Chapter 79
Chapter 79: Hee Hee Hee, Hee Hee Hee Hee—
In her last life, being an orphan had painted a target on Qian Qi’s back. At school, people pointed, whispered, and whenever something went missing, the blame landed on her first.
That label followed her everywhere. When she went to the rich and powerful to beg for donations for the orphanage, they met her with sneers. Some jabbed a finger in her face and told her to get lost. Some looked her over like she was an item on a shelf. And a few didn’t even bother pretending—flat-out saying her orphanage was just raising a pack of useless trash and wasn’t worth a single coin.
Shallow, rotten eyes.
The same kind she saw now in Xu Jing and Fan Jing Hai—perched up high and pointing down at the students from the Magic Plant Department, declaring them useless trash.
But were they?
Magic plants were complicated creatures—countless varieties, endless quirks. The Magic Plant Research Institute was chronically underfunded and couldn’t afford to keep too many researchers on payroll, so they focused their limited manpower on only a handful of plants.
Yet they still needed data on the low-level stuff. Which meant every lab report the Magic Plant Department students turned in wasn’t just homework—it was raw field data, entered into the Institute’s database and used as reference for the researchers’ work.
The Magic Plant Department was like a nutrient line feeding a brain, pumping a steady stream of information into the Institute day after day, quietly helping researchers develop plants that benefited humans and contract beasts alike.
So how could they be freeloading trash?
Besides…
Qian Qi turned to Xu Jing.
“You’re wrong.”
Her voice was light, almost calm. Too calm—the stillness right before a storm. “My classmates have something special. A kind of character you’ll never have.”
Not everyone could spend day after day in a dull test field, grinding through tedious, thorny topics. Not everyone could keep their head around dangerous magic plants—walking into the thick of them, taking samples, cultivating them, treating them—without flinching.
But these people could.
They had a kind of “crazy” in them.
They’d hit rock bottom, so they were tougher—wilder. They carried hardship on their backs, so they knew how to endure, how to grit their teeth, how to finish a task even when it chewed them raw.
When Qian Qi taught them how to grow and treat magic plants, she watched them closely.
They could banter with their plants like old drinking buddies, turning misery into jokes. They’d slog through a day and a night of relentless storm rain, digging channels to drain the test fields, all to save their own magic plants. And when a plant lashed out and injured them, they’d whoop like idiots—because it meant the plant they’d nurtured was growing strong and healthy.
She taught knowledge.
They were the ones who dragged it into reality.
And what drew Qian Qi the most wasn’t even that.
It was the fact that the Magic Plant Department students never gave up on a single plant that could still be saved—not until the very last second.
All they needed was a stepping stone.
And that stepping stone was her.
“Want to bet?”
Qian Qi lifted her chin, her usual shameless grin sliding back into place. “A duel tournament. Three months from now. You awakened ones, against the ‘trash’ Magic Plant Department you keep spitting on.”
Her smile sharpened at the edges. “I won’t fight. You send three E-rank awakened. We send three. Best two out of three. If you lose, you donate nine hundred thousand a month to the Magic Plant Department. You sign it. You keep paying after graduation, too.”
“If we lose…” someone managed.
“If you lose,” Qian Qi said, sweet as poison, “you all kneel right here and shout a hundred times that the Magic Plant Department students are trash. And from now on, every magic plant from the Back Mountain gets provided to you for free to practice with.”
Xu Jing let out a cold laugh. “And I want your hemostatic magic potion formula.”
A flash of light sparked in Qian Qi’s eyes. Then she smiled. “Deal.”
On the way back, Liang Yu Ting trailed behind her, nervously twisting the hem of her shirt. “Qian Qi… did we cause you trouble? It was just our issue at first, but now it’s turned into…”
“How could you be trouble?”
Seeing the guilt on Liang Yu Ting’s face, Qian Qi’s expression softened into a small smile.
Liang Yu Ting’s chest tightened. A sour, warm emotion rushed up—she was about to speak when Qian Qi stroked her chin, and that rough little face of hers twisted into a terrifyingly crafty grin.
“I should be thanking you. If it weren’t for you, how would I have earned nine hundred thousand a month in sponsorship? Hee hee… hee hee hee hee—”
The entire Magic Plant Department shivered in unison.
What was going on? Why was classmate Qian Qi (their junior) laughing like a horror movie villain?
“Um… classmate Qian Qi, it’s not that I don’t trust you,” Zhang Feng hurried to say, “I just… want to know how you’re planning to beat them.”
E-rank awakened weren’t pushovers. An ordinary person fighting them had no chance.
Even if you stuffed yourself with defense fruit until you burped peels, you might only scrape out a draw.
Zhang Feng turned it over in his head again and again and still couldn’t see a path to victory.
“This?” Qian Qi’s grin widened. “Easy.”
She leaned in, eyes gleaming. “Remember what I said? They send three awakened?”
“I remember. You said we’d send three too.”
“Three students?” Qian Qi shook her head so hard her hair almost flew off. “I never said three students.”
Zhang Feng blinked.
“I said we send three,” Qian Qi emphasized, delighted with herself. “I didn’t say we send three people.”
Zhang Feng: ?
?
?
If not three people… then what? Three ghosts?
No one had any idea what kind of unholy plan Qian Qi was cooking up, but at this point, they had no choice but to trust her—to believe she could lead the Magic Plant Department out of humiliation and wash off the “trash” label.
Somehow, without anyone noticing when it happened, the Magic Plant Department students had started carrying a strange, irrational confidence in Qian Qi.
Maybe because she’d never lost a fight.
But not everyone believed.
Chen Miao Miao certainly didn’t.
“Are you out of your mind?!”
When she heard about the bet, Chen Miao Miao’s face twisted with disgust and fury. “If you want to kneel and scream ‘trash,’ then go do it! Don’t drag me with you! I never agreed!”
Qian Qi studied her, rubbing her chin. Then she nodded with sincere agreement. “You’re right. We can’t drag you in.”
After all, when she taught the others how to grow Fire Qilin Lotus, she couldn’t let Chen Miao Miao pick up benefits for free.
She needed a way to make Chen Miao Miao disappear for a while.
And then Qian Qi remembered something.
The pass that had gone missing from her closet—again.
Her grin, which had faded, crawled back onto her face like a shadow.
“Tomorrow, I’ll go to the Magic Plant Research Institute and ask Director Li to think of something,” she said, loud enough to carry. “Last time my pass got lost, I couldn’t even get in. What a shame~”
With that, Qian Qi stretched, climbed into bed, and sprawled out happily.
Across the room, Chen Miao Miao’s eyes flickered. The corner of her mouth lifted—just a hair—into a cold little smile.
Director Li?
In your dreams.