Chapter 101: The First Day of the Lunar New Year

"Boom, boom, boom..."

Beautiful fireworks bloomed against the window glass.

Some fireworks were too large and too close; the sound waves from the explosions made the glass tremble.

The young girl lay listlessly on the bed, with Taozi curled up beside her; both human and cat turned their heads to stare out the window.

The fireworks were reflected in their eyes.

"Buzz, buzz!"

The young girl picked up her Mobile Phone.

Brother-in-law: Your sister is too much!!!

Ning Ji: Sorry, Brother-in-law. I didn't expect Sister to be prepared so early. I'll make it up to you next time...

Brother-in-law: Emmm...

Ning Ji: What's wrong?

Brother-in-law: /struggling

Ning Ji:?

Brother-in-law: Forget it.

Ning Ji: It's okay.

Brother-in-law: Does it hurt?

Ning Ji: It doesn't hurt.

Brother-in-law: Where did Sister hit you?

Ning Ji: My butt.

Brother-in-law: How hateful!

Ning Ji: Aren't you going to sleep yet, Brother-in-law?

Brother-in-law: Soon.

Brother-in-law: You should sleep too. Get up early tomorrow to pay New Year's greetings to Mom and Dad.

Brother-in-law: And pay one to your sister too.

Ning Ji: I won't pay them any greetings!

Ning Ji: And not Sister either! She hit me!

Brother-in-law: That's where you're wrong.

Brother-in-law: Ask President Ning for more New Year's money and save it up. When you go to university in Yujing later, you'll have plenty of places to spend it. You can buy whatever you want.

Brother-in-law: As for your sister...

Brother-in-law: She just hit you, aren't you angry? Shouldn't you swindle more money out of her?

Ning Ji: That makes sense!

Brother-in-law: Goodnight.

Brother-in-law: Come over with your sister tomorrow morning to eat sweet rice balls. Anyway, President Ning and Curator An won't cook for you two.

Ning Ji: Okay.

Ning Ji: Goodnight, Brother-in-law.

The young girl held her Mobile Phone, continuing to turn her head to watch the fireworks outside the window, glancing at the screen from time to time.

Brother-in-law did not reply again.

He must have fallen asleep.

Ten minutes later, the young girl finally turned off her Mobile Phone.

She watched the fireworks outside with Taozi for a while longer, and only when the fireworks gradually became sparse due to the late hour did she get up, preparing to pull the curtains shut.

But upon walking to the window, she couldn't help but open it and poke her head out to look to the side—the window next door was still lit. The light wasn't very strong; it must be a Table Lamp. It was so late, and that hateful sister was still reading.

The young girl closed the window again, drew the curtains, returned to the bed, and hugged Taozi, facing it, their eyes meeting in the darkness.

"Pat~"

Taozi gave her a light slap.

As a human, not sleeping in the middle of the night—do you think you're a cat?

The young girl gradually closed her eyes.

Chen Shu opened his eyes.

He had gotten up early today, but he felt empty inside, with a bit of guilt.

Because he hadn't done his Daily Cultivation yesterday.

Come to think of it, although he wasn't busy yesterday, some leisure was inevitable; there were things to do from morning till night. According to his past habits, even if he had stayed up until midnight, he would have completed his Daily Cultivation plan, or at least two-thirds of it, to ensure the continuity of the habit.

If he didn't cultivate one day, for a long time afterward, before his Daily Cultivation, he would think of the comfort of that day he skipped, and a little demon of laziness in his heart would keep urging him to rest for another day.

It was fine when he was usually free, but if he happened to be a bit busy on a certain day, it was very easy to convince himself, thereby forming a vicious cycle.

Until the habit was formed again.

He didn't stay up late last night because he had to get up early today, so now he had to rebuild the habit.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

Chen Shu pounded hard on Chen Banxia's door.

Her lazy voice soon came from inside:

"What is it~~"

"Chen Banxia, I see the weather is nice today, and I've divined that it happens to be the New Year. Why don't you and I come out to recite poetry and compose couplets? Wouldn't that be wonderful?" After Chen Shu finished speaking, he waited a few seconds before asking, "Sister, what do you think?"

"You're sick!"

"Emmm..." Chen Shu decided to be a bit gentler to Brother Meng in the future, then continued to shout, "Hurry up and get up to wrap the sweet rice balls!"

"You wrap them yourself..."

"Say Happy New Year to me!"

"Happy New Year..."

"Send me a red envelope!"

"Wait until I wake up..."

"You are already awake."

"I am not!"

"Hmm..."

Chen Shu left, indifferent.

One minute later, Chen Banxia walked out wearing pajamas, looking very unhappy, and began to wash up.

Chen Shu said to her with a chuckle:

"Happy New Year."

He held out a payment QR code.

The little girl held out a payment QR code toward President Ning:

"Happy New Year."

President Ning looked at her expressionlessly, then looked at the payment QR code on her Mobile Phone, and took out his own Mobile Phone.

He scanned the code, entered 8888, and paid.

"Happy New Year."

After saying this, President Ning stepped forward, intending to leave.

However, just as he took a step, a small hand grabbed his clothes. President Ning turned his body and looked down; that hand was fair and tender, clenched tightly. This action couldn't help but make him frown, and he raised his eyes to say to the little girl:

"Don't be greedy!"

"This money is enough for New Year's money," the little girl said to her father, also without much expression, "but for keeping a secret, it's still a little short."

"You had better not annoy me."

"You had better not make me angry; if I get angry, I will tell Mom," the little girl retorted, her tone firm. She paused slightly, "And your tone just now has already made me a little angry, so you need to give more."

"..."

President Ning silently took out the Mobile Phone he had just put away.

He paid the money and left the place.

Just then, the older sister walked down from upstairs.

The little girl watched the balance in her mobile banking app rise by a small amount, feeling Joy inside, but remained calm on the surface. Watching her sister walk over, she had just wanted to say Happy New Year to her sister to ask for some New Year's money, when she heard her sister speak first:

"Chen Shu and Chen Banxia have just finished wrapping the sweet rice balls. If we set off now, we can arrive just as the sweet rice balls come out of the pot."

"..."

The little girl opened her mouth, but didn't say it, and had to let her sister walk past her.

She followed silently.

She put on her shoes and picked up Taozi.

"Buzz!"

The little girl hurriedly took out her Mobile Phone.

It was a red envelope sent by her sister.

The little girl calmly put away her Mobile Phone and followed her sister out of the house.

The morning air was cold, accompanied by the various floral scents that had settled overnight, mixing into a refreshing fragrance.

The sister got on the motorcycle. The little girl was still busy putting on her helmet. After she sat on it, she hugged her sister's waist tightly, and then she saw her sister press the start button.

With a click.

The flame ignited, licking the bottom of the pot.

Chen Shu stood in front of the stove and yawned. His face was warmed by the high-temperature spiritual fire, and at this moment, he felt especially sleepy.

Twenty-five large sweet rice balls.

Each person eats four, each cat eats one.

Adding half a bag of pearl sweet rice balls for garnish, plus fermented rice and lotus root starch, both the little girl and Chen Banxia like to eat it, and Professor Chen and Lawyer Wei also love it very much. Although Qingqing has never commented on it, she drinks all the soup every time.

Right, poached eggs are also essential.

One for each person and each cat.

Halfway through boiling, he received red envelopes sent by Chen Jiaoshou and Wei Lvshi. The amount was not large, but the attitude was very good, worthy of praise.

The sweet rice balls came out of the pot and were divided into seven bowls.

"Knock, knock."

Just then, there was a knock at the door outside.

The Secret Sect is truly terrifying.

Chen Shu shouted toward the house: "Chen Banxia, come and serve them!"

Then he ran to open the door.

One minute later.

Six people were just enough to fill the long table, and Taozi could squat at any corner of the table.

Seven bowls were steaming; six of them were identical, standard-issue with four large glutinous rice balls, a few small ones, one poached egg, and half a bowl of sweet fermented rice soup. The remaining one was a low-spec version containing one large glutinous rice ball, three small ones, and just a tiny bit of soup.

Chen Shu watched the young girl shivering and shrinking her neck from the cold, feeling a bit heartbroken, and said to Ning Qing, "It's so cold this morning and you still rode your bike over; Xiaoxiao hasn't even opened her Spirit Sea yet, don't you know how to call a taxi?"

Ning Qing glanced at him indifferently, not wanting to speak.

She lowered her head, wanting to take a sip of soup first, but found it too hot, so she held up the bowl, feeling the warmth radiating from it, and blew on it in small breaths.

……

Whoosh!

The steam in the bowl rose up.

Zhang Suannai threw a glutinous rice ball into her mouth, and it was so hot she kept slurping, but she knew she was a Fifth Stage powerhouse and couldn't be burned no matter how hot it was, so she bit the bullet and began chewing rapidly, forcibly swallowing it down.

Damn, this is delicious!

She was currently sitting on a large rock, and on the large rock, the two big characters "Sword Sect" were carved in ancient, heavy strokes; she happened to be sitting on the "Sword".

Before her eyes was an endless sea of clouds.

These clouds billowed and surged like a great ocean, as if stretching to the end of the world, and like the ocean, it had islands—those were other high peaks that barely managed to poke their summits out of the cloud layer, becoming islands in this sea. Overhead was the perfect blue sky, invisible from below the mountain, blue in such a pure way, not swallowed or obscured in the slightest, like a hemispherical blue cover, its vastness infinite, with edges that were straight and taut, tightly sealing the sea of clouds.

Only in the east was there a round morning sun, a red-white morning sun without the slightest obstruction, like a hole broken in the cover, letting out the light from outside.

Zhang Suannai exhaled, her breath turning into white smoke.

This place was too cold.

I don't know what the ancestors of this trash sect were thinking, running to such a high place to build a sect; was it to motivate the disciples to cultivate? Only by cultivating hard can one withstand this cold, and only by cultivating hard to learn how to ride a Sword can one avoid the arduous task of climbing up and down the mountain?

Bizarre logic.

Zhang Suannai held the bottom of the bowl, the glutinous rice balls in her hand steaming, and she crossed her legs, her expression blissful.

Joyfully welcoming the New Year.

Hurrying to finish the glutinous rice balls before they got cold, she set the bowl on the giant rock, shrank her neck, took out her Mobile Phone, and found her roommate's Messaging App.

Zhang Suannai: Happy New Year

Zhang Suannai: /fireworks

Zhang Suannai: /firecracker

Zhang Suannai: /celebrate

Zhang Suannai: /bomb

Ning Qing: Same to you

This roommate was colder than the temperature on the mountain.

The silly group was still more fun, except there was a silly group member who always loved to expose her secret identity.

But Zhang Suannai wasn't that angry; sometimes, when she thought about how, after her secret identity was completely exposed, those silly group members would learn that she—who was peerlessly handsome and cool—was actually a stunning beauty, she would get so excited at their surprised expressions that she would giggle out loud.

The point of a secret identity is to be exposed.

But to be exposed by that silly group member just like that, without being able to put up any resistance, seemed quite stifling.

So last night, Zhang Suannai thought about it day and night and came up with a slightly cheating method—

Qingcai Keke was in the same school as her; that much shouldn't be wrong. They often chatted in the group, and Qingcai Keke was very familiar with her school. Once, she even posted a photo of herself eating at the Lianyan Building, and she even ran into Ning Qing at the Lianyan Building, and she also said that next year... oh, this year, she wanted to eat the fish from Long Lake.

If she were from another school, that would be too much trouble.

So she must be from Ling'an Academy!

Ling'an Academy, a freshman, great figure, talent strong enough to join this group—aren't these conditions clear enough?

The first choice was the school's student work information.

The teachers in the Academic Affairs Office could look it up.

Zhang Suannai knew that a teacher in the school's Academic Affairs Office was her grand-disciple; in a couple of days, she would find an opportunity to go have an argument with that grand-disciple to build a rapport, and next year she could use her account to enter the student work system to check.

Even if that little junior sister was like her, usually hiding her talent and rank, she would at least be at an excellent level, right?

Even if she couldn't get into the student work system, just by eliminating most majors and asking around, it should be relatively easy, right?

It was just a bit like cheating...

Zhang Suannai felt guilty for a second, then immediately and happily made her decision—

Just do it!

At this moment, a Sword Light streaked across in the distance, like a meteor under the azure sky.

Zhang Suannai hurriedly grabbed her bowl and jumped off the giant rock.

Sect rules forbade disciples from trampling on this rock. If anyone found out, not a single person in this damn sect was loyal; even if reporting a fellow disciple brought them no benefit at all, they would be more than happy to do it.

The bowl had already turned ice-cold.