Chapter 26: Call Her Sister Ling

Ding Ling had no idea yet that the military’s Special Incidents Investigation Division had already flagged her as a Blue-level threat.

As soon as she returned to the classroom, Zhang Tianyu cautiously tested the waters. “Just now… a military vehicle was parked in front of the classroom building. That had nothing to do with you, right?”

Yi Ang had been the first to recognize the license plate, his expression darkening. “A military vehicle?”

Zhang Tianyu leaned toward the window to look, and it really was.

The moment the military vehicle arrived, Ding Ling had been called away. As soon as it drove off, Ding Ling returned to the classroom moments later.

Zhang Tianyu was completely stunned. Did her selling goods on Xuanyuan Street actually draw the military’s attention? If that were true, he would genuinely have to start calling her Sister Ling from now on.

Ding Ling said nothing.

Not denying it meant admitting it.

Yi Ang stood up, kicked his desk and chair aside, and walked out. Zhang Tianyu called after him, “Class is about to start! Where are you going?”

“The rooftop.” To smoke.

Without a second thought, Zhang Tianyu followed right behind him.

As the class bell rang, Wu Yongli walked into the classroom carrying his mug. Seeing only three students in the room, he did not bother asking a single question.

“Class rep, record the homework scores and pass them back out.” Wu Yongli finished speaking, only to realize he had not chosen a class representative yet, so he casually pointed at Yao Beibei.

Yao Beibei sat up straight, never imagining that a day would come in her life where she became the class representative!

Dazed, she walked up to the podium, picked up the thin stack of notebooks, and returned to her desk. She selected the prettiest notebook and neatly wrote down her classmates’ names.

She recorded her own score first: 70 points. Beibei was quite pleased with that.

Zhang Tianyu and Yi Ang’s homework assignments were complete copy-pastes of each other, right down to the exact same spelling errors.

On Zhang Tianyu’s copy, he had written the top radical of Yi Ang’s surname in the name blank, crossed it out, and then written “Zhang” instead. He had not even bothered to tear out the page and rewrite it, as if afraid Teacher Wu would fail to notice.

Both were failing grades.

Looking at it this way, Yao Beibei felt that if anyone was cut out to be the class representative, it truly had to be her.

Ding Ling had conscientiously written a full eight hundred words using her left hand, and Teacher Wu had graded it just as conscientiously. However, there were too many characters he did not recognize, so in the end, he settled on sixty points, giving her a passing mark out of courtesy.

Yao Beibei flipped to Zhou Ziyue’s homework: 92. Why had Teacher Wu not made Zhou Ziyue the class representative?

“Let’s continue and talk about the cultivation history of various nations.” Wu Yongli pulled up a chair again, sat down, took a sip of his pangdahai tea^[1], and began the day’s lecture. “Cultivation in our nation is supported by various historical texts handed down through the generations, such as Buddhist, Daoist, and so on. The West is divided into two factions: one consists of wizards and witches, who refer to it as magic.”

“The other faction consists of ability users, who call their powers superpowers.”

“A few small neighboring nations have preserved ninjutsu.”

“Then there is another ethnic group that claims to be the true source of Eastern cultivation. In other words, whatever our nation has, their nation has too, and whatever our nation lacks, their nation also claims to have.”

Wu Yongli placed the lid back on his teacup and chuckled dryly. “At present, that claim is unsupported by any theoretical or factual data, and it is not recognized by the United Nations.”

…

After modern cultivation history ended, Teacher Wu assigned another eight-hundred-word essay titled 《The Differences Among Cultivators of Various Nations》. When Yao Beibei handed out the notebooks, Zhou Ziyue shot her a sharp glare.

Beibei felt a little guilty. Her score had been low, yet she was the one made class representative.

But it was not as if she had asked for it; Teacher Wu had assigned her. This guy had made sarcastic remarks at her several times already, so Beibei muttered back under her breath, “What are you looking at?”

Zhou Ziyue’s eyelid twitched. The word “idiot” had barely left his lips when Ding Ling’s peripheral gaze swept across his face.

Zhou Ziyue had overheard Zhang Tianyu and Yi Ang’s earlier conversation. Those two were actually still guessing whether Ding Ling had anything to do with the military’s visit, when it was blatantly obvious they were connected!

In the entire school, Ding Ling was the very last person he wanted to provoke.

Consider Yao Beibei lucky.

“I’m sorry,” Zhou Ziyue apologized, lowering his head.

“Huh? Oh, it’s fine.” Yao Beibei had no idea why he was apologizing, but since he did, they could just remain normal classmates.

Ding Ling withdrew her gaze with satisfaction.

This weekend, she would spend one day selling goods and one day taking Beibei shopping.

The weekend arrived in no time. Beibei invited Ding Ling once more: “Come have dinner at my house! Since I became class rep, my parents want to reward me!”

Not just cultivation history, she was also the class representative for Talisman Studies as well as Herbal and Spiritual Plant Studies, the academic star of Class F!

Ever since she started school at age seven, she had never enjoyed such prestige.

Mother Yao even wanted to book a few banquet tables at a hotel so all the relatives would know her daughter was achieving great things.

“Not going,” Ding Ling refused once again. “Sunday at nine, meet me at the school gates.”

“Huh? What for?” Beibei was not particularly eager to return to school early.

“Going to the mall.”

“Really? Yes, absolutely!” Beibei nodded repeatedly. She wished Sunday would come right this second so she could go shopping with Ding Ling! Had Ding Ling ever gone shopping before? In that case, she would definitely need to plan everything out!

Father Yao came to pick up his daughter with milk tea in hand, praising her for studying so hard, and asked, “Is your roommate studying hard in the dorm right now too?”

Beibei sipped her milk tea and chewed on the pearls. Mm, she’s working very hard.

Ding Ling had practically worn out the pages of those comic books from flipping through them so much. Beibei had no idea what was so interesting about them, but she hoped Ding Ling would not actually tear them apart, since they had been borrowed using her library card.

The children’s books were straightforward and easy to understand, retaining only the core points just like the stories on the learning machine.

Ding Ling finished reading all of them in short order. Naturally, these pages contained no secret arts or incantations on how to fashion a body out of lotus roots.

Yet the underlying principle remained the same: heavenly treasures and miraculous elixirs.

The reason she had read them so many times was also because Taiyi Zhenren gave her a sense of warmth and familiarity.

When his disciple was in peril, he saved his life. When his disciple went to beat someone up, he handed over magical treasures. Fearing that his disciple’s two hands and two feet would not be enough, he even crafted three heads and six arms for him.

That old man Taiyi was truly fiercely protective of his own.

Ding Ling smiled after finishing them, though a faint touch of melancholy crept in afterward. It felt as though, a very long time ago, she too had known someone just like that.

She placed the two books in the most prominent spot on her desk, packed the pills and spiritual plants into her backpack, and prepared to go find Sister Hong.

Since Beibei had taken the small sequin bag, Ding Ling dressed in a black long-sleeved tracksuit, pulled the zipper all the way up to the tip of her nose, pressed a peaked cap down to her eyebrows, and stepped out the door carrying her bulging backpack.

Familiar with the route, she boarded the No. 77 bus and cut through the narrow alleys to Sister Hong’s shop.

Along the way, everyone looked at her curiously. Last time had been because of her strange clothes, but what was it this time? Ding Ling was rather puzzled.

She pushed open the door to Sister Hong’s shop, and Sister Hong’s lazy voice drifted out from behind the counter. “Buying or selling?”

Ding Ling walked up to the counter, unzipped her backpack, and took out the spiritual plants. “I’m here to deliver the goods.”

Only then did Sister Hong look up, recognizing Ding Ling by her voice.

Judging by the getup, she had thought it was some young man dressed so sneakily. Sister Hong had just been thinking that whatever the person brought out, she would drive the price down.

Even after driving down the price, she was still the fairest dealer on this street.

“How were you so fast?” Sister Hong asked in surprise.

What she had given her were seeds for Golden Lantern Fruit. This spiritual plant could only be harvested once, and everything from its roots to its fruit could be used in medicine. It was one of the highest-volume herbs circulating on the black market, the fundamental ingredient for Golden Spear Pills^[2].

High volume made it easiest to offload; they could sell it right next door on Women’s Street.

Sister Hong brought out that testing machine again, spot-checked a few, and asked, “Can you grow these in batches?”

“No.” This spiritual plant could not be grown in Greenhouse No. 1 and could only be quietly cultivated on her dorm balcony. Golden Lantern Fruit glowed brilliantly at night, and if anyone spotted it, things would get troublesome.

Sister Hong grew increasingly curious about the young girl. “If you don’t have a place to stay, I can set you up with one. If you just focus on growing these, we’ll both make a fortune.”

“Thank you, but I have a place to stay.”

Sister Hong shrugged, not pressing the matter, and prepared to quote a price.

Ding Ling then asked, “Do you buy medicinal pills?” She was keeping the purple one for herself, planning to take it at the precise hour.

The red and orange ones, she planned to sell.

The money earned from these should be enough to gather the materials for the Soul-Nourishing Pill. Other gold, silver, and spirit stones were easy to find, but there was one ingredient she had never seen on the market.

Soul Returning Grass.

Sister Hong picked up a small glass vial, staring at the red pill inside. “You’re an alchemist?”

Ding Ling shook her head. “No.” She was not skilled in alchemy and could not call herself an alchemist.

“Then you’re selling this for someone else?” There was no way she could be skilled in both cultivation and alchemy all on her own, right? If there really was an alchemist behind this, that was a massive treasure.

Sister Hong guessed that two people had probably traveled to the Central Continent together, one growing herbs and the other refining pills.

“Do you have more pills like this? If I provide the ingredients, can you deliver the pills?”

Ding Ling did not agree right away. “The cauldron exploded. It needs to be replaced, so I can’t guarantee a delivery time.”

“That’s nothing! You just wait, I’ll have someone bring you the best one!” Sister Hong beamed with joy. This was truly a meat pie falling from the sky; she was going to strike it rich!

“I don’t want a cauldron.”

“Then what do you want?” If she didn’t want a cauldron, that meant she had something specific in mind.

“Looking for a place to settle down? A residence permit?”

Over the past few months, countless people had flooded in from the Four Polar Continents, making Xuanyuan Street increasingly crowded. If one could secure a residence permit, their living conditions would improve a bit, and they could find formal work.

Seeing how young Ding Ling was, crossing mountains and seas in her teens to scrape a living, Sister Hong said, “Are you and that friend of yours clean? If your records are clean, getting permits sorted is just a matter of a single word.”

“Not only can I get permits for both of you, but I can also send you to test for certificates. Qualification certificates for farming and alchemy are in huge demand out there right now. If you’re lucky, you two might even get to eat from the government’s bowl^[3].”

In the future, the government bowl would be the true golden rice bowl.

“If I didn’t see how young you are, I might not have told you this.”

Sister Hong recalled when she had first arrived in the Central Continent. If someone had given her a few pointers back then, she wouldn’t have taken so many detours.

Instead of tricking this money tree into staying in her grasp, she was pointing Ding Ling toward a clear path. That was enough good karma to fulfill months of merit.

If this girl really did manage to eat from the government’s bowl in the future, Sister Hong could draw on the connection and ask for a favor whenever trouble arose.

Ding Ling fished a piece of paper from her pocket. Sister Hong took it, but at first glance, she couldn’t make out what was written.

She held it up to the light bulb for quite a while before she could read it clearly.

“You want Soul Returning Grass?”

“Yes.”

“How much do you need?”

“A lot.”

Sister Hong studied her closely. “What do you need it for?”

Ding Ling didn’t speak, merely extending a charred fingertip from her sleeve.

“You’re quite something, little girl.” Sister Hong cracked open a can of beer and gulped down several mouthfuls. “If you need a lot, even I can’t help. Your only option is to take on missions.”

Government-issued missions were on the White Board, while black market missions were on the Black Board.

“Complete missions, and you can trade for what you want.”