Status

Under Qin Siyang and Wen Shu's repeated praise, Teacher Zhu grew a little embarrassed.

She smiled kindly. "Having the approval of two good children like you is enough for me. There really is nothing to be done about this illness, so don't worry about it."

Wen Shu glanced at Qin Siyang, but he kept his head down and ate without saying anything.

If the solitary Qin Siyang had felt even a trace of human warmth in this world, it had certainly come from Teacher Zhu.

As long as he wanted this work-study position, Teacher Zhu would always keep it for him.

Other students' parents had given Teacher Zhu gifts, hoping she would reserve the position for their children.

But Teacher Zhu had stood firm. "If your child is an orphan, they can take turns with Qin Siyang. Otherwise, there's nothing to discuss."

Even during the Apocalypse, in a place as run-down as the outskirts of the Safe Zone, people like Teacher Zhu still existed.

That was why Qin Siyang genuinely hoped a good person like Teacher Zhu could have a happy ending.

But how could cancer be treated?

How much would it cost?

He had no idea.

It looked like he would have to go online again that evening and check [Godslayer Camp].

Qin Siyang made no grand promises, because he did not know whether his current abilities could help Teacher Zhu through this ordeal.

After finishing his meal, he began organizing the Library's books.

But once he got out of his chair, he never sat down again.

An unusually large number of students came to the Library that day.

To be more precise, an unusually large number of girls came to the Library that day.

"Qin Siyang... could I borrow this book?"

"Qin Siyang, my fundamentals are pretty weak. Do you have any study guides you'd recommend?"

"Qin Siyang, I have lots of glow-in-the-dark books at home. Want to read them together tonight?"

Qin Siyang's quiet working life in the Library was thrown into chaos by a group of reasonably attractive girls who were exceedingly forward.

It was so noisy that Wen Shu borrowed a book of practice problems and went elsewhere to study.

Wen Shu was the person all these girls wished they could become, as well as the target of their private disparagement.

While Wen Shu had been sitting there, her air of academic excellence had made them feel somewhat inferior, and they had shown a little restraint.

Once Wen Shu left the Library, they cast off their inhibitions and launched an all-out assault on Qin Siyang.

And when they saw that Qin Siyang made no aggressive moves, they realized he apparently would not attack them the way he had knocked the grade director unconscious, and grew even more brazen.

Baring a shoulder or lifting a skirt hem was nothing.

Some girls even undid their buttons as they stumbled straight into Qin Siyang's chest, pressing their twin cushions against him until he was speechless.

Qin Siyang marveled inwardly. So this was how ordinary people treated a Sequence Ability User.

If casually taking down the grade director and his homeroom teacher earlier had been his way of asserting his status, then this encounter in the Library was other people acknowledging it.

Compared with asserting himself through force, being sought after and acknowledged by others really was more enjoyable.

Across both his lives, Qin Siyang had never seen so many girls pursuing him with such wild enthusiasm. It gave him a taste of what being a celebrity idol in his previous life must have been like.

An ordinary eighteen-year-old student, suddenly rising from poverty to wealth with little experience of the world, might have lost himself among these shallow beauties.

Teacher Zhu sighed repeatedly nearby, afraid that Qin Siyang would lose his way and succumb to their charms.

But they did not know that Qin Siyang had killed before.

He had killed more than one person.

After shedding blood several times, his heart had long since grown utterly calm.

These girls were simply too ordinary. Getting too close to them would only burden him.

They could neither be his companions in life nor a refuge for his physical desires.

They did not even qualify as beauties destined to become skeletons. In Qin Siyang's eyes, they were nothing at all.

Qin Siyang was even more certain that a wonderful life lay ahead.

So, with a smile on his face, he spoke mildly to the girls rubbing against him:

"Get lost."

The girls froze, instinctively looking at Qin Siyang's face, only to find it expressionless, utterly different from a moment ago.

In an instant, they felt the fear the grade director had experienced that morning and immediately sprang away from Qin Siyang.

Qin Siyang smiled. "Good. People my own age really are much easier to communicate with than my homeroom teacher."

But the girls felt a bone-chilling cold in Qin Siyang's smile.

Qin Siyang walked out of the Library along the path the girls had cleared.

At the door, he told Teacher Zhu, "Teacher, I'll come back after school this afternoon. You can eat this breakfast when you're hungry."

"All right!" Seeing that Qin Siyang was completely unaffected, Teacher Zhu smiled and nodded.

Qin Siyang was about to clear away the food containers left over from his meal with Wen Shu, but he found the table already empty. Apparently, Wen Shu had thrown out the trash on her way out.

Qin Siyang murmured, "Wen Shu really does have good manners."

"She certainly does!" Hearing Qin Siyang praise Wen Shu, Teacher Zhu immediately joined in. "Wen Shu does well in school, has good character, is kind, and has a mind of her own. Unlike some people."

As she spoke, she shot a dirty look at the girls who had spent so long making noise in the Library.

Qin Siyang nodded. "She certainly has a mind of her own."

Qin Siyang did not know about the other aspects, but he wholeheartedly agreed that Wen Shu was a girl with her own ideas.

He still remembered the night Li Jingwen's uncle and a gang of thugs had hunted him down. Wen Shu had given him quite a lesson in disposing of bodies and erasing evidence.

"All right, I'm off. Don't wear yourself out."

"Of course!"

After leaving the Library, Qin Siyang did not return to the classroom. Instead, he found a quiet, deserted spot, took out his phone, and called Qian Wendao.

"Hello, Section Chief Qian. Sorry to bother you. Do you have a moment? I'd like to talk."

"Oh, Qin. What is it?"

"Well, a friend I'm close to has cancer. I wanted to ask whether there are any treatment options."

Section Chief Qian paused. "Your friend? A Sequence Ability User?"

"No, an ordinary person."

"You have ordinary people as friends?"

"Of course ordinary people can be friends. Who wasn't an ordinary person when they were born?"

"Well... you have a point. If you have money, you can send them to a hospital for treatment."

"If I had money, I wouldn't be calling you."

"You mean... you want to know about the special options available to Sequence Ability Users?"

"Of course."

"Generally speaking, we Sequence Ability Users have two ways to treat an illness."

"Please, go on."

"The first is to hunt Gods outside the Safe Zone, then exchange them for money at the Administration Bureau and pay for hospital treatment."

"The second is to find a [Healer] Sequence Ability User to treat them. But that usually costs even more."

"I've looked into the [Healer] Sequence too. But they seem extremely rare and hard to find."

"You're right about that. Almost all [Healer] Sequence Ability Users work in hospitals in the Safe Zone's most luxurious districts, exclusively safeguarding the health of the upper classes. Ordinary people can't even get a glimpse of them."

"In that case, my only option is to hunt Gods outside the Safe Zone. But I've only just awakened my Sequence. I'm probably not ready to join a God-Hunting Team."

"What sort of friend is this? You care so much that you're willing to kill Gods to help pay for their treatment?"

"A good person who's looked after me."