Chapter 299

However, despite all this, she somehow managed to score full marks in one of her courses, pulling her overall score up significantly and successfully passing the written exam.

Zheng Weiqi’s eyes lit up as she nodded furiously, preparing to extend her hands and wait for a red envelope.

But in the next moment, her expression froze.

Qiu Baishuang said, “My cousin’s essay received full marks, and as her brother, I couldn’t be more delighted. I personally requested the essay from the elders of the academy and brought it to Luan City to share with everyone.”

Zheng Weiqi’s mouth twitched visibly, and she seemed to freeze in place, like a machine stuck in a loop.

The usually fearless senior sister suddenly panicked, a rare sight: “No, no, no! Brother, please don’t! After all, it’s my personal work; this isn’t appropriate!”

Before she even finished speaking, the young man’s storage pouch flashed gold, revealing a bundle of scrolls.

At that moment, a voice called out from outside the room, filled with curiosity: “Wow, it’s lively in here—what treasure are we sharing?”

When He Zhizhou poked his head in, Ning Ning discovered that he was also wrapped in gauze like Pei Ji, with his left hand wrapped like a rice dumpling, ready to role-play a mummy.

Lin Xun whispered an explanation to her: “Senior He was seriously injured in the Demon Refining Tower; he probably just woke up.”

Indeed, their situation was rather tragic.

Two vicious villains who sympathize with each other looked at each other from a distance, with only tears in their eyes.

Qiu Baishuang, having worried about his cousin’s academic progress for so long, now felt the sweet relief of success.

Claiming to have prepared a surprise, he passed the exam paper around for others to read.

And so, that bundle of papers made its way around, finally landing in the hands of He Zhizhou, who seemed the most excited.

“Is this Senior Sister Zheng’s exam paper?”

He laughed heartily and, putting on an exaggerated announcer’s voice, read out the title of the first essay: “Ahem—’An Account of Subjugating Demons.'”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

Qiu Baishuang raised an eyebrow and flashed a grin identical to Senior Sister Zheng’s signature wide smile.

“I heard the assigned topic was exactly that, and out of all the academy’s disciples, only Weiqi got full marks.”

He Zhizhou was full of admiration, his mouth wide open as if it could hold an egg.

He was completely unaware of Zheng Weiqi’s odd expression as he continued to read in a standard broadcastic tone.

[“The most memorable time I subdued a demon was when, as a child, I encountered a vine demon in the wilderness.

The vine demon, several meters long, roared as it charged toward me, and I ran for my life like a wild dog. Just as despair set in, I suddenly saw a figure—

Heavens! It was my cousin!”]

—My cousin!

What a delightful surprise!

Qiu Baishuang listened, utterly thrilled, his eyes shining as brightly as Ultraman’s laser beams, his grin growing wider as he eagerly listened for more.

[“My cousin, just a novice talisman cultivator at the time, crawled toward the vine demon, moving inch by inch like a wriggling worm, drawing closer.

It turns out that he had racked his brains to come up with a brilliant plan to save me from danger:

Since the vine demon’s eyes were on its head and not its feet, as long as he stayed low to the ground, it wouldn’t be able to see him!”]

That so-called “brilliant plan” was completely nonsensical, and “racked his brains” was an unnecessarily terrifying phrase.

In a certain sense, Qiu Baishuang was still smiling at this point.

—Even though the curve of his smile was now turning downward.

Lin Xun stared at him with a bit of horror.

In his eyes, the white-haired cousin had transformed into a wriggling worm, twisted and tangled.

[“Then came the flash of the formation; the vine demon let out a series of pitiful screams, and in the blinding white light, I saw a figure that had been knocked away rolling and falling in the air—it was my cousin!”]

[“My cousin was dead!”]

Upon hearing his own death sentence, Qiu Baishuang nearly choked, his eyes wide as he desperately pinched his philtrum.

Just before he passed out, he heard He Zhizhou exclaim again.

[“‘No! Cousin!’

My heart ached! I screamed and ran toward him, only to see him lying stiffly on the ground, his eyes rolling like eels!

My cousin wasn’t dead yet!”]

In the essay, the cousin kept switching between life and death, and in reality, Qiu Baishuang oscillated between near-death rage and the wild relief of survival, fluctuating like quantum states.

To celebrate that his cousin had at least spared him his life, Qiu Baishuang exhaled deeply, his smile returning.

He decided not to dwell too much on the phrase “eyes rolling like eels.”

[“My cousin’s eyes, nose, and mouth were all spraying blood, and his eyeballs were bulging, almost popping out.

He grasped my hand through his tears of blood, gasping for breath: ‘Weiwei, my greatest wish in life is to see you graduate from the academy… Otherwise, I won’t rest in peace and become a ghost that will haunt your Xuanxu Sword Sect forever!'”]

Qiu Baishuang was practically rolling his eyes and gasping for breath in real life now.

He Zhizhou, ever the professional, read the final line with an eerie, sorrowful tone, as if embodying a ghost with unfinished business.

Ning Ning shivered; if she were one of the examiners, she would probably be so frightened that her back would turn cold and she would cremate the test paper on the spot.

——In the end, this paragraph is the key point of the whole article! her cousin was just a tool for scoring in the written test until his death!

[“The rain wetted my porcelain-like face, my tears glistening as they silently fell from my starry eyes, sliding over my heartbreakingly delicate cheekbones and fragile lips, forming fleeting drops on the ground.

I clenched my fists; my soft voice, like that of a sweet songbird, echoed through the mountains: ‘Cousin, rest in peace. I will definitely pass the academy’s test!’

‘I will pass the academy’s test!’

‘The test!’

…”]

Zheng Weiqi, this terrifying woman.

Earlier, she had described her cousin as a squirming worm, but now, when it came to describing herself, she suddenly unleashed a barrage of strange, overly flowery adjectives, as if writing about the heroine of a romance novel.

Even He Zhizhou was dumbfounded, staring with shock at her “heartbreakingly delicate cheekbones.”

He hesitated for a long while before finally saying, “Senior Sister Zheng’s writing style is truly… unique.”

Ning Ning, somewhat worried, glanced at Qiu Baishuang and quietly asked, “So… what happened to the cousin in the end?”

She thought the situation couldn’t possibly get worse, but then He Zhizhou glanced down again, his brows furrowing even deeper.

Something was wrong, very wrong.

Ning Ning had a bad feeling and was just about to speak up to stop him when she saw He Zhizhou slowly open his mouth.

[“Perhaps by divine grace, my cousin didn’t die, but his once round and beautiful head was severely injured, leaving him bedridden, unable to move—a vegetable.

He was once so full of life, but now he’s forever trapped in slumber. Maybe one day, when I show him my high-scoring academy exam, he’ll finally open his eyes.

Saving one life is better than building a seven-story pagoda. My cousin saved countless people, but who will give him a second chance at life?”]

What a rollercoaster of a dramatic literary masterpiece.

As if the story wasn’t absurd enough, it ended with a shameless moral kidnapping.

No wonder this exam paper got full marks—the examiners must have had a tough time.

He Zhizhou was laughing so hard his shoulders shook.

“Senior Sister Zheng, were you trying to say’my cousin became a vegetable’? I only mentioned that condition from my hometown once, and you’ve already learned to use it so well! Impressive!”

Zheng Weiqi looked up at the ceiling, her trembling lips curving into a faint smile.

Everything around her was so quiet, and in that moment, she seemed like a world-weary philosopher, indifferent to humanity, concerned only with her cousin’s iron fist.

Qiu Baishuang’s round and beautiful head remained still, his sharp eyes fixed on her.

Only now did he realize that this wasn’t some “Account of Subjugating Demons” at all, but rather “Save My Vegetative Cousin.”

Yet He Zhizhou, oblivious to the atmosphere, kept laughing: “By the way, Senior Sister Zheng, you don’t really have a cousin, do you? Haha! Just don’t let him see this, or you’re dead!”

He had said it jokingly, but after he finished, no one responded.

Everyone’s expressions were filled with sympathy, as if he hadn’t been reading an essay, but instead had just announced someone’s death in public.

In the mournful silence, He Zhizhou seemed to realize something.

A figure stepped forward, and he heard a strange male voice, coming from the white-haired young man he’d never met before: “I am Qiu Baishuang, immortal from Sufeng.”

The man paused, then spoke more firmly, enunciating each word clearly, each syllable striking his ears: “I am her cousin.”

The last two words were spoken with extra weight.

He Zhizhou stared blankly at him, then at Zheng Weiqi, his mind completely blank.

Trembling, he stammered out a greeting: “Immortal Qiu of Sufeng… B-Bai, fellow Daoist, hello.”

Qiu Baishuang, suppressing the throbbing vein on his forehead, closed his eyes and took a deep breath: “My last name is Qiu.”

“Brother.”

Zheng Weiqi gave up resisting, like a fish gasping for air on land, blowing bubbles.

Her tears were crystal clear, silently falling from her starry eyes.

She had said this line too many times before: “Promise me you won’t beat the child to death, okay?”