The cool mountain breeze that blew toward the polluted

He refused to let himself be worse than Ming Xia, even by a little!

Fortunately, Ming Xia looked close to her limit too. Although she showed no symptoms like sweating, she looked dazed-clearly worse off than he was!

Jin Hong was thinking smugly when a shadow fell over him. The pollution had dulled his senses, and only after a while did he look up. Ye Jiang had come over and was looking down at him.

"You..."

"You don't know shit! I can still keep going!"

As though he knew what Ye Jiang was about to say, Jin Hong cut her off first.

Ye Jiang's expression remained unchanged as she looked down and examined him.

Sweating, pale face, bloodshot eyes, slight trembling.

"Student."

Having reached a conclusion through her assessment, Ye Jiang said, "You need to know your own limits."

She quoted the teacher leading the group.

Those words stabbed into Jin Hong's chest like a knife. He nearly lost his breath. "You fucking..."

Ye Jiang had made her own judgment and had no desire to listen to his nonsense, nor did she want one person to cause a mistake in her work and cost her her pay. Without hesitation, she raised a well-meaning fist and knocked him on the head as though striking a wooden fish. Bonk. A good, solid head. The young master of the Jin Family's curses cut off abruptly. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed toward the floor.

Ming Xia, who was watching from inside the trial room: "..."

Ye Jiang looked toward her and assessed her condition. She was doing reasonably well, and her earlier daze had not been caused by pollution. Leaving her alone for now, Ye Jiang grabbed one of Jin Hong's feet and dragged him out of the trial room.

Dragged him.

It was her first time taking a completely unconscious student out, too. She had no experience.

The corners of Ming Xia's mouth twitched. Once Ye Jiang returned after dropping Jin Hong off, she, having just begun to feel unwell, stood up of her own accord and asked to go back to the dormitory.

She did not want to be punched or dragged.

After taking Ming Xia back, Ye Jiang returned to the trial room, sat down, and played on her phone.

The trial room was silent, its dimness easily blurring the passage of time. Ye Jiang sat there for who knew how long before the Mushroom Man in the cage suddenly twitched. Countless strands of mycelium spread from beneath her, slithering out of the cage like snakes and tangling together. Ye Jiang finally looked up from her phone. She glanced at the Mushroom Man in the cage, walked over, and stood before her. The Mushroom Man ignored her, her snow-white mycelium tangling and twitching.

Ye Jiang bent down, gripped the cage with both hands, and pulled sideways, forcibly creating a "door" in the iron cage.

She pulled the Mushroom Man out.

Finally, the last one.

She had just heard this student crying in pain. She could not hold on anymore.

She dragged the Mushroom Man out of the trial room.

There were no vacancies in the student dormitory. For the sake of her fifty-thousand payment, Ye Jiang settled the Mushroom Man in her own large room.

Chapter 14: The cool mountain breeze that blew toward the polluted.

After bringing the Mushroom Man back to her room, Ye Jiang considered her task complete and felt no need to bother with her anymore. The student was only feeling unwell; she had not lost the ability to look after herself. At her age, she ought to know how to take care of herself. With that thought, Ye Jiang ignored the Mushroom Man, took off her shoes, and sat in the room's carved chair, tucking both bare feet up onto the seat. The Mushroom Man stood in the room as though dead. Suddenly, she stirred, her mycelium slowly wriggling toward Ye Jiang.

Several strands climbed onto the chair and wound around Ye Jiang's feet. The mycelium was snow-white, and Ye Jiang's skin was no less pale. Both were white. She gently brushed them away with her foot, but they stubbornly wound around her again, as though driven solely by obsession, without any thoughts of their own.

Ye Jiang tolerated it. The relaxed pleasure of being off work gave her a little more patience with the student. The mycelium wound around her again and again, and she brushed it away each time.

When the mycelium wound around her once more, she earnestly advised the Mushroom Man in the room, "You should play with people your own age, like you did this afternoon, not with me."

Ye Jiang did not quite understand what assignment she was doing, but one thing was clear: she was looking after students, and her role was temporarily much like a teacher's.

After saying this, Ye Jiang drew her feet closer, pressing them against her chest. Before taking out her phone and becoming absorbed in it, she left one final remark: "You can rest here until tomorrow."

The Mushroom Man froze, like a broken machine struggling to run. Her blank face seemed to go vacant. After a long while, the mycelium she had released withdrew.

She seemed to recover, slowly dragging her body over to the window. Her body was extremely flexible. As she leaned against the window, her mycelium stuck to the wall and window on its own, as though she had grown there.

Her blank face turned toward the view outside. The wind passed through the mountain woods with a rustle.

There was wind.

The room settled into a strange peace.

On the chair, Ye Jiang, absorbed in her phone, discovered a new source of amusement on her own-games.

After television and films, she set off down a new path.

As a newcomer to gaming, she was terrible at it. In a classic endless runner, she died every ten-odd seconds on average. After dying again, she could not help looking up at the Mushroom Man by the window. "Student, do you know how to play games?"

The Mushroom Man froze again.

She could never understand this human.

The wind brushed her face, as though bringing a trace of clarity. After a long pause, she slowly turned her head back.

Her body did not move. Mycelium slithered out and wound around Ye Jiang's hands. This time, Ye Jiang did not refuse. The strands guided her hands to play the little game on her phone.

Then the game character fell to its death.

Ye Jiang looked up at the Mushroom Man.

Several strands of mycelium waved a few times in the air, seemingly awkward.

The mycelium guided Ye Jiang's hands through the game again, as though trying to make amends. Then, death. Another try, another death... Her gaming skills were on par with Ye Jiang's. Both lasted ten-odd seconds.

Ye Jiang gave her a long, deep look.

The Mushroom Man: "..."

Just as the Mushroom Man was about to try again, Ye Jiang said two words: "Forget it."

She brushed the mycelium off her hands.

The strands fell to the floor and wriggled a few times, seemingly bewildered. After a very, very long time, they slowly slithered back into her body. She turned back to the scenery outside, where the mountains were dark as ink and dusk was closing in.

She was injured, and her body hurt badly, but the wind blowing toward her seemed to carry away some of the pain.

Ye Jiang puzzled over the game, but when mealtime arrived, she did not delay at all or forget to go to the cafeteria.

After eating, she pushed open the door and returned to her room. The Mushroom Man was still by the window in the same pose, as though she could not get enough of the view outside.

"Student," Ye Jiang called.

The Mushroom Man slowly turned her head. Ye Jiang handed her a meal box. "Go to the cafeteria yourself once you're feeling better."

Her face was expression-

less. She had no intention of coddling the student.

The Mushroom Man froze as though broken.

Since meeting this human, she had broken four times.

Once when the human took her out of the cage, once when she let her stay and rest, once when she asked whether she could play games, and now.

A gentle breeze brushed against her, as though sweeping away something dirty, letting her feel a trace of peace.

She turned to look outside and discovered that there was clearly no wind beyond the window.

Where was the wind coming from?

Dazedly, she wrapped her mycelium around the meal box in the human's hand, unsure what to do with it. When the human returned to the chair and started playing on her phone, she clumsily drew it into her body, protecting it with layers of mycelium.

Ye Jiang had no talent for gaming. Despite practicing for a long time, she still made no progress. Stubborn now, she refused to give up and went to her death over and over.

Knock, knock-

Someone knocked on the door.

Ye Jiang died once more before going over to open it. Her visitor was the student Ming Xia. The afternoon's trial seemed not to have affected her much. Compared with her classmates, she was in much better shape.

Ye Jiang asked with her eyes what she wanted. Ming Xia hesitated, starting to speak and stopping.

Ye Jiang: "?"

"Teacher, I just wanted to warn you. You've offended Jin Hong, so be careful. He's petty, and he'll definitely look for a chance to get back at you," Ming Xia said.

Ming Xia was not one to meddle. She had her own things to do and could barely manage them, with no time to interfere in other people's affairs. But turning a completely blind eye went against her conscience, so after some hesitation, she had come over after all.

Ming Xia said, "I've been Jin Hong's classmate for a long time. I know exactly what he's like. He takes revenge over the smallest slight. You hit him, and if he hasn't done anything to you yet, he's definitely looking for an opportunity."

A trace of confusion slowly surfaced in Ye Jiang's eyes. Jin Hong? Gao Peng? Who was that? Had she offended him?

She thought back, finally piecing together some useful recollections from an unimportant corner of her memory. Oh, that student.

Ming Xia thought for a moment, then added, "Gao Peng from Class D is Jin Hong's lackey. He does whatever he says. Those two might work together, so you'd better watch out for both of them."

Disgust appeared on her face as she spoke of the two.

Ye Jiang nodded. She would remember.

But she did not take it very seriously. They were only two children.

Ming Xia glanced at her. Seeing her nod, and having accomplished what she came for, she lowered her brows slightly, turned, and left.

A faint sound suddenly came from inside the room, a very quiet rustling. Without her A-rank physique, Ming Xia would never have heard it. She instinctively glanced inside, and the next instant, her gaze met a patch of snow-white. A pure-white humanoid figure appeared before her eyes. While she was still in shock, the door closed.

That was...

The Mushroom Man?!

The assistant teacher had brought the Mushroom Man... back to her room?

Ye Jiang closed the door, the student's warnings echoing in her mind. Jin Hong, Gao Peng, revenge... She thought about them for only two seconds before putting the matter out of her mind.

She had tried, but she really could not muster any wariness over children's revenge.

She picked up her phone and played a couple of rounds. Having made little progress, she pursed her lips and put the phone down, bored, then washed up and went to bed.

Night fell. The mountains were quieter than the city, and Ye Jiang went to sleep early.

Once she was asleep, the Mushroom Man by the window stirred. Her mycelium slithered over, sticking all over Ye Jiang's bed, as though observing her up close.

When Ye Jiang woke in the morning, she discovered that her bed had become a spider's den. She brushed aside the mycelium dangling above her head and rolled over, feeling something hard beneath her. Reaching down, she felt around and pulled out several small stones. They lacked the luster of jewels and did not look valuable, but each bore unusual patterns that were rather pretty. She glanced at the Mushroom Man by the window and put the stones away.