NovelSearch Chapter 114 : Chapter 114
Chapter 114 : Chapter 114
Chapter 114
"Gu Lingxue didn’t come with you?"
After the train attendant finished registering the two who had changed seats from the rear carriage, Ji Qing turned to Xie Chang’an and asked calmly.
Xie Chang’an did not find the question suspicious at all.
He had always been close to Gu Lingxue, and Ji Qing had already known that the two of them had decided to sign up for the Firearms Club together, so being asked this now was perfectly normal. Xie Chang’an replied, "Feng Youyou and the others invited her to team up with them not long ago."
"Oh? And not you?" Ji Qing asked, his gaze meaningful.
"So you really got left out?" Jiang Cuo turned to Xie Chang’an as though he had just discovered a new continent. As a transfer student who had only appeared at the end of the first semester, Jiang Cuo naturally did not know about the relationship between Gu Lingxue and Xie Chang’an, but he could already guess what had happened to Xie Chang’an.
"You do seem to get left out rather often," Zhou Que said gleefully, despite having once excluded Xie Chang’an himself by accident.
After hearing it from all three of them, even the slow-to-react Xie Chang’an finally realized that something was off.
"I wasn’t being left out! Lingxue would never leave me out!" Xie Chang’an hurriedly explained in flustered panic. "It’s just... how should I put it? Lingxue is a girl, so of course she wants to be closer with other girls... No matter how good our relationship is, I can’t exactly be her female best friend."
"My friend—" Jiang Cuo patted Xie Chang’an on the shoulder and said in a deeply meaningful tone, "Have you never encountered the existence known as a ‘male best friend’? I think someone like you, who can be attracted to men, should be able to %#..."
Before Jiang Cuo could finish speaking, Xie Chang’an had already started hitting him.
Looking at the scene before him, which was almost identical to what had happened during Winter Break Practicum, Ji Qing felt a headache coming on. Across from him, Zhou Que blinked and looked around in confusion. "Huh? Why are they fighting? Should I go over and join in too?"
"Just be quiet, will you?" Ji Qing said with a smile that made the veins at his temple throb.
With his mood instantly dragged down, Ji Qing stopped holding back and used gravity to crush both of them into submission.
And so, against the background of the two of them crying out, "Ow, ow, ow," peace returned to the carriage once more. Zhou Que found the sight extremely fascinating. He felt both pity and gloating delight, because not long ago, Ji Qing had smacked him on the head too.
Now someone else was sharing his fate. That made him very happy indeed.
Ji Qing, however, had a terrible headache.
On one hand, he felt that having everyone around him lively and noisy was not a bad thing. On the other, he very much wanted to despise the three problem children who kept creating trouble for him. He complained inwardly: compared with Jiang Cuo, who would have thought Zhou Que could actually count as the obedient type...
At the very least, Zhou Que asked whether he should join the fight before throwing himself in.
"Could you please stop suddenly starting fights?" Ji Qing asked coldly, propping his chin on one hand.
"Yes." "Okay."
The meek replies of the two troublemakers immediately rose beside him.
Zhou Que felt strangely proud when he saw that.
He had not taken part in their little brawl. He had been sitting here honestly the entire time. The people who had angered Ji Qing were someone else. But the moment Ji Qing’s icy gaze swept over him, Zhou Que instantly nodded obediently like a chick pecking at rice.
Zhou Que was inwardly stunned. Damn it, how did he count too?!
If Ji Qing could hear Zhou Que’s thoughts, he might have lightly added, "Of course you count. Who do you think you are? The whole school can verify your track record."
But Ji Qing could not hear him.
Ji Qing merely cast his gaze out the window once again. Then all of a sudden, inspiration struck him.
"I forgot to ask you all," Ji Qing suddenly said, turning back around. "Why are you going to Huangtie City?"
He did not ask about any other town, because the train they were on was heading straight for Huangtie City, its terminal station. The three of them could not possibly have any other destination.
"I took a D-Rank Solo Commission. I need to hand over the mission item to Ms. Cheng in Huangtie City." Ever straightforward, Xie Chang’an answered while lifting the black crossbody bag slung over him, showing the others that the mission item was inside.
Jiang Cuo replied casually, "I came with Xie Chang’an. After he finishes this commission, I’m planning to team up with him for an A-Rank Commission. I’ve been stuck at B-Rank for a long time, and I want to reach A-Rank as soon as possible."
"If that’s the case, then Xie Chang’an is B-Rank too?" Zhou Que turned his head with some surprise.
Xie Chang’an nodded. "That’s right."
As if he had suddenly realized something, Zhou Que abruptly turned to Ji Qing and asked, "Wait, Ji Qing, you’re not B-Rank too, are you?"
Ji Qing lifted his eyes indifferently. "Do you have a problem with that?"
Zhou Que was so shocked that he shouted, "What the hell—so that means I’m the only A-Rank Hunter here?!"
"That’s impressive!" Jiang Cuo applauded immediately.
"It really is impressive," Xie Chang’an echoed.
"No, no, you don’t need to praise me like that." Zhou Que hurriedly stopped the two of them from continuing their admiring remarks. Covering his face awkwardly, he explained, "That A-Rank Hunter status was something Brother Huayu, Liu Mu, You Xingluo, and I got together."
"Brother Huayu and the others did most of the planning. I was just responsible for carrying it out."
The quieter Zhou Que’s voice became, the lower his head dropped, until he was completely looking down.
That reaction left Xie Chang’an deeply shocked.
In Xie Chang’an’s memory, Zhou Que had always been overbearing, rude, and unreasonable. Hearing him speak so modestly now was almost unbelievable.
Xie Chang’an studied Zhou Que carefully and saw that Zhou Que’s way of speaking and carrying himself had changed enormously compared with before.
Perhaps people really did grow. Xie Chang’an gradually felt at ease.
"That’s still incredibly impressive!" Jiang Cuo exclaimed at once. "A-Rank Commissions need multiple people working together anyway, and your strength must be amazing too, right?"
"It’s not that amazing..."
Zhou Que scratched his cheek somewhat bashfully, but the bridge of his nose was already lifting with pride. Even though he had just suffered a serious blow from the A-Rank Commission involving the Mutated Yak Herd, he was still Zhou Que, the same person who had confidence in his own strength.
Conceit and confidence might only be a hair apart, yet his growth was still obvious.
Watching Zhou Que drift upward like a child being praised by Jiang Cuo, Ji Qing found it both funny and exasperating. Still, he cut off their mutual flattery and asked Zhou Que, "So, Zhou Que, why are you going to Huangtie City?"
Zhou Que answered bluntly, "I don’t know. I heard you say you were going there, so I just followed you."
The scene instantly fell into dead silence.
Ji Qing fell silent. "..."
Then he said in a dark tone, "Everything you said at the station was a lie, wasn’t it?"
"Ah, more or less." Completely failing to read the atmosphere, Zhou Que proudly puffed out his chest. "Because that way I could spend more time with you. It was hard enough to run into a classmate. How could I let a classmate suddenly disappear like that? So I just made up a reason and followed you %￥—Ow, ow, ow!"
Before Zhou Que could finish, Ji Qing had already stood up and punched him squarely on the head.
"In times like these, truly any sort of strange thing can happen." Against Zhou Que’s cries of "Ow, ow, ow," Ji Qing turned and showed a dark smile to the other two beside him. "I trust that neither of you saw anything, correct?"
"Of course," Jiang Cuo swore immediately, raising his hand.
"Ah, mm, uh... that’s right," Xie Chang’an stammered for half a minute before hastily agreeing.
And so Ji Qing expressionlessly sat back down in his seat. As he rubbed the space between his brows with one hand, he sighed inwardly: the version of himself who had earlier thought Zhou Que was more obedient than Jiang Cuo absolutely had to be an idiot. These three were clearly all equally troublesome.
At most, Zhou Que had simply been taught better by Shao Huayu and the Zhou Family behind him. Inside, he was still the same little brat as ever.
Jiang Cuo asked, "But why are you going to Huangtie City, Valedictorian?"
"Me? I’m going to take a look at Huangtie City’s iron mines." In a drained voice, Ji Qing threw Jiang Cuo the shortened version of the answer. Since he had already said the same thing to Zhou Que earlier, it was not easy to change his story now.
"So that means you haven’t really had much going on lately either, Valedictorian?" Jiang Cuo widened his eyes.
"More or less," Ji Qing answered in the same weary tone.
Although Ji Qing very much wanted to say that he was currently busy to death—because once he reached Huangtie City, he still had to investigate the truth behind Licheng’s fall, and afterward might even have to kill someone—right now, Ji Qing lacked the most crucial memories, so there was no real sense of urgency in his heart.
The reason Ji Qing was willing to involve himself in this matter was not only because it had been personally set in motion by his pre-amnesia self, but also because he needed to recover his memories and obtain the key to returning home.
He had to recover his earliest memories.
Only by getting those memories back could the system calculate the route home. Only then could he return.
Home...
Ji Qing’s eyes suddenly darkened.
To be honest, Ji Qing was no longer sure what kind of changes had taken place between the home he wanted to return to and the real home that awaited him. He had appeared in the wasteland twenty-one years ago. Exactly how much time had passed in his original world?
Perhaps only a few days. A few months. Or perhaps several years...
Just as Ji Qing was sinking into quiet gloom, Jiang Cuo had already discovered a new continent.
Jiang Cuo made the decision on the spot. "Then let’s just form a team right here, charge straight into the Hunter’s Guild, and pick a commission! Oh, heavens, it won’t be the missions choosing me anymore—it’ll be me choosing the missions! Mom, I can finally become an A-Rank Hunter!"
As he spoke, the excitement in Jiang Cuo’s heart was already spilling over.
Zhou Que, who was already an A-Rank Hunter: "Huh?"
Xie Chang’an, who had long had many conflicts with Zhou Que: "Huh?"
The instant Ji Qing heard the rallying cry to team up, a smile appeared on his face by reflex. He thought darkly to himself: so it was you, Jiang Cuo.
Ji Qing no longer needed to compare them.
Among these three problem children, the one with the most serious problems was obviously Jiang Cuo. Jiang Cuo really was very good at creating trouble for Ji Qing. Last time, it had been Jiang Cuo blurting out the legendary forum line, "My friend, are you gay?" and now he was trying to form a party in a single second.
"Well, I don’t really have any objections." Zhou Que’s eyes lit up at once.
Although Zhou Que had already completed this semester’s assessment long ago, how could he possibly miss out on something as good as teaming up? After all, Zhou Que liked nothing more than going out to fight, raising his combat strength, and anything else that could improve his own power in a straightforward way.
His Hunter rank was now A-Rank!
He would never admit defeat before reaching S-Rank!
"I suppose I’m fine with it too." Xie Chang’an hesitated a little.
Although Xie Chang’an had a bad relationship with Zhou Que, he felt that Zhou Que had already changed a great deal. And strictly speaking, the conflict between them only existed at the beginning of the semester. What had happened back then had also partly been his own responsibility.
Now was the perfect chance to improve their relationship!
He would absolutely be able to work his way smoothly into the inner circle of Class S, just like Lingxue had!
For some reason, a blazing fire ignited in Xie Chang’an’s eyes.
And so the pressure now landed squarely on Ji Qing.
Seeing that the three of them were so united in their thinking, Ji Qing found the situation extremely troublesome. Resting his chin on one hand with a worried look, he said, "You three children, I really don’t want to run around for the time being. Why don’t you three go by yourselves?"
"No!" Zhou Que objected immediately.
"What?!" Xie Chang’an froze after hearing that.
Just as the two of them were about to try to persuade Ji Qing, the third person, Jiang Cuo, had already shoved his Terminal right in front of Ji Qing’s face. Beaming with excitement, Jiang Cuo leaned closer and said, "Valedictorian, look, look! What about this one? It looks very simple. The four of us can definitely finish it in no time and rank up to A-Rank in no time!"
"I already said I want to rest." Ji Qing was full of helplessness.
But the moment Ji Qing’s gaze swept across the interface Jiang Cuo was showing him, the hand he had been about to use to push Jiang Cuo away suddenly stopped.
He murmured softly, "Wait, is the issuer of this commission called Miao Weiyong?"
"Huh? Valedictorian, do you know him?" Jiang Cuo lowered his head in confusion to take another look.
Ji Qing tapped into the commission details with one hand and examined them seriously for a moment. Then he lifted his head and looked at Jiang Cuo with an innocent expression. "All right then. I’ll join."
It was connected to exactly the family he needed to investigate.
In other words, whether Ji Qing wanted to act alone or not, in the end he was still going to run into these three classmates who had temporarily banded together. Ji Qing thought helplessly: Yuexia must be very pleased now.
A chance encounter, another chance encounter, yet another chance encounter, and then finding a suitable commission to form a team.
The comic creator had effectively rigged the odds around all four of them, yet among the four, only Ji Qing could tell that this had definitely been deliberate.
In another sense, this also counted as being "drawn into the main plot."