Chapter 27: Codename F

“How do I take them?”

Only after becoming an outer disciple of the Sanqing Sect did Ding Ling gain the official status needed to accept tasks at the Xuanji Pavilion. Back then, she often took odd jobs to earn a few spirit stones.

Whether it was gathering spiritual herbs or hunting fierce beasts, the pay was determined by the difficulty of obtaining them.

Usually, these tasks were posted by alchemists or blacksmiths.

They needed materials for alchemy and forging, but being delicate and lacking sufficient cultivation, they posted tasks in the pavilion for martial cultivators to gather the materials instead. The rewards included gold, silver, spirit stones, spiritual medicines, and spiritual artifacts.

Aside from those kinds of tasks, Ding Ling had also taken bounties from the authorities.

Some targets were mortals, while others were cultivators who had committed crimes at some time and place. The government would offer a reward, or the local townsfolk would pool their money together to place a bounty on their heads.

Whenever she was nearby, Ding Ling would take these tasks, regardless of whether the bounty was generous or meager.

Did this world have a Xuanji Pavilion too?

Seeing that Ding Ling knew nothing at all, Sister Hong fretted, “Alright, alright. I’ll see this good deed through to the end and escort the Buddha all the way to the West^[1].”

She simply closed the shop doors, pulled out her phone, and taught Ding Ling step by step how to take missions.

“Look, this White Board is posted by the authorities.” Sister Hong was not from the Central Continent, so her phrasing occasionally differed from that of the locals. “Look closely. Once you open this website, everything on it is an official task posted by the government.”

“They’re all posted by the government, or like this one, by local police stations or police departments.”

There were missing persons searches, requests for clues to solve cases, and all sorts of other matters.

“Accepting White Board tasks requires identity verification.” Sister Hong figured Ding Ling did not have any ID. The massive wave of people flooding in from the Four Polar Continents looked just like refugees fleeing a disaster; the young girl and her friend had probably sneaked in illegally.

“By the way, are you an adult yet? You have to be of age for this.”

Ding Ling remained silent. Her current physical body was still half a month away from reaching adulthood. Even if she were of age, the government would never hire a student to carry out missions for them.

Sister Hong understood. After all that, the girl was still a minor.

Ding Ling glanced over the bounties on the official website. One of them was a fraud case involving a criminal surnamed Ouyang, with a bounty of only four spirit stones.

Sister Hong shrugged. “That’s how official bounties are. High rewards only come with major, critical cases, and ordinary people can’t handle those anyway. The military occasionally takes them.”

“The Black Board is far less particular. No verification, no age requirement, and it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man, woman, human, or beast.” As long as you completed it, you received the money and items.

“How do you accept and turn them in?”

Sister Hong asked, “Do you have a phone?”

Ding Ling shook her head again.

“You need to get a phone first so I can share the task group with you.”

“The task details, rewards, and handover times are all posted in the group. Pay close attention to the deadlines, because if you miss them, you won’t get your reward.”

Ding Ling asked, “Do you take tasks too, Sister Hong?”

From their very first meeting, she had seen that Sister Hong had no spiritual root.

Sister Hong smiled. “Since I run this shop, items bought at high prices have to be sold at high prices too. Occasionally, I take a few small tasks to collect pills, just to save up some spirit stones and earn a little extra cash.”

She did not feel embarrassed in the slightest. The vermilion fruits Ding Ling sold her last week had already been resold at a high price.

“Not just anyone can join these groups; you need a guarantor.”

Once in the group, bartering became much easier. Most people did not want spirit stones; they preferred trading goods for goods.

Sister Hong figured Ding Ling would only take small tasks involving spiritual plants or pills for now, so serving as her guarantor carried no pressure at all.

“Alright, take what you earned today and hurry off to buy a phone.”

She handed Ding Ling an address for buying second-hand phones and said with a beaming smile, “Save where you should, spend where you must. As for that Soul Returning Grass, I could only get my hands on one stalk. Do you want it?”

“Yes.”

Selling pills earned far more than selling raw spiritual plants. Ding Ling had made a handsome sum this time, leaving her with over thirty thousand even after deducting the cost of the Soul Returning Grass.

Only now did she realize that the golden lantern grass seeds Sister Hong had given her were contraband.

Sister Hong blushed slightly. “If I’d known earlier that you were an underage girl, I wouldn’t have let you grow that.”

“In the eyes of a grower, there is no high or low distinction among spiritual plants.” Just because it was used for aphrodisiac medicine did not give it any other meaning.

Sister Hong chuckled. “You really won’t grow it anymore? There’s huge demand for it.”

“I can’t grow it for now. It’s too conspicuous at night.”

It had taken quite an effort to appease Yao Beibei. Golden lantern grass was beautiful, and having never seen such contraband before, Yao Beibei had thought it was some extraordinary spiritual plant and had even watered it.

So her living situation made it inconvenient. Sister Hong nodded in understanding. “Alright. Whenever you have good stuff next time, come find me again.”

The things Ding Ling needed could not be gathered in a short time. Accepting tasks was one thing, but dealing in spiritual plants and herbs was a long-term business anyway, and Sister Hong certainly never ran a losing trade.

Sister Hong walked Ding Ling to the door. In the end, she still could not hold back. “Little sister, wearing all black in such hot weather…”

Last time she wore flashy, colorful clothes, and this time she was dressed like a fugitive. Did no one stare at her on the street?

“Dressing like this actually suits turning in tasks, but you really should find a way to get a bank card. Don’t carry so much cash on you.”

A card, a phone.

Ding Ling made a mental note of it.

The next day, carrying spirit stones, cash, and the secondhand phone she had bought from a used electronics shop, she stood at the school gate on time, waiting for Beibei.

At five past nine, Yao Beibei hopped out of a black car. Before she even reached Ding Ling, she began apologizing repeatedly, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry! It’s all my dad’s fault! He insisted on using the bathroom right before we left!”

She was nearly on the verge of tears with anxiety. How could she keep Ding Ling waiting?

“It’s fine. I haven’t been waiting long.”

“You’ve just been standing out here? Why didn’t you go into the security guardhouse to cool off?” Beibei pouted. “I’ll treat you to milk tea in a bit! What flavor do you like?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never had it.”

Guilt filled Beibei’s eyes as she looked at Ding Ling. Wrapping both arms around Ding Ling’s arm, she said, “No worries! Today, we’ll try everything worth eating and drinking, every single bit of it!”

She patted her little pink bag generously, ready to treat.

Just as the two were about to leave, Ding Ling stopped in her tracks. “Shouldn’t you say hello to your dad?” She understood at least this much about basic social etiquette.

Beibei looped her arm through Ding Ling’s uninjured one. “I’m not bothering with him.”

Father Yao had actually wanted to say hello, but he just couldn’t bring himself to get out of the car. Hadn’t his daughter said she was going shopping with her roommate? Was this roommate a boy or a girl?

Father Yao secretly took out his phone, snapped a photo of their backs, and sent it to his wife.

Mother Yao immediately placed a voice call. “Is our Beibei dating? What does the boy look like? Is he handsome?”

“That’s her roommate.”

“A sixteen-year-old girl is that tall?” Mother Yao marveled. Everything about Beibei was wonderful except that she was a bit on the short side. She would have to buy her daughter some calcium tablets.

Beibei also glanced sideways at Ding Ling, a little envious. “Did you grow taller again?”

“Seems so.”

Last night, just as the full moon began to wane, Ding Ling had taken that purple spirit pill at midnight, when spiritual energy was at its richest.

In a few more days, the black crust on her arm would peel off completely.

No. 1 High School was in Nancheng, and this was the first time Ding Ling had ever walked the streets of Nancheng.

Every few streets, new buildings were under construction. The greenery here was beautiful, and the streets were wide.

Ding Ling did not feel the heat, but every few meters along the street, umbrella-shaped magical artifacts taller than the pedestrians sprayed a cool mist to bring down the temperature.

Everyone who walked beneath the umbrellas felt instantly refreshed by the coolness.

Compared to the damp, gloomy congestion of North City, it felt like two entirely different worlds.

They took the subway to the largest commercial plaza.

“What do you want to look at?” Yao Beibei asked, sipping her milk tea.

The moment she spotted the milk tea shop, she had dashed over at top speed to buy a cup for Ding Ling: “Extra spiritual popping boba, please.” Each of these popping bobas contained a trace of spiritual energy.

Supposedly, they beautified and nourished the skin, so no matter how many sweet drinks you had, you wouldn’t break out in acne.

“What do you want to browse?” Ding Ling realized that across two lifetimes, this seemed to be her very first time strolling through a market with a fellow female cultivator.

Yao Beibei took another sip of milk tea. “Hmm, I want to look at everything.”

“All right.” Ding Ling nodded, holding her milk tea as she followed behind Beibei. From her higher vantage point, she gauged whether Beibei liked something based on her glances, movements, and facial expressions.

Yao Beibei browsed all along the way, looking at everything from plush toy dogs and strawberry-patterned dresses to all kinds of colorful trinkets.

After browsing for half the day, they had barbecue. When it came time to pay the bill, Yao Beibei scrambled to cover it, but Ding Ling held her back with one hand. “I’ll pay.”

“I ate six portions of meat. How could I let you pay the bill?”

Beibei thought that made some sense. Besides, Ding Ling was an alchemist now, and an A-rank scarlet pill ought to be worth quite a bit, so she let Ding Ling treat her for this meal.

After they returned to the dorm, Beibei took a shower and came back out, only to find her desk piled high with things.

A plush dog, the dress, rabbit-ear hair ties, watermelon-shaped earrings… and on top of all that, a brand-new spiritual hair dryer.

Those were really expensive. Her mother had one, and Beibei only got to use it when she went home.

“Th-These… did you buy all of this for me?” Yao Beibei could barely catch her breath as she tilted her head back to look at Ding Ling on the top bunk.

“Mm.” Ding Ling was already lying down, having drawn her bed curtain shut.

“How could I possibly take all this? How much was it in total? I’ll pay you back.”

What a shock! How could Ding Ling spend so much money on her? Not even her parents bought her everything she took a liking to on sight.

Yao Beibei muttered and fretted for a long time. Seeing that Ding Ling wasn’t responding, she started calculating the price of the pile herself, hoping her allowance would be enough to cover it.

With a swish, Ding Ling pulled open the bed curtain and said seriously, “Everything today is on me.”

Having said her piece, she drew the bed curtain closed again.

Yao Beibei was thoroughly stunned. She looked at the clothes, small bag, and hair accessories piled across the bed, then patted her cheeks.

Was this the legendary feeling of latching onto a wealthy benefactor^[2]?

Ding Ling opened her phone, tapped into 【Novice Mission Group One】, and began scrolling through the newly posted missions.

All newcomers joining the group had to take on a D-rank mission first. Completing one counted as making their start, after which they could choose higher-rank missions.

Each completed mission awarded corresponding points, and accumulating enough points unlocked the next mission pool.

She browsed the D-rank missions in the group.

【An old cat raised for twelve years has gone missing. Requesting help to find it. D-rank, bounty raised: five hundred spirit stones.】

People were chatting in the group.

“Hasn’t this mission been posted for a week already? Still nobody taken it?”

“A twelve-year-old cat might have just found a spot to wait out its final days.”

“It pays a lot of spirit stones, though. Five hundred of them. Anyone want to take it?”

“This is pretty easy. Just draw a tracking talisman.”

“Leave this kind of mission to the newcomers. Any newcomers today? What was their name again?”

“Yeah, called F.”

Ding Ling didn’t say anything. She still wasn’t very good at using a phone; it was much more complicated than a children’s learning machine.

When choosing her name, she had caught sight of the F badge on her school uniform and simply typed in an F.

“Then let F take it. Five hundred spirit stones isn’t bad for a first job.”

Ding Ling didn’t pay attention to what was said in the group; she was still familiarizing herself with how to use the phone.

Soon, a friend request chime sounded, and the sender had typed a line of text in the verification field:

【No need to add me as a friend. Just warning you: do not accept this mission.】