ASER – Chapter 33

“Little Toilet, does anyone else know this formula?”

Toilet: “It’s exclusive. You can tell others, as long as you’re not afraid of dying.”

Of course, she wouldn’t say. A’Diao wasn’t a fool.

After tidying up, A’Diao noticed her breathing felt different from usual, a bit fresher. She knew that if she started absorbing Spiritual Energy now, the effect would far surpass previous attempts.

This was also why she hadn’t absorbed it on the airship—to maximize the effect.

In the fitness room, filled with various exercise equipment, A’Diao activated the “Vacuum Pack 101 State Skill” and then took out the toilet.

A cubic, mirror-surfaced space perfectly sealed off the Spiritual Energy released by the toilet, keeping it contained within. A’Diao no longer needed to control it by opening and closing, greatly saving time; she only needed to absorb it from within.

The absorption efficiency had indeed increased significantly, almost double what it was before.

A’Diao herself could feel the difference.

Time passed, second by second. Her breathing went from stable to unstable, then back to stable… Spiritual Energy was continuously released, continuously settled, and continuously diminished.

Thanks to the contributions from Xie Yuqing and the housekeeper, A’Diao’s Mental Energy had reached 23,000. However, the conversion rate for the toilet releasing Spiritual Energy was still 1 minute = 10 Mental Energy. It was just that the amount of Spiritual Energy released per minute was double that of a level-one toilet.

The effect was too good.

This time, she absorbed continuously for 20 hours, spending a total of 12,000 points of Mental Energy. In the end, she had 11,000 points of Mental Energy remaining.

This absorption session was too long, causing her body to expel even more impurities for a second time.

Afterwards, A’Diao was extremely drowsy and hungry. She took some food from the kitchen refrigerator and wolfed it down, only then realizing it was already the afternoon of the next day. Looking out the hotel window, she could see other high schools near the Flowing Light Hotel. People were coming and going outside the school gates; it seemed many students and parents were scouting the location.

It was unbelievable. This wasn’t even the college entrance exam, and enrollment wouldn’t even start until tomorrow morning.

But one couldn’t blame these people. After all, for three hundred years, everyone had been accustomed to the college entrance exam model. This reform was too unfamiliar. The revival of Spiritual Energy brought about enormous changes, and no one wanted to become an eliminated loser in this transformation.

A’Diao rested for a while, then got on the treadmill to test her physical fitness.

Early the next morning, the driver was already waiting at the hotel entrance. After A’Diao got into the car with her backpack, she opened her phone to check the news. As soon as she opened it, she saw a flood of messages, the most concentrated of which were from her old class group chat.

Many people were @ing her.

They were all asking where she had registered for the exam.

Some were purely curious or concerned, but some were not necessarily so.

Han Meimei: “It seems like none of the schools here in Qishan saw you come for the exam.”

Zhang Xu: “Did you register online? I heard from my dad that your student registration is in Jinling. Does that mean you can’t come back? You haven’t sorted out your student registration issue?”

Lin Cheng: “Online registration costs quite a bit, 1000 Star Coins. When my dad registered for me, he said it wasn’t cheap. A’Diao, did you register online too?”

Han Meimei: “Is there even a need to ask? A’Diao is from Jinling. She must have found her relatives and is going to take the Jinling High School exam, right? Otherwise, she wouldn’t have ignored us for so many days.”

Ignoring you all really isn’t because I disdain the poor and curry favor with the rich, but because you have no value to be exploited.

But apparently… you still do.

A’Diao was actually quite sensitive to interpersonal relationships, but also indifferent.

Glancing at the @s in the class group and the two groups of classmates chatting privately, she felt that anyone who @ed someone in a public group to ask about private and obviously painful or difficult matters was either ill-intentioned or had extremely low EQ, like poking a raw nerve. Such people held no social value worth retaining for her.

People who genuinely cared would ask in a private chat. The information was private and wouldn’t be laid bare for others to spectate and comment on. That was true consideration.

Of course, those who deliberately chatted privately and then took screenshots to stir up trouble were another matter entirely.

And even someone with low EQ like Zhao Min had asked her in a private chat, which showed that he also knew it wasn’t good to ask such things in the class group.

This was a matter of kindness, or lack thereof.

A’Diao replied one by one to the classmates she was on good personal terms with and who cared about her, and then she replied in the group chat.

A’Diao: “Thank you all for your concern, but I really don’t want to make everyone sad because of my own troubles.”

So, she really couldn’t solve the student registration problem, could she?

Han Meimei and the others immediately said it was okay, they were all classmates, so they should be concerned… So where did you end up registering? Or couldn’t you register anywhere at all?

They waited with elation, and then they got…

A’Diao: “I found my family, but it seems they don’t like me.”

Oh ho!

From Han Meimei +10!

From Lin Cheng +9!

From…

Uh, was this considered goodwill or ill will? But A’Diao reckoned that the “goodwill” also included the thrill these people got from her at this moment—was it because she was miserable, and that made them happy?

Alas, this unspeakable depravity of human nature.

While condemning human nature, A’Diao said to the driver in front, “Uncle, please say something to me in a moment.”

Driver: “??? I wouldn’t dare, Third Miss. You mustn’t address me like that. Just call me Lao Wang. What should I say?”

A’Diao: “…”

I’d better still call you Uncle, otherwise I’d feel quite sorry towards my father.

A’Diao explained, and the driver had a strange expression but still agreed. So, after a while, the classmates far away in Qishan, eagerly waiting, received A’Diao’s next sentence.

“I’m going to the exam today, but no one is here to see me off. I can only go alone.”

Amidst a small, continuous +++ increase in Mental Energy, Han Meimei and the others, while gloating over her misfortune, comforted A’Diao and frantically screenshotted her words to post on their Moments, drawing a wave of sighs from their schoolmates.

Zhao Min and others saw these people’s Moments posts and comments from students of other schools. They were very angry and came to tell A’Diao, lest she be exploited by Lin Cheng and his group.

Exploited?

It doesn’t matter, as long as there’s a lot of Mental Energy.

A’Diao was currently obtaining Mental Energy points from a group of “potential customers.”

Thanks to the efforts of Han Meimei and her group, the number of people contributing Mental Energy had reached several dozen and was still increasing, adding over a thousand Mental Energy points to her total.

It seemed that her consistently holding the top rank in the grade despite being dirt poor had indeed made many people jealous and resentful.

A’Diao sighed with emotion as she sent out a video.

The video opened to show the interior of a hover car, its decoration understated yet elegant. It was aimed at the front seats, faintly showing the driver and the steering wheel.

Such a conspicuous steering wheel.

In the video, her tone was dejected and melancholic, “Look, besides Uncle Driver, it’s really just me. I really envy you all for having family accompany you to the exams.”

The driver, following his Third Miss’s instructions and having specially adjusted his position to reveal the steering wheel and the car’s emblem, spoke up, “Third Miss, it might take an hour to get there. There are desserts from the kitchen in the car, you can have some.”

Then, a compartment in the car automatically opened, presenting a cake dessert with a built-in cooling effect and an accompanying taro drink.

The effect was incredibly smooth.

The video ended with A’Diao reaching out to press a button, sending them back, while saying coolly and sorrowfully, “Inner pain cannot be soothed by external things like food. Uncle, you don’t understand. Let me heal my wounds quietly alone.”

Video closed.

The moment it closed, Mental Energy critical hits—at worst double-digits, even triple-digits—floated up.

Han Meimei and the others even landed continuous critical hits. These critical hits had already reached the ceiling of their aptitude, but it didn’t matter, they could continue…

These people variously @ed A’Diao with inquiries, even bordering on exasperated and furious questioning, suspecting she had rented the car and made the driver act along, and so on.

None of this was important. What mattered was that after the toilet reached level two, she could already sense the total value of her Mental Energy. Now, her Mental Energy had soared back to 13,000 and was still growing at a terrifying speed.

A’Diao casually opened her private chat with Zhao Min and asked him for a favor.

Zhao Min: “?”

A’Diao: “Without me protecting you, they’ll bully you in the future. To ensure your safety, we need to make them even more worthy targets of ridicule, understand?”

Zhao Min didn’t quite understand, but thinking about the recent ostracism and contempt from Han Meimei and the others, he immediately did as she said. He compiled the chat records of Han Meimei and her group, their Moments screenshots, and even A’Diao’s final video into a nine-square grid post. But then, due to his lack of literary skill, he ultimately added just a few words in the text field—Hahahahaha!!!

Later, with A’Diao’s permission, he also found other classmates and friends who were on good terms with A’Diao, and they all posted on their Moments and in other school internal groups.

Interestingly, all these people copied his caption.

Just various “Hahahaha.”

It really captured the essence.

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Driver Lao Wang saw A’Diao put down her phone, then press the button for the cake again, eat it with relish, and even finish it all. She seemed to be in an extremely cheerful mood.

Lao Wang: “…”

Truly terrifying. Kids these days are really too terrifying.

But this Third Miss was definitely Concubine Xie’s biological daughter; that affected, drama-queen attitude was just too similar.

By the time A’Diao arrived at the gate of a certain high school in Jinling, her Mental Energy value had already soared to 14,000.

Much higher than blowing up a cesspit.

Of course, setting aside the per capita gain, blowing up a cesspit was still better.

A Qishan High School alumni group had given her a windfall of 3,000, but after all, the number of people and their aptitude were limited. Such opportunities were rare and couldn’t be sought out.

She couldn’t possibly blow up the toilets of Qishan County High, could she?

However, when A’Diao saw several hundred friend requests on her social media app, she thought for a moment and decided to make the most of it. After all, this was a fleeting opportunity.

She approved them all with a single click.

These people were eager to probe, question, or mock her for faking things, but A’Diao simply posted an image on her Moments. It was the back view of a plump little eagle sitting on a cliff, looking dejected and utterly lonely.

The night was hazy, a lone moon shining in the vast sky.

The accompanying text read: You loved the ocean, I loved you, but upon the cliff, lonely me only sees you… at the bottom of the pit.

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Holy crap!! Chen A’Diao, this brute!

How many people took it personally, feeling the sting of being thoroughly dissed and mocked by someone.

A’Diao watched her 14,000 Mental Energy rapidly rise to 16,000 and was instantly amazed.

Qishan High, oh, I underestimated you! Truly worthy of being my alma mater, your potential is considerable!

A’Diao’s love for her alma mater instantly rose several levels; she almost shed tears of profound affection.

However, there were also some less harmonious comments.

Feng Ting: How did you get so fat all of a sudden? Your sister-in-law told you not to be so gluttonous; sudden weight gain isn’t good.

Homeroom Teacher Huang Weimin: Who? Tell me? When did this happen! No early romances!

Math Teacher: Early romance is bad +1!

Language Teacher: Early romance is bad +2!

Science Teacher: Early romance… by the way, who is it?

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Those people online frantically sending Mental Energy to A’Diao from across regions had no idea what the name of the high school A’Diao, who should have been rushing to her exam, was currently queuing in front of.

Three towering golden stone pillars, five meters high, stood firm in an ancient gate-like formation. Carved upon them in bold calligraphy were four characters—Jinling Academy.

Among all the high schools in Jinling, only this one was named “Academy.”

Even though Jinling City had many universities, in terms of school qualifications and ranking, Jinling Academy’s fame far surpassed these universities. There was no other reason than it being the foundational place that had accompanied the ancient city of Jinling through the baptism of time since the dawn of its glory. In the first generation, countless talents emerged from here, laying the foundation of Jinling, and then moved from Jinling to the top echelons of power in the Tang Song Empire. Even now, many elder statesmen and veteran officials in the imperial court had intricate connections to Jinling when tracing their origins.

Locals from Jinling were one thing, but those who had arranged their student registration from other places to take the exam here would, in addition to their nervousness, mostly crane their necks to peer at the row of golden and cyan hues visible inside the gates of Jinling Academy.

Jinling favored the color gold and revered the ginkgo as its city tree. Within Jinling Academy, there were many thousand-year-old ginkgo trees. The plant genes of these ginkgoes had been nurtured and altered by Spiritual Energy in the first generation, and they perennially displayed only two seasonal colors, evoking two distinct seasonal feelings.

Cyan in spring and summer, golden in autumn and winter.

Currently, it was the school opening season, and autumn was approaching, so one naturally saw the transitional scenery where cyan met yellow.

However, looking in from the main gate, one could only see rows upon rows of hundreds of ginkgo trees, their colors brilliant, stretching out magnificently, a sight that could intoxicate the beholder.

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