Fu Tinghan’s gaze fell on her leg. Zhao Hanzhang explained with a smile, “It’s not a serious problem. In a few days I’ll be able to walk on the ground.”

It was just a sprain and a hairline fracture. Actually it didn’t hurt much anymore. She could walk with a limp, but first, she was afraid of adding burden to her injured leg; second, she thought limping looked bad; and third, she was simply being lazy. So she’d rather be carried than walk on the ground.

Zhao Hanzhang sat in the sedan chair while Fu Tinghan sat on a low stool. It was somewhat inconvenient for them to talk facing each other like this, and they were too far apart.

Zhao Hanzhang beckoned to him. Fu Tinghan stood up and walked to her side, looking down at her.

Zhao Hanzhang leaned closer and asked quietly, “Why weren’t you speaking earlier? From what the steward said, you injured your head?”

She looked worriedly at the circle of cloth around his forehead and asked softly, “You… don’t have his memories?”

Fu Tinghan heard her words, his expression somewhat strange as he looked at her. “Teacher Zhao, you can speak the refined language?”

And such pure refined language at that.

He also lowered his voice. “I have the memories. When I deliberately think about it, most memories will slowly surface. When I don’t deliberately think about it, if I meet someone who was once familiar, related memories will also appear. But…”

“But having memories doesn’t mean I can immediately possess everything of his,” Fu Tinghan said. “I tried to speak, but the accent is very different.”

Because he had the memories, he could understand when listening. Plus, China’s refined speech had never changed too dramatically. Fu Tinghan had so many students under him—naturally there were students from all over the country, and he’d heard their local dialects and standard speech.

Zhao Hanzhang smiled. “Has Professor Fu forgotten what I originally taught at the school?”

Fu Tinghan: …He’d forgotten. This Teacher Zhao was a music teacher. Though she taught piano, she seemed to really like language subjects. Not only could she speak French and German, apparently she’d learned Russian from a Russian exchange student she’d supervised for two years.

Even if she didn’t know Russian Braille, communication wasn’t a problem.

“Teacher Zhao is amazing.”

Zhao Hanzhang explained, “My ancestral home is Luoyang. When I was young, I lived with my grandfather. Though there are some differences in pronunciation, with the memories there, I adapted quickly.”

After waking up, she’d remained silent for several days straight.

Fu Tinghan moved closer to the sedan chair and lowered his voice. “Does Teacher Zhao have any way to help me speak as soon as possible?”

During this time, everyone had been treating him like a fool. He actually found it quite uncomfortable.

Zhao Hanzhang sympathetically told him, “I told my family I lost my memory.”

Fu Tinghan said, “Losing memory… wouldn’t make you forget your habitual language, would it?”

“It wouldn’t,” Zhao Hanzhang smiled. “So I must trouble Professor Fu. But we can find opportunities to meet. I can teach you.”

She said, “Just having book boys read to you to familiarize yourself with refined speech isn’t enough. You need to speak yourself to correct it.”

Fu Tinghan nodded.

The steward felt they’d been talking too long and couldn’t help peeking his head in from the courtyard entrance. He only saw their young master actually leaning against Zhao Sanniang’s sedan chair, lowering his head to speak with her. He was immediately shocked.

The young master and Zhao Sanniang were this intimate?

No, no—their young master could speak now?

He couldn’t help but lean in further, straining his ears, but they were too far apart and speaking so quietly that he couldn’t hear anything.

Ting He held back, held back, but still couldn’t restrain herself. She ran over from the other side to pull the steward back.

The steward gave Ting He an ingratiating smile and asked quietly, “Young lady, have your Sanniang and our young master had contact before?”

“No!” Ting He directly denied it, working hard to clear Zhao Sanniang’s name. “Our Sanniang only heard about Young Master Fu from the master yesterday.”

Such boldness! To come calling directly at the door?

The steward’s heart trembled. If this marriage went through, how formidable would their future mistress be?

Zhao Hanzhang was still conspiring with Fu Tinghan. “…I went to look at the city gate area just now. There’s nothing unusual. At the time, we suddenly appeared there. If we’re to go back, it should also be from there, right?”

Fu Tinghan smiled bitterly. “Teacher Zhao, this isn’t mathematics—it’s already in the realm of metaphysics. I’ve been thinking about it this whole time too, suspecting it’s related to the earthquake at the time, and the astronomical phenomena. If we’re to proceed by equivalent conditions for soul exchange, we’d need at least the seismic conditions and astronomical phenomena of that time. This involves specific energy values. But first, we don’t have the specific values from that time; second, under current conditions it’s very difficult to create energy values with micro-variations. So I don’t hold much hope for going back. We can only work toward that goal and then hope for luck.”

Zhao Hanzhang’s attention was on another term. “Soul exchange? You mean…”

Fu Tinghan nodded. “That’s right. I suspect those two people should be the same as us.”

“Our experience proves that spacetime truly exists. So I’m setting spacetime as a quantity. We exist within this quantity. Since there was a spacetime exchange and we went from one quantity into another quantity, by the same logic, this quantity must also have a corresponding quantity go over there. Otherwise the quantity would be unbalanced.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “It’s just two souls…”

“In mathematics, even the values after the decimal point have significant effects. Have you forgotten the butterfly effect? I think the quantity won’t allow itself to become unbalanced.”

Zhao Hanzhang: “Is Professor Fu anthropomorphizing the quantity?”

Fu Tinghan just smiled without answering.

Zhao Hanzhang directly believed his conclusion and began pondering while tapping the armrest. “In that case, I wonder if they’re still alive. And also…”

“And if variables sufficient for exchange occur on our side but don’t simultaneously occur on their side, do we still have the possibility of exchanging back? Or would we just die?”

Zhao Hanzhang suddenly asked, “So many people die here every day. Don’t those quantities count as disappearing?”

Fu Tinghan shook his head. “They don’t. Death isn’t annihilation.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “They say the end of mathematics is metaphysics. Will Professor Fu come to believe in metaphysics in the future?”

Fu Tinghan looked down at her. “We’re standing here now. But I don’t believe in it.”

Zhao Hanzhang: …

Zhao Hanzhang simply believed Fu Tinghan’s deduction and began to worry. “The elevator was descending very quickly at the time. I don’t know how… our bodies are doing. Zhao Hezhen is only a fourteen-year-old girl. Suddenly going blind…”

Zhao Hanzhang sighed. “Too pitiful. Not only did she suddenly age fourteen years, but she also went blind all at once. Waking up in a strange world, unable to see anything, and possibly seriously injured on top of that.”

Zhao Hanzhang felt irritated. “Professor Fu, we need to find a way to go back as soon as possible.”

Of course Fu Tinghan also wanted to go back, but he felt it was impossible. He’d been contemplating and deducing this whole time and didn’t think they still had the possibility of returning—the variables were too great.

However, seeing the cold expression on Zhao Hanzhang’s face, he softened his voice. “I’ll do my best. Teacher Zhao doesn’t need to worry too much either. At least in modern society, they can receive the best medical treatment, and there’s the school and Professor Fang and the others.”

Even if both their bodies and souls had problems, the two of them could receive very good care.

Plus their respective family assets weren’t insignificant.

Zhao Hanzhang frowned and looked up to ask, “Does Professor Fu have any close relatives?”

Professor Fu’s smile faded slightly. “No. My parents died long ago.”

Zhao Hanzhang said, “What a coincidence—so did mine.”

Professor Fu said softly, “I know.”