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Yan Pei stared at him grimly until he could no longer hold his head up.

Having offended the teacher in charge as soon as he arrived, Gao Peng nearly fainted.

A figure appeared at the station entrance, dragging a suitcase slowly inside. Secretly anxious, Gao Peng caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye, froze, and blurted out, "Young Master Jin!"

Jin Hong walked in.

Yan Pei turned toward Jin Hong at the sound, and his persistently gloomy expression actually brightened somewhat. "You know each other?"

Gao Peng said, "We're classmates!"

Jin Hong said nothing, neither confirming nor denying it. Yan Pei looked between them, then suddenly waved a hand. "Both of you, go on in."

Gao Peng said, "Huh?"

Yan Pei looked up. "What?"

Gao Peng immediately moved, reaching Jin Hong in a few steps and eagerly taking his luggage. Well accustomed to his fawning, Jin Hong tossed it to him. The three assistants watched with mixed feelings. Even the Jin Family's high-potential young master had come to the trial ground. It had been a long time since anyone from the Jin Family had come. Their family seemed to have its own path to awakening and rarely accepted places at the trial ground. And this young master's personality...

The three assistants exchanged glances, each seeing distaste in the others' eyes.

Yan Pei stood alone to one side, his head lowered, thinking about who knew what. When the last student arrived, he cornered them and gave them a lengthy dressing-down.

Once all the students had arrived, Yan Pei checked the time and announced, "Let's go!"

One assistant hurriedly called for a halt. "Wait!"

Yan Pei looked at him unhappily.

The assistant scratched his cheek. "Um, I think one of our colleagues still isn't here..."

At those words, the corners of Yan Pei's mouth immediately turned down. A storm was brewing, and the oppressive aura of a B-rank ability user swept over them. He enunciated each word. "Who. Isn't. Here?"

The assistant gave a dry cough. "The one recruited through Part-Time Cat."

Only then did Yan Pei realize an assistant was missing. He looked down on the assistants and paid little attention to these low-ranking ability users. Besides, rather than staying by his side all the time, the assistants had been rushing around taking care of things, so he had only now noticed they were short a person.

The veins beneath his skin twitched. "She's still not here?"

As he spoke, a figure appeared outside the station, unhurried, walking even more steadily than the Jin Family's young master.

Yan Pei's gaze shot toward her.

Ye Jiang walked into the station with her backpack on. As she approached, she met four gazes, three sympathetic and one furious.

"Turbot?" A gloomy voice rang out, belonging to the furious one.

Ye Jiang nodded.

Yan Pei barked at her, "Could you take it any easier? Do you think you're here for a picnic?"

His voice was so loud that the students sitting in the buses all poked their heads out.

Ye Jiang checked the time. She wasn't late. The agreed time hadn't arrived yet; there were still a few minutes to go. So she said, "You're annoying."

Silence.

After only a little contact, both the students and the assistants knew what the teacher in charge of Trial Ground 165 was like.

But this newcomer apparently didn't.

She was that bold.

In an instant, Yan Pei's face turned black as ink. He stared at Ye Jiang, staring straight at her. Just as the other assistants could no longer resist stepping in to smooth things over, Yan Pei suddenly withdrew his gaze, turned, and left.

So... that was it?

Apparently, that was it.

This guy from Team Two actually wasn't so bad!

The assistants were easygoing and cheerful.

They gathered around Ye Jiang, warmly introduced themselves, and finally assigned her a bus. They had no idea that the Team Two colleague they thought wasn't so bad was considering using a trial accident to kill someone.

Ye Jiang was assigned to a bus that still had empty seats, and she picked one at random and sat down.

She barely looked around the bus, uninterested, so she failed to notice that three whole "acquaintances" were aboard. Ming Xia sat by a window in the middle, her eyes churning with complicated feelings as she recalled the half-dead Bone Joint Flower in the alley. The Jin Family's young master, Jin Hong, sat in the back, his gaze sinister, as though his forehead could still feel that greasy, scalding heat. Jin Hong's lackey, Gao Peng, sat beside him. He wasn't supposed to be on this bus but had followed Jin Hong aboard. Now uncertainty flickered across his face. Anyone who could serve as a trial ground assistant was an ability user, but the waitress clearly hadn't had a Blood Moon mark on her hand...

He had heard that some ability users concealed the Blood Moon marks on their hands. So it was true.

How strange. Why would anyone actually do that? The Blood Moon was a symbol of status, a symbol of power!

The three "acquaintances" looked at Ye Jiang with different expressions. As for Ye Jiang... she started playing on her phone the moment she sat down, shutting out all outside noise.

The bus started up, left the station, and headed into the mountains. The city gradually fell behind them, and lush greenery filled the view outside.

After more than two hours, the bus stopped on a mountain. Examination Ground 165, built on the mountain, had just undergone maintenance. A wave of cool air greeted them as soon as they entered, as though they had arrived at a summer retreat.

Calling it a summer retreat wasn't wrong. It had originally been a mountain resort made up of a complex of ancient buildings, with a long history and an air of antiquity throughout.

There were over a hundred students taking part in the trial, and the spacious resort accommodated them easily. The teacher in charge and the assistants even got luxurious single rooms.

Ye Jiang was assigned a luxurious single room too. It was bigger than the apartment she shared with Yu Qingyi. She wandered around inside, familiarizing herself with the layout. She hadn't been on the job long, and she was already experiencing the benefits of a big home.

Unlike the leisurely Ye Jiang, the students were in no mood to explore their accommodations. In fact, there wasn't much to explore. They were staying in converted communal dormitories.

The teenage boys and girls were both expectant and apprehensive. They weren't given much time to rest and settle in. Their trials would begin that afternoon, and there was only one item on the agenda: exposure to contamination.

Blood Moon Day was approaching. For the half month before it arrived, the students would have to visit the trial chambers every day to expose themselves to contamination and build their resistance.

The students had known before coming what lessons awaited them. As students, they had been well protected. The world was in turmoil and the Polluted ran rampant, but they had practically never encountered contamination head-on, so they were inevitably nervous about the afternoon's trial. This was especially true of those in Trial Chambers C and D. Their potential was slightly lower, and although they had made it here through assessment, they might not make it to the end. They might have to withdraw midway because they couldn't withstand the contamination. Of course, the same went for those in Trial Chambers A and B, but they were relatively much more confident.

At two that afternoon, Yan Pei gathered the students and announced the first trial.

"Don't push yourselves. If you can't hold on, report it and return to your dormitory. The assistant teachers supervising you will help you. Pushing yourselves won't do you any good. Excessive contamination will only make you leave this place early." Addressing the 107 students, Yan Pei made this solemn declaration, though a measure of contempt crept into it. "You may have been selected as people with potential, but fewer than half of you will awaken. Know your limits."

The students, who had come here full of hope, faltered. Seeing this, the assistant beside Yan Pei felt he had gone too far. As the students began to waver, the assistant hurriedly spoke up. "Relax, relax. You're all outstanding. Even if you can't become ability users, you're still outstanding."

Unhappy at this low-ranking ability user's interruption, Yan Pei's expression hardened. Just as he was about to reprimand the assistant, another assistant immediately spoke up to move things along and arranged for the students to head to their trial chambers.

Yan

Pei: "..."

Ill-mannered wretches!

Ye Jiang was assigned to Trial Chamber A to supervise the dozen or so students with the greatest potential.

Even now, she had no idea what these students were being tested on. Everyone else seemed to assume she knew, and no one explained anything. They only told her to watch the students and take them back to the dormitories if they felt unwell.

Ye Jiang didn't insist on getting to the bottom of it either. As long as she got paid, nothing else mattered all that much.

She led the dozen or so students into the so-called Trial Chamber A. Built deep underground, the chamber was dark and damp, so untouched that it seemed they had simply dug a large cave underground.

Ye Jiang entered first and immediately saw an enormous cage. It was covered in rust, and there was someone inside. Fungal threads twisted into a human shape with no facial features, huddled in one corner of the cage. As soon as someone came, countless fungal threads extended from beneath her feet, slowly creeping out of the cage toward the living people.

When the students behind Ye Jiang saw what was inside, they all exhaled and instinctively retreated a few steps, their faces filled with horror.

A Polluted!

A living one!

Fear instinctively rose in the students' hearts, yet some sort of resolve stopped their retreat. The fungal threads slowly crept toward them and wound around their bodies.

Goosebumps rose uncontrollably. Their souls screamed.

Every student in Trial Chamber A had potential rated double B or higher. Both their mental strength and constitution had reached B, and there were two double As, Ming Xia and Jin Hong. At that moment, they stood apart without disturbing each other, both looking fairly composed as they let the fungal threads coil around their bodies. Seeing them, the other students felt somewhat reassured and worked to relax, trying to accept the threads.

Don't be afraid. The teacher in charge said this Mushroom Man might be a C-rank Polluted, but she's injured. Her contamination was mild to begin with, and it's even milder now that she's hurt.

The other trial chambers all used F-rank Polluted for their trials. Only they had been specially assigned this Polluted because of their high potential.

Apparently, the Jin Family had only just captured this Polluted and intended to use her to test their descendants. The Jin Family had repeatedly assessed her and determined that she could be used for trials. They had only made a special loan of her because Young Master Jin had come to the trial ground. As long as no one pushed themselves too far, everyone would be safe.

The students gradually relaxed.

But before long, some began reaching their limits, one after another. This was their first exposure to contamination, and they were facing a C-rank Polluted right from the start. It was normal that they couldn't hold on for long.

Ye Jiang escorted the students who felt unwell back to their dormitories. That was her job.

Ye Jiang didn't count how many trips she made. By the time she had a moment to spare, only the two students with double-A potential remained in the trial chamber. The vast chamber felt even emptier. Ye Jiang found a protruding rock and sat down on it.

Some fungal threads tried to climb onto her, and she gently brushed them aside, not wanting to be wrapped up like a rice dumpling the way everyone else was.

Time ticked by. Fine beads of sweat slowly appeared on the Jin Family young master's forehead, and thin streaks of blood crept across both his eyes. He was clearly uncomfortable, but instead of leaving, he cast a sidelong glance at Ming Xia at the other end.