The old man’s doubts were not groundless, because when Bai Jiangxin had just started school back then, he had developed an aversion to studying and did not want to go to school, precisely because he was always hearing the voices in his classmates’ hearts.

Even his parents could not understand it. Fortunately, his grandfather knew why.

There was nothing that could be done about it. A child of only a few years old—his heart-voices were just chirping and chattering, and full of wild imagination. The old man had traditional thinking, believing that a person must go to school, and that if a teacher were invited to teach at home, the child’s personality would only become more and more withdrawn.

Fortunately, this was a peaceful era, without so many unavoidable circumstances. So the old man told the schoolteachers that his grandson was precious, had a relatively introverted personality, and was extremely clean—he would not use things others had used, and would not eat things others had eaten—and asked the teachers to take extra care of him.

The old man often sighed. In their era, everyone emphasized collective consciousness; people could not separate from the masses, and whatever one did, one had to follow the crowd. Now the times were different. Young people were becoming more and more unwilling to socialize, unwilling to make friends, unwilling to fall in love, unwilling to let others intrude into their own private little worlds. Clearly, they did not have the illness of mind-reading, yet they were all becoming just like Xin’er—resisting socializing, resisting contact with crowds.

The old man was of course surprised. This was the first time Xin’er had taken the initiative to ask him how to hear people’s heart-voices again.

“What’s wrong with that classmate of yours?” the old man asked. “A good friend? You quarreled and want to make up, so you want to know what he’s thinking?”

“No.” Bai Jiangxin pressed his lips together. “I’m just a little curious.”

“If you also don’t know, then forget it.”

The old man snorted. “How could I not know? Have you forgotten what your grandpa did for work before Liberation? Back then, listening to heart-voices was my job. For the country, for the people, I had to know what the enemy was thinking, at any cost.”

“Without us, where would you get today’s happy life.”

Bai Jiangxin sighed. “Yes, you’re very great.”

“Good that you know.” The old man returned to the main point. “When your physics teacher teaches class, they must have said that the human body is a conductor. The human body carries a kind of bioelectricity. When people make bodily contact, an electric current is produced between them. The reason we can hear each other’s heart-voices through physical contact is because the interaction between this current and the human magnetic field first converts the language signals in the other person’s brain into electrical signals, transmits them into our brain, and then through signal conversion, they turn back into language again—just like making a phone call. So if the other person is speaking a foreign language, what you hear will also be a foreign language.”

“But now, because you and the other party have already had bodily-fluid contact, it is equivalent to having gotten a vaccine shot. Your body has already produced antibodies, so when you and the other party have simple physical contact again, the electric current and magnetic field between you weaken. The current produced is too weak, so naturally you can’t hear anything.”

Bai Jiangxin asked, “Then can I only continue through bodily-fluid contact to hear again?”

“No, not that. Didn’t I just say it? You can’t hear because the current is too weak. As long as you increase the medium for current conduction, that’s enough.” The old man said. “For example, before you and the other person lightly shook hands, only a hand-sized area was in contact. If it’s a hug, you’re contacting the other person’s entire upper body. Increase the area or the force of your bodily contact, and you’ll be able to hear again.”

Bai Jiangxin frowned slightly. “Wouldn’t that be very deliberate?”

“Of course it would. Hugging someone for no reason—if the other party is still a girl, in our era, you’d be treated as a hooligan.” The old man said. “And people’s hands have a cuticle layer. It’s relatively hard. If you use them a lot, calluses form. It’s just like wearing clothes—if the clothes are too thick, it also affects the effectiveness of hearing heart-voices.”

“So back then, we learned from those foreigners’ Western etiquette. Didn’t they have cheek-kissing and hand-kissing over there? Cheek-kissing is not bad, but hand-kissing is very effective. The lips aren’t considered skin, so you can hear very clearly.”

At this point, the old man sighed. “But this set can only be used to deal with foreign women. It’s not very common for men to kiss hands with each other, and foreign men have a lot of hand hair and strong body odor. After gathering intelligence once, I had to rinse my mouth for several days.”

“……” Bai Jiangxin, who had a cleanliness obsession, could not help frowning. He had no interest in foreign men, so he changed the topic. “Besides kissing hands, are there other methods?”

“There are plenty of methods. It just depends on whether you can think of them. Anyway, Grandpa has already told you the principle. Direct contact between body parts without skin tissue has the best effect. Although the timeliness is instantaneous, the conductivity is good, and the effect is even better than bodily-fluid contact.”

“If you want to hear clearly and also want the effect to last long, then you still have to add bodily-fluid contact. Bodily fluids are just like water—the more water there is, the saltier the water, the higher the electrolyte concentration inside, the more types of ions there are, the better the conductivity, and the clearer you can hear heart-voices.”

With physics, chemistry, and biology—the three natural science subjects—working together, covering almost all the laws of nature, Bai Jiangxin, who had a purely science-oriented way of thinking, quickly understood.

Body parts in the human body that are not covered by skin tissue?

That would be parts covered by mucous membranes—the oral cavity, digestive tract, respiratory tract, these internal bodily structures? And these internal structures themselves have bodily-fluid secretions.

Before Bai Jiangxin could finish thinking it through, the old man had already sighed. “Luckily, back then I was already engaged to your grandma. I couldn’t do that. I used your grandma as an excuse. The political commissar was considerate and didn’t make me sacrifice to that extent.”

Bai Jiangxin: “……”

So that’s why those who did intelligence work back then all received special training in this. Whether men or women, once desire rushed to the head, their mouths had no gate—ask anything and they’d say anything, let alone heart-voices.

If he asked further, he would probably start hearing about the old man’s youthful romantic affairs. He didn’t want to hear it, so Bai Jiangxin chose silence.

After talking for so long, the old man finally belatedly asked, “Hey, Xin’er, that classmate of yours is a boy, right?”

Bai Jiangxin lowered his eyelashes and perfunctorily gave an “Mm.”

“That’s easy then. Eat a meal together. Just don’t use serving chopsticks.” The old man said. “But you have to pay attention. After all, your era is different from mine. I was forced by circumstances, but you must respect other people’s privacy.”

Bai Jiangxin said okay.

Grandfather and grandson chatted for a bit more. The old man’s voice was clearly more tired. Before hanging up, Bai Jiangxin said, “I still want to ask you something.”

The old man yawned. “Ask.”

Bai Jiangxin: “Are you still hearing Grandma’s heart-voices now?”

“Haven’t heard them in a long time.” the old man said.

“Why?” Bai Jiangxin said. “Have you already gotten tired of hearing them?”

“No. Your grandma’s head is very simple. Every day she thinks about this and that—one moment thinking about how to secretly go out to play mahjong behind my back, the next moment thinking about how to get my pocket money. I treat it like listening to crosstalk every day. I’ve listened for decades already. I got used to it long ago.”

At this point, the old man chuckled twice, his words full of both helplessness and enjoyment.

Amused by his grandpa’s tone, the corners of Bai Jiangxin’s lips curved up. “Then why haven’t you continued listening now?”

The old man hesitated for a few seconds, thinking that his grandson was eighteen anyway, sooner or later he would know. So he lowered his voice a little and said, “What else could it be? I’m old. I don’t have that kind of energy anymore.”

“……”

He really shouldn’t have asked.

After telling his grandpa to take care of his health, Bai Jiangxin hung up the phone.

Although he had already learned from his grandpa how to hear heart-voices again, it felt like it wasn’t of much use.

And even now, he was still hesitating—whether he should try to hear Xiang Di’s heart-voices again, to ease the restlessness he was feeling at this moment.

If the thoughts in her head could be as simple and innocent as his grandmother’s, then he really could treat them like crosstalk.

But the key point was—

What was in her head was not crosstalk.

It was R-18.

And R-18 with him.

Did he really have to jump into the same fire pit with the same person twice?

Bai Jiangxin covered his forehead and let out a heavy sigh.

─── ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ ───

After changing seats, this week ended amid seemingly peaceful daily life.

The newly arrived Zhou Linxiao took only one week to become familiar with most of the people in the class. Xiang Di was also very satisfied with this new deskmate—handsome and good with words, not only with full marks in emotional intelligence, but also able to tutor her in English. From time to time, he would even teach her a couple of sentences in Spanish. He was simply the perfect deskmate.

As for Bai Jiangxin’s side, his interactions with Wang Sichen were unexpectedly peaceful as well. Although Wang Sichen usually talked a lot, he dared to disturb anyone—except Bai Jiangxin. Whenever he really could not hold it in anymore and wanted to say a word to Bai Jiangxin, the other party only needed to give him one cold and aloof look, and he would immediately be persuaded to retreat.

Moreover, this week, physics, chemistry, and biology each had a weekly test. Looking at Bai Jiangxin’s perfect-score papers in physics and chemistry, and his nearly perfect score in biology, Chen Jinghua nodded in satisfaction.

Xiang Di’s improvement was also very big. Even chemistry, which she was worst at, she actually got eighty points on this week’s test.

This child really was worthy of having dated Bai Jiangxin before. Sure enough, she could withstand the temptation of handsome guys.