After reluctantly swallowing the words “I don’t mind,” Ye Yang took a closer look at the boy.
The little boy was short. When he sat down, only half of his face was visible above the table, making people worry that he might accidentally eat into his own hair. Well… his hair was indeed thick and luscious—a true hair king.
While Ye Yang was lost in these random thoughts, the equally gregarious Little Thirteen had already started chatting with the boy. “You said a lot of people from the branches are here? Why did they come?”
“Mmm, because the Five-Year Conference started yesterday. You guys wouldn’t happen not to know that, would you?” the boy replied casually, his speech a bit garbled because he was busy chewing vigorously.
Huanhuan was puzzled. “Five-Year Conference? What’s that?”
“Of course, it’s the YCG’s once-every-five-years large collective job performance review meeting. The heads of all the regional branches have to come, and they also set the next five-year plan.”
Little Thirteen: “There’s such a thing? How come I didn’t know?”
Boy: “You’re so out of the loop. You’re at headquarters every single day, how can you even ask that? Didn’t you pay attention in class?”
“You don’t even know this? This is a special feature of Huaxia!”
As he spoke, the boy quickly polished off the pastries on his plate. Piece after piece of mung bean cake vanished swiftly. Just watching him made Ye Yang feel choked.
Little Thirteen was a bit indignant. “You say it’s real, but how do I know you’re not just making it up?” He, Little Thirteen, was supposed to be the best-informed kid in the preschool class. How could he tolerate some random kid suddenly appearing and spouting information he’d never even heard of?
The boy swung his short little legs that couldn’t reach the floor and didn’t even spare Little Thirteen a glance. “Believe it or not. I don’t care.”
“You—!”
“Okay, I’m done eating. Bye-bye!”
With that, the boy stood up, held up his empty plate, and ran off, just as suddenly as he had arrived.
Lan Bao came back with the food, and they were still discussing it.
“Oh right, we forgot to ask who he was.”
“He looks human. Does YCG even have humans this young?”
“Maybe he’s a student here like us?”
“No way. Humans have their own schools. Cultivators have their own sects too.”
Lan Bao looked completely confused. “What are you guys talking about?” He couldn’t understand a word.
Huanhuan told Lan Bao about the boy, and Lan Bao’s expression suddenly turned serious. He pressed for details about the boy’s appearance.
Ye Yang thought for a moment. “He was pretty cute. Short, about this tall. He didn’t eat any rice, just snacks. Oh right, his hair was super, super thick.”
With every word Ye Yang said, Lan Bao’s face grew darker. By the last sentence, his dark face had turned pale, and his expression twisted. “That wasn’t some little boy. That was Old Man Li!”
“Old Man Li?” Ye Yang raised an eyebrow. In YCG, only one person could be called Old Man Li—one of the organization’s current supreme leaders, an old cedar tree spirit who had lived for who knew how many years.
Little Thirteen didn’t believe it at all. “No way. Old Man Li is, like, really old.”
Huanhuan thought for a moment. “It’s not impossible. I’ve heard Old Man Li is very powerful. Turning into a little boy would be no challenge for him. But why would he do that?”
Little Thirteen nodded vigorously at that. Exactly, that was the point. “Who is Old Man Li? The entire YCG listens to him. He must be super busy all the time. Why would he come to the cafeteria and pretend to be a kid just to trick us?”
Lan Bao said, “You don’t understand. I’ve seen it with my own eyes! Old Man Li really is this strange. He loves to disguise himself as a little kid to fool newcomers.”
Usually, he just does it to tease the kids and satisfy his mischievous streak. Sometimes he also fishes for information to see if anyone—human or non-human—is talking behind his back, and also to pick up some gossip.
Lan Bao closed his eyes, thinking back to ten years ago. Back then, Old Man Li was even more erratic than now. “That time, it was just like this. We were discussing Teacher Yu, and he suddenly appeared. He listened to us gossip about Teacher Yu for a while, and then, when I wasn’t paying attention, he stole all my honey!” More than ten years had passed, but he still got angry just thinking about it.
Little Thirteen was greatly shocked. “He’s really that bored??”
Ye Yang: “So Old Man Li likes gossip too.”
Little Thirteen asked a soul-searching question: “Who doesn’t like gossip?”
Ye Yang: “…Yeah, fair point.”
Little Thirteen: “So what was the gossip about Teacher Yu? Can you tell me?”
Lan Bao, Ye Yang, Huanhuan: …
It was Huanhuan who brought the conversation back on track. “Since Old Man Li said it, it must be true. But why is this Five-Year Conference so quiet? Aside from the cafeteria being a bit more crowded, I haven’t noticed anything.”
Lan Bao said, “Even though we say the preschool class is at YCG headquarters, the area we’re in, including Ye Ye’s dorm area, is actually just the periphery. Humans are always very paranoid. The important areas are completely separated from us. Truly important news isn’t casually shared with clueless little kids.”
“Also, the Five-Year Conference is a major meeting. The security throughout headquarters is even tighter than usual this month. No sound from the conference hall leaks out at all. My brother comes home every day after meetings like a clamped gourd—can’t say a word.”
Little Thirteen suddenly slammed the table, very angry. “Wait a minute. Lan Bao knows about this, so how come I don’t know anything?!” He was supposed to be the best-informed one!
Lan Bao scratched his head, not daring to speak. How could he admit that the only reason he knew these things was because he had been held back in preschool for so many years at YCG due to his inability to master shapeshifting?
·
Regarding the Five-Year Conference, it was just a minor episode. For the little cubs and Ye Yang, it was far less interesting than the gossip about Yu Bei. After making Lan Bao spill all the old stories in detail, the young students leisurely made their way back to the classroom.
This afternoon’s class was Basic Physics.
That’s right—even monsters have to learn physics. Not just physics, either: Chinese, math, chemistry, biology, geography, politics, history—they have to learn everything, plus choose a human foreign language.
For safety reasons concerning the cubs, their only teacher from start to finish was Yu Bei. So which human foreign language they learned was also entirely up to Yu Bei. Therefore, everyone had to learn—English.
Simply put, aside from monster-specific knowledge, they had to learn everything covered in compulsory human education.
Whether they learned it well was another matter; the point was they had to learn it.
At the start of class, Yu Bei first reviewed the previous lesson: “Can sound travel through liquids? Yu Siyuan, you answer.”
Ye Yang swallowed the answer that had risen to his lips and turned around together with Xiao Fan. The two top students looked at Yu Siyuan with keen interest.
As far as he knew, this classmate Shan Gao never paid attention to such boring knowledge.
To avoid looking too obvious about enjoying the show, he deliberately transformed back into his original form first.
Sure enough, Yu Siyuan was flustered when called upon. He hemmed and hawed for ages without uttering a single word. Ye Yang suspected he probably hadn’t even heard the question clearly.
Suddenly, a muffled ringtone sounded in the classroom.
Uh-oh!
Ye Yang’s whole body stiffened. That sounded like his phone!
The phone was wrapped inside his body, which muffled some of the sound, but that didn’t stop the entire classroom from hearing it.
Here he was watching someone else’s trouble, and he’d forgotten to silence his own phone!
Yu Bei looked over expressionlessly. Ye Yang had no choice but to droop his antennae, endure the varied stares of his classmates, lower his head, and fumble around, pulling out a phone more than ten times larger than himself from his semi-transparent body.
Yu Bei took it, turned it off immediately, and then said, “Yu Siyuan, did you hear that? Sound can travel through liquids.”
…
It wasn’t until after school that Ye Yang got his phone back. He saw two missed calls and a bunch of messages, all from Ji Qing.
“Something happened! One of those evil cultivators who kidnapped you in Luoyang City escaped.”
Escaped? Ye Yang was startled. Weren’t they all being held in the most heavily guarded place in Luoyang City? And yet someone still got away!
“I don’t know which one escaped yet. I’m still digging for information. Don’t worry.”
Ye Yang could only hope it wasn’t Liu Chen. Although he had defeated Liu Chen, he had only done so by catching him off guard. In reality, this evil cultivator was unfathomably powerful and extremely skilled at disguise. The longer he remained at large, the more danger the outside world would face.
“But don’t worry, I’ve already informed the Grand Elder of the Fox Clan. She will protect you.”
“Oh, and also YCG. They’ll protect you too. No need to be afraid!”
“And I, Ji Qing, will definitely not stand by and do nothing!”
It was clear that Brother Ji was genuinely very worried.
If it weren’t for the Five-Year Conference and the strengthened barriers at headquarters, Ye Yang had no doubt that Ji Qing would have come in person the moment his first call failed to get through.
Seeing all these messages, Little Thirteen became even more anxious than Ye Yang: “What are we going to do?! No way, Ye Ye, you absolutely must not leave headquarters for the time being.”
Ye Yang nodded. That was his plan too. After the initial surprise had passed, he wasn’t particularly afraid, only worried that other innocent beings might suffer.
After replying to Ji Qing’s message to thank him, Ye Yang couldn’t help but sigh. “Ah, I just hope they catch him soon.” Before anyone else gets hurt.
·
Before Ye Yang knew it, a full year had passed since he left the ocean and came ashore.
In this year, with his exceptional memory and learning ability, he had quickly mastered the content of the nine-year compulsory education system, become proficient in the general knowledge of the Three Realms, and qualified for a special intensive training program. Once he mastered the basic spells, he would be able to officially graduate.
Today, the spells he had been longing for were finally up.
“I did it! I learned it!”
After Yu Bei’s thorough explanation and demonstration, Ye Yang managed to cast a cleaning spell, stumbling through it. His pond water instantly became exceptionally clear. He had finally learned the cleaning spell he had been looking forward to for a whole year!
“What? How did you do it so fast?” Lan Bao was very indignant. He had been studying this spell class for over a decade. He could recite Teacher Yu’s next line from memory, yet he still hadn’t figured out how to actually cast the spell.
But then he comforted himself: “Oh well, Ye Ye is a genius. It’s normal for us ordinary people to be slower.” Just look at Little Thirteen, who was still completely lost.
No sooner had Lan Bao finished speaking than the entire classroom brightened a little. Turning around, he saw Ke Ranzhou. She skillfully cast a large-scale cleaning spell, refreshing the whole classroom.
The Qingluan clan had always been skilled in magic. Ke Ranzhou had already learned a lot from her elders at home. She even showed off some fine control, her spell deliberately avoiding Lan Bao and Little Thirteen.
Looking more closely, Huanhuan, Xiao Fan, and Kong Jiamu had all succeeded as well. Even Yu Siyuan, who never listened in class, had barely managed to cast a passable cleaning spell.
“How is everyone…” Before Lan Bao could finish, Little Thirteen’s high-pitched voice suddenly rang out: “Alright! I did it too!”
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