High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1105: Chapter 167 How to Dissolve the Fat Man’s Appetite

Constrained by time, Zheng Qing’s trip to the Silent Forest with the two witches lasted only one morning before coming to an end.

Because today was Saturday, Zheng Qing needed to assist in Professor Montreya’s laboratory in the afternoon and report to the School Works Committee at dusk to participate in the night patrol work at Lin Zhong Lake. This was his punishment for leaving the team on his own during the last Ban Magic Festival—Zheng Qing felt that in the more than half a year he had been at school, the place he was most familiar with wasn’t the library or the study room, but Lin Zhong Lake at night.

The dances, adventures, patrols, and so on—he had left too many memories beside this great lake.

Of course, for Elena or Sister Korma, the one who accompanied them in the Silent Forest today wasn’t Zheng Qing, but a mysterious talking black cat.

As for the results of the morning’s search, it was as everyone had expected.

Nothing was found.

According to Sister Korma’s explanation, this was because there were too many instances of magic power imbalance in the Silent Forest, leading to frequent spatial warping and overlapping within the entire forest. The exploratory curse spells commonly used by wizards largely failed. Whether they could find that secret realm, or by what method to search for it, was a matter of metaphysics.

A metaphysics more uncertain than the Fog Prophecy art.

Zheng Qing also quietly took out his silver-cased pocket watch several times, but he didn’t sense any stable dimensional fluctuations. This made the shadows in his heart darken further.

He had reason to believe that the omen of heavy yin divined by Fei Rui had some mysterious connection with himself. And the only way to solve the conundrum given by the hamster was to expose Dr. Duzem’s reclusive locale.

This wasn’t the answer he wanted.

The chaotic thoughts, misplaced identity, and upside-down schedule left the young scholarship student lethargic all Sunday, to the point that he was still somewhat dazed during the curse class on Monday morning.

So much so that when Old Yao asked him to stand up and answer ”What are the pros and cons of the memetic decomposition method of spell formulas compared to dimensional decomposition?” he stood there blankly for a while before murmuring the answer from the textbook under Xiao Xiao’s soft reminder.

This resulted in Zheng Qing having to very consciously stand up from his seat for the second half of the curse class, to focus and deal with Old Yao’s occasional stern glances.

Fortunately, he was originally seated in one of the back rows of the classroom, so he did not attract too many unusual glances from the other students in class.

”Don’t be drowsy all day, perk up, or someone will snatch your girlfriend away!” During lunch, Xin Fat Man, while sipping his nutritious turtle soup, chastised the scholarship student: ”This morning when you were daydreaming, I saw Matthew slipping next to Elena and whispering for quite a while... That’s an outright disrespect to you!”

Zheng Qing faintly felt that Matthew might be somewhat interested in Elena.

But he didn’t think that vampire was a threat.

”I can’t just curse every guy who shows interest in Elena... beautiful girls are popular everywhere.” Zheng Qing stirred the corn chowder in front of him and said indifferently—in fact, his calm mostly stemmed from knowing that Elena was asking Matthew to find out information about Doctor Du Zemu. This was something they had communicated when they parted ways in the Silent Forest on Saturday morning.

”I really wish I could do that,” Xiao Xiao muttered under his breath. In front of him was a plate of fried yellow croakers, and right now, he was viciously chopping off their heads with a small silver knife.

Zheng Qing and Xin Fat Man exchanged looks, signalling with their eyes, and decided not to join in.

Due to differences in identity and age, the relationship between Xiao Xiao and Sima Yangyun was the talk among the students but hadn’t reached the ears of the Sima family elders. It was said that the elders of the Sima family were busy arranging blind dates for Sima Yangyun, which had made Doctor Xiao quite irritable these past few days.

”Ahem, I heard that the Hundred Herb Gardens has lost a lot of bees lately, do you know about this?” Xin Fat Man coughed twice with his nose, changing the topic and starting a discussion with Xiao Xiao.

”I’m aware, we’re still investigating, and there’s no conclusion yet,” replied Xiao Xiao, continuing to sternly chop off fish heads, his response terse.

”Actually, those fish heads are edible,” Xin Fat Man said with longing eyes as he watched Xiao Xiao push the chopped-off fish heads out of the plate, feeling a bit sorry for them. However, Xiao Xiao ignored him.

”Hundred Herb Gardens?” Zhang Ji Xin, who had been focused on stuffing meat into buns the whole time, finally found a moment to look over at Xiao Xiao, appearing as if he had just woken from a dream, as if he had just caught up with the conversation of the others: ”You got disciplinary action again? I remember you being punished to work at the Hundred Herb Gardens last semester...”

”’Again’ what does that mean?! I applied for work-study!” Xiao Xiao said, pulling a face, his tone growing more unpleasant: ”If I remember correctly, you even signed as a reference on the application form.”

”Oh, oh,” Red-faced Male Wizard pretended to recall, ”I just thought, after our little shop opened and started to distribute some dividends, you wouldn’t need that job anymore... What’s wrong with the bees at the Hundred Herb Gardens?”

Since he had a vague memory of the application form mentioned by Xiao Xiao and wanted to avoid further embarrassment, he swiftly sidestepped that pitfall and steered the conversation back to the issue Xin Fat Man had brought up.

”They’re gone,” Xiao Xiao said nonchalantly as he swept the fish heads on the table into a paper bag, grunting, ”No live bees seen, no dead bodies found. Recently, it’s the critical season for many plants to flower and pollinate, so it’s caused a bit of a stir.”

”It’s like that time in Beta Town when they had the Dark Tide, and there were never enough suitable Hunters,” Zhang Ji Xin nodded knowingly, using an inappropriate analogy—although he still didn’t think the disappearance of a few small bees could make much of a fuss.

Zheng Qing suddenly burst into a foolish laugh.

”What are you laughing at?” The rest of the warlocks turned to look at him in unison.

”I was just reminded of a passage I heard before, after hearing the Elder’s analogy just now... ’Often, a delicate analogy can alleviate awkwardness and create a more appropriate conversation atmosphere.’”

”Like in the epic ’Dragon Mother and Cold Ghost,’ where the little demon talked about private matters in a large gathering using a lively analogy, as if telling a story.”

”’I pulled out the eel from my trousers in front of a pot of turtle soup, I furiously rubbed the one-eyed snake, peeled its banana skin, making this bald guy cry his eyes out. His tears and snot dripped into the soup, and it was Cersei’s pot. I hope she didn’t waste it in the end...’”

Listening to this, Zhang Ji Xin also revealed a vulgar, knowing smile.

”HOLY... SHIT!” Xin Fat Man pushed away the terrapin soup in front of him with a disgusted face, glaring angrily at the scholarship student: ”I don’t know about alleviating awkwardness, but you succeeded in making me lose my appetite... You’re really great!”