Chapter 22
Chapter 22: And Qian Qi Was Especially Unhinged
The principal’s voice cracked. “Qian Qi is a girl?”
“Isn’t she?” Su Ang asked, genuinely surprised.
The principal’s face went blank.
He didn’t know.
Back then, he hadn’t even checked the student file. The first time he saw Qian Qi, he’d just assumed she was a boy.
“Why do you think she’s a girl?” the principal demanded, still stuck on it. “Nothing about her looks girlish. And that filthy outfit—what girl dresses like that? Plus she fights every day. Who does that while carrying a hoe and hacking at magic plants like she’s chopping firewood?”
“She doesn’t have an Adam’s apple,” Su Ang said calmly. “That bump is her cricoid cartilage.”
The principal stared at him, impressed despite himself. “So that’s what you noticed…”
Then the suspicion hit.
He narrowed his eyes. “Why were you staring at her throat?”
Su Ang paused. “…I happened to see it.”
“Oh,” the principal said slowly, then brightened with a self-satisfied nod. “Right. Right. Of course.”
He believed Su Ang wasn’t a pervert. If Su Ang counted as a pervert, then everyone in the world would be a pervert.
And Qian Qi would be especially unhinged.
The principal glanced at his own arm, the blood already drying around the cut. He huffed. “Come on.”
Back at the principal’s office, he locked the door and led Su Ang into an inner meeting room.
A three-meter conference table dominated the center. Eight projection devices sat neatly arranged on top, each with a chair set behind it.
The principal took the front seat, tapped a few controls, and sent out seven video invites at once.
Seconds later, three of them connected.
Three ghostly figures shimmered into place above their seats.
“Principal.”
The first to speak was a silver-haired middle-aged man in a black commander’s uniform. His presence was cold and sharp, battle-hardened—like the air itself had learned to keep a respectful distance. His hawk-like eyes were ruthless even at rest.
He glanced at Su Ang behind the principal and gave a brief nod. With their similar features and unusual hair color, their relationship was obvious.
“Su Ang,” the commander said, voice heavy with authority, “report on the nest-break situation.”
Su Xing Chen tapped the table once, hard.
Su Ang activated the new light-brain on his wrist and enlarged the data display. His voice stayed measured as he spoke.
“On-site monitoring shows the rift fluctuations in [Dragon Spring Mist] are stable. No abnormal changes in the past three days. Seven D-rank Awakened soldiers have been sent into the instance. We still haven’t determined whether the magic creatures have a special reason for leaving the nest. For now, we can only assume it’s normal nest-break activity.”
“Any Awakened entered [Dragon Spring Mist] in the past three days?” Su Xing Chen asked, brow tightening.
Su Ang paused, then shook his head. “No.”
Su Xing Chen fell silent, gaze lowered as if weighing something heavy.
Across from him, a hulking man in specialized armor snorted. “A bunch of useless cowards. Won’t even enter a D-rank instance, and they still call themselves Awakened?”
If their team weren’t tied up clearing higher-level instances and dealing with magic creatures in an A-rank war zone, these weaklings wouldn’t even get assigned to low-tier work.
“Enough, Gong Qiang,” a woman drawled from another seat.
A red cheongsam clung to her like it had been painted on. She held a pipe between two fingers, smiling like the world’s disasters were mildly entertaining. “You complain every time. You know how difficult instances have become.”
She exhaled a thin stream of smoke. “After all these years, E-rank instances have grown D-rank creatures. D-rank becomes C-rank. No one knows what the old D-rank instances look like now.”
In an instance, magic creatures respawned after a time—same rank, new bodies. Even the boss came back.
And if an instance was ignored, the creatures inside either multiplied into swarms or “raised gu,” consuming each other until something stronger emerged. The longer that went on, the less anyone dared challenge anything high-level.
“We don’t have time to hesitate,” Su Xing Chen said. His hands clasped, his eyes colder than ice. “Instances are growing unstable. The rifts are widening. Soon, Zhong Zhou will be overrun by magic creatures pouring out in a full swarm.”
When that happened, it would be a disaster.
“To change the situation,” the cheongsam woman said, her smile fading, “I still support Commander Su’s proposal.”
Tang Yan’s voice turned sharp. “Principal, forcing Awakened to clear new instances will only spark internal conflict. But if the Awakened refuse to move forward… then we inject fresh blood.”
Like dropping a live catfish into a tank of lazy sardines. With hot-blooded student Awakened charging ahead, the older ones wouldn’t be able to keep hiding without shame.
“But…” the principal sighed, rubbing his temple. “They’re still children.”
“They’re nearly twenty,” Tang Yan snapped. “I went to the battlefield at sixteen. I didn’t whine once.”
“Exactly,” Gong Qiang said, spreading his hands. “What do they learn by hiding in school? Let the young ones see what kind of crisis is coming—and let them shame the old Awakened out of camping in cleared instances and milking them.”
Killing an instance boss counted as clearing the instance. It granted attribute boosts and could help repair an unstable rift, blocking future nest-breaks.
But the boost only went to whoever landed the last hit on the boss. So Awakened kept farming the same instance over and over, hoping to be the one to get the reward and grow stronger.
That was the “milking.”
“I’ll think about it,” the principal said at last.
As principal, he had to put student safety first. At the very least… while they were still in school, he didn’t want his students thrown into the meat grinder of public rumor and blame.
The Awakened were living proof of what happened when things went wrong. The public had already started cursing them for inaction over the magic creature crisis…
The meeting wrapped. The principal reached to end the call when Su Ang spoke abruptly.
“Father—”
The principal’s hand shot out and tapped Su Ang’s arm.
Su Ang stopped.
Su Xing Chen, already moving to close his light-brain, paused. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” Su Ang said evenly. “Stay safe.”
Su Xing Chen nodded once and disconnected.
The projections vanished. The room fell quiet again.
Only then did the principal speak. “You were going to mention the hemostatic magic potion.”
Su Ang nodded.
“Keep it quiet for now,” the principal said, eyes sharpening. “A rare treasure draws trouble. If it comes out too early, she’ll be exposed to danger even faster.”
Su Ang considered, then said, “All right.”
“And,” the principal added with a huff, “I still don’t believe that—cough—little girl can make a hemostatic magic potion out of magic plants.”
He stood and headed for the door. “We’ll stall this. I’ll investigate in secret. If she gets credited with a major merit award, she’ll be unbearable in the Magic Plant Department.”
They left.
The meeting room stayed silent, as if nothing had happened. No one would guess that, moments ago, a calm conversation between people in power had quietly mapped out whirlpools of danger.
And the person about to be dragged into those whirlpools—Qian Qi—was, at that very moment, methodically preparing the sweet, honey-jar retirement life she dreamed of.