Disaster Era year 413, August 29th.
7:20 AM.
Tiann University Orientation Day.
Ji Jue slowly woke from a delicate slumber, opened his eyes, and gazed at the sky outside the window. A light rain had fallen in the early morning, and after the sunrise, the sky was clear and the streets were refreshingly like new.
A cool breeze blew in from the open window.
Such beautiful weather, flowers blooming, birds singing... and so unlucky kids were about to fall into the flas of Hell.
Take Ji Jue, for example.
After waking from a nightmare, he felt his pillow almost wet with tears and couldn't muster the courage to pick up his cellphone—especially when he realized that his inbox contained nothing but promotional junk mail, with no response at all. He seriously wanted to find a pretty little box to burn himself into ashes and put himself inside!
He was completely screwed, thoroughly screwed!
Professor Ye hadn't replied to him yet, which probably, possibly, by all odds, ant he was really, definitely dead!
Rembering the short month that had passed, Ji Jue felt as if it were another lifeti.
Too many chaotic things happened, his sumr vacation was too enriching, too full of ups and downs, so much so that he completely pushed the thesis he was supposed to submit out of his mind...
There was no helping it!
He would have submitted if he had the conditions, right?!
Most of the ti, Ji Jue was lying in the hospital, in a state of absolute lethargy. His overly weak physique ant he slept profoundly for eighteen hours a day, and the severe overuse of his spiritual essence left him in a dimwit state most of the ti.
Asking him what to eat for lunch took ages to respond, and his hands trembled like Parkinson's disease when he held chopsticks.
He was like a dying tree frog.
Forget lacking the capacity to do academic work, he couldn't even do arithtic. He bought a bowl of rice noodle roll and almost calculated a magical result that would have made the vendor give him 6.50 yuan in change.
By the ti he was mostly recovered and finally realized the looming deadline, there were only three days left until the start of the sester!
Three days?
He couldn't produce anything decent even if he killed himself!
Out of desperation, Ji Jue went out to find an internet cafe, chewed on a mory stick all night, and sohow cobbled together a paper so filler-heavy that even the Dragon King would kowtow to its water content. Filled with apprehension and mustering his courage, he sent it to the professor's email.
Yet, there's been no response to this day...
Thinking positively, perhaps Professor Ye is just too busy and hasn't had the chance to read it yet, right? Maybe she's already forgotten about it and doesn't care at all.
Or possibly, after reading it, she felt this academic trash was beyond saving and went to custom-order a pollutant incinerator, waiting for him to dare show up and give him a clean, swift end.
Facing death head-on.
No way out!
But even though there seed to be no way out, Ji Jue still sluggishly, grudgingly, and wormingly got out of bed and wandered about to wash up and change clothes.
When he went downstairs, he found his family's mutated little sheep licking an even older TV in the living room, with oil leaking everywhere... which made him want to die even more!
It's said that before the Disaster Era, there was a famous saying: Life is like a magnificent robe infested with lice.
Ji Jue felt that his life was just a splendid collection of lice, without the robe at all! But aside from wearing this creature, he had no other clothes...
You can't just run around naked, can you?
Just make do with whatever, and live life as it cos, who isn't doing just that?
Thus, with tears in his eyes, he cycled to the repair shop, where a group of people was already waiting—today was Lu Ling's first day of college, the only remaining academic seed of the Lu Family had finally borne fruit, getting into the sa Tiann University as Ji Jue. Lu Ma was almost ready to set off another round of fireworks at the door to celebrate.
As the unofficial big brother, Ji Jue had to detour to pick her up.
And to freeload so breakfast.
"Ah, don't pack too much stuff, it's just the first day to report in and et the teachers and classmates. Besides, Lu Ling is a local student, commuting from ho. She'll be back by the afternoon; there's no need for so much stuff."
Watching Lu Ma prepare bags big and small, Ji Jue couldn't help but shake his head and he finally persuaded her to leave behind a large portion, just taking the necessary docunts. After loading Lu Ling onto the back, the little sheep began its stuttering journey.
In the back seat, Lu Ling twisted with excitent, enjoying the wind on her face, youthful and radiant, in stark contrast to Ji Jue's deadpan expression.
"Big bro, did you change cars?" she finally noticed sothing, making Ji Jue stiffen: "No, no, it's still the sa one, see, that scar on the back? Little brother scratched it with a knife, right?"
"Oh, yeah."
Lu Ling patted the seat blankly; after all, Lu Feng had ridden this thing to take her to high school for three years, it made no sense not to recognize it, but...
"Why does it feel so much bigger?"
The little sheep, originally only 110cc, now seed almost as big as a dium-sized motorcycle, having grown more than a round, and it was obvious there was sothing wrong.
Ji Jue rolled his eyes and retorted defiantly, "Just because you're going to college, the sheep can't hit puberty and grow?"
Lu Ling had no answer, and it seed like the silent listener beneath her, the little sheep, sensed they were discussing it, and began to wriggle. Ji Jue kicked the footrest in irritation, and it instantly behaved.
How does it feel when your family's little sheep suddenly becos a dog?
It feels like sothing that makes you want to die.
Ji Jue had been worried that one day it would suddenly go mad, bite off his head in one chomp, and kick it around like a ball. To his surprise, as a mutation born under the influence of Ji Jue's abilities and the Vortex Planting Technique, having absorbed the majority of the Dragon Blood, this thing's temperant turned out to be bizarrely stable and it was very obedient, fawning like a dog.
When he communicated with it using his abilities, it was no different from a dog.
It sat when told to sit, rolled over when told to roll over, shaking its fender almost hard enough to take flight.
And it was energy-efficient too, not even needing oil after the mutation, and its horsepower was absurdly exaggerated—it was as if it had swallowed the engine of a sports car, accelerating from zero to a hundred kiloters in just two seconds. Its top speed directly soared off the charts to four hundred seventy kiloters per hour, so much so that recently, rumors of a haunting began to circulate on the highways near Ji Jue's ho.
These were all its good points, but the only drawback was…
It was way too picky with food!
An average of half a white-cut chicken per hundred kiloters, the yellow-braised variety wouldn't do. It wouldn't even touch the frozen chicken legs from the supermarket, only craving freshly killed and cooked ones…
As a result, Ji Jue, who had been in a state of poverty, was now on the verge of complete bankruptcy.
Of course, Ji Jue knew the problem was his, not its.
After all, what sort of bad intentions could a little doggy have? It certainly hadn't chosen to be reincarnated into your little lamb. If it ended up with a wealthy owner, it probably would've achieved white-cut chicken freedom by now.
No choice but to keep it, could he really just abandon it?
To only let it sleep in the living room and not the bedroom was already the limit of Ji Jue's ruthlessness.
Fortunately, when it pretended to be an ordinary little lamb, it was quite quiet. Otherwise, Ji Jue wouldn't have had the guts to take it out.
In the morning, after a subdued lull of more than a month, Tiann University had gradually begun to buzz with activity. The area at the front gate was bustling as candidates from various districts and even other cities peeked around excitedly, snapping photos with their phones.
The excited younger cousin dragged Ji Jue around to check in at nurous famous spots to post on her Monts, and at the other end, Lu Ma swiftly demonstrated her miraculous speed, instantly liking and praising the posts.
The happy and relaxed mood persisted until the end of the new student check-in process, when it was ti to pay.
The smiling bank staff, sitting behind the counter, handed her a loan contract as if vampires were watching a line of blood bags voluntarily marching to their door.
Tiann University had never been a charitable institution. As one of the Federation's top five universities, it was famous for its high standard, high threshold, and high tuition fees.
Of course, having been accepted, one wouldn't have to worry about being unable to afford the tuition… goodness knows so kind-hearted, benevolent banks would co knocking on your door, inviting you to beco their repaynt slave for the next twenty years.
Even though Ji Jue and Lu Feng had spent the first half of their sumr vacation running through all the municipal departnts with various docunts, applying for all kinds of certifications and grants, the annual interest rate still reached a steep 4.1%.
In a matter of minutes, the young girl had already burdened herself with over eight hundred thousand in student loans; the bag Little Pearl was carrying nearly fell.
"Don't worry, don't worry. Tiann's economics major has the best job prospects. And if all else fails, you've got the big dog and your second brother, right?" Ji Jue comforted her, rubbing her hair. "Let's go check out the academic buildings. Later, second brother will take you to the cafeteria for so braised pork rice!"
"I don't want braised pork rice."
Lu Ling rubbed her eyes, looking even more upset: "Second brother, you got so sick from it the year before last that you ended up in the hospital..."
Ji Jue's smile froze for a mont. This darn kid, how could she still rember that embarrassing incident? And besides, the cafeteria had lost a lot of money over it! Had she forgotten how she got that skirt? It was painstakingly earned, bite by bite of braised pork rice in the ergency room!
He was about to say sothing when his phone suddenly vibrated.
The mont the screen lit up, the stilted smile vanished, and his heart seed to stop.
Professor Ye: [Have you finished with the procedures? Co to my office.]
"..."
Ji Jue swallowed hard and put his phone back: "You go with the senior sister we just t to get familiar with the school. I have sothing urgent to take care of, I'll go ahead."
"Doing what?" Lu Ling looked blank.
Ji Jue fell silent for a mont, then squeezed out a standard smile fit for a morial photo:
"eting my doom."
On his way to the office building, sprinting and speeding up, Ji Jue had just entered the fourth-floor corridor when he saw a face almost tearfully overwheld with emotion rushing towards him. It was none other than Ye Chun!
"Wah, Ji Jue, you're so kind!"
The senior sister patted his shoulder vigorously as if she had seen him in a new light, theatrically wiping her eyes with a handkerchief: "I'm so moved that you didn't end up as a cheater after all! I'll add chicken legs to your lunch! Two extra pieces!"
"Stop it, I really want to die!"
Ji Jue, feeling utterly despondent, was nearly on the ground. For all the pity the heavens could muster, no one knew how I was going to explain my pile of trash to the professor. I can't just say that I got caught up in a terrorist attack, fighting side by side with the big sister from the Security Bureau against Lawrence, or that I scored a painstaking 93 points, right?
"Co on, please co in! Brave one, please march to your death!"
Ye Chun, with a face full of schadenfreude, escorted him to the office, personally opening the door for him, and then kicking him into the "Judgent Platform."
In the dead silence, only the ticking of the clock remained.
Under the morning sun, the person behind the office desk seed to have been waiting for a long ti. She wasn't pretending to edit papers; she was rely holding an old cup, drinking tea that was brewed so strong it turned black.
With no deliberate makeup, the facial lines of Professor Ye Xian, who was over forty, were already etched with wrinkles. They were like knife marks, yet they only served to highlight the inherent severity and chill in her bones.
Watching Ji Jue fumble his way over, still smiling and rubbing his hands in greeting, she didn't erupt in anger. Instead, she just pointed to the stack of recently printed papers.
"First, evaluate them yourself."
She said: "The, um, 'academic' achievents you've submitted."
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