Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Legends About Qian Qi

Full of fighting spirit, Qian Qi lifted her tray and walked toward the return station. She had just stood up and turned when she bumped into a student. Soup splashed all over him.

“Who the heck are you? Watch where you’re going!”

He sounded hot tempered. He cursed the moment he was hit. But when Qian Qi fully turned around, his handsome face went from angry to stiff, then to fear and twitching.

“Ah, i-it’s you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

His face went a little pale. He ignored the soup on his clothes and tried to bolt.

A second later, Qian Qi hooked a finger in his back collar and stopped him.

“Sorry, classmate. Your clothes got dirty. Let me wash them for you,” she said. As a gentle, responsible person, she felt she should make it right, so her tone was very mild.

The boy only got more scared: “N-no need, sis. I can wash them myself.”

Seeing him shiver that hard, Qian Qi felt puzzled. Was she really that scary?

She knew the original owner was a jerk, but not to the point that even a man close to 1.80 meters would be terrified. She looked him over and asked: “Classmate, what year are you?”

“Uh, j-junior.”

“Oh,” said Qian Qi, her tone lifting a bit, “a junior calling me sis?”

He shook harder. “No, I didn’t mean you’re old. I mean, I, it was just respect-”

Hearing him stutter till he could not finish a sentence, Qian Qi frowned and lightly smacked his forehead: “Speak clearly.”

The boy let out a small whimper.

[You look even more like a jerk than the original.]

Seeing the words flash on the System panel, Qian Qi reeled in her street punk vibe and said: “It’s the original owner’s personality rubbing off on me.”

[…]

She cleared her throat and spoke even more gently: “Senior, don’t be afraid.”

Sadly, her voice was low and androgynous, and with her scoundrel aura the boy only got more frightened: “I, sis, what do you want? How about you just beat me up and get it over with?”

Everyone knew this Magiplant freshman was a lunatic.

The stories about Qian Qi were carved into the hearts of every student in the Magiplant and Magibeast colleges, the kind of thing they would pass down to next year’s freshmen.

It started when the freshmen first arrived. Seniors from all the colleges were welcoming them, including those from Magiplant. Many students applied to Magiplant this year. Qian Qi caused a stir the moment she entered the university.

A Magibeast senior saw her clothes and sneered that she “looked like a broke kid from Magiplant,” so Qian Qi, whose pride was fierce, pinned him and beat him up.

She was strong and had a fierce face. When she fought, she went for the vulnerable spots and did not care about getting hurt. A malnourished girl of 1.65 meters made a 1.9 meter senior cry for his parents. It took three guys of about 1.8 meters to pull her off.

After that, the senior’s girlfriend came to provoke Qian Qi. Qian Qi dislocated both her arms. Every girl in Magiplant started to fear her.

It should have ended there, but the crazy Qian Qi could not swallow the insult. She went straight to that senior’s dorm and beat him in front of everyone again.

Her fierce, villainous look made the whole men’s dorm flinch whenever they remembered it.

From then on, her bad name and mad name spread through both Magiplant and Magibeast.

Unfortunately, the Qian Qi here did not have a full set of the original owner’s memories. She did not know those stories. She just tried to calm the frightened boy: “Senior, I only want to wash your jacket. Don’t misunderstand.”

He forced himself to stop shaking long enough to pull off his coat and put it in her hands. Then, using the moment when she loosened her grip to take it, he fled.

As he ran, he shouted: “You don’t have to give it back! Really! Spare me!”

Holding the pricey designer jacket, Qian Qi glanced down at her own shabby leather one. Under the System’s sideways look [?_?], she declared, full of righteousness: “Why are you looking at me like that? I’ll wash it and return it.”

[Heh.]

Qian Qi wandered around campus for a while, and the cut on her neck fully healed. To avoid trouble, she bought a roll of medical bandage at the campus clinic.

At a public tap she washed off the dried blood on her neck, wrapped several layers of bandage until it looked proper, and then went back to the dorm.

The roommates were studying. Chen Miao Miao glanced up and gave her a small glare.

Qian Qi ignored her, stepped into the little balcony washroom, and, using memory, found her small cracked basin. She dropped the designer jacket into water to soak, then realized she had no detergent.

Ruffling her hair, she stuck her head out and said: “Chen Miao Miao, lend me some detergent.”

Chen, who was texting, jolted. After a long second she snapped: “Don’t use it all.”

Qian Qi looked at the tiny handful left and dumped all of it into the basin.

“Ha!” she said. “That’s satisfying.”

[You really are bad.]

“Quit it. I’m a pure and simple good person,” said Qian Qi as she scrubbed at the soup stain. While rubbing, her fingers touched something in the jacket pocket.

She pulled it out and found the boy’s student card.

“Magibeast College, junior. Su Xing Le. Dorm B, Room 502.”

Qian Qi looked down at the jacket in the basin with regret.

[You’re thinking: too bad. Now you have no excuse not to return the coat, right?]

[I am not. I didn’t. Stop making things up,] she thought.

She took off her bloody T-shirt and used the dirty water to scrub the blood out of it.

When everything was clean, she called again: “Chen Miao Miao, let me borrow your hanger.”

Chen’s fingers twitched over her phone. She leaned out from her bunk and snapped: “You always just took it before. Why even ask now? Are you sick?”

But her words met Qian Qi’s meaningful look.

Chen Miao Miao’s heart thumped. [Why is she looking at me like that? Does she know something?] It could not be. [The plan Chen Tong and I made was perfect. Once it worked, I would get twenty thousand yuan. I never expected Qian Qi to survive the Fire Qilin Lotus.]

After a rush of panicked thoughts, Chen was about to say something when Qian Qi said: “I got hit in the head. I don’t remember which hangers are yours.”

Hit in the head? Memory fuzzy?

Chen walked over, eyes sliding to the bandage on Qian Qi’s neck. She could not figure out why Qian Qi was alive. [That wound was rotting. How did she not die?]

“Here,” said Chen as she put her hanger in Qian Qi’s hand. She could not help asking: “Do you remember what you asked me yesterday…”

“Eh?” Qian Qi looked blank. “Asked what?”

Joy flashed across Chen’s face. “Nothing, you-”

“You mean, when I asked you about the Fire Qilin Lotus’s weakness?” said Qian Qi in a low, eerie voice as she leaned in, her lips close to Chen Miao Miao’s ear.