Clap!

A faint, crisp sound came from behind.

Zheng Qing turned around, his gaze passing over the swaying tree shadows, seemingly seeing a few blooming fireworks, among which were some indistinct numbers.

This made him feel as if he had seen the magic stage at the foot of Centimeter Mountain.

"I wonder how many points Uncle Zhang Zhi scored."

He mumbled and withdrew his gaze, looking at the witch who was also looking up, finally remembering the incidents from the first round where her magic display was interrupted by Tushan Chujiu: "...how many points did you get after your magic display was interrupted by Tu Mountain?"

"No score." The witch replied lightly.

This answer instantly woke the warlock up.

His thoughts immediately moved away from the previous ’shaded paths, strolls, and chats’, back to reality, remembering the witch’s identity and the nature of the Shanglin Garden Spring Hunt.

He recalled their early departure.

"Is it alright?" he couldn’t help but ask quietly.

"What?"

The witch stopped, casually pulling up a string of small, golden-yellow flowers from the nearby bushes. Zheng Qing noticed those flowers were quickly closing their petals.

"Is it okay that you didn’t get your magic score?"

"It’s fine."

"And after you took me out directly, what about the rest of the competition? You should have participated in only the third-round challenge... Won’t your family be upset if you didn’t join the first and second rounds?"

Today’s contest was divided into three rounds: the first round involved magic, evaluating young wizards’ understanding of magic; the second round, ’Three Kills Three Goods’, assessed wizards’ mastery of rituals through the killing and decomposition of prey; the third round involved mutual challenges to determine each young wizard’s final ranking.

"It’s fine... I’ve already gotten what I wanted the most."

The witch tossed her long hair falling by her ear, putting the freshly woven flower crown on her head. Those flowers, pretending to be dead, blossomed magnificently when stimulated by magic power:

"Also, since you caused such a big trouble on stage, leaving early to avoid the limelight benefits everyone. I happen to need to prepare dinner. As for the other components... Shanglin Garden Spring Hunt is a place for young warlocks and witches to socialize; the primary purpose of the second round, Three Kills Three Goods, is to allow those aristocratic disciples to display their ritual skills and abilities. It’s not much related to you. Rather, the spring hunting ball tonight might be interesting with some unique friends you might meet, increasing your knowledge, and it’s worth attending."

A seemingly thorough analysis, yet it vaguely avoided the core question of ’Will your family be upset with you’.

Zheng Qing stared at the flower crown on the witch’s head, biting his tongue and choosing a different approach to ask again: "On the magic stage... I mean, what are the consequences of admitting defeat to Tushan Chujiu?"

He waited anxiously for the answer.

Afraid to hear horrible responses like ’reduced magic resource allocation’, ’lower ranking in the clan’, or ’losing a large sum of money’. If it’s just losing money, Zheng Qing thought he could still manage to pay it off, but if it involved the wizarding family grudges, he would be completely powerless.

"Consequences?" The witch held her arms, contemplating seriously for a moment: "Hmm... probably just the family’s face wouldn’t look great?" 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

"That’s it?" Zheng Qing let out a long breath.

The witch glanced at him with a slight smile: "For a family, face is a concept more important than interests. This situation actually stems from those legends or higher-tier wizards. For them, there’s nothing much to pursue in this world anymore. When two powers compete, it’s hard to cause substantial harm to each other. Only ’losing face’ can slightly distinguish winners and losers. Therefore, big personalities regard face highly, and as it passes down, families slowly consider face more important too."

"Then you..." Zheng Qing’s heart suddenly tightened.

"Me? Taking you from Crescent Lake, why would my family blame me? Their face is hugely enhanced today!" Saying this, Jiang Yu blinked, suddenly showing a bit of mischief: "But you... being taken away by me today, I’m afraid Su Councilor won’t let you off easily... you’d better be mentally prepared."

Zheng Qing’s heart had just calmed down from her previous words, and then tightened again because of her latter words. He felt his heart was like on a roller coaster, going up and down, causing him to breathe heavily.

"It, it should be okay, right."

Zheng Qing laughed dryly, making a speculative guess with no confidence: "Didn’t you mention the relationship between Qingqiu and Tu Mountain isn’t good? The way I treated the big fox from Tu Shan Clan today... she should be satisfied, right?"

"Are you talking about squeezing Tushan’s senior sister’s tail hard?" The witch raised her eyebrows, seemingly dissatisfied with the boy’s response.

Zheng Qing coughed loudly twice.

"I didn’t intend to... it was a necessary measure." The boy tried to defend, his peripheral vision happened to catch sight of the white jade the witch was playing with in her hand. With a sudden inspiration, he awkwardly changed the subject: "Hmm, almost forgot to ask you... how come you didn’t transform it into a cat with your Transformation Technique that powerful today?"

He pointed to the cat-shaped white jade in the witch’s hand.

Earlier at the magic stage, the witch’s skill in combining Transformation Technique with the Binding Spell was extremely impressive, leaving Zheng Qing with a very deep impression.

"This? It’s not the same."

Jiang Yu snorted lightly, letting the warlock’s topic shift slide, her wrist shook, letting a small bottle drop from the sleeve, containing some droplets of dragon-shaped blood chasing and playing:

"This is Mao Long’s essence blood. I was leveraging external power, taking advantage of Mao Long essence blood for the Transformation Technique on the magic stage in the daytime. It isn’t genuinely that powerful... Dragon blood has extremely strong magic power and infectivity... you could understand it as back then during our practice of the Second-Ranked Battle Array when we borrowed Bo Fu Clan essence blood to truly unfold the second state, or you could understand it as Directional Transformation Technique; the general principles are similar."

Zheng Qing didn’t need to consult professionals at Wandering Bar to estimate how expensive the few drops of Mao Long essence blood in the bottle were. He suspected that even the money he made in a month selling Blood Symbol Bullets wouldn’t cover this lady’s spending in a single battle.

He sniffed, for the first time questioning his ability to earn.

"Money is also a superpower."

The warlock remembered a figure sitting in a bat-mobile, mumbling softly. Facing the witch’s curious eyes, he sighed heavily and added: "I mean, it’s not taking advantage... like Old Yao often says, luck is part of one’s strength, similarly, gold is also part of one’s strength."

"Hearing this coming from you feels quite odd, eh."

Jiang Yu turned around, continuing her slow backward stroll, with a few teasing tones: "When you threw out a thousand sheets of Talisman paper on the magic stage, there were countless witches by the lake inquiring about your background and family..."