Chapter 132

“Then how did you kill those bugs?” Su Yunhu asked in shock.

“Secret weapon,” Su Wuji said. “Don’t ask what it is—you know. Never ask another cultivator about their secret weapon; you’ll get beaten.”

Su Yunhu immediately swallowed the words that had risen to his throat.

If Su Wuji hadn’t said that, he would’ve asked outright.

“What secret weapon did you use to kill the bugs?”

Yang Guan watched him and felt utterly speechless.

He heard his father was a traveling merchant who took him everywhere on business since childhood.

Why can’t this guy be more worldly and composed?

He truly didn’t know how his father raised such a bizarre child.

“By the way, have you noticed? Our Merit Tokens are soul artifacts. The sect is ridiculously rich.” Su Yunhu chattered on. “I heard soul artifacts are extremely rare—each one sells for at least ten thousand spirit stones at auctions. We’ve hit the jackpot.”

“Without soul artifacts, we couldn’t confirm whether disciples are alive or dead,” Su Linyuan added. “Besides, our sect has vast resources; we don’t care about the materials for a few soul artifacts.”

Su Yunhu felt stifled—he was genuinely astonished that the sect’s Merit Token was a soul artifact.

But Su Linyuan and Su Wuji acted as if it were ordinary, showing not a hint of surprise, which made him even more stifled.

Soon after, he went off to discuss the Merit Tokens with other classmates.

After all, there were still others as shocked as he was.

The small group Su Yunhu joined happened to include Qi Yi.

This was her second time receiving the sect’s Merit Token.

Yet she still felt a small thrill. She never imagined she’d receive this token so early in life.

She was only six years old.

In her past life, she received the Merit Token only at age twenty-nine, when she became a sect laborer.

This lifetime, with Father Su Zhang, she’d started far better.

But she knew she couldn’t slack off.

As Vice-Inspector Su Jin said, though she could now join the minor exams, she’d be excluded from the major ones. She was allowed to take the minor exams only because the Su Clan Academy didn’t want to seem stingy.

Even the minor exam benefits for students were being cut off.

Uncle Su Jin also said she needed outstanding performance to regain eligibility for the major exams.

The problem was, achieving outstanding performance was difficult. This year’s students at the Su Clan Academy were simply monstrous.

So monstrous that Qi Yi began doubting her own memories.

How had Su Jin ever broken through this sea of monsters to enter the sect?

She remembered Su Jin had entered the sect directly as an outer disciple in her past life.

“Huh? You didn’t know? Killing those terrifying bugs grants double Merit Points. We earn one point for completing a task, but they earn two.”

“Su Wuji, Su Cheng, and Su Jin killed the bugs together. Each received two points.”

Su Yunhu proudly shared the news he’d heard.

Seeing the shocked expressions of his classmates, he felt immensely pleased.

Qi Yi was deeply startled by this.

“How could they kill bugs with such incredible projectile speed?” she asked, puzzled.

After discovering how fast those bugs could launch, her first thought was how to survive their threat.

After all, the bugs moved so fast she couldn’t react in time—they’d have slammed into her skull before she could blink.

Counter-killing them… was utterly astonishing.

“They used a secret weapon, of course. Don’t ask me what it was—they killed the bugs. You know: asking a cultivator about their secret weapon is wrong. They won’t tell you, and might even beat you.”

Su Yunhu directly paraphrased Su Wuji’s words as his own.

Qi Yi: Frustrated. So frustrating.

You might as well not have mentioned it at all!

But what secret weapon does Su Jin have now? Did Grandfather prepare it for her?

She knew Grandfather Su Changgong was a powerful cultivator who advanced smoothly to Golden Core and then Nascent Soul.

The key was, in his past life, he especially protected and doted on Su Shen, ignoring her completely.

This lifetime was more complicated: because Father Su Zhang had left the family, Grandfather not only expelled Su Zhang from the clan but also despised and harbored hostility toward all of Su Zhang’s adopted children.

If not for the fact that Su Jin and Su Shen were Su Zhang’s biological children—something he couldn’t change—he’d probably have expelled all of Su Zhang’s children from the clan.

Her enrollment in the Su Clan Academy was only possible because she was one of Su Zhang’s adopted children.

After all, adopted children were still children—even if she didn’t bear the Su surname, she was still a relative by marriage.

Why did Father Su Zhang only dare to secretly visit Su Jin and Su Shen?

Because she once overheard him tell Mother: “I can’t go see them. If I do, my father says he’ll break your limbs and spine—you’ll spend your life bedridden, never rising again.”

She’d gasped in shock then—she never imagined Grandfather Su Changgong would threaten Father with Mother’s safety.

The problem was, Father obeyed. Clearly, Grandfather Su Changgong had always been a cruel and ruthless man.

So she felt both love and hatred toward him—she wanted to draw near, but dared not.

“Are you all familiar with your Merit Tokens? Now we’re assigning new tasks. Everyone, be quiet.” Liu Shi quickly spoke up, reorganized the group, and led the young students out of the courtyard with the other first-year class.

Their next task was to pick fruit.

Not ordinary fruit, but small red fruits covered in spines.

These were Crimson Spine Fruits, one of the main ingredients for Qi-Replenishing Elixirs.

Because most cultivators had been sent to the outer districts for labor, the fruit-picking duty fell to them.

This task lasted three days.

Each day, they had to harvest one hundred baskets, each filled with at least three jin.

That meant collecting three hundred jin total.

Facing the thorny medicinal fields, everyone groaned.

“What do we do after picking the fruit?” Su Jin asked Liu Shi.

“After collecting three hundred jin, you may return to the medicinal garden and use your personal cultivation chambers,” Liu Shi said.

Hearing this, the students’ faces lit up. After all, during the previous three days of tasks, they’d been too tense to cultivate at all.

“But you must pick only fully ripe spiritual fruits. If they’re half-ripe or unripe, you’ll be punished—assigned to help the medicinal workers with chores. Chores are exhausting, and you must complete at least one hour daily. And I’m watching—you won’t get away with slacking.”