High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1117: Chapter 179 The 8th Weekend

Time slipped away unnoticed amidst the chaos and clamor.

A week had passed since last Saturday’s Qingming Festival, and in the blink of an eye, it was another Saturday evening.

Zheng Qing felt his time was becoming increasingly insufficient.

In addition to attending classes every day, he had to do homework and complete the extra training assigned by the professors—this was his punishment for his unsatisfactory exam results from last semester as a scholarship student.

Whenever he had a little free time after class, he needed to attend to the D&K store’s operations. Occasionally, the Club Union would summon him, a club leader, to attend meetings and fill in various useless forms and reports.

Besides, hunting team training, meetings, sourcing for sponsorships, and strategizing also required Zheng Qing to squeeze out rest time to complete, sometimes even at the sacrifice of his precious sleep.

Friday afternoons were a bit more relaxed because after the practice classes, many students often had enough time to rest and recuperate at the school infirmary. If lucky enough to be unharmed, it was decidedly a good idea to catch up on homework, and not even a second-precise line drawing could predict if you would have time to do homework the next day.

On weekends, Zheng Qing became even busier.

Saturday morning, he had to turn into a cat and meet with Korma to discuss how to find the ’Doctor Duzem’ who had been banned by the school. Until this meeting, Zheng Qing still hadn’t found a way to convey what he knew to the witches.

Saturday afternoon, Zheng Qing needed to assist in Professor Montreya’s lab. Although Professor Montreya had not yet fully deciphered the cause of Zheng Qing’s ’Red Eye Disease,’ the young warlock still learned a lot in his lab.

Saturday night, Zheng Qing had to resume his nighttime patrols of Lingzhong Lake—this was the price he had to pay for leaving his group at will during the last Banishment Festival. ’Fortunately,’ he was quite familiar with this punishment and quickly got the hang of it.

After waking up on Sunday noon, Zheng Qing devoted the precious four or five hours of the afternoon to the Gypsy witches.

It was only right.

After all, no other pair of male and female wizards in love, like he and Elena, were inseparable during classes and went their separate ways afterwards, only finding time on weekends to sit politely opposite each other at a desk and do homework together.

Indeed, most of the time Zheng Qing spent with Elena on Sundays was spent doing homework, not in a hotel.

Sometimes, he even doubted whether they were truly in a relationship. Or perhaps this was how all couples behaved when in love? Because the other two couples he knew—Xiao Xiao and Sima Yangyun, Nicholas, and Liu Fei Fei—mostly discussed academic matters during their interactions.

As for other classmates he wasn’t as close with, since it involved privacy, he couldn’t just inquire about it, and had to keep these concerns buried in his heart, silently feeling downcast. The kind of affectionate, intimate relationship imagined in his fantasies seemed to be just that—fantasy.

Sunday afternoon also had class meetings.

Then a new week would begin the day after.

After making a simple list, Zheng Qing despairingly discovered that his schedule was packed to the brim; his freedom was drained away, and the messy pressure was suffocating. He envied Xiao Xiao for being able to spend the whole day undisturbed in the library; he envied the fat one who could run around the campus with a feather pen and notebook looking for news material; and sometimes, even for Zhang Ji Xin, who often got beaten up at the Starry Sky Academy before returning to class, Zheng Qing would inexplicably envy for a second.

He often touched his silver pocket watch, imagining he could, like Mr. Wu, stretch his finger inside and meddle with the hands to scrape back a little more time for himself. Without exception, such imaginations would always stop abruptly outside the sturdy case of the pocket watch.

”Focus your attention! Stay vigilant!”

An old custodian with salt-and-pepper sideburns and a square face firmly planted his magic wand on the ground and gave Zheng Qing a stern look before turning his gaze to the others, ”Don’t forget what I’ve said before... The night patrols at Lin Zhong Lake are no longer as safe as before, you need to stay alert at all times, beware of those stinking creatures in the lake dragging you down to the water, and pickle you for winter food!”

Zheng Qing quickly loosened the grip on the pocket watch in his left hand and tightened his hold on the magic wand in his right, puffing out his chest and lifting his head in an effort to show the old custodian his concentration.

The old custodian, named Hemingway, replaced Old Verne, who had been demoted and transferred away last semester due to a work mishap, and became the new leader of the Lingzhong Lake Night Patrol Team. Compared to Old Verne, Old Hemingway had a more volatile temper and was stricter. Moreover, he didn’t keep dogs and didn’t like to drink.

”I didn’t feel the night patrol at Lin Zhong Lake was safe last semester either,” Lin Guo mumbled behind Zheng Qing in a low voice.

The young scholarship student couldn’t help but curl the corner of his mouth. During the last semester’s night patrol at Lin Zhong Lake, Zheng Qing had encountered issues more than once, such as Fishmen coming ashore, time-drained Water Turtles, transformed Kappas, and so on. Upon reflection, it indeed couldn’t be called particularly safe.

Old Hemingway clearly heard the muttering of a certain young wizard in the dusky night.

”That student, if you have any opinions, speak up!” He once again firmly planted his magic wand on the ground, and the Deadly Wind Lamp hanging on the top of the wand suddenly burst into bright green light, illuminating the surroundings brilliantly.

The old man squinted his eyes, sizing up Lin Guo while frowning, ”Which patrol team are you from? Why are you in my team?”

As he spoke, he pulled out a roster from under his arm and made a gesture to open it.

Zheng Qing quickly took a few steps towards the old man and whispered in his ear, ”Reporting to the leader, he’s a member of my Hunting Team... We also took corresponding safety patrol tasks from the School Works Committee, and we had this opportunity so I brought him along for the patrol.”

Due to the protest by the Lake Bell Fishman Tribe, which stirred up disturbance among campus rodents and insects, the student council took this opportunity to arrange for various Hunting Teams to intensify their nighttime training and reach an agreement with the School Works Committee to combine some of the training content with campus safety patrols.

This was a win-win project, which Old Hemingway naturally knew about as well.

”Your Hunting Team?” The old man looked at Zheng Qing doubtfully, ”You’re just a first-year student, and you have your own Hunting Team already?”

Many long-standing figures in the school, including caretakers and researchers, suffered from the same problem: they almost never paid attention to current affairs, focusing only on their own little worlds. Even knowing this, Zheng Qing still felt an inexplicable sense of loss when he heard the old man questioning him.

After all, he was a scholarship student of the school, had won the Merlin Medal, had been ”Great Arcana ’World’,” and in this school, he was somewhat of a celebrity.

Of course, these self-aggrandizing words were certainly not convenient to say directly to the old man.

”The Absolution Hunting Team, I organized it last year.” Zheng Qing immediately pulled out the badge of his own Hunting Team, ”Last year during Moon Hunting, our Hunting Team even won first place in the new student competition of the school’s Hunting Contest.”

”Oh, the Hunting Team that cheated,” the old man suddenly realized.

The smile Zheng Qing forced onto his face immediately stiffened.