While Gong CaiCai was eating the ice cream ‘sneakily’ like a timid little animal, Xiao Qin took the bag of hand lotions from my hand so that I could have a free hand to eat the ice cream.

I accepted Xiao Qin’s good intentions, since the bag with the hard-covered diaries in the other bag was even heavier than the bag of hand lotions. I also had a bad habit of swinging my arms when carrying things, so I would feel sorry to the class leader if I broke the lotions.

After finishing the ice cream, the three of us agreed to go see Professor Bai together. We left Henderson Mall and walked to the Happy Science seminar room.

Xiao Qin said to Gong CaiCai in a determined tone as if to gain her trust:

“The law of attraction is really powerful. I was dubious at first, but I just tried it once according to the rules. I kept telling myself: “‘The law of attraction works’, ‘The law of attraction works’, and now I successfully believe that the law of attraction works.”

Hello, I don’t think that solves anything? A solution like “the Pythagorean Theorem proves the validity of the Pythagorean Theorem” will definitely get you zero marks on a test.

Gong CaiCai nodded frequently and said happily: “Xiao Qin classmate, Professor Bai told me: Believing in the law of attraction is the first step to the truth of the universe. Let’s work together and pray that our wishes will come true.”

I remember that Gong CaiCai’s two previous wishes were to become a scallop and to become a panda. The reason was that scallops have shells to protect them, and pandas have countries to protect them. However, she gave up on the idea because becoming a scallop would induce her claustrophobia, and she would feel the pressure of being watched all the time if she was a panda.

Just recently, Professor Bai changed his teaching location.

The place where Happy Science seminars were originally held was in a simple classroom on the commercial street that looked like it was used by students to make up extra classes. The desks inside were very old and some of the chairs were broken.

That’s no longer the case. It’s probably because he has accumulated a lot of money, and Assistant Professor Chen couldn’t bear Grandma Su’s torture and turned himself in to the police, which caused Professor Bai to raise his vigilance. Basically, the Happy Science seminar was moved to a multimedia conference room in an office building. The room was bright, clean, with tables and chairs in good condition. The layout was very similar to a university lecture hall (just without the elevated desks and chairs). Each long table had six chairs behind them. There were a total of 12 long tables in the entire room, which could accommodate a total of 72 people at the same time.

It was already close to 6:30 after we finished buying the Teacher’s Day gifts. Since it was mealtime for most people, Professor Bai did not arrange any classes at this time. He directly welcomed us in the empty conference room.

“Professor Bai, please accept this globe. I can’t come over tomorrow, so I have to wish you a happy Teacher’s Day today.”

As soon as they met, Gong CaiCai quickly held up the globe with both hands and handed it to Professor Bai. It didn’t look like she was giving a gift, but rather like a student who had made mistakes and was handing in a self-reflection report.

Professor Bai was quite surprised. On the one hand, he didn’t expect that he, a cult lecturer, would get a Teacher’s Day gift. On the other hand, he didn’t expect that in addition to bringing Xiao Qin, I would also bring Gong CaiCai here.

“Okay, it would be disrespectful for me to refuse, so I’ll accept your kindness.”

Professor Bai took the globe and placed it on the lectern. It seemed like he already threw away his old broken globe, and there was also a fish tank placed on the lectern. There was only a shallow layer of water inside and a palm-sized turtle laid lazily in the water.

I remember this was Professor Bai’s pet, called “Da Vinci”, which was the early Chinese translation of Leonardo, the boss of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

“What a cute turtle.”

Xiao Qin, who had always had a very strange aesthetic sense, almost pressed her face against the glass of the fish tank and came face to face with the turtle inside.

“What kind of turtle is it? Is it a smiling turtle? It seems to be smiling.” Xiao Qin put the bag containing hand lotions on a chair and asked Professor Bai enthusiastically.

When dealing with an elder like Professor Bai, who was similar in age to her uncle, Xiao Qin’s androphobia won’t be triggered and she would act familiar with them.

“You must be their classmate, Ren XiaoQin. It’s our first time meeting, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Ye Lin. If it’s convenient, I’ll call you Xiao Qin from now on.”

Professor Bai enthusiastically extended his right hand towards Xiao Qin. Xiao Qin looked at me to ask for my opinion. When I nodded, she shook hands with Professor Bai.

“Classmate Ye Lin and I… are here to join.” Xiao Qin said excitedly as soon as her hands separated from Professor Bai’s, “Happy Science is about using scientific methods to gain happiness. This is something that humans have been pursuing since our existence. Your theory is so perfect and so advanced that it surpasses human knowledge by five hundred years. Please let us join.”

“You’re free to come and go. As long as you agree with our philosophy, you can automatically become a member.”

Professor Bai had a drop of sweat on his face. He seemed to felt that Xiao Qin went too far when flattering him.

What he didn’t expect was that Xiao Qin had just started and wasn’t even fully in character yet.

“Professor Bai, you may have heard from my classmate, Ye Lin, say that my mother is a former women’s MMA world champion, so I also know a little bit about martial arts… If Happy Science needs me, I’ll rush into the East District immediately and go inside the Tianwang Temple to beat up the Taoist priests, or rush into the Jianren Monastery in the West District to beat up the monks.’

“Why?” Professor Bai was surprised, “Why would I order you to fight Taoist priests and monks?”

There is a common saying among the elderly in Dong Shan City, ‘There are temples in the east and monasteries in the west’, which refers to Tianwang Temple and Jianren Monastery. The name Jianren Monastery was often written as ‘Bitch Monastery’ by us as a prank, but it’s said that when it was established, the name was taken from the saying ‘The benevolent sees benevolence, the wise sees wisdom’, and there was also a Buddhist monastery with the same name in Kyoto, Japan.

When Professor Bai asked why she had trouble with those two religious buildings, Xiao Qin clenched her fists and looked like she was ready to shed blood for the organization at any time.

“Do you even need to ask? We’re enemies in the same industry, so of course it’s for competition! If we don’t eradicate the Taoist and Buddhist forces in Dong Shan City first, how can we establish dominance and make a fortune?”

Gong CaiCai was shocked and silently moved a little further away from Xiao Qin. She probably felt that even if she became a fellow parishioner, Xiao Qin was still a super-violent parishioner, and her desire to make a fortune was too vulgar.

“Um… Xiao Qin, I think there’s been a misunderstanding?” Professor Bai broke out in a cold sweat, “Happy Science is a scientific organization, not a religion. Some people call us the ‘Happy Science Church’ due to a slip of the tongue or they have prejudice against us. We are neither colleagues nor enemies with other religions, and it would be even more ridiculous to make a huge fortune. The fees we charge some members are simply the electricity bills consumed by doing karma calculations.”

“Can’t you charge more?” Xiao Qin asked, “If I trick two more old ladies into joining, can you give me commission?”

Hey, I think you’re getting too into it. You’re no longer a cult believer, but a criminal who wants to use the cult to make money. So as soon as Assistant Professor Chen surrendered to the police, you wanted to take his place and become an accomplice?

“Can I talk to Ye Lin alone?” Professor Bai was embarrassed by Xiao Qin. He pointed to the desk in the back row, “There’s a laptop in that desk, which contains an introduction to Happy Science. Gong CaiCai, please explain the slides to Xiao Qin so that she can clear up her misunderstanding about us.”

Although Gong CaiCai was afraid of Xiao Qin, she wanted to dedicate herself to Happy Science, so she went to explain the slides to Xiao Qin as if she was a martyr.

Professor Bai moved a chair and sat face to face with me in the first row. He was far away from Xiao Qin and the others, so we couldn’t hear each other’s conversation without shouting loudly.

“Can I see your phone?” Professor Bai requested.

I was confident that Professor Bai couldn’t do anything to it right in front of me, so I handed him my phone. He weighed it in his hands and was able to make a judgment:

“It’s 40 grams heavier than before, so it must have been modified. Gong CaiCai’s cram school teacher, Xiao Hu, uses the same model as you and I weighed his before.”

I didn’t expect Professor Bai’s hand to be so accurate. I didn’t even feel any obvious weight change on my phone. You must be a human scale.

“Your phone clearly looks like an old model and it’s powered on, but our monitoring system can’t receive any signals. According to basic logic… either the internal hardware of your phone has been replaced, or it has been modified into a dual hardware system, and the person who modified it must have been Dr. Yu.”

I shrugged and admitted it. Professor Bai returned the phone to me and pushed his round-framed glasses up his nose.

“The reason you kept your old hardware system was to send us false information, which was indeed a good move. Unfortunately, Ye Lin, you didn’t execute it well. You used the ‘safe mode’ too much and too little of the other mode, so there was no way we wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Huh, in that case, I’ll ask Dr. Yu to get rid of it when I get back. It’s useless now anyway, and it consumes a lot of electricity.”

Professor Bai rested his elbows on the table, crossed his fingers, and said quietly:

“It was hard for your phone to be modified to be so special. Why don’t we use it in reverse? I hope that we can develop some new uses for the backdoor mode.”

Professor Bai later told me openly and honestly about what exactly they could do with the backdoor chips.

Monitoring phone calls and text messages was only the simplest function. It seems that it was also quite easy to record all text input on mobile applications, then package and transmit it to one of their monitor centers.

If the situation calls for it, they can even remotely control the phone to dial a number. For example, when I was surrounded by four people who looked like fitness instructors holding steel pipes, my phone dialed 110 on its own.

If they aren’t worried about being discovered, they can also remotely turn on the power-consuming ‘surveillance’ function, which they have all considered before but haven’t used on me.

“Ye Lin, Dr. Yu modified your phone to allow you to use the backdoor mode as a channel to transmit false information. Now that you’re allied with us, there’s no need to switch back and forth between the two modes and making us listen to useless spam calls. You can simply always use the safe mode, but only use the other mode under special circumstances, when you need to be actively monitored or you need help.”