Calamity Era 413, August 29.
7:20 a.m.
The opening day of Heaven's Gate University.
Ji Jue slowly woke from his exquisite sleep and opened his eyes to gaze at the sky beyond the window. A light rain had fallen in the early morning. Once the rising sun appeared, the sky cleared, and the streets looked fresh and bright.
A slightly cool breeze blew in through the open window.
Such beautiful weather. Flowers were blooming, birds were singing... and some unlucky children were about to fall into the flames of hell.
For example, Ji Jue.
After jolting awake from a nightmare, he felt his pillow, nearly soaked through with tears. For a long while, he lacked the courage to pick up his phone—especially after discovering that, apart from promotional spam, his inbox still contained no replies. He practically wanted to find an exquisite little box, burn himself to ashes, and crawl inside!
I'm completely screwed. Thoroughly screwed!
Professor Ye still hadn't replied. Perhaps, maybe, most likely, he was truly doomed!
Recalling the brief month that had passed, Ji Jue felt as if a whole lifetime had gone by.
There had been far too many chaotic affairs, and his summer vacation had been far too full and turbulent. As a result, he had completely thrown the paper he'd originally submitted to the back of his mind...
What else could he do?!
Even if he wanted to submit it, he needed the conditions to do so, right?!
For most of that time, Ji Jue had been lying in the hospital, in a state of total uselessness. His excessive physical weakness meant he slept eighteen hours a day, while repeatedly and severely overdrawing his Spiritual Substance left him in a near-idiotic state most of the time.
Ask him what he wanted for lunch, and he'd take half a day to respond. Pick up a pair of chopsticks, and his hand would tremble like he had Parkinson's.
He was like a dying tree lizard.
Not only did he lack the ability to do academic work, he'd even lost his ability to calculate. He'd bought a bowl of rice noodles, and when it came to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division within ten, he'd nearly calculated a miraculous result that required the owner to give him six and a half yuan in change.
By the time he had more or less recovered and finally realized that the deadline was fast approaching, only three days remained before the start of term!
Three days?
Even if he killed himself, he couldn't finish it!
With no other choice, Ji Jue went out to an Internet café and spent the entire night calculating with a memory stick between his teeth. He barely cobbled together a piece of work with enough filler to make even the Dragon King bow his head, then nervously summoned his courage and sent it to the professor's email.
And there was still no reply...
Looking on the bright side, perhaps Professor Ye was simply too busy and hadn't had time to read it yet, right? Maybe she'd forgotten about it long ago and didn't care at all.
There was also the possibility that, after reading it, she'd decided that a major academic failure like him was beyond saving, ordered a pollutant incinerator, and was waiting for him to dare show up so she could give him a clean, swift death.
Death was staring him in the face.
There wasn't even the slightest path to survival!
Even so, no matter how hopeless things were, Ji Jue eventually dragged, wriggled, and squirmed his way out of bed, sleepwalking through washing up and changing clothes.
When he went downstairs, he discovered that the mutated Little Lamb from his family was sprawled in the living room, licking the television that was even older than he was. Machine oil was running everywhere... which made him want to die even more!
It was said that before the Calamity Era, there was a famous saying: Life was like a magnificent robe crawling with lice.
Ji Jue, however, felt that his life consisted entirely of magnificent lice, without a robe in sight! But apart from putting this thing on, he didn't have any other clothes...
He couldn't exactly go streaking, could he?
He'd make do. He'd muddle through life somehow. Wasn't everyone doing the same?
Thus, with tears in his eyes, he rode his bicycle and dawdled all the way to the entrance of Continent Auto Repair Shop, where a group of people had already been waiting. Today was Second Girl Lu Ling's first day at university. The last surviving seed of learning in the Lao Lu family had finally borne fruit, and she had even been accepted to Heaven's Gate, the same university as Ji Jue. Lu Ma wished she could set off another two strings of firecrackers at the entrance to celebrate.
As the unofficial Second Brother, Ji Jue had to give her a ride since he was passing by.
And mooch breakfast while he was at it.
"Oh dear, she doesn't need to bring so much stuff. It's only registration on the first day, getting to know the teachers and classmates. Besides, Second Girl's a local, and she's a commuter student. She'll be home in the afternoon. Why would she need all this?"
Seeing the bags Lu Ma had prepared, Ji Jue couldn't help shaking his head. After reasoning with her at length, he finally managed to remove more than half of them. With only the necessary documents, he put Second Girl on the back, and Little Lamb puttered off with a chug-chug-chug.
On the rear seat, Lu Ling twisted excitedly from side to side, enjoying the wind rushing against her face. She was brimming with youth and shining like the sun, forming a stark contrast with Ji Jue's deathly expression.
"Second Brother, you changed vehicles." She finally noticed the crucial point, causing Ji Jue's entire body to stiffen. "N-no, I didn't. It's still the same one. Look, isn't that scar on the back from Youngest scratching it with a knife?"
"Oh, right."
Lu Ling patted the seat in confusion. After all, Lu Feng had ridden this thing and carried her to high school every day for three years. There was no reason she wouldn't recognize it, except...
"Why does it feel so much bigger?"
Little Lamb, which had originally displaced only 110 cc, had now grown almost as large as a mid-sized motorcycle. It had put on more than one circle's worth of weight. Only a fool couldn't see that something was wrong.
Ji Jue rolled his eyes and shouted back, "You're allowed to go to university, but people aren't allowed to grow during puberty?"
Lu Ling was left speechless. Beneath her, Little Lamb, which had been silently listening, seemed to realize that the two of them were discussing it and couldn't help wriggling. Ji Jue angrily kicked its footrest twice, and it instantly settled down.
What was it like to have the Little Lamb from your home suddenly turn into a dog?
It was an experience that made one really want to die.
At first, Ji Jue had worried that one day it might suddenly go berserk and bite his head off to kick it around like a ball. But he discovered that, as a mutated product born from absorbing the vast majority of Dragon Blood under the various influences of his abilities and the Vortex Implantation Technique, this thing's temperament was bizarrely stable. It was also extremely obedient, ingratiating as a dog.
When he communicated with it through his abilities, it was no different from a dog.
Tell it to sit, and it sat. Tell it to roll over, and it rolled over, its mudguard wagging so fast it seemed ready to fly off.
It also saved fuel and electricity. After mutating, it didn't even need fuel anymore, and its horsepower had become monstrously excessive. No one knew which Sports Car's engine it had eaten, but it could accelerate from zero to a hundred kilometers per hour in two seconds, with its top speed bursting past the limit at 470 kilometers per hour. As a result, rumors of a haunting had recently begun spreading on the expressways near Ji Jue's home.
Those were all advantages. Its only disadvantage was...
It was far too picky!
On average, it consumed half a poached chicken per hundred kilometers. Braised chicken wouldn't do, and it refused frozen chicken legs bought from the supermarket. It loved freshly slaughtered and freshly cooked chicken...
As a result, Ji Jue, who had originally been dirt-poor, was now on the verge of complete bankruptcy.
Of course, Ji Jue knew that this shortcoming belonged to him, not it.
After all, what bad intentions could a little dog have? It hadn't wanted to reincarnate into his Little Lamb, either. If it had ended up with someone rich, it might have achieved poached-chicken freedom long ago.
There was nothing he could do. He had to keep raising it. Could he really throw it away?
Forbidding it from entering his room and making it sleep only in the living room was already the limit of Ji Jue's cruelty.
Fortunately, when it disguised itself as an ordinary Little Lamb, it was still very quiet. Otherwise, Ji Jue wouldn't have dared take it outside at all.
By morning, Heaven's Gate University, which had been slightly subdued for more than a month, had gradually begun to grow noisy. The area around the main gate was filled with traffic, while examinees from every district and even other cities excitedly poked their heads out to look around, taking pictures on their phones without pause.
The excited Second Girl also dragged Ji Jue around, checking in at quite a few popular attractions and posting them to her Moments. On the other end, Lu Ma unleashed her miraculous fast hands, instantly liking and praising them all.
That happy, carefree mood lasted until the end of the freshman registration process, when it was time to pay.
The bank employee waiting there sat smiling behind the counter and handed her a loan contract, like a vampire gazing at rows of blood bags lining up to offer themselves.
Heaven's Gate University had never been a charity. As one of the Federal Five, it was famously valuable, famously difficult to enter, and famously expensive.
Of course, since she had been accepted, she naturally didn't need to worry about being unable to pay the tuition... Naturally, a kind, benevolent, and generous bank would come knocking to help her, inviting her to spend the next twenty years as their repayment slave.
Even though Ji Jue and Lu Feng had spent the first half of summer running all over the Municipal Department with various documents, obtaining certificates, preferential policies, and subsidies, the annual interest rate was still as high as 4.1 percent.
After only a few minutes, the young girl had already taken on more than 800,000 yuan in student loans. She hugged the bag, and Little Pearl was practically about to fall from her eyes.
"Don't worry, don't worry. Graduates from Heaven's Gate's economics program have the easiest time finding jobs! And if that doesn't work, there's Big Dog and Second Brother, right?" Ji Jue ruffled her hair and comforted her. "Come on, let's go look at the teaching buildings first. Later, Second Brother will take you to the cafeteria for braised pork rice!"
"I don't want braised pork rice."
Lu Ling rubbed her eye sockets, looking even more miserable. "Second Brother, you ate it so badly two years ago that you had to be taken to the hospital..."
Ji Jue's smile stiffened. This brat—why did she still remember that embarrassing incident? Besides, the cafeteria had paid him a lot of money, okay! Had she forgotten how she got that little skirt? It had all been earned one bite at a time by Second Brother eating braised pork rice in the emergency room!
He was just about to say something when his phone suddenly vibrated.
The instant the screen lit up, his stiff smile vanished completely, and his heart and lungs stopped.
Professor Ye: [Finished the registration process? Come to my office.]
"..."
Ji Jue swallowed, put his phone away, and said, "In a moment, go with that senior just now and familiarize yourself with the school. I have something to do, so I'll leave first."
"What are you doing?" Lu Ling asked blankly.
Ji Jue fell silent for a moment, then forced out the standard smile from a memorial portrait.
"Going to die."
.
He jogged and accelerated all the way. The moment Ji Jue entered the fourth-floor corridor of the office building, he saw a nearly tearful, deeply moved face rushing toward him.
It was Ye Chun!
"Wahhh, Ji Jue, you're so good!"
The senior slapped him hard on the shoulder as if she were meeting him for the first time. Pretending to dab at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief, she said, "So you really didn't become a paper-chasing dog! I'm so touched! I'll give you an extra chicken leg at lunch! Two extra!"
"Stop talking, I really want to die!"
Ji Jue was utterly listless, nearly collapsing onto the floor. Heaven knew how he was supposed to explain that pile of garbage to the professor. He couldn't exactly say that he'd been caught up in a terrorist attack, fought shoulder to shoulder with a big sister from the Security Bureau against Lawrence, and scored ninety-three points by hacking apart everyone on the field, could he?
"Come, come, hurry in! Hero, go meet your death!"
Ye Chun wore a delightedly malicious expression as she led him to the office, personally pulled open the door, and then kicked him onto the 'judgment stand.'
In the dead silence, only the ticking of the clock remained.
Beneath the morning sunlight, the person behind the desk seemed to have been waiting for a long time. She wasn't pretending to revise documents. Instead, she held an old teacup and drank tea so strong it had turned nearly black.
Professor Ye Xian was over forty. Without any deliberate makeup, wrinkles already showed on her face like knife cuts, only further highlighting the severity and cold austerity carved into her bones.
Watching Ji Jue wriggle his way over while rubbing his hands and smiling obsequiously in greeting, she did not lose her temper. She merely pointed at the stack of papers that had been printed not long ago.
"Give it a critique yourself first."
She said, "The, mm, 'academic' work you submitted."
Before you continue