High School of Demon Hunting

Sunday.

February 28th, the 15th day of the first lunar month.

This day is both the last day of the first week of the new semester, the last day of February, and also the Lantern Festival. With so many factors at play, it seems that letting this day pass by blandly would be an affront to the efforts of the Calendar King.

According to the Old Almanac, today is suitable for traveling, praying for blessings, and offerings; getting married is not recommended.

Fortunately, Zheng Qing doesn’t need to marry anyone today, so there’s no taboo to worry about.

The good news is, there is no tradition of giving gifts on the Lantern Festival.

So Zheng Qing doesn’t need to rack his brains thinking about who to give gifts to, what specific gifts to give, or how much money is appropriate for each.

This means that after morning class, he has the rare opportunity to take a nap.

The bad news is, Zheng Qing has a week’s worth of unfinished assignments to tackle today, or else a new week will begin tomorrow with even more assignments piling up.

Given that he has assignments for a total of twenty-eight classes, one can imagine how uneasy this nap would be.

After forcing himself to lie in bed with his eyes closed for half an hour, he finally gave up struggling and sluggishly got up. By then, Xiao Xiao had already gone to the library, Xin Fat Man was still in bed, the three sprites in the sunflower dish remained cocooned as usual, and Fatty Cat was on the balcony chasing a blue paper crane.

Zheng Qing, listless, squeezed onto the balcony and snatched back the overly lively paper crane from the cat’s paw.

"What’s up?" the fat man asked groggily.

"Dylan said he’s coming back to school tonight, so we shouldn’t sleep too heavily," Zheng Qing mumbled, folding the paper crane back up and tossing it to Tuan Tuan. Unfortunately, the dismantled paper crane had lost its mysterious charm, and Fat Cat lost interest in it, twisting its butt back to the desk, continuing to daze at the sprites.

"Are you going to the library?" The fat man on the bed seemed to speak in his sleep, his voice sounding empty and ethereal.

Zheng Qing pulled out his textbooks and lecture notes from his grey cloth bag, one by one, stacking all twenty-eight books together like a small mountain, a sight that was utterly despairing.

"No, public spaces are too dangerous."

The young scholarship student sagged his shoulders, looking at the small mountain, his voice weakened by despair: "There’s too much homework, I have no time to play house with those devils!"

Compared to the classes he took yesterday, the little antics of the devils from the Seven Sins really were like playing house.

Last night’s final class was ’Abus Duo Conjecture’, a very famous conjecture in Dimensionism, related to the Forbidden Curse. Essentially, according to the conjecture, there should only be forty to fifty pathways for cursed convergence in the Magical World, but only six have been explored publicly. Therefore, the main focus of this class was researching how to explore the remaining pathways, analyzing the ways and methods of cursed convergence.

The instructor was still Master Bao Yangzi.

Undoubtedly, this kind of course would never appear in the official curriculum of First University, but is a special course for special subjects. Therefore, there is no official textbook for it, and even the notes Zheng Qing took were under a powerful secrecy spell cast by Master Bao Yangzi, prohibiting him from sharing it with anyone else.

Zheng Qing suspected that if possible, Master Bao Yangzi would even build an iron box around his head to ensure there was no physical possibility of leaking secrets.

He rubbed his aching forehead.

Zheng Qing refocused his thoughts and glanced out the window.

On the distant grass, he could vaguely see many figures making paper dragons and paper phoenixes. They should be freshmen planning to celebrate the Lantern Festival that night.

Speaking of the Lantern Festival...

Last year on this day, it was still winter vacation, a week before the new semester began. Zheng Qing didn’t have much impression of that day, only vaguely remembered that the final exam results came out, and the school had students’ pets deliver the report cards.

Exactly how Poseidon managed not to bite up the report card and deliver it to him, Zheng Qing couldn’t quite recall, but that day he seemed to have bought a Little Orange Lamp for the Little Fox, which made her quite delighted.

But he had a very deep impression of the day before last year’s Lantern Festival.

Because that time he and his companions went to North Beta Town, just in time to encounter a surge of the Black Tide from the Silent Forest. The Hunters’ sentries whizzed into the usually peaceful neighborhoods, and the town’s wizards, along with horse-men, minotaurs, and other sorcery tribes, joined forces to fend off the ravenous magic beasts. The Atonement Hunting Team happened to be there and was temporarily recruited too.

Then the fight ended, and Zheng Qing was caught by Su Shijun and taken to Greenhill Mansion—

His hand on his forehead paused slightly, and the memories in his mind suddenly became clear.

That day, in his conversation with Su Shijun, the sprites were mentioned as well. At the time, those sprites had already been freed from the risk of death after losing their former host, and the owner of Greenhill Mansion used the word ’lucky’ when mentioning this matter.

"Those sprites aren’t in danger, they’re very lucky... very lucky to have met you. If it weren’t for you, even with Mr. Duzemu’s Sand Hour royal jelly concocting, they wouldn’t have survived this long."

Those were Su Shijun’s exact words.

At that time, Zheng Qing’s mind was full of words like ’Seed’ and ’Witch Embryo’, so naturally, he overlooked the deeper meaning of the statement. Now, thinking back, it seems the Upper House Member of the Moon Council had seen through many things already.

This is probably what they mean by the onlooker sees clearly.

The onlooker sees clearly... Watching Zheng Qing... Watching...

Hey!

You are watching the scenery from the bridge

While the people watching the scenery are watching you from the tower

The bright moon decorates your window

You decorate someone else’s dream

This little poem being used here surprisingly fits the situation perfectly.

These fleeting thoughts flashed through Zheng Qing’s mind, and he laughed at himself, shifting his gaze away from the sunflower pot. In any case, he had already agreed to meet Doctor Duzem tonight, so he couldn’t break the appointment. As the saying goes, ’The stone of other mountains can be used to polish jade’, perhaps orthodox alchemy could offer him a new, more reasonable explanation.

Thinking of Doctor Duzem, Zheng Qing subconsciously glanced at Xiao Xiao’s bed.

Last night after returning to the dormitory, he mentioned Doctor Duzem’s praises to Doctor Xiao and handed him Doctor Duzem’s handwritten laboratory invitation, repeatedly reminding him to respond either that night or the next day.

However, Xiao Xiao seemed uninterested.

During morning class, Zheng Qing forgot about it, and Xiao Xiao didn’t bring it up either. At that moment, he vaguely noticed the corner of the invitation on the edge of Xiao Xiao’s desk, giving the impression of being discarded carelessly.

Such a proud and troublesome fellow.

Zheng Qing sighed heavily and casually pulled a book from the ’small mountain’ in front of him, intending to at least finish one-third of his assignments before noon.