Chapter 14: Remember This Badge

“Then… what about our class?” Yao Beibei had wanted to say Class F, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it.

A Class was gold, B Class was silver, and Classes C and D were bronze.

Only Class F’s badge was black, and the notice hadn’t even mentioned it.

Yao Beibei clutched the black badge, her eyes red, reluctant to pin it on. But the notice said that anyone caught not wearing their class badge would have points deducted, and points were tied to the spirit stones distributed by the school.

From now on, buying things at the school store would require spirit stones…

This wasn’t a class badge at all! It was a badge of rank!

Wearing it was telling everyone that Class F was at the very bottom tier of students.

“No wonder Teacher Wu didn’t let us listen to the broadcast earlier. Was he afraid we’d feel bad?” Yao Beibei sniffled.

Zhang Tianyu hadn’t previously felt that he and these classmates formed any kind of collective. Yi Ang had fought alongside him, so they were brothers. But seeing Yao Beibei on the verge of tears now, a tiny bit of classmate affection suddenly welled up inside him, making him want to comfort her.

Zhou Ziyue let out a cold snort at Yao Beibei. “Childish.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The one who spoke wasn’t Yao Beibei, but Zhang Tianyu.

Zhou Ziyue didn’t dare speak harshly to Zhang Tianyu, so he didn’t dare say another word.

That tiny bit of classmate affection that had just welled up in Zhang Tianyu vanished in an instant. He badly wanted to teach Zhou Ziyue what it meant to “speak properly.”

Yao Beibei picked up the badge, walked over to Ding Ling, and told her about the notice.

Ding Ling was crouched down, tending to the few small seedlings in her plot. When choosing spiritual plants, she had deliberately selected several varieties with the best healing properties.

As soon as Teacher Miao saw her loosening the soil and sowing seeds, he knew Ding Ling had a foundation. “These varieties are all quite difficult to cultivate. You…” Catching sight of Ding Ling’s arm, he changed his tune. “Give them a try. If you really manage to grow them, Teacher will reward you.”

“If they grow, they’re mine.”

Teacher Miao smiled. “Sure. Whatever grows from this plot belongs to you.”

Only then did Ding Ling secure this palm-sized plot of land in Greenhouse No. 1.

Teacher Miao also gave Ding Ling the fertilizer he had mixed himself. “I prepared this myself. You can test them separately, using fertilizer on one plant and none on another, to see how it works.”

“All right.” Ding Ling nodded.

Teacher Miao sometimes felt as though he wasn’t speaking to a student. She seemed to have her own methods, deliberately choosing which spiritual plants to cultivate alone and which to plant side by side.

Some of her arrangements were patterns even he didn’t understand.

It was as if his words were merely suggestions to Ding Ling; whether she listened depended entirely on whether she was willing.

Yet looking at Ding Ling’s thin, frail figure and remembering that her spiritual root was ruined, he realized that if she had discarded even this shred of pride and self-respect, she wouldn’t be standing here today.

After watering the spiritual plants, Ding Ling turned her head and saw Yao Beibei standing behind her with red eyes.

It reminded her of the little rabbits she had once raised in the Sanqing Sect. Nest after nest of snow-white rabbits, which, once fattened up, became the meal on the platter for the Sanqing Sect Fifth Elder’s fire-breathing spirit beast.

Having been kept by humans for a long time, that beast preferred cooked food.

It loved roasted meat best. When live rabbits were brought to it, it would first breathe a burst of flame to singe off the fur. Then it would breathe fire again, roasting them completely before swallowing them down one by one.

The Fifth Elder doted on this fire-breathing beast immensely, to the point where even the plates used to hold the rabbit bones were carved from green jade.

When Ding Ling raised those rabbits, she had no idea she was raising rations for a beast.

She had taken meticulous care of those fluffy white creatures. The moon-gazing sand^[1] they produced was of top quality, and every time, she had been able to trade it at the medicine shop at the foot of the mountain for quite a few spirit stones.

She had even given names to her favorites. The one she often kept by her side had gradually begun to understand her words, seeming on the verge of awakening spiritual awareness.

When she finally learned what the rabbits she raised were used for, she had stood before the cages for a long time, motionless.

One day after that, the Fifth Elder’s fire-breathing beast suddenly turned vegetarian.

She couldn’t control what happened to other rabbits, but the rabbits she raised, she would protect.

“What is it?” Ding Ling asked, lifting her trowel.

Yao Beibei told her everything in a small voice, afraid that if she spoke any louder, the people from A Class would hear.

“Just that?” Ding Ling’s gaze returned to the spiritual plants. “What of it?”

“How does it not matter?” Yao Beibei was astonished. She hadn’t expected Ding Ling to be this kind of person; it didn’t seem right.

“You can become stronger.” Ding Ling reached out to gently touch the newly sprouted leaves. Under the streaming light, the fresh green looked like thin jade.

“And then move up a class?”

Ding Ling took the black F badge from Yao Beibei’s hand and pinned it to her chest with one hand.

Yao Beibei stared at Ding Ling in disbelief. Although she couldn’t put it into words, she had always felt Ding Ling wouldn’t be like this, that she wouldn’t just accept it!

If she were willing to accept defeat, she would have taken the Ye family’s massive compensation, returned to Nanzhou, lived as an ordinary person, and…

“Make the rules change for you.” Make everyone acknowledge that F was the strongest.