Chapter 374: You Smell Good

"Did you type your page numbers and table of contents by hand?"

"What's wrong with that?"

"..."

"Hey, hey! Why did you delete my table of contents? I spent so long typing it! The instructions say a table of contents is mandatory! Why did you delete it?"

"..."

"Hey! How did it come back? What did you do?"

"..."

"Not going to tell me, huh? I know! You must have pressed the undo shortcut!"

"..."

Time passed bit by bit.

Zhang Suannai gradually quieted down, turning to stare blankly at her friend's actions—even though her friend didn't say a word, the simple act of deleting all the formatting she had done and redoing it was enough to make her realize that everything she had done before was wrong.

"All done."

Chen Banxia stood up and let out a breath.

"Finished?"

"I can only say it's been corrected according to the current formatting requirements. You should check for typos, especially incorrect punctuation; I already caught several instances of commas and periods being used haphazardly and a failure to distinguish between full-width and half-width characters while I was fixing it. Also, you have a major bad habit: you write long paragraphs using only commas, with a period only at the very end of the last sentence. That's not very good," Chen Banxia said to her. "Once you've finished editing, you can send it to your advisor for review. Advisors usually do a rough check on the computer first, then have you print it out and bring it to them for another check. Because it's not intuitive enough on a computer, once you print it out and compare the two versions of the thesis, you can see the problems at a glance."

Chen Banxia paused:

"And I don't know if your formatting is finalized yet. Sometimes the school is very nitpicky, and the format gets adjusted over and over again. One moment they want this font size, the next they want that font size. Even if you've fixed everything, you'll still have to change it again."

"Uh..."

Zhang Suannai dragged out a long vocal fry, blinked her eyes, and after a long while, asked:

"What are full-width and half-width characters?"

"..."

Chen Banxia silently sat back down and continued helping her edit.

Zhang Suannai was so moved she was a mess, and she declared her intentions on the spot: "Wuwuwu, Banxia, I want to team up with you for retirement..."

"You aren't trying to mooch meals off my younger brother, are you?"

"Wuwuwu, I was just feeling so moved, and you think of me like that, Banxia? You're breaking my heart..."

"Quiet."

"You got it!"

Zhang Suannai instantly wiped the expression off her face and held her breath, focusing.

Another half hour passed.

Chen Banxia reached the last line. Fortunately, she was a Fifth-tier Practitioner, so her eyes didn't get dry. She said, "It should be fine now. Tsk tsk, it actually looks quite professional; it's quite convincing."

"Haha, right!"

Zhang Suannai became smug again.

"But you seem to have very few cited references. I don't know if your advisor has requirements for this; if they do, you might need to add more."

"I just cobbled these few together."

"It's up to you. Anyway, I can't help with that; I don't know anything about your major." Chen Banxia shrugged. "I'm just a medicine maker."

"A poison maker."

"You dare talk back to me today?"

"Medicine maker, medicine maker..."

Zhang Suannai hurriedly nodded and bowed, her attitude respectful.

Chen Banxia stood up, satisfied, and gave the seat back to her.

Although she really didn't know enough about Sword Cultivators, technical combat, or dueling, Chen Banxia still taught her some small tricks, mostly on how to find suitable references based on her own thesis and force them in.

Zhang Suannai listened while sending it to her advisor.

Zhang Ping: Received.

Zhang Ping: If you didn't contact me again, I was going to delay your graduation again.

Zhang Suannai: /complex expression

Zhang Ping: Let me take a look first.

Zhang Suannai: /nodding vigorously

She immediately clasped her hands together, praying under her breath while staring intently at the computer screen, waiting for her advisor's reply.

Time passed bit by bit.

Zhang Suannai felt incredibly anxious—

The students who had submitted their theses earlier either had too many formatting errors or the content was too watered down and pathetic. The advisor had scolded them without mercy, saying things like "you've spent twenty years in school just to end up with this crap," or "you're a disgrace to Ling'an Academy, you might as well go to the Ling'an Academy next door." If she got scolded too, she felt like she'd lose face if she didn't talk back, but if she did talk back, he was a teacher, and he didn't have any issues with professional ethics, he was just strict. In short, she was conflicted.

Chen Banxia, on the other hand, looked relaxed and wandered around the room.

Her voice drifted in from every corner of the Dormitory: "Did you gnaw on lamb spines last night? You're eating so well, didn't that help your brain grow at all?

"The layout of your Dormitory isn't just similar to our Yujing Academy dorms; it's exactly the same.

"Which room do you live in?

"Oh, this is your room! You collect mecha models? You must have been reincarnated into the wrong life.

"Which room does Qingqing live in?

"Let me see if she locked the door... Oh my! She didn't! A quick peek—oh, there's a cat tree, so many books, it's definitely her style. The remaining room must be Xiaoxiao's, right? Let me take another quick peek."

Zhang Suannai was still sitting in front of the computer. She opened the door and shouted at her at the top of her lungs: "Stop peeking, they'll be angry if they find out."

"They won't~~"

Chen Banxia swayed back in, blocking the light shining in from the doorway, feeling unconcerned: "I watched them grow up, after all, and I'm Chen Shu's sister, so they won't be angry with me~~"

Zhang Suannai felt a bit sour hearing this.

She had been roommates with Qingqing and Xiaoxiao for over three years, nearly four, yet she didn't dare enter their room casually. But thinking about it carefully, Chen Banxia had known them since they were very small and might have even held them; it was reasonable that their bond, built over ten or twenty years, was deeper than her own.

It didn't matter; there were still hundreds of years ahead.

Just then, the mentor finally sent a message—

Zhang Ping: The format is fine for now.

Zhang Ping: But I've looked at the content; are you sure you wrote this yourself?

Zhang Suannai: What's wrong?

Zhang Ping: The quality is too high.

Zhang Ping: It looks like it was written by someone else at a glance.

Zhang Suannai: Bullshit!

Zhang Suannai retracted a message.

Zhang Suannai: Absolutely impossible.

Zhang Ping: Even in our school, a normal master's student couldn't produce a thesis of such high quality.

Zhang Suannai: Let me introduce myself to you.

Zhang Suannai: I, Zhang Suannai, am the Personal Disciple accepted by the Sword Sect's Sword Master in violation of their oath, a top-tier genius about to advance to the Seventh Stage before even graduating, who took the championship at the last Martial Body competition without any effort. To write this thesis, I specifically sought out the Sword King's Personal Disciple during winter break and gave them a beating. Everything written here is my own insight and experience. If you don't believe me, I'll go find the Sword King's Personal Disciple and beat them up again in a few days, though they might not dare to fight me anymore.

Zhang Ping: ……

Zhang Ping: If the judges question it later, just explain the situation to them like that.

Zhang Suannai: You got it.

Zhang Ping: I originally wanted to say you had too few citations, but since the quality is so high, I'll let it slide; forcing references would only lower the quality. It's just that the sources for many of the data points and conclusions here are unclear, making them unconvincing. You should change that, use more data from calculation results, and mark the sources of your conclusions more clearly. If you really don't have any, just say they are the conclusions of your master or your senior brothers and sisters, and then note in the references that you heard them say it in person.

Zhang Suannai: That works too?

Zhang Ping: Mind your personal identity.

Zhang Suannai: Understood!

Zhang Ping: Print it out and show it to me after you've revised it. I'm in Martial Education Building 201. If there are no problems, it can be finalized for now.

Zhang Suannai was overjoyed.

In an instant, this silly mentor also became amiable and approachable.

"Hurry up and revise it."

Chen Banxia pulled up a stool and sat behind her, braiding her hair, and rolled her eyes: "It's just a graduation thesis, what's there to be happy about?"

"Hahaha..."

"Silly!"

"Right, there's one more thing I want to ask for your help with!" Zhang Suannai kept staring at the screen, not looking back, "I want to attempt to break through to the Seventh Stage in two days, and I need someone to watch over me. Sigh, I don't have anyone I can trust in Yujing anymore, so I can only ask for your help..."

"Don't you trust Qingqing and Xiaoxiao?"

"Emmm..."

Actually, it's that I don't want to lose face in front of Qingqing and Xiaoxiao, but I feel like it doesn't matter with you.

Zhang Suannai racked her brains for a long time before optimizing the sentence: "That's different. After advancing, I might be delirious, you know that, right? They are ultimately just my roommates, but you're different. We're going to team up to spend our old age together, so I definitely trust you more."

"I won't say anything more! Just tell me when!"

"Next week?"

"No problem!"

Chen Banxia agreed without hesitation.

"I knew you were the best." Zhang Suannai's eyes darted around nimbly, but her voice trembled slightly, appearing very moved, "But Banxia, you must ensure that you are the only one watching over me. I'm thin-skinned and care about my reputation; if I make a fool of myself, you must keep it a secret for me. You also can't film me or start a video call with anyone during the process."

"……"

Chen Banxia fell silent for a moment: "What have you been through?"

Zhang Suannai pursed her lips, feeling heartbroken.

……

The two sat together on the swing, one looking at a Mobile Phone, the other admiring the flowers, whiling away this spring morning.

The Chinese roses in the small courtyard were gradually in full bloom.

This spring, Ning Qing had shielded them from the rain so that every flower could bloom flawlessly, with petals like jade, free of rain stains or insect marks, and various scents drifting in the air, mixing together into a pleasant fragrance.

It seemed as if spring had only truly arrived at this moment.

Usually, when Chen Shu and Ning Qing sat together, it was always Chen Shu playing with his Mobile Phone while Ning Qing did other things, but today it was the other way around.

This spring, several famous domestic and international Chinese rose bases had launched new cultivated varieties, including one that could barely be considered a Spirit Flower, which was clearly a major breakthrough in rose cultivation technology. Ning Qing leaned on Chen Shu's shoulder, holding up her Mobile Phone, patiently checking and selecting.

Sometimes she would show them to Chen Shu.

"How about this one?"

"This color is nice."

"Cold gray-blue."

"It's nice, it's nice, but it's so expensive."

"New varieties are always expensive."

"Do you want to buy it?"

"I want to buy two plants to try."

"Buy it! Be decisive! We have the land anyway!"

"Mm..."

Ning Qing continued to browse, then suddenly turned her head, facing Chen Shu's shoulder and neck, almost burying half her face into them, and took a deep breath.

Chen Shu was stunned and immediately turned his head:

"What are you doing?"

Ning Qing, however, did not feel the slightest bit embarrassed; she continued to look down at her Mobile Phone, swiping the screen, looking at the retouched photos and specifications of the flowers, and deducing their original appearance based on her own experience, only replying in a low voice:

"You smell good."

"What smells good?"

"The scent."

"What scent?"

Chen Shu pulled up his clothes and sniffed them, feeling a bit strange: "Isn't it just the smell of laundry detergent? Or soap?"

Ning Qing did not speak.

It just smelled good, anyway.

……

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