The three girls were all dressed well, clearly from comfortable families. Looking at her own clothes in contrast, Jiang Chan could only keep silent. Forget it, she thought. She would wear these for now. Once she had scholarship money, she could think about changing them.
With no parents around, the girls relaxed quickly.
Yang Liuqing sighed. “How did the school decide on dorm assignments this year? I thought they used to place people by class. How come none of us are in the same class?”
Wen Jing said, “Isn’t this better? Less chance for conflicts if we’re not in the same class.”
Yu Jie’s voice was soft. “I heard the dorms were assigned by student number. The four of us were probably the leftovers they couldn’t place anywhere else, so they lumped us together. This must be the underachievers’ dorm.”
Everyone understood what she meant. If they hadn’t been at the bottom of their classes, why would they have been placed together?
Yang Liuqing frowned. “If I hadn’t had a fever during the entrance exam, do you think my score would have been this low?”
Wen Jing gave a short laugh and didn’t answer, but her expression of disbelief was plain.
Jiang Chan raised her eyebrows. Whether they were underachievers or not would be proven soon enough. She climbed to her top bunk and started putting away her things. “Tomorrow’s the placement test. We’ll see the truth then.”
Wen Jing clapped her hands. “Exactly. Time to show my real ability.”
The room grew quiet. Each girl pulled out the new textbooks they had been given and began cramming, trying to grab at last-minute knowledge.
Jiang Chan joined in, flipping through a book. The material was all familiar, she had already mastered it once. Doing tasks for Qingyuan had saved her plenty of time in her real life.
Qingyuan caught her thoughts and chuckled. “In the end, you’re the one benefiting. Everything you’ve gained is real, while I still don’t know when I’ll recover.”
Jiang Chan said, “Haven’t I already done two tasks? I want to help you, but all summer I was tied up at the barbecue stall. I really didn’t have the time.”
Qingyuan seemed satisfied with that. “Now that you’ve got high school knowledge down so well, when will you start the third task?”
Jiang Chan tapped her knee. “You told me the first three worlds weren’t safe, that you couldn’t protect me. But once I’ve finished three tasks and you’ve recovered a bit, then you’ll be able to make sure I return safely every time, right?”
“Correct. The problem is that the two worlds you’ve experienced were too basic, so my recovery is limited. Once you complete one more, I can leave a mark on your soul. If you face mortal danger, I’ll be able to pull you straight back into the real world.”
“I understand,” Jiang Chan said.
She turned a page, her eyes moving quickly across the formulas and theorems, fixing them firmly in her memory. Only then did she realize, was her memory improving?
“Of course,” Qingyuan said. “From the start I told you your spiritual strength was strong. If you were in the Cultivation World, you’d make an excellent alchemist.”
“It’s just a pity this is the End of Dharma Era. There’s no spiritual energy here. Our methods don’t work in this world.”
Qingyuan’s tone held regret. “Originally your spiritual power wasn’t this strong. But after doing two tasks, your soul has truly been tempered by traveling through space and time, and so it grew stronger.”
Jiang Chan understood. Her memory had always been good, but now it was even sharper. Doing tasks had only benefits, as long as she came back alive.
Still, even the first two worlds, as simple as they were, could have gone wrong if she wasn’t careful. For the next one, she had to be cautious, cautious, and more cautious.
“The more tasks you complete, the stronger your spiritual power will become. What people in your world call a sixth sense is actually just spiritual strength.”
“I get it. After this placement test, we’ll do another task.”
Jiang Chan knew Qingyuan was tempting her, but she still took the bait. Qingyuan’s methods were simple, but effective.
Once she agreed, Qingyuan stopped pressing her and slipped back into the jade pendant.
Jiang Chan tapped the pendant. “Can you hide this for me? Carrying it all the time makes me uneasy. It’s valuable, and it’s tied to my background.”
Qingyuan said nothing, simply cast an illusion. To Jiang Chan’s eyes the pendant disappeared, though she could still feel it when she touched it.
For the first time she had a direct sense of how mysterious cultivators’ methods really were. Seeing her dazed, Qingyuan scoffed. “If there’s ever a Cultivation World task, I’ll send you there to broaden your horizons.”
Jiang Chan pursed her lips. “You think too highly of me. In the Cultivation World, the weak are prey to the strong. How could I survive there?”
Qingyuan said nothing.
Before high school split into arts and sciences, there were nine subjects: Chinese, Math, English, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Politics, History, and Geography. Exams stretched over a day and a half, and even Jiang Chan, who was physically fit, felt worn out.
The schedule was packed too tightly. One test followed right after another, and students weren’t allowed to leave early. Even if they finished, they had nowhere to go, so they had to sit until the end.
Qingyuan fumed. If she had spent that much time on tasks, she would have finished several already.
But Jiang Chan was stubborn. Once she set her mind on something, no one could change it.
She had her reasons. Tasks lasted for years in real-world time. If she went before the placement test, what if she came back with her real memories and task memories all muddled together?
The placement test ended at two o’clock in the afternoon on Tuesday. The school gave students the last two periods off to rest before evening self-study.
Jiang Chan used the time to walk to the supermarket outside the school, pick up some daily necessities, and clear her head. When she returned to the dorm, it was empty. Wen Jing and the others hadn’t come back yet.
Qingyuan immediately flew out. “Little girl, can we go do the task now?”
By now, Jiang Chan was used to being the only one who could see Qingyuan. She lay down on her bed and, following Qingyuan’s guidance, entered the third world.
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