Chapter 16

Chapter 16: I’d Rather Die Than Ask Qian Qi for Help—Yeah, Okay, It’s Great

Little Liu was absurdly happy today.

Because his dying magic plant had finally been revived.

Not only that—the thing looked lively as hell. It flicked a vine-like leaf and sent him tumbling more than two meters. Both cheeks of his butt hit the ground hard enough to bloom purple bruises, but Little Liu still grinned like an idiot.

“Yo! Liu Da Bao,” someone called, startled. “Your Burning Cloud Grass actually made it?”

A classmate passing by—Little Zhang—stopped in his tracks. “Didn’t you say it was basically dead?”

“Heh. I saved it again.” Liu Da Bao’s face practically radiated. “I went to the beast-taming department and borrowed some magic beast poop. Then I trimmed the stems and leaves and soaked them in hydrogen peroxide for two hours. I didn’t think it’d work, but it actually came back.”

“Magic beast poop?” Little Zhang stared. “What kind of method is that?”

Most people used chicken or duck droppings. If they were broke, they… produced their own. But magic beast poop? Nobody had ever dared.

Liu Da Bao hesitated, glanced around, then leaned close and dropped his voice. “Honestly? Qian Qi told me.”

“What?!” Little Zhang looked like his brain had short-circuited. “Are you serious? That psycho? And you actually used her method?”

“I didn’t have a choice.” Liu Da Bao scratched his head. “I couldn’t think of anything else.”

He also didn’t dare tell anyone he’d signed a contract with Qian Qi.

It was too humiliating.

Getting shaken down for forty-five yuan was bad enough. But believing some slacker lunatic’s advice on top of that? That was the kind of thing only a total moron would do.

Which was probably why Qian Qi had signed plenty of contracts, and yet a lot of classmates still had no idea.

Because admitting it out loud was social death.

You’d get laughed at for all four years.

“Probably just dumb luck,” Little Zhang muttered.

There was no way he’d believe Qian Qi had that kind of ridiculous skill. He, Zhang Feng, would rather fail a class than gamble on some method from that madwoman.

He shook his head. “Anyway, as long as it’s alive, you’re fine. If it died, you’d lose another month.”

Liu Da Bao nodded furiously.

Little Zhang gave Liu Da Bao a consoling pat and kept walking up the mountain. A short while later, he spotted another familiar figure and blurted, “Yo, Old Li! Your magic plant revived too?”

“Yeah.” Old Li chuckled sheepishly. “I got some nitrogen-potassium compound fertilizer, mixed it with a few pounds of raw kelp for a day, and then—”

“Hold up.” Little Zhang’s mouth fell open. “Raw kelp? Why would you even think of raw kelp?”

Old Li looked around like he was about to confess a crime. He leaned in and whispered, “Qian Qi told me.”

Little Zhang froze.

…Again?

He trudged onward in a fog—and ran into yet another classmate who’d been moaning days ago about a dying magic plant. That person was practically bouncing now, babbling about how it had been saved, and—

“Let me guess,” Little Zhang said, dead inside. “Qian Qi told you.”

The classmate slapped his palm, eyes shining with mutual suffering. “You signed a contract too?”

Little Zhang blinked. “A contract?”

After some frantic questioning, Little Zhang finally learned what Qian Qi had been doing—and it hit him like a truck. Somehow, Qian Qi had been saving everyone’s magic plants.

At this point, “dumb luck” didn’t cover it.

But how? Qian Qi hated magic plants. Everyone knew that. How could she possibly—

He didn’t even finish the thought before he reached his own experimental plot.

The moment he saw it, his face turned bone-white.

He slid forward and dropped to his knees in front of his magic plant.

“Old Zhang!” he wailed. “Why are you bald? Where did your leaves go? What happened? The book never said you’d drop all your leaves!”

The magic plant he’d painstakingly raised had chosen the worst possible moment to go bald.

Little Zhang tore through his notes, searched every page he’d ever underlined, and threw every half-remembered fix at it. Nothing helped. Old Zhang only grew more listless, the remaining “mouth” sagging like it was disappointed in him.

What now?

He was one step away from finishing his planting report.

One step.

In that dazed panic—clinging to Old Zhang like it was his life—one name rose in his mind like fate itself.

Qian Qi.

…

Qian Qi was busy working her plot when someone tapped her shoulder.

“Qian Qi,” a boy asked awkwardly, “are you busy?”

She turned and saw a student standing behind her, posture stiff, hands hovering like he didn’t know what to do with them. She searched her memory and finally placed him.

Their Magic Plant 101 class monitor.

Zhang Feng.

“Ohhh,” Qian Qi said brightly, wiping dirt off her hands. “Class Monitor!”

She stuck out her hand with a warm smile. “Hi, hi.”

Zhang Feng looked mildly alarmed by how friendly she was. Still, the moment pulled him along, and he shook her hand. “Uh… hi.”

Qian Qi pulled back, eyes curious. “So what’s up?”

“It’s like this…” Zhang Feng cleared his throat twice. “My Old Zhang—no, I mean the magic plant I planted—suddenly has a problem. I wanted you to take a look…”

“Oh.” Qian Qi’s expression turned instantly knowing. “I get it. I get it.”

In flip-flops, she sauntered over to a rock, reached underneath, and pulled out a sheet of paper like she’d been hiding contraband. She slapped it against the stone in front of him.

“Contract. Forty-five yuan. Transfer first, then I fix it.”

Zhang Feng stared at the legendary contract and, against his better judgment, bent to read it carefully.

Qian Qi plopped down nearby, a piece of foxtail grass between her teeth, smiling as she looked him over.

If she remembered right, Zhang Feng was top of the class.

Smart. Diligent. Easy to use.

Perfect.

Zhang Feng signed. When he looked up, he found Qian Qi staring at him with a weirdly satisfied expression.

His scalp prickled. “Qian Qi… is something wrong?”

“Nothing wrong at all!” Qian Qi chirped, scooping up the contract and swinging her hoe onto her shoulder. “Come on. Lead the way.”

She followed Zhang Feng to his plot and stopped in front of a lonely, oversized “mouth” squatting in the soil. She stared at it for a long time, then finally looked up.

“Your plant is…?”

“It’s Man-Eating Red Grass,” Zhang Feng blurted.

Qian Qi’s jaw slackened. She looked back down at the Man-Eating Red Grass again, visibly stunned. “Wow. Those leaves fell off… with commitment.”

Man-Eating Red Grass was like a pitcher plant—except meaner. Normally it had over a dozen thick, red, blistered leaves that gave off a faintly sweet scent. The scent lured small magic beasts, which would tumble into the toothy trap-mouth in the center, landing in digestive fluid and becoming dinner.

When it got sick, it might drop a few leaves.

This one had dropped everything.

All that remained was the trap.

“My Old Zhang… can it still be saved?” Zhang Feng asked, voice tight.

Honestly, students at Magic Plant College were all a little… off.

If you spent years surrounded by terrifying magic plants, your brain was bound to get a little bent.

Which was why everyone had a weird level of tolerance for Qian Qi, the craziest of them all.

She could live with that.