Chapter 48

In her previous life, Song Yi had basically never experienced what it felt like to be carried around by the scruff. Even after she entered her sect, neither her master nor her senior brothers and sisters would ever treat her like that.

But in this life, she had no idea how many times she had already been picked up like this.

At first, she would still secretly think to herself: Dao Monarch Mo Qi is poor now, but once my cultivation recovers, I’ll make every single one of you kneel and call me Ancestor.

Now, Song Yi was already numb to it. Forget it, forget it. She was a person of noble character. She would not lower herself to argue with these “juniors.”

Perhaps adults in this world simply had such twisted tastes.

Children these days really did not have it easy.

The old ancestor sighed with emotion.

She was dumped at the office door, while the administrator went in to chat with the homeroom teacher.

The study committee member Lu Shan happened to have come to see the teacher. Knowing there was a guest inside, she waited outside the door just like Song Yi. When she heard Song Yi’s lament, she could not help saying something fair. “Uh, I’ve never been carried around like that. That probably isn’t an adult habit.”

Song Yi flatly denied it. “That’s impossible.”

How long had she been in the New Era? She was already used to that motion. Lu Shan had lived in this world for so many years, so how could she not have been carried around?

Lu Shan could not quite bear to expose such a cruel truth. “Maybe you should think about the problem from another angle?”

Maybe the adults were not the problem. Maybe the problem was certain children?

Adults generally picked up the sturdier, more troublesome children like that.

Song Yi widened her eyes and signaled with her gaze: We’re classmates. How can you slander an innocent person out of thin air? I thought you were an honest child. I really misjudged you!

Her gaze was far too expressive. Lu Shan helplessly held her forehead: Why don’t you reflect on yourself a little?

It was precisely because she was Song Yi’s classmate that she knew what kind of nature hid beneath Song Yi’s obedient appearance!

Although sometimes she did not know exactly what Song Yi had done, she could tell just from how often Song Yi entered all the teachers’ offices!

Song Yi shook her head, indicating that she would not argue with a child.

She quietly pressed her ear to the door and even cast a sound-amplifying spell on herself, wanting to hear how the administrator would complain about her to the homeroom teacher.

Lu Shan:!

The honest child’s inner world was shaken. She hesitated, wanting to remind Song Yi that this was not very appropriate.

After hanging around with Li Wenwen and the others for so long, Song Yi’s spirit of sharing had improved quite a bit. This time, Li Wenwen and Lin Ze had not been caught and brought over, but she still subconsciously turned to look at Lu Shan and invited her, “Do you want to listen together?”

Then she continued to promise, “There won’t be a problem. Even if we’re discovered, I won’t give you up.”

Song Yi still had a little confidence in her control over spiritual power.

Lu Shan wavered. She was a child, after all. How could she really have no curiosity?

Song Yi was already listening. It should be fine if she listened a little too, right?

That was how she convinced herself.

The two children pressed themselves against the door.

Inside the homeroom teacher’s office.

The administrator of the absolute-spirit pocket realm had personally brought her back, which left him rather surprised. “Why did you come? You don’t need to worry about them. Just let them use the special teleportation array. This is too much trouble for you.”

“I wanted to talk to you about Student Song Yi.”

The homeroom teacher thought he understood the administrator’s purpose.

Yesterday, a teacher had already come to tell him to properly cultivate Song Yi. The administrator also worked in the direction of spiritual plant cultivation, so his goal was obvious.

Having sent a student who had provided such great help to the secret realm, the homeroom teacher also felt honored.

A faint smile appeared on his face. “I understand. Don’t worry. I’ll properly implement an education of love.”

But the administrator shook his head. “I don’t think you understand. I think that for a child like Song Yi, not only does she need an education of love, she also needs a little education of pain.”

“Huh?”

“Do you know what she did in the secret realm?”

“She created a sword technique? That should be a good thing, right? Although some people might injure plants when practicing the sword, that still isn’t Song Yi’s fault,” the homeroom teacher said.

“That isn’t what I wanted to talk to you about. She incited an pill cultivator to eat dirt…”

Under the homeroom teacher’s stiff expression, the administrator still explained the whole sequence of events: after she fished the spirit coins up, she put them back at his place because she did not want him to report her.

If Li Qing had not left the secret realm early in the morning, who knew how many happy fruit plants he might have damaged?

Song Yi clearly knew this, which was why she was worried about being criticized by the homeroom teacher.

Although that result had not happened, this child’s thinking really needed attention!

It was undeniable that she had talent, but if her talent points went crooked, that would be troublesome.

If it had been an ordinary child, the administrator would not even have bothered making this trip. Just consider it for the sake of those spirit coins.

He felt that when dealing with a sturdy, troublesome child like Song Yi, one simply could not be too softhearted. Otherwise, she would not even be afraid.

The homeroom teacher went numb. He knew it! He should never have held too high an expectation. This child really could not behave for more than three seconds.

He really wanted to pick Song Yi up and shake her. Do you know you were sent there for “labor reform”?

She had only been gone for two days, yet two different groups of people had already come looking for him, and they were even two groups with different purposes. Was her life a little too exciting?

He let out a long sigh and said to the administrator, “If I didn’t want to be stricter with them, why would I have arranged for them to work at your place?”

The work there was still very hard for first graders.

Administrator: …That was a good question.

He suddenly understood the homeroom teacher’s exhaustion.

And just then, outside the office door, the two children listening so intently did not notice Teacher Yuan walking over in the corridor.

When Teacher Yuan saw the two children stuck to the door, his face instantly darkened.

By the time Song Yi noticed, it was already too late. Teacher Yuan grabbed one in each hand and brought them into the homeroom teacher’s office. “They were eavesdropping outside, so I simply brought them in.”

None of them were surprised that Song Yi would do something like this, but when they discovered the other child was actually Lu Shan, the teachers’ mindsets almost collapsed. Student Lu Shan, you have always been excellent in character and learning, serious and sensible. How did you end up colluding with Song Yi?

Lu Shan had been caught the very first time she did something like this. Completely inexperienced, she looked at Song Yi in utter helplessness: Song Yi had said she would carry it if something happened.

Then Song Yi said righteously, “Teacher, punish me if you want. I told Lu Shan that I absolutely wouldn’t give her up. I was the only one eavesdropping.”

The teachers and administrator: …

Lu Shan: I’m obedient, but I’m not stupid. Thank you!

It sounded as if Song Yi had kept her promise, but… even an idiot hearing those words would know the two of them were in it together!

Lu Shan also went numb. So this was what “absolutely won’t give you up” meant. If she ever believed Song Yi’s nonsense again, she would write her own name backward.

With Lu Shan there, the homeroom teacher felt too embarrassed to treat them differently. He warned the two of them with a few words, then let them go.

Lu Shan, who had basically never received criticism and education like this before, came out of the office with her whole face flushed red, looking as if she were about to cry.

Bullying such a little child made even the old ancestor feel somewhat unable to bear it. She comforted her, “Don’t be sad. I wasn’t used to it the first time either. Once you adapt, it’ll be fine.”

Lu Shan wanted to cry even more. “Who wants to adapt to something like this?”

She ran off at top speed, clearly displaying an attitude of not wanting to associate with Song Yi.

Li Wenwen and Lin Ze, who had come to receive Song Yi, saw Lu Shan run away like a gust of wind and could not help asking Song Yi, “What did you do?”

They had never seen the study committee member Lu Shan so broken down. Even when she did not get the grades she wanted, she could quickly adjust her mindset.

Song Yi said, “I helped improve her stress tolerance.”

“Speak human.”

“I dragged her into taking the blame with me.”

Because she had dragged Lu Shan in, she had been released so quickly.

Lin Ze and Li Wenwen: …

They felt a tiny bit of sympathy for Lu Shan.

“Little Yi, don’t always bully her.”

“Then next time, you two will carry it with me?”

The two immediately changed their tune. “I think Lu Shan really does need some tempering. This society is extremely dangerous. She needs to adapt ahead of time.”

Perhaps for Lu Shan, what was dangerous was not society, but the demon called Song Yi.

Song Yi glanced sideways at them.

Under normal circumstances, she was too lazy to drag the two of them into taking the blame together. It was not because she was that loyal, but because dragging them in was useless.

All three of them were troublemakers in the teachers’ eyes. In other words, if their gang committed a crime together, it would only make the teachers’ blood pressure rise. There was no chance the teachers would let them off lightly for anyone’s sake. Lu Shan’s “face” was still more valuable.

Song Yi skipped over this topic and asked, “How is it? Did the recording get posted on the Spirit Net? What’s the reaction?”

They had recorded the video last night, so of course they had to let everyone see it. pill cultivators did not have it easy. Look, they had even started eating dirt. Combined with Li Qing’s strange full-body blackening today, it was even more necessary to remind everyone: learn alchemy with caution.

The two immediately perked up at this topic and patted their chests. “When we handle things, you can rest assured! Lots of people are discussing it now!”

Song Yi opened her identity token with satisfaction, but the more she looked, the stranger her expression became.

Because what they had posted was not just the scene of Li Qing eating dirt. They had posted the full version of Song Yi persuading Li Qing to eat dirt.

“I’m laughing to death. I think that Li Qing was completely tricked.”

“So she’s Song Yi? I used to think she was the genius-child type. Now I think she’s the type with a belly full of bad water.”

“Don’t offend elementary school students no matter who you offend. I feel like she knew about the black soil’s ‘aftereffects.’”

“But if little sister is willing to give me a chance, I can accept the aftereffects too.”

Song Yi had originally wanted to be a quiet mastermind behind the scenes. Now her allies had completely exposed her.

She asked with a wooden face, “Is this what I told you to post?”

The two answered without thinking, “Yes!”

Song Yi had told them to upload the recording to the Spirit Net, but she had not specified the details because the administrator had been watching her. At the time, all she had said was, “You know what I mean.”

With their tacit understanding, they should have been able to understand that she meant uploading the footage of the pill cultivator making a fool of himself to the Spirit Net. That was what Song Yi had thought.

But she had still overestimated that tacit understanding. Li Wenwen and Lin Ze’s thought process was: “The idea that black soil can be used as medicine was Song Yi’s idea. This credit cannot be monopolized by Li Qing alone.”

They had understood the meaning of Song Yi’s look as: “Upload the full footage to the Spirit Net and let them see how first graders beat sixth graders. Sixth graders? pill cultivators? Heh, they’re only so-so.”

So they had become “traitors.”

Song Yi raised her head to the sky and let out a long sigh. Ah, the enemy was inside.

But things had already come to this, and there was nothing she could do.

The only thing worth celebrating was that when she did this, the label of “alchemy enthusiast” had still been hanging above her head, so it was not a big problem. That’s right. pill cultivators were just this black-hearted. What about it?

In fact, the reason Song Yi inciting Li Qing to eat dirt caused heated discussion was not only because Li Qing turned black when he broke through, but also because his side had already released an explanation of the situation: his body turning black was not some abnormality, but a side effect of black soil before it was refined. Black soil could very likely be refined into pills, though its specific properties still required more experiments.

Of course, Li Qing especially emphasized Song Yi’s help with this new discovery.

The emergence of every new ingredient might be a great breakthrough for the pill Dao. How could everyone not pay attention?

In the future, the people researching black soil would no longer only be those studying agriculture. The people working on pills would also get involved.

And besides black soil, could even more soils, and even more things, be used as medicine?

Had their thinking before been too narrow?

With the development of the New Era, many disciplines had already formed fixed systems and could easily fall into old ruts. What people feared was not wild imagination, but having no ideas at all.

The outsiders watched the excitement. The insiders fell into a frenzy.

For alchemists, even if this really had been one of Song Yi’s deliberate pranks, they would not be angry. If making a little fool of themselves could give them a chance to “turn stone into gold,” they would absolutely be willing!

So as the beneficiary, Li Qing was not angry at all. He even sent Song Yi a communication, wanting to invite her to join a project team led by his mentor, and said that this was also his mentor’s intention.

Big-hearted Li Qing had not even noticed that this was Song Yi’s prank. What bad intentions could a little child have? She had even given him an opportunity. How conscience-less would he have to be to suspect her motives?

He wished he could regard Song Yi as a close friend and did his utmost to fight for her chance to enter the project team.

For an alchemy enthusiast, this was a very good opportunity. They could be considered to have made an exception for Song Yi. After all, with her level of education, she was still lacking a lot of knowledge about pills. If she entered, she would simply be coasting for experience.

One had to know that although the agriculture experts hoped Song Yi would study this in the future, they had not said she should immediately join some project team. Instead, they wanted her to first study more foundational knowledge.

The pill Dao silently joined the group chat fighting over people.

But Song Yi did not truly love the pill Dao. She did not know where Li Qing had gotten her contact information from, but she decisively rejected his invitation. She also did not forget to ruthlessly trample on him. “Our homeroom teacher said that I’m still young. There are three thousand Great Daos, and I should try more of them. I suddenly feel like the pill Dao is only so-so. Very unimpressive. So from now on, I’m drawing a clear line between myself and trash pill Dao. Do not disturb.”

Li Qing:???

Did children these days change faces a little too fast?

He wanted to say something, but Song Yi had already ruthlessly blocked him.

The homeroom teacher, who had somehow taken the blame, sneezed. He still had no idea what had happened, but he had an ominous premonition.

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