Chapter 150: Limited Edition Qingqing

The ring was suspended in mid-air, supported by Spirit Power.

Chen Shu used a method he had already calculated to perform the first decryption on it; he quickly succeeded in breaking through the Spirit Power transmission channel of the Forbidden Seal, first cutting it off, then following the Spirit Power to paralyze the main Spirit Power-supplying Rune Group of the Forbidden Seal, directly causing the Forbidden Seal to lose most of its function, and then proceeded to decrypt the remaining components and mechanisms one by one.

"..."

There was no dispersing Spirit Power, no shockwave, no explosion; it was decrypted silently and without a trace.

The Space Stone hidden inside the ring also lost its disguise and could already be sensed by Spirit Power.

Chen Shu held the ring and examined it carefully.

Through this Space Stone, which was smaller than a fine grain of sand, and its mass, it could be roughly judged that the space inside was definitely less than 0.1 cubic meters; however, what was worth being happy about was that its shape was quite regular, at least not some bizarre geometric space.

But where did its trouble lie?

Chen Shu pondered as he carefully and cautiously opened this space.

Just at this moment, an unexpected change occurred—

"Poof!"

A wisp of gray smoke shot abruptly toward him.

Chen Shu tilted his head to dodge.

But the gray smoke could actually turn.

With no way to avoid it, Chen Shu had no choice but to circulate his Spirit Power and defend with all his might.

But the gray smoke clearly came from a higher-tier hand; after being only slightly blocked, it penetrated the defense he had constructed and struck him directly on the chest.

Chen Shu only felt a surge of Spirit Power invade his body; he immediately frowned, mobilizing a massive amount of Spirit Power to set up layers of defense and intercept this strange Spirit Power, trying his best to minimize the trouble and damage it brought him.

Qingqing had said it would bring trouble.

So Chen Shu had long been prepared; he was prepared to deal with the trouble, and he was also mentally prepared for the failure to deal with the trouble.

However, Qingqing said the trouble was not big, and relying on his trust in Qingqing, he did not go to find school teachers to seek help.

Time passed very slowly in the tug-of-war.

Every second felt like an hour.

The mechanism of this gray smoke was profound and mysterious, difficult to block, and Chen Shu seemed to have never come into contact with this kind of thing, so he didn't know how to deal with it for a moment. However, relying on his own knowledge base, Chen Shu still recognized its essence.

It seemed to be a kind of curse mechanism; it appeared the original owner of the ring was not very willing to see others open it.

Chen Shu pondered thus, his consciousness already gradually being affected by this Spirit Power, becoming blurred, and his brain and eyelids both becoming very heavy.

He felt inexplicably mentally exhausted.

"Thump!"

Chen Shu slumped onto the desk and fell asleep.

About a minute later.

The door to the study was opened.

Qingqing walked in.

She first glanced at Chen Shu, who was lying unconscious on the desk, then looked down and found the ring that had fallen to the floor; she pressed her lips tightly together, picked up the ring and put it into Chen Shu's pants pocket, then bent over and hoisted him up, very easily.

A little girl happened to be carrying a glass of water upstairs.

The water in the glass was filled to the brim, swaying with her steps, rippling in circles, as if it might spill at any moment. Thus, she had no choice but to stare fixedly at the glass, taking steps that were both slow and steady, fearing the water would spill, and naturally, she could not pay attention to the movements around her.

Ning Qing carried Chen Shu and brushed past her.

The little girl didn't see anything at all, focused only on carrying the water.

"Thump."

Ning Qing threw Chen Shu directly onto the bed.

The movement was somewhat rough.

Then she stood by the bed, tilted her head slightly, and watched this person quietly for a few minutes before she started moving again.

She took off his clothes, covered him with the quilt, placed his slippers neatly by the bed, and poured him a glass of water, placing it on the bedside table; only then did she pick up the book on the desk and a blanket she had prepared long ago, turned, and left to sleep on the sofa downstairs.

Tonight was unusually quiet.

Except for someone coming down to get a few glasses of water, and halfway through getting a glass of milk, the sounds of closing and opening the refrigerator and getting water were a bit noisy.

Early the next morning.

Chen Shu had already woken up, but he did not open his eyes.

At this moment, there was only one feeling—

So tired.

He didn't want to get up.

With great difficulty, he finally opened his eyes, accepting the light shooting in from outside the window; he looked left and right, confirming that he was on Qingqing's bed; he was already very familiar with this soft mattress, quilt, and light fragrance.

And she had helped him take off his clothes.

It seemed this girl still had a bit of a conscience.

He didn't know if she had done anything to him, but even if she hadn't done anything, she must have had her fill of touching him, right?

A huge loss.

Chen Shu stared at the ceiling, his mind wandering.

He was a bit thirsty.

There was a glass of water by the bedside, and he could drink it as soon as he got up, but he didn't want to leave the quilt, didn't want to get up.

He also didn't want to get out of bed.

"Knock, knock."

Two knocks came from outside the door.

Chen Shu ignored it.

Immediately after came a 'click' sound.

Chen Shu hurriedly closed his eyes.

A set of footsteps approached from the doorway, stopping right in front of him, followed by that familiar, clear, and cold voice: "Feigning sleep in front of me?"

Chen Shu kept his eyes closed, determined to act as if he hadn't heard.

"..."

The footsteps grew more distant, continuing to the doorway.

Then came the sound of the bedroom door closing.

Chen Shu was afraid she was tricking him, and that if he opened his eyes, he would see her standing inside the door watching him, so he simply kept his eyes closed, deciding to check his own condition first and then sort out what happened last night.

But upon thinking about it, he felt it was too much trouble.

Anyway, there was nothing going on right now, so why not just leave it be?

"!"

Chen Shu opened his eyes again.

Qingqing was not in the room.

"..."

He felt even less like moving.

However, Chen Shu still gritted his teeth and made a decision; huddled in Qingqing's quilt, he felt around his body, checking his own condition.

There was no problem with his body.

He checked the state of his Spirit Sea.

That was also fine.

"Hm?"

Chen Shu began to recall and ponder the events of last night, probing his body for any residual foreign Spirit Power, performing a detailed self-check.

Then he took out the ring and opened it to inspect it.

The space inside this ring was only about the size of a 26-inch suitcase, but its utility was quite high; it could hold some luggage and miscellaneous items.

It was empty inside, with only a suicide note placed there.

Chen Shu was not interested in the contents of the suicide note.

Furthermore, there was still a residue of the curse mechanism within the ring.

One hour later.

Chen Shu finally sorted out what that gray smoke was.

It was indeed a curse-like mechanism; it should have been very overbearing in itself, but it had set conditions and possessed a bloodline inspection mechanism, which roughly meant: if it detected that the person being cast upon was of a foreign race, it would operate at full capacity, but if it detected that the person possessed Yiguo bloodline, most of the attack mechanisms would not take effect.

This detection mechanism was also quite interesting—

Currently, the vast majority of Yiguo people were descendants of the same ethnic group or tribe, possessing the same group of ancestors.

This race was called the Xiaxi Race by modern people.

Xiaxi was an ancient place name.

The Xiaxi Race had a characteristic:

The nail of the little toe was split into two pieces, and the nails on the hands and feet grew very fast and were harder than those of other races; this inspection mechanism utilized this characteristic to check.

But it was not necessarily accurate.

Modern people had mixed bloodlines; some Yiguo people no longer possessed these characteristics, and some people in countries surrounding Yiguo also commonly possessed these characteristics.

Fortunately, Chen Shu possessed this characteristic.

But judging from the mechanism, this curse-like mechanism would still cause him a certain degree of influence.

What kind of influence would it be?

Chen Shu could not figure it out, and felt a bit uncomfortable.

Footsteps came from outside the door again.

Chen Shu, who did not want to get up, hurriedly closed his eyes.

"Click."

He only heard Qingqing's voice: "Get up and eat; I cooked a pot of porridge and heated up last night's leftovers."

After finishing, she didn't forget to add: "Hurry up."

Hm???

Qingqing actually cooked by herself!?

How rare, how rare.

Thinking this, Chen Shu finally opened his eyes.

He saw Qingqing standing at the doorway looking at him, with no expression on her face, her hair casually tied into a bun, and she was even wearing an apron. Such a Qingqing was exceptionally rare, worthy of being called a limited-edition homebody version.

Chen Shu couldn't help but take a few extra looks.

Ning Qing seemed to be able to see his thoughts, rolled her eyes, and asked again: "Have you found the problem with your body?"

"No..."

"Look carefully."

"I can't find it."

"Haven't you noticed that you don't want to get out of bed?"

"I don't want to get out of bed every day."

"Is that so?"

"Hmm..." Chen Shu thought seriously, "It seems I'm even less inclined to get out of bed today than usual, just a tiny bit."

"What else do you want to do?"

"I don't want to do anything."

"Haven't you guessed it yet?"

"What do you mean? Isn't this how I usually am?"

"..."

"What's going on?"

"Think for yourself."

"I'm too lazy to think."

"..." Ning Qing was a bit speechless, but she still explained to him, "You have been attacked by a type of curse; it affects your mental state. You will become exceptionally lazy until the curse is lifted, but you can try to overcome it."

"..."

It was actually the Lazy Cancer Curse!

Chen Shu twitched the corner of his mouth—

He hadn't felt it at all! Didn't this just overlap with the debuff he was born with?

"Get up."

"Just lie down for a while longer."

"Then I'm leaving."

"Don't..."

"?"

Ning Qing stood at the doorway, looking at him indifferently.

"..."

Chen Shu paused in silence, but in the end, reason prevailed. Plus, having fought against the Lazy Cancer buff since childhood, he already had extremely strong resistance to it. He had to taste the porridge cooked by the limited-edition chef Qingqing today no matter what.

"I'll get up right away."

"If you can't get up in the next second, you won't be able to get up the second after that either."

"..."

That won't do!

Chen Shu still had to improve his Sword Light Technique, still had to do his Daily Cultivation and attend classes, still had to comfort the young ladies online, and still had to go do experiments with his teachers. His well-arranged plans could not be ruined by this trash curse.

Just one more second of lying down, then get up...

"Hmm..."

Only then did Chen Shu realize that this curse did indeed seem to have made him lazier than usual, so his expression turned serious:

"Do you have a way to lift the curse?"

"There are two."

"Tell me."

"Overcome it with willpower."

"The other one!"

"You can go find a teacher at school."

"Is there anything else?"

"It will disappear on its own after a while."

"This one is good."

This way he didn't have to go find a teacher, didn't have to rack his brain thinking about how to explain it to a teacher, which suited Chen Shu's wishes best.

Chen Shu hesitated for a moment, caught a glimpse of Qingqing's cold gaze, and finally crawled out of bed slowly, while saying, "Then you must urge me to do my Daily Cultivation, go to class every day, go do experiments with the teachers, and study Spells."

"Will you listen?" Ning Qing asked in return.

"Whatever you say, I will definitely listen!" Chen Shu said decisively, "You are my leader now! I am temporarily ceding the position of head of the household to you!"

"Really?"

"I'm serious! I am now officially authorizing you to be my guardian. For the next few days, you are my parent; I will listen to whatever you say... You must fulfill your duties as a guardian! Help me fight the Lazy Cancer!"

"Alright then."

Ning Qing pursed her lips; she was actually quite interested in this matter.

"I need to change my pants, move aside."

"You can change inside the covers."

"Are you a pervert?"

"If I leave, you'll just lie back down." Ning Qing paused, "And I am your parent now; you have to listen to your parent."

"..."