Chapter 146: A Short Break at Home

Su Jin had only just returned when Su Hua came back as well.

In just a few days, Su Hua had lost a noticeable ring of weight. She didn't look very spirited either!

"Xiaohua, are you alright?" Su Jin asked with concern.

"Little Aunt, don't worry, I'm doing fine." Su Hua's smile was rather forced.

Then, once she got back to her own room, she started sobbing.

Su Jin hurried in to check on her.

She saw her hugging a quilt and crying her heart out.

"What's wrong? What is it? Don't bottle it up and cry alone—tell your little aunt exactly why you're crying, quick!" Su Jin scrambled onto the bed, patting Su Hua's back as she asked.

"A girl classmate I usually got along with really well died. During the day we'd even agreed to go learn how to sew law robes together. But by evening she was just gone." Su Hua was both heartbroken and aggrieved.

"There's nothing anyone can do about it. We're cultivators, and cultivators have to take on missions. Besides, Xiaohua, you almost wouldn't have been able to see your little aunt again. Last night I nearly had my throat torn open by a Shadow Cat. If I'd been any unluckier, all you'd see of me today would be my bones."

"Little Aunt?" Su Hua flipped over and crawled out of the quilt. "Little Aunt, you're only a first-year student—how could you possibly be doing dangerous missions? Running into a Shadow Cat? Don't the instructors at the clan school manage things at all?"

"No one expected it to show up in a place like that." Su Jin spread her hands helplessly at her. "You see, that's just life. It's full of surprises the whole way. We don't want them, but they just happen."

Su Hua's tears flowed again—nearly enough to make a river.

When Liu Yunniang came home carrying her little daughter, she heard Su Hua's loud sobbing.

Liu Yunniang's heart gave a sudden lurch, and in a few quick steps she darted into Su Hua's little room.

She found Su Hua hugging Su Jin and crying.

"What's going on?"

"A close classmate of Xiaohua's is gone," Su Jin said.

"As long as it wasn't your big brother, that's fine. I don't want to be a widow." Liu Yunniang said.

Su Hua instantly couldn't cry anymore.

"Mama, my dad's fine. Yesterday he even sent me a message saying that if I go to the outer city district for a mission tomorrow, I should bring him a small coal stove. He also said the water over there is awful to drink, so he told me to bring plenty of Bing Chen Lu."

"There's still plenty of Bing Chen Lu—take a few more jars," Su Jin said.

"Alright then, I'll bring him one more jar," Su Hua said.

Su Jin looked at her, speechless.

"My storage ring's space is too small—I can't fit that many jars." Su Hua said, her face slightly flushed.

"Let me go deliver it to him instead. From now on, for things like this, tell him to go straight to his wife. Does he not know his daughter doesn't have that big a storage ring?" Liu Yunniang said.

"Sister-in-law, let me go instead. Tomorrow we should be going to the outer city district too," Su Jin said.

"You're all going?" Liu Yunniang was stunned.

"You're going too?" Su Hua was absolutely shocked. "You're only first-years—what was the headmaster thinking? Did a donkey kick him in the head?"

"Su Hua!" Liu Yunniang snapped at her eldest daughter, annoyed.

Su Hua: "……"

"Today Instructor Liu told us to go home and change our clothes, and to bring extra supplies. So I'm guessing she'll take us to the outer city district for a mission," Su Jin said.

Liu Yunniang immediately frowned.

"The outer city district is so chaotic these days…" Su Hua said.

"But aren't you going too?" Su Jin said.

"I'm at Qi Refining Layer Three."

"I'm at Qi Refining Layer Three too, Xiaohua. I might even break through to Layer Four before you do."

"Little Aunt, you're going to lose me this way. That's too much of a blow." Su Hua glared.

Liu Yunniang burst out laughing at that.

"Speaking of which, how much longer do you actually need before you can break through to Qi Refining Layer Four?" Su Jin asked.

"At most two months." Su Hua said. Doing missions really tempered a person! Su Hua felt she had already faintly touched the bottleneck of Layer Four.

Liu Yunniang made the children a meal of dishes they loved.

Then she asked in detail about the missions they'd taken over the past nine days; the two girls' experiences could only be described as full of ups and downs.

In Su Hua's class, almost every mission cost them a few students. After three missions, their class had lost five students. "Our class only has seventeen students left now." Su Hua sighed.

"Our class lost one too," Su Jin said. "But our class didn't lose as many as yours—we still have twenty-four students."

"When you go into the outer city district tomorrow, Little Aunt, please be careful."

"You too, Xiaohua."

Early the next morning, Liu Yunniang, carrying Su Xiaohe, personally saw Su Jin and the others off to the clan school, and at the main gate happened to run into Su Qingniao, who had also been dropped off by a young, beautiful woman.

"Su Jin?" The moment Su Qingniao spotted her, she tugged along the beautiful woman who looked quite similar to her and ran over together. "Su Jin, this is my mother, Tan Shuyu. Mother, this is the Su Jin I've told you about."

Su Qingniao even gave her own mother a little wink.

Thinking to herself, please, please don't tell her any of those things I said about Su Jin back home. Tan Shuyu blinked at her daughter and smiled.

"Good day, Aunt Tan. I'm Su Jin. This is my sister-in-law Liu Yunniang, this is my eldest niece Su Hua, and this is my little niece Su Xiaohe."

After a few pleasantries, Su Hua went off to find her own class.

Su Jin and Su Qingniao also went together to find Instructor Liu.

All that was left were Tan Shuyu and Liu Yunniang, who had come to see the children off, and Su Xiaohe, who was being carried and fast asleep.

Liu Yunniang chatted with her for a bit, found her a pleasant impression, and only left after exchanging a Thousand-Li Messaging Talisman.

Tan Shuyu hadn't expected Liu Yunniang to actually want to be friends with her, and was especially delighted.

Although she had married into the Su family several years ago, she had never really had any friends. She hadn't expected that dropping her daughter off at school would net her a new friend.

……

When Su Jin and Su Qingniao found the Wood Class's line together, they discovered Instructor Liu wasn't there.

"Where is Liu Shi? I saw the instructors from the other classes have all arrived?" Su Qingniao asked as soon as she arrived, pulling Su Cheng.

"Liu Shi went to find the Headmaster. Four students from our Wood Class voluntarily withdrew. They said they want to transfer to the Dao Academy." Su Cheng suddenly delivered a super explosive piece of news.

"Four of them left all at once?" Su Qingniao asked in shock.

"Yes, early this morning, their parents all came, saying they wanted to handle the withdrawal. They said the Dao Academy plans to lower the threshold to recruit a batch of new students. Their children just couldn't adapt to the teaching tasks in the Clan Academy, so they might as well transfer to the Dao Academy to try their luck." Su Wuji said.

"Liu Shi's face immediately turned ugly. But she didn't say anything, and took the parents of those families to find the Headmaster."

"Couldn't adapt to the teaching tasks in the Clan Academy—does that mean the ones who didn't complete their tasks before?" Su Jin asked again.

"It is them. Three boys and one girl in total." Su Wuji said. "Once they leave, we will be left with exactly twenty people."