"What's wrong, does it not taste good?" Meng Qingtong blinked, hurriedly swallowing the roast meat in her mouth, and asked cautiously, "Or does it not suit your palate?"
Han Jie looked at the chopsticks placed down before him, realizing she had probably misunderstood. "I never placed much importance on the desires of the palate. What I had just now is already enough."
With how abundant his internal spiritual power was, prolonged hunger wouldn't endanger him. Moreover, the food at this self-service barbecue restaurant truly wasn't as delicious as the home-cooked meal Lin Sisi had personally prepared at noon.
It wasn't a problem with the food's flavor.
This bustling, crowded restaurant was overflowing with the smoke and fire of human life—the worldly clamor he didn't particularly like.
Yet that simple, modest meal at noon had allowed him to taste something he had long since forgotten—the flavor called home.
Looking at the grease at the corner of Meng Qingtong's mouth, he couldn't help asking again, "Do you love eating that much?"
Meng Qingtong deftly picked up the scissors and snipped the meat slices on the grill into small pieces. "It's a buffet! Of course you have to open your belly and strive to get your money's worth. Listen to me, you should eat more too. What's a few pieces of meat going to do? When you've had enough meat, get some dessert and some iced shrimp, then fill the gaps with drinks. I got a coupon; we definitely won't lose out."
Han Jie had been observing their surroundings and smiled. "Other girls don't eat like you do."
"I burn through a lot of energy," she said, patting the resilient muscles of her arm. "Do you know how hard I train? I'm not bragging, but among all the female Spirit Masters in the Second Academy—teachers and students included—if you sealed their spiritual power and had them fight me one-on-one, not a single one could win."
He had already recognized this during the battle with the Jingbei. Her physical training had far exceeded what a Spirit Master required, surpassing even professional athletes without spiritual power assistance by more than a margin. Those tight, solid, yet youthfully elastic lines were truly completely different from the female cultivators in his memory.
He couldn't help but think of his senior sisters from the past—if their spiritual power was sealed and they didn't draw their Heart Swords, fighting Meng Qingtong with pure physical combat, they'd probably be fleeing in shame within three to five exchanges.
Seeing he didn't pick up the conversation, Meng Qingtong continued tossing the more expensive meats onto the grill while rambling on about things in this world he might need to pay attention to.
After some thought, the money had already been paid, and whether he ate more or less was entirely up to him. If eating a bit more could make his partner feel like they got their money's worth, it didn't seem to matter much. Han Jie smiled, picked up his chopsticks again, and interjected, "Qingtong, this world is so vast and so complex. You don't need to rush to make me understand everything all at once."
Meng Qingtong snipped off two good pieces of meat and used tongs to place them into his dipping sauce. She froze, then somewhat nervously whispered, "Ah, you... think I'm too naggy, don't you? Tsk, I do have a bit of a motherly personality in front of people I know. I know it's pretty annoying, but it's hard to change. Eat, eat, eat. I'll shut up; I won't talk anymore."
Han Jie hastily said, "That's not what I meant. I was thinking that since you and I are about to cooperate on a major undertaking that cannot be completed in a short time, then learning more about you is temporarily more important."
Meng Qingtong froze, a slice of meat dangling from her mouth, forgetting to bite down. After spacing out for a few seconds, her tongue rolled the meat inward, and she said a bit embarrassedly, "You mean... you want me to talk more about myself?"
Han Jie nodded, then immediately added, "But if it's intrusive, then forget it."
She waved her hand, picked up her drink, and took a satisfying sip. "It's nothing, it's just... I don't know where to start. Most self-introductions I've made in this life only involved giving my name. Anyway, no one cared about anything else."
She was clearly a young girl with a delicate, beautiful appearance—why was there an unmistakable loneliness and desolation in her expression?
As if seeing through Han Jie's confusion, Meng Qingtong pushed a plate of Arctic shrimp onto the grill, her gaze lowering to watch the crushed ice rapidly melting under the high temperature. She said quietly, "Think I'm being melodramatic for no reason?"
"No, it's just that I would think you should have many friends. Wasn't my Spirit Master identity expedited by your senior sister?"
In just a few short hours, Han Jie had already become a registered temporary roaming Spirit Master at a sub-branch under the Spirit Security Bureau. The electronic records under his name were complete, and his special spiritual-pattern ID card had even been delivered to Meng Qingtong's side by an errand runner.
After analyzing this astonishing efficiency with the information in his sea of consciousness, he guessed that senior sister must owe this girl quite a large favor.
"I've always had plenty of friends." Meng Qingtong smiled, picking up a shrimp and peeling it unhurriedly. "What can I say, I'm the famous prodigy girl of Dongding City."
Han Jie couldn't analyze the underlying meaning, but he could sense she didn't want to discuss this further, so he stopped talking.
She ate one shrimp herself and placed the next into his dipping sauce bowl, alternating as she peeled. The table remained temporarily silent.
After a while, she looked up and broke into a smile. "You didn't say anything wrong; it's my own issue. How about this—whatever you want to know, just ask. You ask, I answer. I guarantee I won't lie about what I can say, and if I don't want to say it, I'll tell you I don't want to say it."
"When I was six, all my family was killed by demons." Han Jie slowly began, "I don't even know why I was the sole survivor. What about you? How did you become an orphan?"
Meng Qingtong looked at him somewhat surprised. "I didn't ask you."
Han Jie said lightly, "I like fairness. If I want to know yours, I'll tell you mine first."
"Oh..." She pondered thoughtfully. "I really don't know what happened with my parents. I've been in an orphanage since as long as I can remember. When I was little, I cried and screamed asking about them, but who had time to care? About half a year after I got to the Second Academy, I asked Director Fang to help me look into it. It's been two years now, and I've found out about a bunch of relatives back home, but there's no word about my parents at all."
Seeing Han Jie thinking about what to ask, she immediately said, "Then it's my turn. Um... the only people I can really consider family now are Director Fang and Aunt Huang. What about you? After all that time in your previous life... are you all that's left?"
"Others were unwilling to walk my path." Han Jie sighed softly. "Then... there is only walking alone."
Meng Qingtong's eyes immediately brightened a few degrees. She raised her cup and took a small sip, her dark eyes turning, and said, "Your turn."
"When did your demon-attracting constitution first show signs?"
The corner of her lips drooped slightly. "I've had it since I was little. Back then, Director Fang and Aunt Huang were the ones helping me. Later, when my talent was discovered, I gradually learned how to handle it and stopped troubling them. That uncle from the First Academy recruitment even had the nerve to ask why I didn't choose them. Humph, when I was so scared I had nightmares every night because I had no skill, no one else came to ask about me."
"My turn." Rubbing her belly, she stopped eating herself and focused on peeling shrimp for Han Jie. "Is that skill of pulling a sword from your body to fight hard to learn?"
"Very difficult." He swept a glance over Meng Qingtong's eyes and said, "But if it's you, and you're willing to put in bitter effort, you could likely master it."
What the Heart Sword required most of all was an unwavering heart and mind, not the quantity of spiritual power. From this point alone, he considered Meng Qingtong a little genius not too inferior to himself.
"Never mind. Biting off more than you can chew is bad." Meng Qingtong sighed. "My current income is already struggling to support my talismans; I can't afford to learn anything else."
Han Jie had been wanting to ask about this. "Are there few ways for spirit masters to earn money nowadays?"
He had never cared about this before, but now he needed to follow local customs; it wouldn't do to keep relying on a young girl to support him.
"If you want quick money, you have to do commissions like me. It's better if you have the qualifications to establish your own firm; if not for now, you affiliate with the academy's external affairs department to take jobs. I'm an orphan, so Director Fang isn't taking a cut for now—all income after taxes goes to me. After graduation, I'll have to rely on my own channels, so I need to work more while I can and build my reputation early.
"If you don't mind being managed and having less freedom, the border countermeasure departments of the major regions in the Spirit Security System are always recruiting capable Spirit Masters long-term. You're so powerful, and if you're not afraid of exposing your secrets, you'd probably get an astronomical salary there. It's also a springboard into the Spirit Security System. Of the graduated seniors from the Second Academy, at least forty percent chose that path.
"The next tier down is working for entrepreneurs. Senior Brother Sun, who helped me get a commission a few days ago, took that path after retiring due to injury. Society is developing so fast now that big companies can't avoid dealing with spirit masters, so they just hire some at high salaries as consultants or assistants. It's convenient for communication, and they look good bringing them along.
"The more stable but lower-paying ones are basically positions in spiritual studies technology, theoretical research, or simply teaching at a Spirit Academy. I'm not interested, so I haven't looked into it much. If you ask me, since we're going to be cooperating long-term and properly working on the Demon Encyclopedia, you should just take commissions with me first. Forget what I said earlier about dividing earnings; we'll split everything fifty-fifty. If you don't spend much, it should be more than enough for food, clothing, and lodging."
Sure enough, the moment money was mentioned, her eyes shone, her speech quickened, and her spirits lifted.
Han Jie smiled slightly. "You still have your studies. When you're busy, I shouldn't be idle."
"Cultivate." Meng Qingtong immediately said, "I can see you've run into problems with your cultivation. So don't worry about the miscellaneous stuff."
He shook his head. "My problem isn't something that can be solved by simple cultivation."
"Uh... is it convenient to tell me what the problem is? I can help you ask Director Fang. I know you definitely look down on the strength of cultivators in our era, but seriously, in terms of spiritual arts theory research, those ancient seniors absolutely can't compare to us. You're used to riding clouds and mist; you definitely couldn't be bothered to think about using spiritual arts to build airplanes, right?" Meng Qingtong didn't dare to speak too definitively, taking the opportunity to add, "Of course, you couldn't solve it even after secluded cultivation for over eighteen hundred years, so I'm just suggesting we see if we can treat a dead horse like a live one."
"For over eighteen hundred years, I only did one thing." Han Jie stroked the muscles of his forearm and said softly, "Reconstructing this physical body. Otherwise, my soul would have long since scattered."
Meng Qingtong's eyes went wide. Then she hurriedly picked up a peeled shrimp, leaned across the table to hold it to his lips to stop him from speaking further, and whispered nervously, "You can do whatever you want with other secrets, but this matter of reconstructing your body must never be revealed to a third person. This method is equivalent to eternal life; if certain people knew, they would go mad."
"In truth, it's merely..."
She picked up another piece of meat and stuffed it into Han Jie's mouth, glaring at him more forcefully. "Don't say it. I don't want to know. I'll forget about this soon enough, and you should forget it too. Keep it locked inside; don't tell anyone."
Han Jie chewed a couple of times, puzzled. "If I cultivated for eighteen hundred years, that would be fine instead?"
Meng Qingtong whispered, "It's not fine, it's just relatively safe. If it were possible without any leaks at all, of course keeping everything secret would be best. But if something goes wrong, saying you're an old monster who has cultivated for eighteen hundred years is obviously the better story. First, it means you're powerful enough to deter the less insane madmen. Second, cultivation methods rely on self-improvement—without the aptitude, you just can't do it."
Her expression grew increasingly grave. "Being able to reconstruct and temper the body is another matter entirely. Powerful Spirit Masters can already temporarily preserve the souls of others. If you can reconstruct a body for that soul, doesn't that mean rebirth through the power of another? I guarantee, if there's even the slightest possibility, those madmen who have no time to cultivate but plenty of time to fight for power and profit will fixate on you like cats chasing mice."
They are no match for me—Han Jie had wanted to answer thus, but suddenly realized that would be no different from being argumentative. Trouble—less of it is always better.
"Understood. Thank you."
Only then did Meng Qingtong relax, sitting back down to continue peeling shrimp. Then she thought of something and burst out laughing, "Ah, calculated this way, this body of yours was only recently completed, and your age is less than one. Should I be calling you Little Brother Han?"
"A hundred years to one," he said lazily. "Converted, I'm eighteen. Still older than you, right?"
"When filling out information for the ID, you said eighteen. So you weren't just saying that randomly."
"I'm not good at lying."
"The more people say that, the better they are at lying through their teeth without consequences."
For cultivators, using spiritual power to alter the body's state was a basic operation—it was merely a matter of degree. However, accomplished Spirit Masters generally weren't short of money, so the buffet owner naturally wouldn't be on guard against them.
Thus, Meng Qingtong and Han Jie chatted and ate, thoroughly getting their money's worth.
The time wasn't wasted either. Not only did their understanding of each other deepen considerably, but the messages Meng Qingtong had been waiting for all arrived on her phone during this period.
One was a receipt for a recent transfer of one hundred and eighty thousand to the Dongding City Orphanage.
One was an approval for the next commission application, with Director Fang adding a note asking her to bring back some local dried sweet potatoes from Suiyin City, with double reimbursement.
And the final message was what finally made Meng Qingtong willing to end this dinner.
"Alright, a suitable place has been found. Let's go take a look right now."
Before leaving, Han Jie looked back, estimating the quantity the two of them had eaten, and roughly searched related data in his sea of consciousness. Then he discovered that Meng Qingtong had controlled it quite precisely—they had really only eaten just about enough to break even. Considering fluctuations in ingredient procurement costs, the owner could still make a tiny profit off her.
What an interesting girl...