Chapter 17
Chapter 17: For This One, You’ll Need to Pay Extra
“About yours…” Qian Qi said, face full of reluctant sympathy.
Zhang Feng’s stomach dropped.
Was Old Zhang really done for?
He’d already swallowed his pride and trusted Qian Qi—if it still couldn’t be saved, then—
“…You’ll have to pay extra,” Qian Qi finished lazily.
Zhang Feng stared.
Then: “Wait—so it can be saved?”
He didn’t even flinch at the money. He looked like a drowning man grabbing the last piece of driftwood. “How much? If you can save Old Zhang, I’ll give you my food money for this week!”
Old Zhang was his hard-won dicot magic plant. He couldn’t just give up now.
“Oh, come on.” Qian Qi patted his back like a caring auntie. “We’re classmates. How could I bear to watch you starve for a whole week?”
She held up two fingers.
“Two weeks.”
Zhang Feng’s eye twitched. “…”
So much for bear to watch.
With a shaking hand and a broken heart, he transferred 182 yuan.
Qian Qi glanced at the results from her Analysis Technique.
System Panel:
[Magic Plant Name: Man-Eating Red Grass (ill)
Rank: E-rank
Case Analysis: multiple bald-leaf syndrome caused by hunger and lack of microbes
Treatment: feed 1 kg magic beast meat, replace humus soil every 15 days, feed 2 kg pork weekly.]
“Prepare yourself,” Qian Qi said solemnly. “If you want to save Old Zhang, you’re going to bleed.”
Zhang Feng misunderstood immediately. “What do you mean? More money?”
“No, no, no.” Qian Qi pointed at the enormous trap-mouth. “I mean it literally. Its appetite is huge. First, get one kilo of magic beast meat and let it eat until it’s full.”
“Then change the soil twice a month. Humus soil, you know? Nutrient soil made from rotting leaves after microbes break it down and ferment it. There should be some on Back Mountain where the trees are. If you can’t find any, buy it online.”
“After that, feed it two kilos of pork every week. Easy.”
She dusted her hands like the matter was settled and turned as if to leave.
“Wait!” Zhang Feng said, utterly lost. “Why magic beast meat and pork? What’s the principle here?”
“It’s Man-Eating Red Grass.” Qian Qi looked at him like he’d asked why water was wet. “It’s a carnivorous magic plant.”
“If it doesn’t get meat, it has to suck nutrients from the soil. It drains everything dry, and then—surprise—it drops all its leaves.”
She started walking again, then tossed over her shoulder, “Feed it on time. Long-term feeding builds a bond. Who knows—maybe one day it won’t eat you.”
Qian Qi shot the plant one last regretful look.
Too bad Man-Eating Red Grass wasn’t mobile. If it could walk around, it’d be a portable massacre.
Zhang Feng stood there, stunned—and then slowly, painfully, it clicked.
He’d obsessed over keeping Old Zhang alive.
But he’d never fed it a single bite.
If it was starving… then the baldness actually made perfect sense.
“Qian Qi,” he asked, still staring at her like she’d grown a second head, “how do you know all this?”
Everyone knew she skipped class. Everyone knew she hated magic plants.
So what kind of luck had she stumbled into, that she could diagnose a plant at a glance and prescribe treatment like a pro?
“Did you awaken some incredible ability?” Zhang Feng’s eyes shone.
Qian Qi paused.
Then she hoisted her hoe dramatically and reached behind her waist.
Zhang Feng’s whole body tensed.
Oh shit.
He’d asked too much. She was going to beat him up.
Instead, Qian Qi yanked out a brand-new textbook like she was pulling a weapon.
Magic Plant Studies.
“Read more, Class Monitor,” she said earnestly, flicking the cover. “Books hold golden houses and beauties inside. Read like me, and you’ll naturally know!”
Zhang Feng stared at that pristine textbook.
He’d read his own copy so many times he could practically recite it in his sleep.
So why was she the one coming up with these treatments?
“And one more thing,” Qian Qi added cheerfully, tucking the textbook back into her waistband. “Your Old Zhang is starving. If you don’t feed it soon, it might start with you.”
She strode off with the swagger of someone who’d just established a flawless I love studying persona.
Zhang Feng stayed where he was, brain rebooting.
After a long moment, he turned back to Old Zhang—the bald mouth sitting in the soil.
“You’re really hungry?” he asked weakly.
A breeze passed through. The giant mouth swayed, as if answering with pure contempt.
Yes. Now feed me.
That night, the mountain was empty and dark again.
Su Xing Le climbed Back Mountain with Qian Qi for the second time, and he wasn’t as terrified as before. Maybe because the girl ahead of him had a textbook tucked under her arm and a hoe on her shoulder—and somehow that gave him an unreasonable sense of safety.
When they reached her plot, Su Xing Le opened a plastic bin and looked smug. “Junior, I can buy it cheap from a senior. I even bargained for you—thirty yuan a pound.”
For Qian Qi, it was like snow in a drought. Her eyes lit up. “Bro, if you ever hit hard times, I will absolutely help you!”
Su Xing Le stared at her. “…”
That promise was better left unsaid.
He sat on a small stool and noticed the area was cluttered with bottles and jars now. Qian Qi was squatting in the dirt, burying seeds like she was running a mini-farm.
He couldn’t help asking, “Why are you planting so many magic plants?”
He’d heard Magic Plant Department students only needed to successfully grow one magic plant to pass. But from what he could see, Qian Qi had planted ten kinds, minimum.
“Because I love studying,” Qian Qi said immediately.
She pulled out the textbook again and deliberately waved it in Su Xing Le’s face.
Su Xing Le thought about the rumors… and didn’t quite buy it.
“Only by loving studying can we bring honor to the school,” Qian Qi declared, patting her chest. “Trust me.”
Su Xing Le hesitated.
Then, somehow, he said, “Fine. I trust you.”
Qian Qi nodded, satisfied.
Perfect. Her I love studying brand was spreading.
As for why she was planting so many magic plants… one reason was to make her genius persona look more believable.
The other was to muddy the waters.
Once she produced the hemostatic magic potion, someone would definitely try to dig up her recipe. And she was not about to let that happen.
Smiling faintly, Qian Qi lifted a huge, gleaming pair of scissors and snapped them twice in the air—click, click—like she was practicing for a crime.
Su Xing Le shuddered.
Why did it suddenly feel colder?
Was it the night wind… or the girl?
Two days later, Qian Qi received a transfer from Li Shu Yun.
Sixty thousand yuan.
“It’s money!” Qian Qi stared at her lightbrain screen like it was holy scripture. “System, look! It’s money!”
Her eyes filled with tears. She, Qian Qi, was finally not poor.
System Panel: [It’s only 60,000. You’re this excited?]
“What do you mean, ‘only’?” Qian Qi snapped. “Do you know how long an ordinary person has to work to save sixty thousand?”
“You don’t know anything!” she continued, offended on principle. “Like how you don’t know that when a whale takes a dump, it has to spread its butt super wide, and afterward it can’t close for ages and it hurts like hell. You don’t know, because you only care about yourself!”
System Panel: […]
System Panel: Thanks. I truly did not need to know that.