Madame is Pretending to be an Academic Slacker Again!

Qin Xin didn’t take it to heart, and instead gently smoothed Ding Dou’s hair:

”It’s fine, there’s no such thing as high or low in professions. Chefs are amazing, you need talent and skill for that. Anyway, in this lifetime I am never going to cook a decent meal, so I really admire chefs.”

Ding Dou gave a shy smile.

The strands of hair where Qin Xin’s hand had passed seemed to be dancing excitedly.

Jing Zhichen, standing beside him, turned his head to glance at the two of them.

There are actually women in this world who aren’t good at cooking?

He fell into thought.

Then he quietly reminded, ”Ding Dou, your sister’s result is about to come out.”

Qin Xin turned her head and casually followed up, ”Oh? You sure do keep an eye on Ding Yu. Looks like the gossip has some truth to it—maybe you two would make a good pair.”

Jing Zhichen’s face was full of awkwardness: ”...”

He’d only wanted to divert her attention away from Ding Dou; who knew he’d shoot himself in the foot.

He had to hurry and distance himself: ”No, no, I just purely wanted you guys to see what a score above 10 looks like. Just looking at the data, that’s all.”

At this moment, on the white jade stone stele on the stage, the pale pink color had slowly risen to the height of the knees.

Ding Yu’s face was faintly flushed; she was very excited.

This was a level none of the other tested freshmen had reached earlier.

She hadn’t expected herself to be this good either. Even though her powers had awakened early, no one had ever taught her, so she wasn’t very proficient in using them; she’d been pretty bedraggled in the Life and Death Forest. If it hadn’t been for her teammates in Group 2, she wouldn’t even have gotten a Spiritual Pearl the size of a peanut.

Yet now, the stone stele had proved it: though her technique was unpolished, her talent was still formidable.

She was extremely proud.

She heard the instructor announce, ”Congratulations, student Ding Yu, a score of 11 points—excellent!”

A wave of envious applause broke out.

She took a deep breath, turned around and bowed humbly to everyone again. ”Thank you all for your encouragement. My ability is still very limited, so I’ll be needing lots of help from everyone. Let’s learn from each other and improve together from now on.”

Oh wow, not only is her talent amazing, she’s this modest and kind, and even quite pretty—she’s really likable.

The students all started clapping even more enthusiastically.

Qin Xin said to Jing Zhichen in all seriousness, ”So a score above 10 reaches the knees. I saw it—she really is pretty impressive.”

Jing Zhichen pressed his lips together; the embarrassment on his face deepened tenfold: ”...”

He really hadn’t been paying attention to Ding Yu.

And he really didn’t think Ding Yu was anything special.

But now it couldn’t be explained clearly anymore; the more he tried, the worse it would look.

Fortunately, Ding Yu’s moment in the spotlight only lasted about a minute; soon it was the next student’s turn on stage.

The test proceeded in an orderly fashion.

It took a full hour before it was finally their turn at the very end of the line.

Previously, Qin Xin had thought the only freshmen were the twelve of them who had come out of the Life and Death Forest. Only now did she realize that besides the Life and Death Forest, there were several other entrance trial locations: the Dead Sea, the desert, and so on.

Each entrance trial location produced at most just over ten survivors.

Gathered together, this year’s batch of freshmen ended up being not too many and not too few—exactly sixty.

For all the young people of the same age across an entire empire, that was a pretty brutal ratio.

”Little Dou’er, you go first.” Qin Xin treated him like a younger brother and was used to letting this little guy have his way in everything.

Ding Dou was nervous. ”Sister Xin...”

Qin Xin said, ”Your sister is that outstanding, you share the same genes, you won’t be any worse. Right, Young Master Jing?”

Jing Zhichen’s Adam’s apple moved. ”Mm.” He couldn’t shake the feeling she was once again teasing him about paying attention to Ding Yu.

He really hadn’t, really hadn’t been paying attention—heaven knows.