High School of Demon Hunting

Chapter 1379: Chapter 126: The Depth of the Fat Man

”Are you heading to the library?”

Hearing this simple question, Zheng Qing opened his mouth but didn’t manage to say anything for quite a while. Xiao Xiao looked at him puzzledly, straightened up, and politely replied, ”Yes, Professor.”

”Good, good... Study hard and aim for high grades. One of you is a special enrollment student, and the other is a publicly funded student... Especially you, Zheng Qing, if your curse course grade isn’t excellent this time, just see how I’ll deal with you!”

As he spoke, Professor Yao cheerfully patted Zheng Qing’s shoulder, his palm as always was broad and warm, but Zheng Qing couldn’t help but shiver slightly.

The professor squinted and took a closer look at the young wizard.

Zheng Qing felt that the smile on his face had become somewhat rigid.

”Getting nervous so easily? I’m just scaring you a bit—study hard, and you’ll definitely achieve good grades.” Old Yao grinned, showing off his yellowed teeth—Zheng Qing might have once thought this was due to smoking too much, but now he deeply suspected those stains were traces of blood soaked into the enamel that couldn’t be wiped away.

Zheng Qing stiffly nodded his head.

”Feeling unwell?” the professor followed up.

”I didn’t sleep well last night,” Zheng Qing said, lowering his gaze and responding in a hoarse voice. Even though he was certain Old Yao wouldn’t really harm him, his encounters with demons since joining the school had still left the young wizard feeling uneasy. He would never forget the sight of the Pig Demon from the Great Ming Pavilion charging at him; it was the most profound memory of his first contact with the Wizard World.

Professor Yao let out a mocking laugh and patted Zheng Qing’s shoulder again.

Then he passed by and left.

Zheng Qing secretly breathed a sigh of relief and hurriedly followed Xiao Xiao, running towards the Book Mountain Library.

But before he had run a few steps, he suddenly heard Professor Yao’s soft yet clear voice, ”I haven’t eaten anyone in a long time... Don’t be so afraid.”

The warlock stumbled and fell to the ground.

Several witches passing by pointed at the publicly funded student and burst into laughter.

Zheng Qing struggled to get up from the ground, looked back in fright, and just caught sight of Professor Yao turning past a deciduous camphor tree, turning his face, waving the pipe in his hand at him, grinning, and exhaling a dense cloud of smoke.

”Falling flat on the ground?” Xin Fat Man’s incredulous voice came from not far, as if he wanted the whole building to know, ”Did one of your legs get sawed shorter?!”

”I twisted my ankle,” Zheng Qing gritted his teeth, stood up, and ran toward the Book Mountain Library with a stern face without looking back.

Beside him, Doctor Xiao adjusted his glasses, glanced in the direction Professor Yao had left, and shuffled to catch up with the young publicly funded student’s steps.

Zheng Qing ran a few steps toward the library, then snapped back to his senses and looked up.

”Weren’t you supposed to save us seats? Why are you here?” He glared at Xin Fat Man a few steps away.

Xin Fat Man slouched his shoulders and let out a sigh.

”First there has to be a seat available,” he complained loudly among the crowd. ”By the time I got here, the queue had already stretched to the small square in front of Book Mountain Library... I hadn’t followed the crowd for two steps when people up front started passing word that there were no seats left inside.”

Those students who had been following the group, now surging towards the library, let out sighs of disappointment one after another. Some turned around and sprinted toward the study rooms, while a few hopelessly optimistic ones still squeezed their way into the library.

Zheng Qing also halted in his steps.

”Shall we... head back to the dorm then?” he asked, looking inquisitively at the Doctor.

Before Xiao Xiao could reply, Xin Fat Man crept up sneakily and whispered, ”The library seats are indeed all taken, but there are a few experimental tables left unoccupied... I’ve held a spot for us. We can finish up the practical parts for the Magic Potion and Alchemy classes first.”

Zheng Qing gave the Fat Man an approving pat on the shoulder.

Banna led the way with pride, but after a couple of steps, he suddenly remembered something and looked back to give instructions in a low voice: ”Also, for some reason, the octopus today is in a bad mood. It only utters letters and phonetic symbols, no actual words. Remember not to provoke it.”

True enough, as they passed by the reception of Book Mountain Library, Zheng Qing caught a glimpse from the corner of his eye: the library’s administrator, wielding eight tentacles, suspended a mud-stained, shoe-and-pants wearing warlock midair, thrashing him about so fiercely that the poor fellow was wailing and sprouting lumps on his head.

Zheng Qing guessed that the dirt on the student’s shoes must have soiled the library’s floors, hence the sudden disaster that befell him.

Many students stood at the entrance of the library, but all maintained a hushed vigilance, stealthily slipping into the building along the wall corners, not a single one stepping forward to speak up for the unfortunate victim.

”What it’s doing is wrong,” said Xiao Xiao at the experimental table, slipping on silken gloves, ”Even if it hasn’t caused physical harm... it constitutes a kind of assault on one’s dignity. The school should really intervene.”

Zheng Qing rolled his eyes. Who would pick a fight over such a trivial matter with a Big Wizard whose upgrade hadn’t quite succeeded and whose mental state had been fragile for a long time?

Even the Fat Man, who usually loved to dig for news, didn’t side with the Doctor on the matter.

”It’s difficult to define the subtle difference between ’corporal punishment’ and ’punishment,’” he said, rolling up his sleeves and polishing a gleaming silver knife while analytically declaring:

”Old-school wizards are very much in favor of this ’educational’ approach... If you pay attention to the trend of civilization’s development, you’ll notice the earlier a civilization was established with grandeur, the more likely it is to be trapped by that very grandeur, scorning new and more contemporary developments.”

”Just like how we now all use Law books, yet many old-fashion witchcraft schools in Europa still teach their students to cast spells with Magic Wands; witches in bone corsets look down upon witches in jeans – the stick education is the most stubborn component of all backward behaviors.”

”Actually, you should be grateful for today’s First University, which has not retained the ’whipping’ and ’transformation’ punishments from its founding. That is real humiliation... Tsk tsk, just imagine a witch being stripped to the waist and hung from a tree for a whipping, or a warlock being turned into a green-haired turtle crawling around...”

Zheng Qing blinked, unsure whether to feel a degree of longing for that ’dreadful’ history or to completely criticize it. As Fat Man had just said, it was a very delicate ’degree’.

”It’s indeed terrible,” the young cost student finally agreed, casting an evaluative glance at Fat Man and then shooting a look at Doctor Xiao: ”If the Doctor hadn’t been silent all along, I would have thought the words you just said were his... I didn’t expect you to be profound every now and then.”

A tint of blue flushed through Banna’s face, and his forearm muscles bulged.

He gripped the silver knife, furiously chopping the licorice root into evenly thin slices on the experimental table, his tone carrying an almost grinding rhetoric: ”I’ve always been profound, alright?! How would I dare write reviews for the Campus Newspaper without solid skills!”