At Principal Ma Guotao's home.
After the elderly professors finished critiquing Zhao Yuan's answers, their appetites not yet sated, they urged Haoyu, "'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' is almost done with the questions. Quick, send him an email and see if you can contact him."
"Alright." Haoyu nodded and quickly tapped out an email, sending it to Zhao Yuan.
The email had only just been sent when the elderly professors asked impatiently, "Anything? Did he reply?"
'How could it be that fast,' Haoyu complained inwardly. Out loud, he said, "Let me see." But as he opened his inbox, he caught sight of a message out of the corner of his eye and froze. "He... he logged off?"
His abrupt comment made everyone in the room frown. Confused, they asked, "Who logged off?"
"'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor'βhe logged off!" Haoyu replied.
The elderly professors exchanged glances, a development they had never anticipated.
"Why would he suddenly log off? Did he really come to our university's forum just to answer a few questions?"
This time, they had actually guessed right. Wasn't Zhao Yuan's entire purpose for logging into the forum to answer questions?
"If we had known he'd log off right after finishing, we shouldn't have just sat here watching him answer questions. We should have been spamming him with emails!" one of the old professors said with regret.
"Sending emails would have been useless," Ma Guotao sighed. "This person probably didn't even look at his email."
Liu Mingzhang said anxiously, "'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' is exceptionally talented when it comes to basic theory! If we could invite him to teach at our school, the teaching quality for the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine course would surely undergo a qualitative leap! With a solid foundation, the students' clinical studies will naturally improve as well! Principal Ma, this is a talent we absolutely cannot afford to miss!"
Of course Ma Guotao understood all this. But the problem now was that they had no way to contact 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor'!
Xiao Xianlin sighed and said mournfully, "If only we knew where this person was. Even with just a general address, we could figure out a way to find him. We wouldn't be like this, running around like headless chickens."
Haoyu's eyes lit up. He slapped his forehead excitedly. "I've got it! I can use his IP address to find out where he is!"
Ma Guotao was overjoyed at his words and urged him on, "Excellent! Haoyu, hurry and check! If you can really find the address of 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor', I'll count this as a great service!"
Haoyu immediately got to work. Before long, he had retrieved the IP address that 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' used to log into the forum. However, when he saw the IP location displayed on the computer, his jaw dropped in astonishment.
Because the IP location was none other than West Hua Medical University!
"'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor'... is here at our university?" Haoyu murmured.
"What? At our university? How is that possible!" The group of old professors exchanged glances, unable to believe the news.
After a long moment, Xiao Xianlin finally spoke, his brows furrowed. "I know all the teachers at the university. Yes, their standards are very high, but compared to 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor', they're still lacking by a fair bit!"
Liu Mingzhang nodded in agreement. "Old Xiao is right. Among our university's faculty, there really is no one with this level of skill. Not even me or Old Xiao."
"If it's not a teacher, could it be a student?" Ma Guotao suddenly proposed a theory.
An old professor immediately shot it down. "Impossible! Even we don't possess this kind of skill. How could a student possibly have it?"
"That's right," another professor chimed in. "'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor's' mastery of basic theory is incredibly high. You can't achieve that without long years of painstaking study. We have quite a few promising kids at our school, including some from medical Noble Families, but their skill level is worlds apart from his!"
The other professors all nodded in agreement.
No one believed that 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' could be a student at the university. It was a joke. The level of skill he demonstrated in basic theory was far beyond that of these experts and professors. How could he possibly be a student in his late teens or early twenties?
Ma Guotao also felt his guess was unreliable. He gave an awkward laugh and changed the subject. "Then what's the deal with the IP location showing our university?"
The old professors all shook their heads. While they were highly skilled in medicine, they really weren't very knowledgeable about computers.
It was Haoyu who thought of a possibility. "I know! This 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' must be a computer expert! He didn't want anyone to trace his real address, so he spoofed our university's IP to log into the forum. That way, even if we trace the IP location, we won't find his real address!"
This deduction immediately met with everyone's approval. Compared to the idea of him being a student, the professors were much more willing to believe that 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' was an expert in both medicine and computers.
"I never would have thought 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' was a computer expert too. Sigh, now even our last clue is gone." Ma Guotao shook his head and sighed. "It seems we can only wait for him to come online again."
"But what if he comes online next time and ignores the emails again, just like this time?" someone voiced a concern.
"Well..." Ma Guotao was stumped, and the others fell silent as well.
After a moment, Xiao Xianlin thought of a plan. "From what we saw today," he said, "'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' appears to be answering questions in the order they're taught in the Basic Theory of Traditional Chinese Medicine. That means his next topics should be within the scope of etiology, pathogenesis, health preservation, and treatment principles. We could modify the relevant questions in the forum's test bank and place our message to him inside the questions. That way, as long as he does them, he's guaranteed to see what we have to say."
"Now that's a good idea!" Liu Mingzhang's eyes lit up.
The other professors agreed with this plan. Finally, Ma Guotao gave the final approval, "We'll do as Elder Xiao suggests!"
The professors immediately selected a few representative questions and had Haoyu modify them, embedding West Hua University's recruitment message for 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' inside.
By the time they finished, it was already past eleven o'clock at night. But the old professors didn't feel the slightest bit sleepy. They simply turned Ma Guotao's home into a conference room and began a heated discussion about the essay questions that 'Man Who Wants to Be a Witch Doctor' had answered that day.
After a round of study and exchange, every one of them felt they had gained a great deal. It was a kind of fulfillment they hadn't experienced in many years.