Chapter 12: An Enthusiastic Class

September 1st marked the official start of school.

A banner reading “Welcome New Students” hung across the large iron gates of Jiangcheng No. 1 Cultivation High School, while the giant screen in front of the teaching building scrolled through the freshman class placement list.

Students of No. 1 High School walked through the school gates in groups of three to five. An upperclassman stared at the giant screen, sounding hesitant: “…This year… there’s still a Class F?”

“Just how terrible does someone’s aptitude have to be?!”

To actually force the school to open a Class F, why even come here? Just go to the regular school next door and live as an ordinary person.

“Holy crap, for real, there actually is a Class F!”

Members of Ye Yiqing’s fan club spotted Ye Yibai’s name in the very first spot on the screen: “That’s God Qing^[1]‘s younger brother, right! As expected, first in A Class!”

“Do you think he looks like his brother? Should we wait around the cafeteria during lunch break to see?”

“For next year’s United Nations tournament, will Ye Yibai be leading the team?”

“No way, right? God Qing was nearly graduating when he led the team, but Ye Yibai is only sixteen. There’s no way he’ll be the leader.”

Beyond the news of Ye Yiqing’s younger brother, Ye Yibai, enrolling at No. 1 High School and the school’s addition of Class F, the students quickly drifted to other topics, chatting about the new dramas and variety shows they had watched over the summer break.

“Have you guys seen 《Let’s Cultivate Together》? The new guest this episode was definitely there just for comic relief, right?”

“I saw it, I saw it! Could this show ever invite God Qing? I’d definitely spend spirit stones to vote for him!”

“You must be joking too. What kind of show could possibly book someone from the Ye family?”

Which true old-money heir would ever appear on a variety show?

Yao Beibei caught bits of their conversation as she walked past several upperclass girls with her backpack. She really wanted to join the discussion, but as soon as she looked up, she saw the freshman placement list.

It felt like the banner reading “Welcome New Students” was a lie; the school didn’t seem to welcome her much at all.

Plucking up her courage, she looked closer: A Class still had ten students, Classes B, C, and D averaged twenty-seven to twenty-eight each, and Class F had a total of five.

Besides Ding Ling, there was Zhang Tianyu! Having explored the restricted cave together, they were somewhat acquainted, though Zhang Tianyu looked like someone you didn’t want to mess with, so Yao Beibei had rarely dared to speak to him.

She had no impression of the other two. Fortunately, she still had Ding Ling!

Yao Beibei let out a long sigh, entered the teaching building, walked down the long corridor, and arrived at the very last classroom.

A large “F” was written on the classroom door in thick, bold black. It was as if they were terrified people wouldn’t know this was the dead-last class in all of No. 1 High School.

Yao Beibei took another deep breath and pushed the classroom door open.

She was the second to arrive.

The first person to arrive was already seated: a very thin boy wearing a neat uniform with his shirt tucked into his suit trousers, sporting a pair of black-rimmed glasses.

Yao Beibei remembered! Wasn’t that… Zhou Ziyue? The guy who fought Cheng Lu for second place!

How could he be in Class F too?

Yao Beibei barely remembered him because he looked utterly ordinary and carried the solemn demeanor of an old man. She had thought he would at least be in B Class, yet he had fallen all the way into Class F!

“Hello, I’m Yao Beibei.”

Zhou Ziyue cast a contemptuous glance at her and completely ignored her.

Yao Beibei felt a little awkward. A thick tome was laid open on Zhou Ziyue’s desk. Yao Beibei took a quick glance, but couldn’t tell what kind of book it was at all.

This time Zhou Ziyue spoke: “Could you even understand it?”

Yao Beibei clenched her fists in anger! What a jerk! What was he acting so smug for? Wasn’t he stuck in Class F too?

Huffing with annoyance, she turned away, found a seat neither too far forward nor too far back, and took out her textbooks and pencil case.

Textbooks on the left, notebook on the right, pencil case in the middle, and pens of various colors lined up in a neat row.

Having finished all that, Yao Beibei craned her neck to watch the door again. Finally, the door swung open!

Zhang Tianyu and another boy walked in with their arms around each other’s shoulders.

Yao Beibei gasped softly. The two looked like they had just been in a fight; their clothes were rumpled, and Zhang Tianyu even had a few scrapes on his face.

Zhang Tianyu and Yi Ang had just gotten into a fight at the school gates with the upperclassmen who had sneered that since they were assigned to Class F, why even bother cultivating.

“Class F? What is that if not a gathering of fools?”

“Can even morons open a spiritual root these days?”

The moment Zhang Tianyu and Yi Ang entered the school gates, they heard that remark. They threw down their backpacks, charged right up, and beat the two upperclassmen down.

On their very first day of school, after listening to the principal’s speech, they would have to head straight to the dean of students’ office for a scolding.

Having only just met, the two were already fast brothers. The buddies picked seats in the very back row by the window, sitting one in front of the other.

“Zhang Tianyu, you really throw a vicious punch! That kid definitely won’t be able to eat for two days.”

“You weren’t bad yourself. We’ve got great synergy in a fight.” One grappled while the other struck, one attacked while the other defended, practically seamless.

The two upperclassmen hadn’t gained the slightest upper hand, beaten so badly by two freshmen that they couldn’t even stand up. It was humiliating enough for them.

Yao Beibei swore she would turn over a new leaf and be a model student.

She could never let herself be tainted by the degenerate atmosphere of Class F.

Starting today, she was going to study until her books fell apart!

Why wasn’t Ding Ling here yet?

She had specifically asked her mother to buy strawberry milk yesterday. Ding Ling might look cold and aloof, but she actually loved strawberry milk the most.

At the crack of dawn, Ding Ling had gone straight to Herb Shed No. 1.

She took off her shoes, rolled up her pant legs, and stood in the soil, digging, watering, and fertilizing.

She kept at it until Teacher Miao reminded her, “Student Ding Ling, if you don’t head to the classroom now, you won’t make it in time.”

Only then did she put on her shoes, sling her battered backpack over her shoulder, and head toward the teaching building.

Almost everyone had arrived, even Zhang Tianyu and Yi Ang. Ding Ling was the last freshman to show up.

The freshmen were all seated in their classrooms, and no one lingered in the hallways anymore.

Wherever she walked, absolute silence fell in an instant.

Ding Ling had mastered the Baby Literacy Handbook, but she had spent the past few days busily planting herself and hadn’t gotten around to opening Toddler Bubble English yet. She didn’t recognize English letters.

She stopped in front of A Class, fished the class placement slip from her pocket, and compared it with the letter sign beside the door to see if it was her classroom.

Ye Yibai was sitting in the back row of A Class.

Hearing rustling murmurs in the room, he looked up and saw Ding Ling standing right outside the door of A Class, staring intently at the capital letter A on the door sign.

His heart tightened involuntarily. Was Ding Ling finally here to pick a fight?

What was she going to do? Walk in and chew him out?

Ding Ling looked up, then looked down at her slip. The letter didn’t match, so she walked on.

The students in A Class had been darting their eyes back and forth between Ye Yibai and Ding Ling. Seeing her leave, they went back to pretending nothing had happened.

The Jiangcheng Ye family was indeed prominent, but there were other cultivation families as well. Though not quite as vast and influential as the Ye family, they could still catch wind of the rumors.

For instance, Ding Ling’s spiritual root had been ruined because of the protective talisman Ye Yibai wore.

Who would ever dare to be his teammate in the future?

Ye Yibai might still carry weight with people like Chen Li, but here, no one went out of their way to curry favor with him.

Ding Ling didn’t notice the stir in A Class at all. Having gotten the hang of it, she only paused briefly outside Class B, C, and D.

Each time she paused, the classroom would fall quiet enough to hear a pin drop, only to erupt in chatter the moment she walked away.

No matter how many times they saw them, those charcoal-black arms of hers were horrifying.

She went all the way to the last classroom. Right, this was the one.

Ding Ling pushed the door open and saw Yao Beibei.

Tears welled in Beibei’s eyes. “Ding Ling!” You’re finally here!

She had already wiped the desks twice, both her own and the one she had saved for Ding Ling.

She had rearranged the positions of her textbooks and notebooks twice, changed the layout of her correction tape and eraser several times, and just as she was about to lose her mind, Ding Ling finally showed up!

She was scared half to death. Three boys, and not a single one looked normal! Sitting in the classroom, she hadn’t even dared to breathe.

Ding Ling nodded to her and sat down in the seat Yao Beibei had cleaned for her.

Yao Beibei leaned over, just about to tell Ding Ling that the boys in the class had gotten into a fight on the very first day, but before she could speak, she let out a soft cry of surprise: “Y-You… your hair grew back!” And her eyebrows, too.

A buzz cut!

Ding Ling was naturally very fair-skinned. She used to have the soft curves of a teenage girl, but after getting injured, she had lost so much weight that those curves had completely vanished. Did she look a little taller, too?

Her school uniform hung loosely over her frame, zipped all the way up to her throat, paired with her newly grown buzz cut.

Ding Ling gave her head a shake. She had plenty of spiritual energy lately, and growing hair and eyebrows took barely any effort. Before she knew it, it had already grown a knuckle’s length.

“Hmm?”

Yao Beibei’s face flushed red all of a sudden. She hadn’t expected Ding Ling with a buzz cut to look… actually pretty handsome.

“What’s wrong?” Ding Ling asked, seeing the strange look on Yao Beibei’s face.

“N-Nothing, it’s nothing.”

She could hardly say that she had been struck by how handsome Ding Ling looked.

Just as Yao Beibei was stammering, at a loss for words, a round-faced fat man walked in.

His belly was even rounder than his face, and his belt could barely hold up his trousers.

Before saying a single word, he panted heavily, unscrewed his teacup to take a sip, and wiped his sweat back and forth with a frayed towel.

After wiping his face, he caught his breath for a good while before finally speaking. “This classroom is way too far from the office. My surname is Wu, Wu Yongli.”

“I am everyone’s homeroom teacher.”

If he hadn’t announced that he was Class F’s homeroom teacher, Yao Beibei would have thought he was Master Wang Number Two. How did he look anything like a homeroom teacher?

As expected, Class F really was a dumping ground. How could a homeroom teacher like this ever manage Class F?

“For our first lesson of the term, we’ll start with the history of cultivation.”

Ding Ling swept her gaze over Wu Yongli. He was not as weak as he made himself appear. Judging from his qi, he should be around the same level as Chen Dahai, not someone who would pant like this after walking a few steps.

He was putting on an act. Why?

The moment that question popped into her head, she heard Wu Yongli announce that he was about to start lecturing on the history of cultivation.

Ding Ling sat up straight. She was far too curious about this world.