Ye Wenjie, watch my moves closely.

Chapter 61 God's Dice

Zhang Bin did not come to school the next day.

After the young man mentioned the Jade Emperor Peak of Mount Tai yesterday, Zhang Bin's mind became very chaotic, filled with memories of the thunder and lightning from that day.

He couldn't even complete the calculations that were supposed to be done.

When he got home last night, he drank a bottle of baijiu (Chinese liquor) for the first time ever, trying to calm his chaotic thoughts. However, he had an alcohol allergy and slept until the afternoon of the next day.

Fortunately, he didn't have any classes for the next three days, so he still had time to adjust.

After waking up, Zhang Bin didn't rush to get up. Instead, he leaned against the bedside table and stared at the military green raincoat hanging on the wall next to his bed.

Outside, at the construction site, rivets were being hammered away, the sharp sound like thunder.

In a daze, Zhang Bin returned to the Jade Emperor Peak of Mount Tai.

He was 21 years old that year, a fresh graduate of the Physics Department of Peking University. Full of vigor and with a bright future ahead, he was determined to use his limited life to explore the unsolved mysteries of the world.

That July, with lofty aspirations, he climbed Mount Tai, wanting to express his scholarly spirit.

What was supposed to be an ordinary mountain climbing trip turned into an extreme thunderstorm when they reached the top of Jade Emperor Peak. In the midst of the storm, Zhang Bin saw it—a bright red sphere floating in the air, its movement unpredictable and erratic.

Just as I was about to record all of this, it suddenly changed direction and rushed towards me, and half of my leg became the price for encountering it.

However, I am still very happy because I have found something I can study for the rest of my life.

In the years that followed, whenever there was a thunderstorm, he would frantically search outside, hoping to see ball lightning again. It was then that he met his lover, Zheng Min, who was also interested in ball lightning.

For a full 10 years, the couple waited like bees chasing honey through torrential rains, but the ball lightning never appeared again.

Until that day...

It was still a thunderstorm. He went to town to buy things, while his wife stayed at the village weather station to wait for him.

But fate played a cruel trick on her. The ball lightning suddenly appeared in front of his wife. The bright red ball leaped through the forest. His wife, carrying her equipment, followed closely behind. Just as the ball lightning was about to disappear, she used the magnetic lightning arrester she always carried to stop it.

The ball lightning disappeared the instant it made contact.

When he arrived at the scene, all he saw were streaks of white ash blown down the hillside by the wind.

That was his wife.

His wife's raincoat and insulated boots were left where they were, with no signs of damage. Zhang Bin immediately checked the lightning arrester, which showed that the capacitance of the ball lightning was zero.

In other words, a lightning bolt without any electrical charge turned the wife into ashes.

Ball lightning was like a die God used to play tricks on him, jokingly robbing him of his life.

From then on, Zhang Bin's pursuit of ball lightning became an obsession.

He absolutely had to find this guy.

Zhang Bin remained lost in despondent thoughts for a long time before finally getting out of bed.

I simply cooked a pot of noodles in plain water, added some chopped scallions, and that solved both lunch and dinner.

With renewed vigor, he sat down at his desk. These past two days, the calculations for the ball lightning model had reached their final stage; just one more step and the result would be obtained.

Not wanting to be distracted, Zhang Bin casually made up an excuse to ask for the next two days off and stayed home to do calculations.

He stayed at home for seventy-two hours, and except for eating and going to the toilet, he never left his desk. He even slept while leaning against a chair.

"The results will be available soon."

After months of calculations, Zhang Bin wrote the last equation in his notebook with his pen.

The other side of the equation is ball lightning.

He calmed himself and patiently substituted each theory into the equation, simplifying it.

Suddenly, everything went black before his eyes.

In the denominator of the formula, the matrix used to characterize the motion of ball lightning equals 0 after simplification.

This formula does not exist, and the model for deriving this formula is invalid!

Zhang Bin's world has collapsed.

The results of several months have vanished like a bubble!

The mischievous God has rolled the dice once again.

It's over. This time it's really over.

He had considered every possible way things could go wrong; he had reached the end of the road, with nowhere left to go!

"No, maybe I miscalculated... I must have miscalculated something..."

Unwilling to accept his fate, Zhang Bin began to doubt his own calculations, and he recalculated them from beginning to end.

The result was the same.

If once doesn't work, try twice, three times...

By the morning of the fourth day, Zhang Bin's room floor was covered with calculation drafts.

He now has almost memorized the entire calculation process, which is several pages long.

But the result remained unchanged.

Zhang Bin threw down his pen, stood up weakly, and walked towards the raincoat at the foot of the bed.

He leaned against his raincoat, looking utterly exhausted.

"Minmin, I can't figure it out, I can't find it..."

Zhang Bin wasn't sure if it was just his imagination, but he felt as if he were lying in his wife's arms when he leaned against the raincoat.

For years, he survived alone, and this was how he got through every night of emotional breakdown.

Just as he was drifting off to sleep, a voice suddenly popped into his ear:

"Old Zhang, why don't you go ask that young man?"

Zhang Bin jolted awake, his hair standing on end, and the sleepiness that had just surged within him vanished instantly. He sat bolt upright, finding the room empty.

"Who is speaking!"

Zhang Bin stood and listened for a while, but there was no response.

He rubbed his throbbing temples, and the image of the young man he had met in the office four days earlier flashed through his mind.

"Why is he so certain that my ball lightning model is wrong?"

"Does he... know something?"

With that thought in mind, Zhang Bin decided to stop wasting his time and hurriedly grabbed his bicycle keys before leaving home.

After four days without seeing the sun, Zhang Bin was feeling a bit weak, and after riding in the sun for a while, he started panting and feeling weak.

By the time I arrived at school, I was covered in sweat.

He didn't have time to rest and ran straight to the office, but he didn't see the young man.

He approached his colleagues to inquire about the young man, but they all shook their heads.

Aside from seeing that person again on the second day, he disappeared in the following days, just like Zhang Bin.

"what!"

Zhang Bin angrily slammed his fist on his head. His damned arrogance had caused him to miss what might have been the closest answer to the mystery!

Zhang Bin went downstairs dejectedly and pushed his cart toward the library.

Just then, a voice suddenly came from the direction of the roadside bench:

"Teacher Zhang, are you interested in talking now?"