The Attack of the Wastrel

Wen Qing laughed to himself and took a whiff of Gu Lingzhi’s clothes.

That action felt so perverted that it made Gu Lingzhi feel ashamed and angered at the same time.

Wen Qing did not do anything else but smell her outer robe over and over again.

After some time, it seemed that Wen Qing did not have any other intentions and instead, was trying to investigate something.

He suddenly paused at the lower part at the back of her robe, and furrowed his brows as he took another two whiffs. Turning to Gu Lingzhi, he asked, “When you were on the way to the Red Leaf Hill, did you smell anything peculiar?”

A peculiar smell?

Gu Lingzhi paused, and replied back cautiously with a question, “What are you trying to do?”

At this moment, she snapped out of her thoughts and forced herself to sit up despite the pain, ready to defend herself.

“I’m trying to find out why you got attacked by the python.”

Was he being honest?

Wen Qing gave her a once over and asked, “What did you think I was going to do?”

Gu Lingzhi shyly covered herself with a blanket. It was natural to be suspicious of Wen Qing’s actions at the beginning, right?

“Oh,” Wen Qing nodded his head when he realized what she had been thinking. “Don’t worry, I’m not interested in living things.”

Only dead animals and plants could perk his interest. As long as it was valuable for research, it could be used as an ingredient for Alchemy, and that was all that mattered to him.

After realizing that she had made a mountain out of a molehill, she swore that Wen Qing had a look of mockery in his eyes. She was not observant before, but now she saw that this eccentric, elderly teacher actually had a side that took delight in making fun of others.

“Well, I can now confirm that it was not a coincidence that the python attacked you. A chemical that attracts pythons has been spilled on this spot of your robe. It may seem odorless to us, but to pythons, the smell is extremely pungent. That is also why a first-order peak grade demon beast had found you.”

Gu Lingzhi remembered that she had smelled something similar not long after she had parted with Qin Xinran.

She did not think that someone would make use of the examination period to kill her. She felt that it was carelessness on her part, to think that it would be safe just because a Demigod was there to invigilate and forgetting that there were many ways to kill someone and get away with it.

“Do you remember how that person looked like?” Wen Qing asked, knowing that Gu Lingzhi had remembered something from the expression on her face.

“I don’t remember,” Gu Lingzhi shook her head. At the time, she had only glanced over in suspicion and did not take note of how the person looked like. “If I see her again, I’ll be able to recognize her.”

“If you’ve found out who she is, you must let the school know,” Wen Qing said. “If this person dares to do something evil during the exam term, she has to bear the consequences!”

Gu Lingzhi shivered. She could not spend another second in this room with Wen Qing’s sinister aura.

“Teacher, if there isn’t anything else, can I go back?”

Wen Qing looked at her with a bland expression in his face. “Didn’t I say that you have to stay here another day for further observation?”

Wen Qing walked over to her bed and bent his body down despite Gu Lingzhi’s nervous expression.

Again!

Gu Lingzhi tightened her grip on her clothes as there was only one more layer beneath it.

Wen Qing’s hands never landed on Gu Lingzhi’s body. He reached over to put the blanket over Gu Lingzhi, under her alarmed gaze.

“Go to sleep, I’ll be leaving now.”

Why did he have to make a normal action seem like such a dirty one?!

She swore that as Wen Qing turned around, she saw that gaze of mockery in his eyes again.

She angrily flipped the blanket over her head and wrapped herself in it. Gu Lingzhi was determined to come up with tricky questions in the next Alchemy class to embarrass Wen Qing in front of the class.

The incense in the infirmary helped Gu Lingzhi to fall asleep. However, in another corner, Tian Fengwei could not seem to fall asleep.

“Wastrel! You can’t even do a simple thing right! Did you feed the spirit stones I gave you to the dogs?” Tianfeng Wei roared in anger at the young girl.

The girl hung her head, but her eyes held an indignant expression. It was her who had spilled the chemical that attracted the python. She made sure that nothing could go wrong, but who knew that Gu Lingzhi had still managed to escape her plotting?

When word had spread that Gu Lingzhi had killed the python that attacked her, many people were impressed and shocked by the feat she had achieved.

“Now that Gu Lingzhi did not die, what if she recognizes you?”

The girl’s body turned rigid when she heard the murderous tone in Tian Fengwei’s words. Agitated and nervous, she pleaded with Tian Fengwei, “Mistress, don’t you worry! When I spilled the chemical on her, she did not notice at all. She did not notice my appearance either, she will not recognize me!”

“Really?” Tianfeng Wei narrowed her eyes at the girl, trying to figure out if she was lying or not.

“Mistress, I have done so many things for you, do you still not trust me?” the girl bit her bottom lip and daringly looked straight at Tian Fengwei.

Yet, only she knew how fast her heart was beating. If she showed any signs of weakness, she would definitely die here.

Tianfeng Wei thought for a moment, before smiling. “Your older sister is my confidante, of course I trust you.”

Upon hearing this, the girl pardoned herself and left.

The next day, Gu Lingzhi, who had rested for a day at the infirmary, took a few pills of Spiritual Medicine that Wen Qing had prescribed for her. After which, she left the infirmary.

The Alchemy assessment venues were at the students’ respective classrooms. In Gu Lingzhi’s classroom, the invigilator was none other than Wen Qing.

The classroom that was usually full, only had a third of the people present today. The people who were not present were students who did not pick Alchemy as their core subject.

The moment she sat down at her seat; Qin Xinran leaned over. She asked worriedly, “Lingzhi, I heard what happened yesterday. How are your wounds? Teacher Wen Qing did not allow anyone to visit you, I was so worried.”

“Thanks for your concern, but I’m alright now,” Gu Lingzhi responded politely.

Qin Xinran looked disappointed and wanted to say more, but at this moment, Wen Qing announced, “You know the topic of today’s exam, I will not elaborate on it. Before the sky turns dark, I want to see the ten Yiyuan Pills that each of you have made.”