Chapter 300: Afraid I Won't Be Able to Help Wanting to Be Close to You

Ling'an Academy.

The lights on campus made Chen Shu feel a bit dazzled.

It was already late spring, and the temperature in Yujing was quite high; many young women had started wearing short skirts and shorts. Especially at this time, around seven or eight in the evening, many of them were out for a stroll after showering, dressed loosely, with their hair down, leaving a trail of fragrance as they walked, which put Chen Shu in a rather pleasant mood.

Passing by a supermarket, he bought a lollipop and continued walking toward Qingqing's Dormitory.

The young women on the road were truly beautiful.

Some of the young men didn't look bad either, and their styles were quite varied; added together, they almost reached a tenth of mine.

Chen Shu thought to himself as he walked.

Just after turning a corner, a tall figure appeared before him. She was wearing a loose, thin silk shirt and beige trousers, having also just showered. The hair draped behind her was exceptionally soft and fluffy, her features were delicate and beautiful, and her expression was calm; this night was suddenly brightened by her presence.

"Mr. Chen... are they pretty?"

"What?"

"Are they pretty?"

"Pretty!"

"I was talking about them."

"I was talking about them too, did you think I meant you?" Chen Shu reacted quickly and immediately switched to an accusatory tone, "Narcissist!"

"You react quite fast."

"That's..."

"Let's walk around."

Ning Qing said softly and took the first step. As she passed by Chen Shu, she reached out and tugged at his arm.

Chen Shu turned around accordingly and said with a gasp:

"So fragrant."

"..." Ning Qing pursed her lips, "Have you eaten?"

"Not yet."

"I'll take you to eat."

"Okay."

Chen Shu fished the lollipop out of his pocket and handed it to her casually: "We had a bumper harvest at this year's Hunting Festival and I made a few million, so I bought this especially for you. How about that, am I good to you?"

"You made a few million, and you only bought me one lollipop?"

"Forget it if you don't want it."

Chen Shu quickly pulled his hand back.

"Give it to me."

"No."

"?"

"I said no, so no!"

Not only did Chen Shu refuse to give it to her, he switched the candy to his right hand, while Ning Qing was on his left.

"..."

Ning Qing stared at him in silence for two seconds, then quickly reached out, grabbed his right hand with one hand, and after pulling him to her side, they were pressed close together. She then reached out to grab his left hand; during this process, Chen Shu also put up a show of resistance, holding his hand high.

The two of them began to scramble on the side of the campus road.

This kind of trick was played out every day at school.

Until Ning Qing pulled Chen Shu's hand down, only to find that this person's hand was tightly clenched into a fist, with the lollipop inside.

"Let go."

Ning Qing said, while beginning to pry it open with force.

She couldn't pry it open.

Ning Qing squinted at him.

But she only saw that this person had a face that was begging to be hit, looking very smug: "Remember going to Xinzheng Temple last year? I wanted to hold your hand while climbing the mountain, but you were clutching a silver ingot, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't pry it open. Is this karma now?"

"I'm counting to three."

"It wouldn't matter if you counted to a hundred, I want to see how you pry it open today!"

"Has it changed back?"

"What?"

"Has your... changed back?"

"..."

Chen Shu's expression suddenly looked as miserable as if he had swallowed a fly.

A few minutes later.

Chen Shu ordered two stir-fried dishes at a restaurant on the Commercial Street. There were no other customers at this time, so the food was served quickly.

Secretary Ning was becoming more and more outrageous.

Chen Shu had worked hard for a week at Qingshan Ridge and was exhausted, yet when he asked her to help him get a bowl of rice, she refused. Not only did she refuse, she didn't even reply to him, just sitting opposite him with the lollipop in her mouth, staring at him expressionlessly, looking like she was the boss. With no other choice, Chen Shu had to grumble about her incompetence and dock her pay while going to get the rice himself.

The food at the Commercial Street restaurant was quite good; perhaps because the competition in the school was so intense, anything slightly inferior would be easily eliminated. The prices were also very cheap; in a place like Yujing, being able to order a stir-fry for less than twenty yuan was truly rare.

"Secretary Ning." Chen Shu scooped tofu into his bowl, mixed it with the rice, and asked, "You've been cultivating your 'Worry' for ten days now, right?"

"Ten days."

"How much longer do you have to cultivate it?"

"'Worry' takes a long time to cultivate."

"Why?"

"Because there are very few things that can worry me, only a few here and there, so my cultivation efficiency is too low."

"Then how long will it take to cultivate?"

"I don't know." Ning Qing temporarily took the lollipop out of her mouth; it was already visibly a circle smaller, bright red, just like her lips. "My cultivation progress so far has been provided almost entirely by two things: first, worrying about our future, and second, worrying that after I cultivate 'No-Worry' later, I won't be able to control myself from wanting to be close to you."

"Rest assured!"

Chen Shu sat up straight instantly, his expression serious: "I am a man of integrity, unmoved even when sitting with a woman in my lap; no matter how you seduce me, I will preserve my purity and will never let you succeed!"

Ning Qing put the lollipop back into her mouth, too lazy to even pay him any mind.

"This tofu is alright, but it's still not as delicious as the kind I make. In a few days, I'll buy a few blocks of tofu and go back to make a tofu feast for my roommates."

Ning Qing lowered her gaze, glancing at his bowl, still not saying a word.

"It seems I have to go for training next month."

"Mm."

"Guess who would win in a fight between me and Zhang Suannai?"

"Not interested."

"You heartless woman."

"……"

Ning Qing was now able to hear this sentence without even a flicker in her eyes; she filtered it out automatically, as if she hadn't heard it at all, only taking the lollipop out of her mouth again and glancing down at it—it was now only the size of a soybean.

"Secretary Ning, I'm finished eating."

"So?"

"Go pay the bill."

"?"

"Why are you looking at me? Isn't paying the bill something a Secretary does?"

"?"

"When I was catching a Sword pig this morning, I saw a huge patch of forest strawberries, so red..." Chen Shu said, "Have you ever eaten forest strawberries? They're those round, wild strawberries about the size of a finger, they taste just like strawberries. It took me two hours to pick a basket. If nobody wants them, I'll take them to feed Chen Banxia tomorrow; I have to go return her car anyway."

"……"

Ning Qing stood up silently and went to pay.

……

In the Dormitory.

The little girl sat by the dining table, four boxes of potatoes with different flavors lined up in front of her; she ate them in turn from left to right, sharing her favor equally.

Zhang Suannai sat opposite her, staring at her longingly:

"The Hunting Festival ended today. Your sister went out just now, she must have gone to find your brother-in-law. I told you to sneak after them earlier and you wouldn't; you might have been able to see what your sister and brother-in-law look like when they're dating."

"I can't see."

"What's wrong? Do you have night blindness, huh?"

"I'm still young."

"Cut it out! You just reiterated for the umpteenth time two days ago that you're already an adult!"

"!"

The little girl frowned, her expression turning serious as well. She hadn't expected this issue to be discovered by Sister Suannai, but fortunately, she was prepared:

"Sometimes I'm grown up, and sometimes I'm not."

"Then when are you grown up? And when are you not?"

"When I'm grown up, I'm grown up, and when I'm not grown up, I'm not."

"Mm..."

Zhang Suannai automatically translated this sentence in her mind to "I'm grown up when I need to be, and I'm not grown up when I don't need to be," and nodded, feeling it made a lot of sense. It wasn't until she reacted that she was shocked to discover she had actually been able to understand Xiaoxiao.

"Your sister said your Night Person bloodline percentage is higher. I heard Night People don't reach adulthood until they're thirty. Is that the reason?"

"Nonsense! I'm already an adult!"

"But if that's the case, you won't grow anymore."

"Then I'm not yet!"

"Tsk..."

What a flexible conversion.

Comparable to the sect philosophy of my Sword Sect.

Zhang Suannai couldn't help but sigh, then said again: "Shall we go find your sister and brother-in-law? I bet they're definitely at Long Lake right now! Every night, the corridor by Long Lake is full of people dating, the air even stinks of it..."

"I'm not going."

"Why?"

"I'm still young."

"……"

Zhang Suannai fell into silence.

Watching the little girl continue to eat the potatoes from left to right, one bite after another, repeating the process, she couldn't help but say: "You promised me that once you finished eating, you would go help me find out your brother-in-law's current cultivation level."

"Mm."

The little girl paused, a piece of sweet and sour crispy potato on her wooden skewer, and she said with a tiny bit of conscience: "But brother-in-law might lie to me."

"Why would he lie to you?"

"Brother-in-law is very smart."

"Can he be as smart as me and you?"

"A little bit worse than me."

"What about me?"

"......"

The little girl silently lowered her head, sending a piece of sweet and sour crispy potato into her mouth; the next piece was squid potato, the next was cumin potato, and the next one returned to the first, which was freshly scooped spicy marinated potato slices.

"Hiccup~"

She had already started hiccuping.

But she did not want to stop.

Not until she truly could not eat any more did she fish out her Mobile Phone, while leaning back and using her hand to block it so Zhang Suannai could not see, and began to type.

Ning Ji: Brother-in-law, where are you?

Brother-in-law: Taking a walk by Long Lake.

Ning Ji: Oh.

Ning Ji: Sister Suannai wants me to secretly ask you what your cultivation level is now.

Chen Shu: Just entered the Sixth Stage mid-phase.

Ning Ji: Okay.

The little girl put down her Mobile Phone and said to Zhang Suannai, "Brother-in-law said he just entered the Sixth Stage mid-phase."

Pausing for a moment, she said earnestly, "I think it's true."

"Phew......"

Zhang Suannai let out a sigh of relief.

Because of her own hard work, she had already reached the Sixth Stage mid-phase at the end of winter break.

Her certainty had gone from ninety-eight percent to ninety-nine percent.

"Then ask him again, how is his practice of the Spirit Sect's Spirit Body coming along?"

"The Spirit Body is a very powerful skill for a Spirit Sect Spirit Cultivator, right?"

"Pretty much."

"I can't tell you that."

"I'll add more potatoes!"

"No."

"Add a lot of potatoes!"

"I'm going to go watch TV."

"What's so good about that boring documentary? If you want to know how the Sword Sect split, you can ask me."

The little girl ignored her and walked toward the living room.

Late March.

The weather was getting warmer day by day.

Chen Shu lay on the sofa, holding his Mobile Phone to look at messages in the class group, while turning his head to say to Jiang Lai, "Our class group is discussing you right now! Someone has already recognized you; they even know you're in the Martial Academy's Martial Artist Department and which class you're in. Haha, some people in our class already think you look familiar; they probably saw us eating in the cafeteria together, but they haven't realized yet that I'm your roommate......"

Jiang Lai lowered his head to read, only giving a muffled "mm."

He was reciting the content of the book in his mind.

Just then, a Mobile Phone was thrust in front of him, blocking the content of the book.

The Mobile Phone was playing a video.

The video was a clip from the discussion section of another video about the "pig-carrying teenager," where people claiming to be his classmates were revealing information, all full of praise—talking about how he came from an orphanage but was specially recruited by Yujing Academy due to his own talent, how he trained with such diligence and desperation, how he fought in the Arena to earn tuition fees, and even the story from two years ago about him defeating a Cultivator with his bare hands while having only a Martial Body was being spread......

The blogger who posted the reveal was also not stingy with praise, starting right off with the old line: Family, let's just say, what kind of god-like student is this?

Jiang Lai's face turned red from watching.

Chen Shu snatched the Mobile Phone away and laughed out loud.

But this was not surprising.

Yujing Academy was one of the top-ranked schools in this world, mainly competing for first and second place with Ling'an Academy. It was normal for some god-like student to be posted online due to some competition or activity, causing a wave of Surprise and becoming popular for a short while.

Perhaps many years later, when these people achieved extraordinary accomplishments, someone would dig up today's events.

It was actually quite interesting.

Chen Shu continued to watch everyone chatting in the class group.

Some were amazed that Jiang Lai could reach the fifth level in his junior year, some were envious that Jiang Lai could earn millions a week, and some said Jiang Lai looked quite handsome...... Whenever he saw something interesting, Chen Shu would unceremoniously relay it to his roommate to make him blush.

Then the class monitor sent out the schedule for the Martial Body competition.

The idle chatter stopped.

Chen Shu clicked on the schedule and looked through it.

The students in the class had signed up for quite a few events, and besides the regular events, many people had also signed up for the subsequent Arena matches.

After all, they were known as the Ancient Cultivation class; aside from the Martial Academy, they were considered the best fighters in the whole school. Being juniors, they still had a few people worth showing off.

The most powerful among them were naturally the two classmates who had already entered the Fourth Stage.

Since Chen Banxia and Senior Brother Ji graduated, it was said that Yujing Academy had graduated another Fifth Stage last year, but this year was very lackluster; at least until now, there wasn't a single Fifth Stage among the seniors, and none among the fourth-years either. The two Fourth Stage classmates in Chen Shu's class were considered the top tier in terms of cultivation, though in terms of experience, they might not compare to those Fourth Stage students in their fourth or fifth year.

Wang Weixin: It starts tomorrow, big shots. Regardless of whether you have an event, let's all go join in the fun. This is a rare chance to see beauties and handsome guys and soak up the sun. We don't have class anyway, so we can cheer on our classmates participating in the events.

The class monitor really knew how to talk.

A chorus of responses followed below.

Some said they were going to see handsome guys, some said they were going to see beauties, and some were already cheering on the classmates who had events tomorrow. Under the influence of the class monitor, everyone had very sweet tongues now; no matter which classmate was mentioned, they were either called "Boss So-and-so" or "Big Shot So-and-so," and the atmosphere in the group was surprisingly good.

Chen Shu also followed up with a message—

Chen Shu: Go for it, big shots! / Struggle

A single stone stirred up a thousand ripples of Surprise.

Guan Bingxiang: The real big shot has appeared.

Jiang Youyu: Holy crap, a big shot.

Song Rentou: Senior brother big shot, please give me some pointers on my Spell; I want to place in the school tournament, do you think I have a chance? /tears

Guan Bingxiang: I also want to place, but the fourth and fifth-year senior brothers are so ferocious /tears

Zhong Miao: Big shot, help me compete in my place tomorrow!

The cries of "big shot" one after another made Chen Shu feel like he was floating on air.