Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations
After Cen Yi left, he called Qiao Lingxiang immediately.
When Qiao Lingxiang was talking to Cen Yi’s grandma, she returned home. Hou Manrong was still at work so Qiao Lingxiang went to her room and took out the equipment she used when she participated in the wilderness survival camps.
When Cen Yi called, she had already walked down the stairs with her bag. One was on the 7th floor while the other was on the first floor.
Qiao Lingxiang carried her survival backpack and waited for Cen Yi.
Cen Yi walked down the stairs with a backpack too. He was wearing a tracksuit and he was very tall. He already had the aura of a man who was about to enter adulthood.
The young man was maturing.
The two of them didn’t chat actively. Now, the initial shock of realizing that they had coincidentally formed a team had subsided. They just glanced at each other before walking through the gates together silently. They headed in the direction of the quest center.
Only the team leader could accept missions in the quest center. The team would gather outside the entrance of the quest center and a staff member would count the numbers. Then he would distribute one packet of compressed biscuits to each of the members.
The amount of food was fixed. No matter how long the journey was, be it a day or a month, everyone would only get one pack of compressed biscuits. If they finished it, they would have to look for food themselves.
When Qiao Lingxiang and Cen Yi arrived at the quest center, Lu Zhengqing and the other two male students from Xiang City High School were already standing outside the entrance and waiting for them.
Before they arrived, Lu Zhengqing had already called them individually and told them that Qiao Lingxiang was the “master of living skills”. The people who showed up had no objections to this.
But there were more than ten people who wanted to go to the Cold Snake Tower at first. Some of them chose to back out when they found out that the master of living skills was Qiao Lingxiang.
So in total, including Qiao Lingxiang, Cen Yi, and Lu Zhengqing, only two other young men showed up. One was named Zhao Long and the other was named Ah Jiu.
Lu Zhengqing didn’t try to hide why the others didn’t show up. He was very direct and told Qiao Lingxiang and Cen Yi directly.
He shrugged and said, “They were afraid of going on a wild goose chase. Also, since we’re looking for energy stones, we’ll have to trek across mountains and rivers so they were worried that Xiangxiang couldn’t catch up. If that happened, things would be even more troublesome.”
Cen Yi frowned when he heard their fears. He looked at Qiao Lingxiang, worried that she would feel sad.
Unexpectedly, Qiao Lingxiang appeared very calm. She just acknowledged his words and said to Cen Yi and Lu Zhengqing, “I’ll ask a staff member from the quest center to come out and count our numbers.”
Qiao Lingxiang turned and walked into the quest center.
There was nothing to feel sad about. The reasons listed by Lu Zhengqing were reasonable. Throughout her life, she had encountered even more outrageous things. She was quite fat so no one wanted to be on the same team as her during small games, not a single person.
But now, Cen Yi, Lu Zhengqing, Ah Jiu, and Zhao Long were willing to be on the same team as her.
This was good enough. She already felt extremely gratified.
After Qiao Lingxiang walked away, Cen Yi looked at Lu Zhengqing and said unhappily, “Why couldn’t you have said those things to me personally? Why did you have to tell her? She’s a lady. She has her dignity too.”
Lu Zhengqing watched Qiao Lingxiang’s fat retreating back as she climbed up the stairs. He didn’t know if it was because the night was dawning or if it was the effects of the lights at the entrance of the quest center.
For some reason, he thought Qiao Lingxiang’s back seemed a little skinnier than before.
He said half-jokingly and half-seriously to Cen Yi, “I thought if I didn’t tell the truth and kept hiding it, it wouldn’t be good for her. The truth is already out there. She knows what the others think about her, maybe even more clearly than us. If she broke down just because of the truth, honestly, I wouldn’t want to join a team like that.”
Cen Yi stared at Lu Zhengqing coldly when he heard this reply. He knew Lu Zhengqing was right and it was the reality. However, it was still extremely cruel to Qiao Lingxiang.
Unknowingly, Cen Yi now already viewed Qiao Lingxiang as someone he wanted to protect.
Lu Zhengqing shrugged. He patted Cen Yi’s shoulder as though he hadn’t seen Cen Yi’s expression. He smiled seductively.
“Grandson, you’re a good person but you’re too straightforward. You should learn from northerners like us. When you treat someone well, you treat them wholeheartedly. Are you stupid? A person should know how to hold back.”
As the two of them talked, Qiao Lingxiang came out from the quest center.
She had indeed lost some weight compared to this morning when she left her house. But for someone of Qiao Lingxiang’s size, losing a few kilograms was hardly visible.
Before she left the basement In the evening, she went to look for a scale outside the elevator of her apartment and weighed herself.
After she was struck by Cheng Tian, she was still 123.5kg.
Yesterday, she lost 2.5kg. Today, she lost 1.5kg. She didn’t know how much weight she would lose but Qiao Lingxiang knew that the weight she lost definitely had something to do with the injuries she sustained.
At the entrance of the quest center, a lazy figure appeared behind Qiao Lingxiang. This was the skinny man who distributed pamphlets a few days ago, the man called Wang Yuehan.
Wang Yuehan carried a plastic bag in his hand. There were five bags of compressed biscuits the size of a palm.
When he saw the four high school students standing outside, Wang Yuehan snorted and passed the plastic bag to Qiao Lingxiang.
He said in a low voice, “I don’t know how you managed to fool these four people to go on a quest with you. I’m warning you—if you’ve tricked the quest center into giving you these compressed biscuits, your credibility will be affected.”
Then the skinny man spoke to Cen Yi and his friends.
“You need to protect your credit records. Even if you aren’t the team leader and are just a team member, if you don’t complete a mission given by the quest center and if you don’t bring back any energy stones, you will have failed your mission. At that time, you won’t be able to accept any missions from the quest center anymore.”
Identification credentials and facial recognition were required to accept a mission from the quest center. If one didn’t complete a mission, he wouldn’t be allowed to accept a second mission. This was to prevent people from forming teams to trick the quest center into providing compressed biscuits when they had nothing to eat.
The skinny man was assuming that Qiao Lingxiang purposely gathered Cen Yi and his friends to form a team of five so that they could trick the quest center into forking over some compressed biscuits.
Cen Yi sneered. He said to the skinny man from the quest center, “Are these compressed biscuits worth the effort? If I wanted them, I could’ve just snatched them from your warehouse. Wouldn’t that have been easier?”
Wang Yuehan figured Cen Yi was a tough person when he saw his actions. He often observed people and was accustomed to bullying the weak and fearing the strong. It was easy to embarrass Qiao Lingxiang because she was humble but he didn’t dare to do the same thing to a tough person like Cen Yi. He was afraid of getting beaten up.