Chapter 94

Ji Qing ordered a serving of hot-and-sour beef rice, exactly to his taste.

What he especially liked about the school cafeteria was how cheap it was, the sharp sour-and-spicy flavor of the beef, and the small dish of spicy pickles the vendor always threw in. Ji Qing thought happily: Right now, nothing is more important than eating. But before that...

“Is something on your mind?”

Resting his chin on one hand, Ji Qing looked expressionlessly at Xie Chang’an, who was staring blankly from across the table.

Xie Chang’an jolted at the question.

Perhaps because Ji Qing had caught him too many times during the Winter Break Practicum, Xie Chang’an immediately shook his head like a rattle-drum. “I wasn’t peeking at you, Valedictorian, and I wasn’t thinking anything I shouldn’t! I was just worried about Lingxue! Really, I mean it!”

Ji Qing fell silent. “...”

He had not even said anything, had he? Was it his tone? Ji Qing wondered uncertainly. Surely he had not traumatized Xie Chang’an that badly. It really should not have come to that, right?

So Ji Qing frowned. “I’m not that frightening, am I?”

“Of... of course you aren’t.”

Ji Qing raised a brow. “Then why does that sound so unconvincing?”

“All right. You are a little.”

Ji Qing let out a casual hum. “Mm?”

So that was how he seemed in Xie Chang’an’s eyes—hard to approach. Ji Qing found it rather amusing. Yet just as he was about to change the subject, Xie Chang’an, having misunderstood what he meant, hurriedly added timidly, “All right. A lot.”

Ji Qing was instantly rendered speechless. “...”

This was no longer a matter of being merely “hard to approach.” It had reached the level of being “impossible to get along with.” Ji Qing had a feeling that whatever image of him as a warm, considerate guy once existed had probably already shattered into pieces on the Manga Forum, completely replaced by that of a perpetually gloomy great demon king.

It was deeply exasperating.

Rubbing between his brows in vexation, Ji Qing had never expected his relationship with Xie Chang’an to end up in such a state. It seemed the idea of inviting himself over to Xie Chang’an’s home for a meal of dumplings would have to be shelved for now.

“I wonder if I may intrude for a moment?”

Just as the two of them had fallen into a stalemate, a third voice broke the silence.

Ji Qing looked up and saw Lu Qingyin standing before him. This was the first time he had seen the young lady of the Lu Family in person. Before this, he had only seen her through the manga or through livestreams of the school competition.

What the screen had conveyed was nowhere near as striking as seeing her with his own eyes.

From Lu Qingyin, Ji Qing could feel the graceful bearing born of centuries of refinement within a Prestigious Noble Family. She was not in uniform today. Having just arrived to register, she wore a beige cashmere coat, with an elegant black purse at her waist, while a musical-note hairpin she was especially fond of still rested in her hair.

“Of course.” Ji Qing nodded amiably.

After glancing over the nearby seats, Lu Qingyin politely sat down beside Ji Qing. The brown-haired girl went straight to the point. “I saw Lingxue this morning, but she seemed to be in a bad mood. Do either of you know what happened?”

As expected, it was because of Gu Lingxue.

Though many things had happened last semester, their friendship had not been affected. For someone from Class A like Lu Qingyin to take the initiative to ask a Class S student about something, the reason could only lie with Gu Lingxue.

Xie Chang’an looked conflicted. “I don’t know whether I’m allowed to say...”

Unlike the hesitant Xie Chang’an, Ji Qing answered bluntly. “Her parents came to school.”

“Her parents?” Lu Qingyin blinked in confusion.

Born into a musical family that was also a family of ability users, she could not understand the meaning behind those words. Lu Qingyin wondered in confusion: What connection could there be between “her parents came to school” and “Gu Lingxue is in a bad mood”? Shouldn’t she be happy instead?

So Ji Qing explained, “Her parents don’t support her studying here. They’re probably still arguing with the teacher right now.”

“Ah?” Lu Qingyin’s eyes widened in surprise, clearly caught off guard. But her expression quickly returned to its usual composed dignity, and she frowned as she murmured, “Surely not? How can parents that foolish exist?”

Halfway through, Lu Qingyin quickly covered her mouth. “Oh, no... I should say they simply fail to see matters clearly.”

No wonder Gu Lingxue had not greeted her when they met earlier. Lu Qingyin thought with mixed feelings that Gu Lingxue had probably had no mind to spare for anyone around her at the time. Although Gu Lingxue had once confided some family troubles to her, she had never imagined it would be this absurd.

Lu Qingyin sighed softly. “Having parents like that truly puts her in a difficult position.”

Beside them, Xie Chang’an listened to the conversation in silence.

Gu Lingxue had once warned him not to tell anyone else, so Xie Chang’an would never have volunteered the information himself. But the two people speaking before him had clearly already stepped outside the bounds of Gu Lingxue’s prohibition. With a bitter smile, Xie Chang’an thought: Lingxue... I can’t save you this time...

But there was something Xie Chang’an was genuinely curious about.

So he probed tentatively, “Neither of you agrees with Lingxue’s parents?”

“Isn’t that only natural?” Ji Qing turned his head, puzzled.

“What’s strange about that?” Lu Qingyin tilted her head.

“Uh...” Suddenly catching both their gazes, Xie Chang’an became inexplicably nervous. The two people before him had both had conflicts with him before, and at that moment, Xie Chang’an felt as though he were standing at the edge of a cliff. One misstep, and he would plunge straight down.

He forced himself to remain calm. “Because the adults we know in Spring City don’t really approve of what Lingxue is doing...”

Xie Chang’an spoke very slowly, but the more Ji Qing listened, the more deeply he frowned.

Subconsciously, he glanced at Lu Qingyin beside him, only to see her face full of disapproval. “Then I think there may be something wrong with the environment you grew up in. Although I don’t support Lingxue advancing to Class S either, I have never believed that studying at an Ability High School is a problem.”

“Lingxue’s Ability potential is very strong,” Lu Qingyin stressed. “If it weren’t, she could never have become my roommate. All Ability High Schools assign dormitories according to students’ Ability potential. The reason Lingxue failed to place well in the Individual Competition was simply that she lacks real combat experience.”

“And more importantly...”

Lu Qingyin said softly, “We cannot count on being rescued every time danger strikes. There are too many dangers in the wasteland. Rather than waiting for others to save us, it is better to become someone who can save others.”

That was true indeed. Ji Qing nodded in approval.

If they were not living in the wasteland, Gu Lingxue’s parents would indeed have had a point. The world Ji Qing had grown up in held to the same belief: children should not be made to face danger, nor should they be the ones deciding the course of their own lives.

Before a child reached adulthood, parents had a duty to care for them, guide them, and even restrain them when necessary.

But that was only under one premise: that Gu Lingxue was not living in a crisis-ridden wasteland.

People in the wasteland did not enjoy the same average lifespan as those in the normal world, which meant the expected ages for work and marriage had dropped accordingly. During his wandering over winter break, Ji Qing had met many people his own age—or even younger—already struggling to make a living.

Most of them lived with the risk of death hanging over them at every moment.

You could die on a train. You could run into Aberrants outside the city. Inside the city, you could still encounter Infected or Aberrants... whether rich or poor, no one could entirely avoid such dangers. Those standing at the top of the wasteland’s class pyramid could protect their safety through hired guards or paid commissions, but danger was still danger.

Besides, the higher one stood, the farther one could see—and the more dangers one could foresee.

Learning to use one’s own Ability was like placing one final layer of insurance on oneself in the face of disaster. The difference between waiting for rescue, waiting for whatever news might come, and being able to save oneself—save one’s family and save one’s friends—was far more than a minor one.

“Ability is a stepping stone toward a broader future,” Ji Qing said calmly. “I don’t think anyone who has awakened an Ability would willingly accept a life as an ordinary person. There is a world of difference between ‘I could have’ and ‘I can.’”

“Wasn’t that why you came here to study in the first place?”

Xie Chang’an froze.

Ji Qing’s words brought sudden clarity to him. Xie Chang’an had never thought about it that way before, for one simple reason: Gu Lingxue had a choice, while Xie Chang’an did not. Gu Lingxue came from a wealthy family and had both parents. Even if she had never enrolled, she still could have lived a safe and comfortable life.

But Xie Chang’an was different...

He had grown up in an Orphanage, with no father and no mother. If the police of Spring City had not recommended him for school, he might already have been doing hard labor at the bottom of society.

The Orphanage had no obligation to pay for him to attend a Regular High School, and Xie Chang’an did not want that either. But an Ability High School was an exception. It was a road with a future ahead of it, and both he and the Orphanage understood that after graduating from an Ability High School, he could have a far broader future than the one he had before.

—even if it was as an F-rank Ability user.

But Ji Qing’s words had clearly pointed out the thing Xie Chang’an had overlooked before. If ability users like them were truly content to accept things as they were, then so many people would not have enrolled in Class F in the first place, nor would so many have withdrawn afterward. It was precisely because they refused to accept mediocrity that they came here to study.

Xie Chang’an was unwilling to accept mediocrity too, which was why, despite all the hostility he had faced, he still remained here at school.

“Looks like I was thinking far too little,” Xie Chang’an murmured.

In that moment, he suddenly found the point where he and Gu Lingxue were alike. And because the adults of Spring City had no Abilities, they had never been able to understand that unwillingness. Xie Chang’an thought that he might have found a way to help Lingxue.

Watching Xie Chang’an suddenly fall silent, Ji Qing gave him a few puzzled glances.

He did not think he had said anything especially revelatory. He had only stated a truth that had always existed. Still, Ji Qing noticed that Lu Qingyin’s attitude toward Xie Chang’an had softened quite a bit, perhaps influenced by the Individual Competition as well.

Those children of the great families all seemed to believe in the supremacy of strength.

Without quite knowing why, Ji Qing recalled Shao Huayu teasing him during the Ability test. Before that, Shao Huayu had been so proud as to be hard to approach. Afterward, he had become much easier to get along with.

One could count that as a characteristic of the great families, Ji Qing thought with inward amusement.

But now that the conversation had reached this point, it was time for Ji Qing to make his exit.

He had no desire to get dragged into the Gu family’s domestic dispute. Gu Lingxue and Xie Chang’an could be the ones to worry about it.