
“Next, I’ll ask you a question. You all got the book. Is there anyone who prepared lessons before this class?”
Then, Qiao Mu scanned the thirty students in this class with a beaming face.
He had asked the same question every year since he started to teach six years ago.
Not a single student had done the preview!
The reason was simple—military training, entertainment, and activities to enjoy college life had kept those kids who just pulled through the college entrance examinations fully preoccupied.
They had no time for preview. Nor did they want to.
In their minds, college was for fun. As for studying, they could do it while they were playing.
But what they did not know was that Chinese Medicine was the most difficult one. Otherwise, they would not have to attend school for five years instead of four years like other majors.
If they did not treasure every minute, every second of the five years, they would be left way behind others after graduation.
Therefore, he had this question in store for them. It was the most difficult question he reserved for each year’s students. He wanted to give them a head-on blow in order to make them stifle down their restlessness and focus on study.
He wanted them to know that going to college might be more exhausting than going to high school.
Sure enough, everyone in this class shook their heads.
The smile on Qiao Mu’s face faded, and his expression turned quite stern. Just when he was about to show them his anger, he saw a student in the fourth row slowly raised his hand.
At that scene, Qiao Mu was amazed.
“He, he didn’t play by the conventional rules!”
Following the teacher’s gaze, everyone in this class turned their heads around and saw the student with his hand in the air.
He was Fang Qiu.
In the whole class, only he prepared the lessons before class.
The only hand held high in the air looked quite out of place.
Many people were a bit annoyed. “He merely previewed the lesson. Does he really have to be such a showoff?”
But Fang Qiu ignored others gazes. He held up his hand to respond to the teacher’s inquiry.
He did preview the lessons.
“Hem...”
Qiao Mu looked a little sullen. He never expected that a freshman did do the preview, so he could not play his old routines.
But after all, he was a teacher. It was pretty easy for him to switch to another routine.
“Good!”
“I’ve been teaching for six years, but this student is the first one who does the preview. Based on that, I can tell that this student has already known his purpose of attending college and put it into practice. You all need to learn from him! Come on, applaud for him!”
Thin applause sounded.
Except for the three from Fang Qiu’s dormitory, no other boys applauded heartily. They just clapped their hands once or twice perfunctorily, while all the girls applauded for Fang Qiu quite enthusiastically.
“This student, I wonder how many lessons have you previewed?”
Qiao Mu asked Fang Qiu such a question. He attempted to drag the class back to his normal track. He thought even if someone did the preview, he would at most have previewed one or two chapters. When he got that answer, he could swiftly turn to his routine—to give them a good ideological education, to tell them they cannot do without previewing lessons and it is better than doing zero even if they only preview one or two chapters, and it seems that they have not put their college life into perspectives.
But it turned out that Fang Qiu’s answer made him rather stunned.
“I’ve previewed the whole book.”
Replied Fang Qiu.