Chapter 37: The Big Villa

Ding Ling asked Yao Beibei, “How much does a house cost in Jiangcheng?”

Yao Beibei was eating Master Wang’s specialty sea urchin dumplings. The sea urchin was top-grade, which Master Wang had “borrowed” from the A Class counter. Today, A Class was having sea urchin cold noodles with sashimi.

It was best eaten raw, but fearing that Vice Principal Gao and his patrolling teachers might spot it, Master Wang had scooped out the sea urchin meat, mixed it with minced pork and scrambled eggs, and wrapped it in hand-rolled dumpling skins to make dumplings for everyone in Class F.

Ding Ling still had that large stainless-steel bowl. Master Wang ladled two hefty scoops into it, filling the bowl with thirty dumplings, and called out to her, “Come get more if that’s not enough!”

Look at how well the kid was eating. In less than two months, she had already grown noticeably taller.

Growing kids needed plenty of nutrition. Tomorrow, Window A would have top-grade Nanzhou beef, and he had to find a way to get a cut of it to make braised beef brisket for the girls.

“It depends on where you want to buy. My mom says houses in Nancheng are getting more and more expensive. Luckily, she bought early.” Her mother had praised her for awakening her spiritual root at just the right time; if her daughter hadn’t awakened her spiritual root, they wouldn’t have even qualified to buy a home^[1] in Nancheng.

They had bought right before this wave of price hikes, and the relatives who missed out were dripping with envy whenever they spoke.

Mother Yao was especially proud: “Now that your dad’s side knows you awakened your spiritual root, none of them have anything to say!”

“Nancheng is expensive, and houses in North City seem to have gotten pricier lately too…” Beibei had only heard her mother chatter about it during dinner at home, saying property values were climbing across the board, and even rent had been skyrocketing recently.

“I don’t know the exact price, but I can ask for you when I go home! Are you looking to buy a house?”

“Yes,” Ding Ling nodded.

Others might have thought Ding Ling was boasting, but Yao Beibei believed that if Ding Ling had this plan, she could truly buy one.

After all, she was someone who could concoct supreme-grade purple pills using a second-hand pill furnace that looked like a rice cooker!

Over the three years they would be classmates, Ding Ling might really buy a house.

Class F’s dining table was tiny. Zhang Tianyu overheard from the side and leaned in. “Sister Ling, you want to buy a house in Jiangcheng?”

“Sister Ling” had started as a joke, but after saying it a few times, it rolled naturally off his tongue.

“You should ask me about this! Renting or buying, I know a thing or two about both.” Zhang Tianyu pulled his meal tray over and sat across from Yao Beibei.

“Do you know why North City’s housing prices went up recently too?”

Beibei shook her head. “Why?”

“A lot of people came over from the Four Polar Continents. The wealthy flew in by plane, while the poor came by boat.” Some had crossed over illegally as stowaways to work off the books, and almost all of them congregated in North City.

The tabloids called them new immigrants from the Four Polar Continents. The rich ones were naturally welcomed, while the poor did bottom-tier labor.

Zhang Tianyu knew Ding Ling still had relatives in Nanzhou, so he asked, “Are your family members planning to come too?”

Ding Ling said nothing.

“If your family is coming, it might be better to rent first. Buying a house is harder, after all.” Zhang Tianyu knew that Ding Ling hadn’t accepted compensation from the Ye family; almost everyone knew about it by now.

Yao Beibei was the one who had spread the word. When she went to fetch water from the boiler room, she happened to run into Su Xiaoya acting passive-aggressive again, saying how lucky Ding Ling was, and how someone from Nanzhou would take several lifetimes to save up for a house in Jiangcheng.

Yet Ding Ling had gotten one before even entering No. 1 High School.

Yao Beibei had been so furious that she slammed her washbasin down in front of Su Xiaoya, nearly getting into a fight. “Would you want it if it happened to you?! You… you!”

Whenever it came to arguing, her mind always drew a blank, leaving her so frustrated that she spent the entire night in her dorm replaying the scene to figure out how she should have cursed back.

Beibei didn’t want people to think Ding Ling had taken a huge settlement from the Ye family, so she went from dorm to dorm, handing out potato chips and spicy gluten^[2] here, candy and chocolate there, spreading the truth that Ding Ling hadn’t taken the Ye family’s compensation.

All the money Ding Ling spent had been earned by herself; she hadn’t taken a single fen^[3] from the Ye family!

Zhang Tianyu had guessed as much. Ding Ling had an unyielding backbone. He had once mentioned it to his father, who asked, “Is this that classmate you followed, the one you like?”

“Who said I liked her? And who said I followed her?!”

“The girl has real grit. Your taste isn’t bad at all, kid. Does she even look your way?”

Zhang Tianyu felt that the two of them might as well remain familiar strangers; having a heart-to-heart was utterly impossible.

“Renting?” She did indeed need to rent a place. She would be redeeming more and more items, and the space for refining pills was far too cramped.

A villa would be even better: she could grow spiritual plants in the garden, refine pills in the basement, and have open space to practice swordsmanship.

During that last close-quarters fight, she had relied on this body’s agility and nimbleness, likely honed from running through mountains and rivers back in Nanzhou, giving her a solid foundation. But swordsmanship required daily practice; while she could scrape by in a skirmish, she would show her weakness if she encountered a true expert.

“Are there any villas on the outskirts of the city? Somewhere farther out, with more space?”

Zhang Tianyu nodded along. When he heard “outskirts,” he kept nodding; right, Ding Ling definitely didn’t have much money right now, so if she wanted to rent a place, it had to be somewhere distant and remote.

Who would have thought her next words would be about renting a villa?

What on earth had she sold on Xuanyuan Street that let her afford a villa already?

Yi Ang was absentminded. Sitting next to Zhang Tianyu, he scrolled through his phone, occasionally checking 【Mission Group One】.

Even though F had advanced, she could still accept missions in Mission Group One if anything caught her eye.

Everyone was still discussing the pill furnace F had redeemed, buzzing over the fact that a big boss capable of fighting higher-level beasts also knew how to refine pills.

Someone tagged Yi Ang again: “Sell it to us so we can see! We’re all group members here, don’t hold out on us.”

“If five or ten points won’t cut it, how about I offer fifty points?”

“You want to buy it outright for fifty points and then resell it for five or ten points a view? You think he’s stupid?”

Despite all the commotion, F never came back online.

Yi Ang suddenly flipped his phone face down and looked at Zhou Ziyue. “What are you doing?”

Zhou Ziyue’s face flushed crimson. “Nothing, I was just listening to you guys talk.” With that, he grabbed his tray and hurried away.

“What’s wrong?” Zhang Tianyu asked.

“That guy was acting sneaky.”

“Hasn’t he always been like that?” Zhang Tianyu turned to Ding Ling. “Tell you what, I’ll find a real estate agent I know. I guarantee they won’t rip you off.”

Zhou Ziyue returned his meal tray to the window and deliberately took a detour back to the teaching building, but he was intercepted the moment he stepped outside.

Flanked on either side, two boys grabbed him by the arms and dragged him into the alley behind the cafeteria. “What are you running for?”

Chen Li stepped out from around the corner. “What, scared of me? How many days have you been hiding like a rat? Zhou Ziyue, monthly exams^[4] are this week. Have you made up your mind?”

“Do you really want to stay in Class F your whole life? Just give me what I want, and I’ll give you the monthly exam questions.”

Chen Li still looked sickly pale, his hand wrapped in white gauze.

Zhou Ziyue could sense wisps of cursed aura constantly leaking from beneath the wrapped gauze.

He gasped and trembled as he backed away, only for one of the boys to shove him forward.

Zhou Ziyue’s glasses fell to the ground, blurring his vision. He wanted to search for them but didn’t dare crouch down, so he could only squint and ask Chen Li, “What do you actually want?”

Zhou Ziyue wasn’t stupid. From the very first time Chen Li had approached him, he had known who Chen Li was targeting.

Chen Li gave a meaningful look, and his two lackeys stepped menacingly closer to Zhou Ziyue.

“I want Ding Ling’s hair.”

Chen Li glanced at Zhou Ziyue’s frightened, pathetic display. “If you can’t get her hair, a personal belonging will do.”

He raised his gauze-wrapped hand, the stench of rotting, festering flesh drilling straight into his skull. In reality, only a tiny wound remained on his hand now, and the rotting flesh had long since healed.

Yet that smell lingered.

It constantly hovered under his nose, making it impossible for him to stomach even a single bite of meat.

Chen Li had lost weight rapidly. Every day while everyone ate in the cafeteria, he had to hide far away and eat boiled vegetables, unable to touch even meat-flavored sauces.

The day he had first sought out Zhou Ziyue, Zhou Ziyue had started trembling all over the moment he saw him, backing against the wall. “I don’t know anything, I don’t know…”

Chen Li had stopped in his tracks, repeating Zhou Ziyue’s words. “You don’t know anything?”

Which meant he did know something.

Going after Zhou Ziyue was just a coincidence; after all, he was the only pushover in Class F.

Zhang Tianyu’s father was involved with the underworld, so it was best not to mess with him. Chen Li had originally assumed Yi Ang’s family was quite poor, and that he was only sticking with Zhang Tianyu to score some benefits.

Only after looking into it did he discover that Yi Ang’s father had been a soldier who died on a mission when Yi Ang was ten. The military was fiercely protective of their own, so someone like that was best left alone too.

Yao Beibei was the closest to Ding Ling, but precisely because she was so close, she was the hardest to target.

That left only Zhou Ziyue. He didn’t get along with anyone in Class F and looked the most timid and cowardly. Scaring him a bit to make him keep watch was the perfect plan.

Chen Li had backed Zhou Ziyue into a corner. “Speak. What do you know?”

Zhou Ziyue loved cursing people himself. Ever since he was young, he had been particularly fascinated by underhanded, undetectable arts like curses and curse slips.

He had succeeded before, like making someone get a nosebleed or bump into the corner of a desk. The more he cursed people, the more proficient he became.

Keeping an eye on Ding Ling had been entirely out of instinct.

“I don’t know, I really don’t!” Zhou Ziyue had denied desperately.

“It really was her.” Chen Li’s face had darkened as he reached out and patted Zhou Ziyue’s cheek. “Keep your eyes on her. Report anything that happens to me.”

“I won’t make you work for nothing. I can get you moved up to a higher class.”

Several days had passed, yet aside from some meaningless classroom chatter between periods, Zhou Ziyue hadn’t dug up anything useful.

“They’re on guard against me. Forget hair, I can’t even get any of her personal belongings.”

He wanted to move up; he didn’t want to stay in Class F, but he didn’t dare offend Ding Ling either.

Chen Li brought out his trump card: a lecture handout filled with key exam topics. Tearing it in half, he said, “I’m a generous person. Here’s half upfront.”

“Now that you’ve taken my half, don’t disappoint me.”

“It’s either her or you. You decide.”

So what if he hadn’t found any evidence? He was definitely going to make Ding Ling pay.

When Zhou Ziyue returned to the classroom, Yao Beibei was looking for an apartment on a map app. Teachers never came by Class F normally, so they didn’t even need to hide their phones.

“The pictures for this one look nice, but I wonder if they’re misleading.”

Yi Ang looked up and noticed something off about Zhou Ziyue. “What’s wrong with you? Did your glasses get hit?” There was a thin crack on the rim of the frames, fresh and new.

“I… I tripped and fell.”

“Nobody’s bullying you, right?” Zhang Tianyu pressed with a frown. “If someone is, just say the word.”

After all, they were in the same class.

“N-no.” His face deathly pale, Zhou Ziyue returned to his seat.

Ding Ling swiped through photos of villas on her phone. She didn’t like overly ornate decor; the simplest furniture would do.

From the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Zhou Ziyue’s face. Traces of a curse’s dark energy still lingered there.