High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 880: Chapter 228 Truman’s World

After Zhang Season Letter and the others left, Zheng Qing finally stopped being busy.

Fei Rui’s small head leaned forward a little more.

It was very curious about what the young cost student was up to.

Then it saw Zheng Qing pick out a small purple sandalwood box from the pile of boxes that had fallen into the snow, open it directly, and take out stacks and stacks of Yellow Paper Talismans. These Talismans, about a hundred to a stack, were bound with Ice Silkworm Silk ropes and looked very neat and pleasing to the eye.

Zheng Qing turned his head and glanced behind him.

The dark and menacing Silent Forest loomed like a terrifying maw, swallowing up vast swathes of the World. The whitely spread snowfield inside this maw seemed like the greedy tongue of ghosts and spirits, sending chills down one’s spine.

The cold wind of winter weaved through the trees, intensifying the chill.

Noticing the young cost student’s gaze, Xiao Xiao, who had been sitting behind him, patted the notebook in his arms and said softly, ”They’ve all gone far away... You can handle the rest yourself.”

”You shouldn’t have stayed behind,” Zheng Qing said, scanning the surroundings. After nodding in assurance and withdrawing his gaze, he finally looked at Xiao Xiao.

At this moment, the Diviner of the Absolution Hunting Team was staring at a Crystal Ball in front of him, fully absorbed, as if nothing happening in the outside world could disturb him. Yet, the notebook on his knee, emitting a faint glow, seemed to suggest another possibility.

”Actually, no one should have left.” Xiao Xiao didn’t look up, but his words were heavy with implication, ”The last time you did this, I had ’died’ already... but I remember you got quite a beating from everyone afterward.”

Zheng Qing knew Xiao Xiao was referring to that incident during the school hunting competition.

He thought for a while, opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again without saying anything, just cracking a smile, while turning his head back to look at the White Weasel a few steps away and Fei Rui on its head.

”Do you remember the movie we watched together before?” Zheng Qing flicked his fingertips over the stacks of Talisman Paper in front of him, without looking at his hands, but instead gazing intently at Fei Rui on the White Weasel’s head.

”Which one? We’ve seen so many,” Fei Rui’s quacking voice was quite the mood killer. Any emotions Zheng Qing had been building up were instantly wiped out by this grating noise.

”Ah, those were the days,” Fei Rui seemed completely oblivious to the negative impact of its voice, still exclaiming with heartfelt emotion, ”VCDs, popcorn, fried chicken strips... and sometimes even a small cup of beer. Those were really relaxed times.”

Zheng Qing exhaled heavily through his nose, unable to tolerate Fei Rui’s voice any longer.

”Truman’s World,” he raised his voice slightly, interrupting the rodent’s nostalgic mood across from him, stating the name of the movie. Then, after Fei Rui quieted down, he emphasized the movie title again: ”Truman’s World!”

”An actor in a soap opera who’s been living in a movie set since birth, with every little detail of his life spied on by others through cameras... The entire World, except for him, everyone else is an actor!”

”And he himself is completely unaware of it!”

”Yes, completely ignorant,” Zheng Qing murmured, repeating the words over and over, yet he couldn’t help but recall everything he had encountered, and a sense of panic welled up from the depths of his heart: ”...Completely ignorant, he knew nothing about this world.”

”You had very little understanding of this world to begin with,” Fei Rui said with a snort, disdain lacing his nasal voice, ”Think about the eighteen years before your college entrance exams. Apart from a few sets of talismans and a few textbooks compiled by the Ministry of Education, what have you truly retained in your mind?”

”Nothing, absolutely nothing!”

”In eighteen years, you haven’t even taken the initiative to explore beyond two streets. How could you expect to have any profound understanding of this world?”

Zheng Qing silently glanced at Fei Rui, saying nothing.

Although he didn’t want to admit it, what this rodent-like creature said made sense.

However, today, Zheng Qing didn’t plan to reason with him.

”Ignorance breeds fear, and so a greater desire for that tiny glimpse of reality that occasionally reveals itself,” the young scholarship student continued, ignoring Fei Rui’s logic and continuing to speak to himself. His fingertips danced between the stacks of talisman papers like elegant, precise elves.

”All the talisman papers under my command are explosion charms,” Zheng Qing said, lifting his eyelids and glancing at Fei Rui.

The Mouse-Wolf snorted again, as if to show his contempt.

With a light chuckle, Zheng Qing continued in an unhurried tone, ”...A hundred per stack, ten stacks in total, that’s a thousand of them. Some are drawn by me, others are obtained from the Wandering Wizard... all standard specifications, fair to old and young alike.”

”I don’t know if you have ever seen the scene where a thousand explosion charms smoke at once.”

”I haven’t... and I’m actually quite curious.”

As he spoke, the young scholarship student flicked his fingers, and the silk holding the bundled stacks of talisman papers silently snapped. The thousand-plus explosion charms, like dancing butterflies or swiftly released arrows, quickly and silently shot out in all directions, instantly linking into a large net that covered this small clearing.

”It only takes a single thought, like this...” As he said this, Zheng Qing picked up a Calm Heart Talisman from a small red sandalwood box and flashed it in front of the rodent.

Without chanting, without gestures, without using any external technique, the Calm Heart Talisman suddenly self-ignited, emitting wisps of blue smoke.

”Like this, it only takes a single thought,” Zheng Qing repeated, and with a certain realization, he said mockingly, ”Allahu Akbar... and then everything goes quiet.”

”Wow, I’m so scared,” Fei Rui wiped his whiskers nonchalantly, his slouched posture becoming more evident, his short little hindlegs seemingly boneless, like two damp noodles, flopping over in front of the White Weasel, shaking.

”You don’t really think these few explosion charms can do anything to me, do you?” The pack leader of the Mouse-Wolves looked around, sizing up the densely packed talisman papers all around, his small eyes beady and blinking, reminding him:

”Or, did your newly learned ’Amplification Formation’ give you a bit more confidence? I’d say you still need to study more... At a glance, I can see four or five mistakes in this formation. It could have amplified the power tenfold, but now it’s probably only two or three times stronger.”