November 23rd.
Monday.
Auspicious: burial; nothing else.
Inauspicious: everything.
Never before had Zheng Qing felt that the old almanac was so accurate. After getting up that morning, he sorrowfully discovered that his battered, bruised face had not improved in the slightest. His eye sockets were still as black as they had been the night before, his nose was bluish, and his cheeks were swollen sky-high. From a distance, one could not help but marvel at how fitting the description "swollen like a pig's head" was—today, he should have been like Dylan, staying in a Coffin in broad daylight and doing nothing but snoring.
"If you try to hide it and someone finds out, it'll only be worse."
As the young publicly funded student worked hard to smear Pearl Cream over his face, Xiao Xiao advised him, "You can just go out openly. If anyone asks, stick to what we discussed last night and say you were injured by magic during Hunting Team Training."
Looking at his reflection, whose face had turned deathly pale as a Vampire from applying too much cream, Zheng Qing finally let out a long sigh and washed his face again, hoping only that Dr. Xiao's advice was correct.
Fortunately, no one showed excessive concern about the injuries on his face all the way to the classroom door. Though passersby still occasionally pointed and whispered, it was entirely within Zheng Qing's tolerance.
"Huh? Why do you look like that too?" Duan Xiaojian looked utterly astonished when he ran into the hurried young publicly funded student at the classroom door, bruised and battered from head to toe.
"Uh, Hunting Team Training last night. The training intensity was a little high... Wait." Zheng Qing mumbled through the excuse he and his companions had prepared the previous night, then suddenly