The Daily Life of the Immortal King

Early mornings, blackouts, dieting, WIFI outage… these were the four great tortures for modern man that applied to ordinary people and to modern cultivators alike.

After Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal returned to the chat group, someone in the cultivation forum instantly stirred things up with a new post, purely as a joke — "Shock! Cultivation chat group owner Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal has reappeared after a few days' absence; it was revealed the reason for it was… no WIFI?!"

Life without WIFI had made this owner of the cultivation chat group exceptionally angry, and he publicly declared in the group that if he caught the guy who had destroyed the lab, he would remove that guy's Tower of Babel and pull out the bricks one by one…

Hence, after Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal's thunderous roar, Wang Ling silently logged out…

He decided to properly sort out the questions he wanted to ask about the stone ghost mask first and then look for Grenade-Throwing Senior Immortal after the latter had calmed down a little. Otherwise, given the other man's current state, Wang Ling felt that if this guy knew the truth, there was a high possibility he would throw a grenade directly at the Wang family's small villa.

The chessboard hidden behind the stone ghost mask was very large, so Wang Ling felt that it was necessary for him to take things slow, as the slightest carelessness might cause an irreparable mistake.

...

After dinner, Lie Mengmeng showed up a little after eight o'clock.

The Wang family had a habit of not closing the front door while they had dinner. Lie Mengmeng, who didn't consider himself an outsider, took off his shoes and put on the flip-flops that Father Wang had specially prepared for visitors by the door.

When Lie Mengmeng entered the house, Mother Wang was washing the dishes in the kitchen and Father Wang and the old man were on the sofa watching the news, which was currently broadcasting the latest hot topic in Huaxiu nation, "One Belt, One Road." The old man was getting along in years and his hearing was a little bad; the TV's volume was very loud and he didn't notice Lie Mengmeng at the door. It was Father Wang who heard a small sound and turned his head slightly to see him.

Father Wang gestured at Lie Mengmeng, pointing upstairs. Instantly understanding his meaning, Lie Mengmeng went to the study on the second floor to wait for him.

Father Wang knew this probably had to do with Professor Jiang's psychological diagnosis. Grandfather Wang would be nervous to hear it, so Father Wang intended to listen to what Lie Mengmeng had to say first.

After closing the chat group window, Wang Ling saw Lie Mengmeng and Father Wang go into the study one after another, and the two of them began talking about the "Zeigarnik effect."

The Zeigarnik effect was a phenomenon where people easily forgot completed or resolved tasks very easily, but would always remember unfinished or interrupted tasks.

This topic had first emerged in a research report on the psychology of love which Professor Jiang had written when he was a student. The title of the report was "Why People Never Forget Their First Love."

When Lie Mengmeng entered the study, he kept Father Wang guessing at first by throwing Professor Jiang's thesis at him. After Father Wang had carefully finished reading it, he was still puzzled. "What does it mean? What does it have to do with my dad's dementia?"

"Teacher Jiang thinks that while a small part of the old man's illness is due to age, it's largely a psychological problem. His assessment is similar to what we had previously assumed," Lie Mengmeng replied.

"To put it simply, Brother Situ, your mother was very important to the old man, who had wanted to grow old with her. Very unfortunately, his wish couldn't be fulfilled and so he suffered a shock. This is a type of regret over unfinished matters and is also the Zeigarnik effect we were just talking about…"

Listening to them in the study, Wang Ling was stupefied; it was the first time that he truly realized how amazing Lie Mengmeng must have been in his psychology research studies. He had heard of Professor Jiang, full name Jiang Li, before. Renowned as the Mind Emperor, the professor had students practically everywhere. Currently, more than seventy percent of counseling psychologists in schools could more or less trace a connection back to him at the top of the hierarchy. Whenever they saw Professor Jiang outside, they would call him Grandmaster.

In contrast to these people, Lie Mengmeng was actually even more amazing, because he had been a direct student of Professor Jiang and had personally received learning instructions from him!

Given Lie Mengmeng's genius, it was highly possible he could have become the next Professor Jiang in the field of psychology if he hadn't felt like he couldn't make a living from it. Otherwise, there was no way he would have received a reply from Professor Jiang so soon, which proved that the professor still couldn't forget this student of his even after so many years.

However, it was very unfortunate that in this era, it was useless to be gifted in just academic studies as one had to be gifted in cultivation too. Professor Jiang wasn't just deeply versed in psychology, he was also a first-class cultivation expert and thus was very well-known.

Wang Ling honestly felt it was a real pity for Lie Mengmeng. The need to be gifted in cultivation was really a sore point. And the legend that eating a Foundation Establishment pill would enable even an ordinary person to instantly reach the Foundation Establishment stage… such a thing didn't exist at all!

Of course, Lie Mengmeng was not the only such case in current society where a lack of cultivation talent meant that there was a limit to what one could do, and those who couldn't do the work they loved had to find something else. After all, not everyone could be like Wang Ming, who couldn't cultivate but had received from god a brain so powerful it could even terrify the government.

"So, Near Expert, your meaning is…?"

"No, no, no, this is just a thought Professor Jiang had. I'm just passing the message on for him," Lie Mengmeng said with a serious expression. "The best solution right now is to fight poison with poison. Have the old man properly resolve his feelings in order to make up for this psychological trauma. This is called the substitution effect in psychology. However, this approach isn't one hundred percent foolproof."

Father Wang was silent for a second, then asked, "Then what, specifically, do we need to do?"

"It's very simple; did the old man have… a first love? If at this time, he is able to see his first love, the substitution effect may work. Even if his unique brand of dementia can't be fully cured, I think making up for his psychological trauma will nevertheless alleviate it significantly."

First… love?

After hearing this, Father Wang thought for a few seconds, then suddenly remembered the "slightly green" girl the old man had mentioned previously. "… I heard my dad talking about a girl before. It was someone he had liked when he was a young chef, but I don't know whether she was his first love or not."

"That's it!" Lie Mengmeng snapped his fingers with a "pa.""The old man's dementia can flare up anytime, and if he can still remember that girl under those circumstances, that's enough to prove that he has a deep fixation with her. Surely she was his first love!"

"Oh! Then what we have to do now is to think of a way to find this slightly green girl, then get her to meet the old man?" asked Father Wang.

Lie Mengmeng nodded. "Exactly!"

Realization suddenly dawned on Father Wang.

He then looked in the direction of Wang Ling's room and gestured encouragingly. "Go, Ling Ling! Whether grandpa can be cured or not now depends on you!"

Wang Ling: "…"