Saving the Underachieving Senior Sister

It was already deep into the night, and most of the lights in the eastern courtyard of Spirit Hall had gone out.

Only Bibi Dong's room was still lit.

The third volume of the thick Soul Beast Compendium lay spread across a large table. Beside it was a stack of copied pages, with crooked handwriting crawling across most of each sheet.

Bibi Dong lay slumped over one arm, a pen in her other hand. The tip scratched across the paper a few times before stopping.

Her entire body radiated the despairing aura of someone who had become a salted fish.

"Ugh... why is there still so much left..."

She raised her head and looked at the thick stack of pages she had yet to copy, the light in her eyes nearly fading away.

The pen spun twice between her fingers before falling onto the desk with a slap.

She had already been copying for four hours. Her fingers were so sore that even holding the pen took effort, yet the book was still ridiculously thick, as if she could never finish copying it.

When Elder Jiang had punished her by making her copy the third volume, she had not thought much of it. Only after actually starting did she realize that copying three hundred pages once was pure torture.

Just as she was about to rest her head on the desk for a while, the door suddenly opened.

Bibi Dong jerked her head up and saw Qian Renxue and Ye Guyi enter one after the other. Luo Jiuyou came in last, still holding a teacup.

"Why are you here?" Bibi Dong blinked, then guiltily pulled the pages of crooked copying closer to herself.

Qian Renxue walked to the table, lowered her head, and glanced at what she had written. She fell silent for a moment.

"...Your handwriting looks like spiders crawling around."

"Mind your own business!" Bibi Dong glared at her, face flushed. "It's good enough if I can finish! Who cares whether it looks nice?"

Ye Guyi also leaned over for a look. The corner of her mouth twitched slightly, but she said nothing.

Qian Renxue sighed, pulled over a chair, and sat down. She casually picked up another pen from the table. "Fine. I'll help you write some of it."

Bibi Dong froze, and her eyes suddenly stung. "Second Junior Sister..."

"Don't start." Qian Renxue did not even look up. "If you cry, I'm leaving immediately."

Bibi Dong instantly forced back her tears, sniffed hard, then turned to look at Ye Guyi.

Without a word, Ye Guyi sat down by the table as well. She picked up a pen, flipped through the book, and began copying from the latter half.

Bibi Dong was deeply moved. She turned to Luo Jiuyou, who was standing by the door, her eyes sparkling. "Junior Brother—come help too?"

Holding his teacup, Luo Jiuyou walked in. Rather than sitting down immediately, he first surveyed the battlefield on the table—the thick stack of untouched pages, the crooked handwriting, and Bibi Dong's face screaming, "Please save me."

He raised an eyebrow and asked a crucial question.

"Senior Sister, if we help you finish copying it, what will you do when Elder Jiang tests you tomorrow and you can't recite it?"

The room fell quiet for a moment.

Bibi Dong opened her mouth. After a long while, she muttered, "...I won't be able to recite it."

Qian Renxue's pen stopped, and Ye Guyi looked up as well.

"You won't be able to recite it," Luo Jiuyou repeated.

"Then no matter how much you copy tonight, won't you still be done for when Elder Jiang tests you tomorrow? When he punishes you by making you copy the fourth volume, are you going to make us keep helping?"

Bibi Dong completely wilted and buried her head in her arms. "Then what am I supposed to do... I really can't memorize it..."

Seeing his senior sister like this, Luo Jiuyou set down his teacup, walked to the table, pulled the Soul Beast Compendium out from under her arms, and flipped through it. His mind raced through the study methods from his past life.

"There's a way."

Bibi Dong shot her head up. "What way?"

"Listen first." Luo Jiuyou pulled over a chair and sat down, opening the book to the first page. "How did you copy it before?"

"I just... looked at the book and copied it."

"Then change your method." Luo Jiuyou stood the book upright.

"Look at this passage with your eyes, read it aloud with your mouth, listen to your own voice with your ears, and copy it at the same time with your hand. Eyes, mouth, ears, and hand—all four working together."

Bibi Dong blinked. "Will that work?"

"Try it and find out."

Bibi Dong was doubtful, but she did as he said.

She turned to a page, stared at the words, and read aloud haltingly. "Red-Flame Lizard... fire attribute... soul rings suitable for fire-attribute martial souls... lives in volcanic regions..."

She copied as she read. After finishing a short passage, she looked up with a blank expression. "It seems... no different?"

"Then try recalling what you just copied."

Bibi Dong opened her mouth and froze.

"...Red-Flame Lizard... fire attribute... suitable for fire-attribute martial souls... lives in... volcanic regions?"

The more she spoke, the more astonished she became, and the faster her words came. "Huh?! How do I remember it already?!"

Qian Renxue raised an eyebrow. "Seriously?"

"Seriously!" Bibi Dong slapped the table excitedly. "I actually remembered it! I only read it out casually!"

Luo Jiuyou nodded. "Before, you only used your eyes to look and your hand to copy. Your voice and ears were not involved. Now that your eyes, mouth, ears, and hand are all working together, your memory efficiency will be much higher."

Qian Renxue seemed thoughtful as she quietly repeated, "Eyes look, mouth reads, ears listen, hand copies..."

Ye Guyi nodded slightly as well. "This method really is ingenious."

Bibi Dong was already fired up. She kept flipping through the book, muttering as she continued copying.

After watching for a while, Luo Jiuyou added, "Don't copy whole passages at a time. Compare soul beasts of the same type together, and you'll find patterns between them."

"Patterns?" Bibi Dong looked at him blankly.

Luo Jiuyou pointed to several entries in the book.

"Red-Flame Lizard, Blazing Centipede, Firecloud Wolf."

"They are all fire-attribute, all live in high-temperature areas, and their soul rings are all suitable for fire-attribute martial souls."

"If you memorize them together, it'll be much faster than copying them one by one. Seeing one will remind you of the others."

Bibi Dong tried flipping through the book again and found that the habitats and age ranges of many fire-attribute soul beasts were indeed quite similar. The differences lay only in their names and specific characteristics.

She tried organizing them by category and found that she was much faster. The impression they left in her mind was also far deeper than before.

Qian Renxue and Ye Guyi exchanged glances, each seeing a trace of surprise in the other's eyes.

They had never heard of this method before, but it truly worked.

After copying for a while longer, Bibi Dong's speed noticeably increased.

Her handwriting was still crooked, but she no longer got distracted as often as before. Even when she occasionally got stuck, she could work through it herself. She had improved greatly.

She neatly stacked the copied pages, raised her head, and let out a long breath.

"Finally finished! Junior Brother, your method is incredible! It's way more useful than blindly copying by myself!"

Qian Renxue set down her pen and rubbed her aching wrist. Rarely, she did not mock Bibi Dong, merely saying softly, "It really was faster than I expected."

Ye Guyi nodded as well. "Once we remember this method, copying books in the future should not be too difficult."

Bibi Dong's nose stung slightly after hearing that, but this time she did not cry. Instead, she smiled.

"Thank you. If you hadn't come, I definitely wouldn't have finished even by dawn."

Qian Renxue snorted and looked away. "Enough with the mushy stuff."

Ye Guyi merely curved her lips slightly.

Bibi Dong organized the copied pages, then looked at Luo Jiuyou and said with unusual seriousness, "Junior Brother, thank you."

Looking at his senior sister, whose brows were raised in delight and whose eyes shone brightly, Luo Jiuyou suddenly asked,

"If someone offered you good books and resources to win you over, would you go with them?"

Bibi Dong was taken aback, unable to understand. "Why would I go with them?"

"I mean... if they asked you to go somewhere else to cultivate, or gave you something and wanted you to go with them."

"Of course I wouldn't!" Bibi Dong declared righteously. "Spirit Hall is where I grew up. Teacher and all of you are here, so why would I go with someone else?"

"Oh."

"Then remember what you just said."

Bibi Dong put her hands on her hips and glared at him. "Who are you looking down on? I'm not the kind of person who gets tricked away so easily!"

Qian Renxue laughed from the side and slowly added, "Eldest Senior Sister, I think you really are."

Bibi Dong bristled. "What do you mean by that?!"

"Exactly what it sounds like."

The two began bickering again. Bibi Dong reached out to pinch Qian Renxue's cheeks.

Qian Renxue dodged sideways and casually tugged Bibi Dong's braid. Bibi Dong yelped and fought back, shaking the papers on the desk until they rustled loudly.

Ye Guyi silently took two steps back.

Watching them make a fuss, Luo Jiuyou clicked his tongue softly.

This foolish, airheaded underachieving senior sister of his had been completely dazzled in the original story by a few words from that "Master," who could not even break through rank thirty by the age of fifty.

His second senior sister, Qian Renxue, was not much better. To recruit Tang San, she had even been prepared to sell out her own subordinates. She could develop feelings in the middle of a war.

This world was twisted beyond belief. Everything could somehow be connected to romance, and every one of them was love-brained.

If he did not properly set their values straight, who knew what might happen in the future?

Still,

If he could make these love-brained girls fall for him, that would not be bad either.

After messing around for a while, Bibi Dong sat down, panting. As she gathered the papers on the table, she muttered,

"Junior Brother, can I use that method you taught me in class tomorrow? I'm afraid I'll get sleepy again..."

"You can," Luo Jiuyou said. "Use this method every time you read from now on. Keep your eyes, mouth, ears, and hand working together. After a while, it'll become natural."

"Also, don't just read without practicing. After learning something, try explaining it yourself. If you can explain it clearly, then you truly understand it. If you can't, then you haven't understood it thoroughly."

Bibi Dong nodded as if she half understood, then silently repeated his words to herself.

Qian Renxue fell quiet for a moment before suddenly asking, "Junior Brother, where did you learn this method?"

"I figured it out myself." Luo Jiuyou's expression did not change. "There was nothing much to do at the orphanage before, so I tried all kinds of ways to see how I could memorize things the fastest."

Qian Renxue gave him a doubtful look, but did not press him further.

Ye Guyi looked at Luo Jiuyou once more, her gaze carrying a trace of caution, but she quickly withdrew it.

Bibi Dong stretched and yawned. "It's so late... You should all hurry back and rest too."

Qian Renxue stood up and walked to the door. Looking back, she said, "Don't make us come wake you tomorrow morning."

Bibi Dong glared at her. "I won't!"

Luo Jiuyou was the last to leave. When he reached the doorway, he paused slightly and turned back.

"Senior Sister."

"Hm?"

"Don't let anyone trick you away."

Bibi Dong froze for a moment, then threw a pillow at him. "I won't be tricked away! Hurry back and sleep!"

Luo Jiuyou tilted his head aside, dodging the pillow. The corner of his lips lifted slightly as he turned and closed the door behind him.

The night breeze in the corridor was faintly cool.

Qian Renxue and Ye Guyi had already gone far ahead. Their figures, one before the other, gradually shrank beneath the moonlight.

Walking at the rear, Luo Jiuyou looked up at the night sky, then glanced back at the light in Bibi Dong's room, which had already gone dark.

Those two senior sisters had been foolish beyond compare in the original story.

Since they were his senior sisters now, he could not allow those rotten events to happen again.

He had to find a way to start with studying and shaping their values, slowly steering them back onto the right path.

At the very least, he had to make them understand that not everything in this world had to be tied to romance.