Chapter 80
Chapter 80: You Can’t Even Size People Up, and You Want to Be a Security Guard?
Qian Qi was brushing her teeth when her light brain chimed. Little Wang.
“Big Shot, I heard you made a bet with Xu Jing. You good? Want me to help you get revenge?”
He sounded so hyped you’d think he was already swinging a stick.
“Oh, no need.” Qian Qi spat foam into the sink and chuckled. “I’ve always believed in winning people over with virtue. Not really into fighting.”
Then, like she’d remembered something as minor as running out of toothpaste, she added, “Besides Xu Jing, there’s Cheng Qi, Lv He Xin, and… a few other guys whose names I keep forgetting…”
“Lin Zheng. Chu Xi. Cai Wen Fei,” Little Wang supplied at lightning speed.
“Right, right, them too.” Qian Qi smiled like an angel with a savings account. “Tonight, grab a sack. Wait until it’s dead quiet. Beat them until they can’t get out of bed for three months.”
Little Wang went silent.
A beat.
“…Huh?”
So much for not liking fights. She just didn’t like doing the punching herself.
“Fine,” Little Wang said, recovering instantly. “Leave it to me.”
Then, more cautiously, “But… Big Shot. That bet. You really confident?”
Truthfully, he was dying to know how Qian Qi planned to get Magic Plant Department students to beat awakeners.
Part of him was convinced she’d brewed some new miracle potion.
It definitely wasn’t because he wanted to be the first customer.
Definitely not.
“This?” Qian Qi rinsed her mouth and grinned at the mirror. “Honestly, I’m not that confident.”
Little Wang’s heart sank.
“But it’s fine,” she went on, breezy. “If you throw enough money at a problem, most things work out.”
“You’re going to buy them armor and weapons?” Little Wang blurted.
“What? No!” Qian Qi looked offended on principle. “Do you know how much that costs? I’m poor, okay?!”
She wiped her mouth. “Anyway, I’m heading out. I might release a new potion later. When I do, you’ll be the first person I sell to.”
Little Wang practically vibrated through the call. “Big Shot, you’re too kind! I’ll wait for good news!”
He’d been waiting for that line. After hearing Qian Qi had auctioned defense fruit for over 120,000 a piece—and remembering he’d bought his own for 30,000—he’d made a firm life decision: cling to Qian Qi’s leg and never let go.
When the call ended, Qian Qi glanced at her roommate’s bed—the one that was already empty—and smiled.
“Cute little bed. Starting today, you get to guard an empty spot all by yourself.”
Humming, she left campus.
Meanwhile, inside the Magic Plant Research Institute’s security booth, a certain guard was buried in a novel, grinning at a classic trope.
You know the one: the “protagonist” gets invited to the Beast Tamer Association. He reaches the door and gets stopped by the security guard. The guard takes one look at the protagonist’s plain, worn clothes—and the lack of a beast-tamer badge on his chest—and immediately tells him to scram, mocking him as some broke nobody who doesn’t belong somewhere “noble.”
Then a D-rank beast tamer strolls over. The guard sees the D-rank badge and instantly transforms—smiling, bowing, sucking up so hard you can practically hear the slurping.
The protagonist scoffs.
And the security guard big brother reading the scene scoffs too. Not because he hated people who judged by status.
No—he hated that the guard couldn’t even tell who the real protagonist was.
With eyes like that, why even wear the uniform?
He was just about to read the inevitable face-slapping when someone knocked on the booth window.
He snapped his head up and hurriedly hid his light brain.
Outside stood a young girl—pretty, fresh-faced, clearly student age. She glanced past him toward the Institute entrance and asked, “I have a pass. Can I go in?”
“Let me see it.”
Relieved she wasn’t one of the Institute’s internal attendance enforcers, the guard held out his hand.
The girl was Chen Miao Miao. She pulled a pass from her backpack as carefully as if it were made of glass and placed it in his palm.
He scanned it. The indicator beeped green.
“This pass only lets you access certain areas,” he started to explain. “In a moment, a guard will escort you—”
He didn’t finish.
Because in the distance, he spotted someone approaching in flip-flops, swaggering along in a lazy sway like the world owed her rent.
Ah.
The “protagonist.”
The real one.
Security guard big brother abandoned Chen Miao Miao on the spot and practically sprinted forward. “Oh! Little Brother! What brings you here today? Our director talks about you all the time! Hey—can I get your contact info? Just in case I’m off-duty someday and you show up and some blind security guard refuses to open the gate for you. You message me, and I’ll open it myself!”
He rubbed his hands together, grinning so hard his cheeks hurt.
He despised the guard from the book—not for judging people by status, but for being so bad at it he couldn’t even recognize the protagonist.
Qian Qi eyed him, suspicious. In only a few days, why had he gotten this eager? Had he secretly leveled up his Flattery skill?
“I’m here to see the director about something,” Qian Qi said.
As she walked past Chen Miao Miao, her gaze slid over with lazy amusement. “Oh? Another guest today?”
“Yeah,” the guard said brightly.
Chen Miao Miao glared at Qian Qi, clutching the pass so tightly her knuckles went white. “What are you doing here? Without a pass, you can’t get in!”
She wasn’t scared of being exposed. The pass didn’t have a name on it—she could claim it was hers.
Even if Qian Qi made a scene in front of Director Li, Chen Miao Miao could always say she’d found it and came to return it.
Qian Qi widened her eyes. “Wow. Really?”
Then she turned to the guard, innocent as a kitten. “Security guard big brother, I don’t have a pass. Can I go in?”
The guard’s eyes lit up with feverish excitement.
It’s here.
The classic scene is here.
“Of course!” he declared, each word sharp and ringing. “Who are you? Even without a pass, you can go in!”
Chen Miao Miao watched, slack-jawed, as Qian Qi did a few exaggerated hops at the gate like she was showing off. Then Qian Qi stuck out her butt in Chen Miao Miao’s direction, let out a triumphant fart, and sprinted into the Institute laughing.
Chen Miao Miao’s teeth nearly shattered from how hard she clenched them.
That damn Qian Qi!
How was she anything like a woman?!
She was a full-blown psycho!
[You’re just letting her off like that?] System asked, glancing back at Chen Miao Miao’s furious face. [She stole your pass.]
“Sigh, System.” Qian Qi sounded like she was delivering ancient wisdom. “People should be kind.”
System stared.
Qian Qi kept her saintly expression and tapped open her light brain. “When you can let someone off, let them off. She only stole my pass, after all. It’s not like she tried to kill me.”
System: …
Maybe put the light brain down before you preach?
Because System watched—clearly, painfully—as the “kind” Qian Qi sent Director Li a message:
Director! I’m reporting under my real name that someone stole a pass and infiltrated the Magic Plant Research Institute! I suspect they’re plotting something harmful—like stealing the six-million-value Fire Qilin Lotus cultivation secrets!
Please send guards immediately and interrogate her with harsh methods for three full months!
Director Li received the message, went pale, and slammed his hand on the desk as he shot to his feet.
Who?
Which little bastard was trying to freeload his six million?!