Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Once You Stop Caring, You Can Be Unbeatable

“Uh… Grandpa, not them. She’s a freshman named Qian Qi,” said Li Shu Yun.

“Qian Qi?” Li Hong Sheng frowned, trying to recall. “Why haven’t I heard of her?”

He didn’t return to campus often in his role as Department Dean, but he still glanced at the exam rankings each term. He didn’t remember any first year top students named Qian Qi.

“How are her grades? Has she turned in a planting report? What’s she like as a person?” he asked.

“Well… she, actually…” Hearing her grandpa’s interest, Li Shu Yun started stammering.

She knew his temper well. He looked down on poor students, and he especially couldn’t stand talented kids who didn’t work hard. If he learned that Qian Qi skipped classes, fought often, and was the Magiplant Department’s infamous problem student…

He would come to campus himself and lecture Qian Qi nonstop about studying hard and serving society.

And with Qian Qi’s fiery temper and habit of throwing punches, she might beat her elderly grandpa so badly he wouldn’t even recognize his own dad!!!

No way. She must not tell him about Qian Qi’s reputation.

She changed the subject fast: “Grandpa, that’s not the point. The point is she’s willing to sell us the planting method. You can back me with funds, right?”

“Mm. Fire Qilin Fruit boosts the strength of Flame Hounds. If we obtain the method, our institute’s funding will be secure. But that’s secondary…” As he spoke, the old man’s cloudy eyes suddenly shone, like someone in a dark world seeing a ray of light. Hope and excitement filled them.

“What matters most,” he said, word by word, “is that we might find a new breakthrough for cultivating Magiplants from this method.”

He launched into a passionate speech about the future of the Magiplant Research Institute and even the future of Humans. Having heard it a thousand times, Li Shu Yun twitched her mouth and hung up.

That old man could never stop once he started on saving the world. So old, yet he talked like a middle schooler out to be a hero.

Still…

Thinking of something, she looked at the sky and let out a long sigh: “If we can’t find a fast way to raise the power of Awakeners and Beast Contracting, this world may really head for ruin.”

After all, the Dungeons were getting more and more unstable.

–

On the day the Fire Qilin Fruit ripened, the Three Scale Orchid also reached harvest time.

Qian Qi stood at the edge of her plot, holding a high power spotlight in one hand and a giant pot lid in the other.

She had borrowed the spotlight from the warm hearted dorm auntie, and the big pot lid from the kind cafeteria auntie.

How did she borrow them?

With her mouth.

“Without a mouth, a person can’t live,” Qian Qi said, giving a proud thumbs up at her own lips. With this unbeatable sweet talk, calling them pretty sisters with every sentence, she got the tools for free.

The System Panel’s text looked full of scorn: [It’s more like once you lose your shame, you’re unbeatable.]

Qian Qi wagged her index finger: “Wrong. You’re only half right,” she said, dead serious, “if you put your left cheek on your right side, and keep one side shameless and the other side thick skinned, then you’re unbeatable!”

System Panel: [???]

After teasing the System, Qian Qi crouched down and raised the huge pot lid as a shield in front of her.

The Three Scale Orchid’s weakness was strong light. Once hit by direct strong light, its sharp, sawtooth leaves would droop and lose their attack power, while the bud’s three thick petals would fire out to attack enemies.

Scooting a bit behind the lid, Qian Qi flicked on the spotlight.

The instant the beam washed over the orchid, the waving serrated leaves sagged like noodles. Sensing danger, the bud snapped toward Qian Qi’s direction and spat three petal bullets like a pea shooter: “thup, thup, thup.”

“Bang, bang, bang!”

The petals slammed into the pot lid and left three shallow dents. The shock made Qian Qi step back two paces. Looking at the dents, she figured a hit on her head could kill a person.

She switched off the light, set the pot lid aside, and bent to pick up the fallen petals.

The Three Scale Orchid’s petals felt very thick and heavy, shaped a bit like mangoes. She guessed she could grind quite a lot of hemostatic powder out of them, but with petals this hard, how was she supposed to turn them into powder?

She opened her Light-Brain and found small ore grinders for sale online, but the average price was over 40,000.

She switched to secondhand.

“Tsk. The cheapest used grinder is still 25,000.”

Qian Qi let out a deep sigh. She didn’t even know how she would eat now. She only had 17 left in her pocket, saved with great effort after cornering the always-avoiding Chen Miao Miao.

The grinder would have to wait. The other Magiplants in the Hemostatic Potion Formula weren’t grown yet anyway. She’d think about buying a grinder after Senior Li sold the Fire Qilin Fruit and gave her the money.

For now, she should figure out how to get some food money. In a couple of days a few Magiplants needed feeding with Magibeast meat, and she’d have to pay Su Xing Le to buy it for her.

But where could she get the cash?

Scratching her messy hair, Qian Qi’s gaze drifted to the nearby students working on their Magiplants.

Right now, they all wore troubled faces. Something had clearly gone wrong in their cultivation. They wanted to dig out their dying plants, but they hated to throw away days of effort, so they racked their brains for a way to save them.

Qian Qi watched for a while, and a “brilliant” smile climbed her face. She was so happy there was a tiny shadow of a wicked grin, spreading almost to her ears, which made her whole face look very…

[Grotesque?]

[Your expression looks a little scary ==.]

Qian Qi quickly smoothed her face.

She knew the Magiplant Department’s finals included a theory test and a cultivation report. If a student failed to grow a single Magiplant all year, the report was marked fail. If they wanted to stay next year, they would have to pay 4,500 in tuition.

Most Magiplant students came from poor families. That 4,500 could crush an entire household.

In that case…

Qian Qi’s small rough face twisted into that “grotesque” smile again: as a kind, good person, she should definitely “help” them!

It was the perfect chance to change her old problem-child image and build a gentle, kind, positive reputation.

Great. Let’s do it.

She hefted her hoe and walked toward a frowning student. After a quick check of her expression, she lifted a warm smile and patted the classmate’s shoulder, then said, “Hey, classmate, need help?”