Zheng Qing ultimately did not hide out in the School Hospital as Xiao Xiao had suggested.
Of course, Jiang Yu's fruit had helped him a great deal. At the very least, during the celebrations that followed, the young publicly funded student no longer needed to speak. He only had to stand among the crowd with eight teeth showing and applaud vigorously.
But things were not as bad as Su Shijun had made them sound.
Perhaps being the vessel of a Forbidden Curse made him immune to many negative effects; perhaps foxes were more sensitive to under-ripe crabapple plums; or perhaps Zheng Qing was simply older than Su Ya and had greater resistance.
In any case, by the following morning, most of the swelling, pain, and numbness in Zheng Qing's tongue had faded. He could barely produce muffled, garbled sounds again.
Fortunately, attending class did not necessarily require students to speak.
And with final exams approaching, most professors were rapidly reviewing the semester's key material in class. There were notes to mark and time was tight, which helped the young publicly funded student forget about the trouble in his mouth.
Until that afternoon.
After Talisman Class, he, Xiao Xiao, and Fatty Xin spotted a crow on their way to the library.
It was not some freak wearing a mask, but a real crow. It stood on a branch of a sycamore tree stripped of leaves, warily watching its surroundings and occasionally cocking its head to preen the feathers on its back.
Beneath the tree, a first-year boy raised his spellbook and cast a Binding Spell at the crow.
If there had been anything else unusual about that Monday, it was probably that the "bomb" Zheng Qing had thrown was gradually beginning to echo.
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