BXBX NOVEL Chapter 12 - A Special Relationship With The Witch (Part II)
Chapter 12: A Special Relationship With The Witch (Part II)
The students that overheard Meng Fan’s response were stumped.
The great witch was offering to buy food, yet someone rejected her; and this person was Meng Fan of all people.
“God, what is he thinking?”
From face value, Qing Jiao was already the great beauty of the Hua Xia Art Academy. Besides, she also had power. She was the “Big boss” who was most able to decide your future, the difference between “life and death” at this school!
Meng Fan actually rejected her!
“What, is he dumb? Is he mad?”
Qin Jiao chuckled, watching Meng Fan.
“Let’s eat let’s eat, what was that saying again, lose weight so you can eat freely?”
Meng Fan smiled shyly, and followed Qin Jiao out of the classroom.
Under the witch’s watchful eye, any further rejection would have been “poison”.
“See, that’s more like it.”
The students regained their regular skintones.
…
“Are you sure you’re losing weight?”
Looking at Meng Fan’s generous order of dishes, and thinking back to his words from before, Qin Jiao couldn’t help but doubt. “Does your mom know you’re trying to lose weight using this kind of method?”
“She’s long got used to it.” Meng Fan took his water from the waiter and thanked him. With the attitude of the students who had so shockingly looked at him, Meng Fan said to her, “Why else do you think I’m so fat?”
“That’s true. When I first saw you, I really didn’t expect you to develop horizontally like this.” Qing Jiao remembered the stern small boy of 12 years old, then looked at the lump of fat sitting in front of her now. She shook her head. “To be honest, you really do need to lose some weight, if you keep growing like this, forget being rejected by girls; even cars will reject you.”
“You know about it too?” Meng Fan’s face stiffened. “I didn’t send one to you too, did I?”
“At the time I was with two of the girls from your class.”
Qin Jiao nodded, changing the subject. “I asked you here for a reason; another job, illustrations for a light novel. The artist is pretty well known and is a friend of mine who asked me to find an illustrator. It’s a classical Chinese style, so it’s perfect for you. The pay is okay, but most importantly it will be very beneficial to you if you succeed in being chosen. However, there exists the problem of time. You’d have to finish about 30 pieces in a week and see how many get selected.
She pulled a book from her bag. “That also includes the time you have to finish reading this novel.”
Looking at the caloric goodness that had been brought in front of Meng Fan, Qin Jiao stood up, irritated. “You keep working on your diet. As for the other requirements, I’ll send them over later.”
“Wait, I didn’t agree to it yet.”
Meng Fan smiled bitterly at Qin Jiao, and bit hard into a drumstick. “She sounded so promising, saying she’d treat me, but here I have to pay the bill myself!”
Illustrations?
Meng Fan remembered very clearly that this job didn’t exist before he was reborn.
It seems like a lot has changed.
Glancing to the side, he found Zhang Zhou Wei and his two other roommates, very obviously spying on his dinner arrangement with the witch like an annoying crowd.
“Come eat with me, I’m really trying to lose weight.”
“Jesus, if you really were trying to lose weight why did you scare off the witch?”
“What did she want with you?”
“To draw illustrations? You’re so lucky!”
“If I had known, I would have gladly accepted the “lecture material” task, maybe the witch would have helped me find work too.”
“F**k, it’s Xiao Ti’s new book! Fatty, let me read it please!”
…
Without question, the job Qin Jiao had given Meng Fan was enviable and hate-mongering. First, it was already difficult to find an opportunity to submit a manuscript, even more so for an art school student. Secondly, the author’s reputation was not small, if his manuscript actually gets selected, Meng Fan will undoubtedly gain some fame.
Generally, illustrators who are as famous as Xiao Ti would hire illustration gods within the industry. Meng Fan really caught a big fish this time.
“The witch is too nice to you isn’t she?”
Once back in their dorms, Zhang Zhou Wei made sure the other two roommates had left and asked Meng Fan the question he’d been pondering for a long time. “Why do I always feel like the witch treats you differently from other people? It’s not because of this illustration gig but… Anyways, I found out that when you were alone with her, the two of you had a different status. She didn’t seem like a teacher, nor a student. Do you two have some secret between you that can’t be spoken of?”
“There is no special relationship. She was my mom’s student, so I knew her from a while ago, hence, once we leave the classroom there aren’t any teacher/student formalities.”
Meng Fan sat tilted in his bed reading a book, all the while answering Zhang Zhou Wei’s questions. He didn’t think this was a secret. However, this kind of thing also shouldn’t be spread around either.
” Hell! How is that not a special relationship? Your mom was actually the witch’s teacher, then doesn’t that make the witch your senior? Right, what did your mom teach the witch? How was their relationship?”
“Just a normal teacher-student relationship, stop acting like it’s some inconceivable martial arts style upbringing. Go play your game.”
Meng Fan continued reading his book.
Xiao Ti’s new book’s temporary name was “Floating Dream in a Millenium”, featuring a male main character who’d just woken from thousands of years of sleep. The female main character is the lover of the male lead from many millennia ago. The two storylines were advanced, parallel to each other, millennium to millennium until both universes collide.
Two classical styles with different characteristics shaped by time and space; this was Meng Fan’s specialty.
The novel wasn’t too long, and Meng Fan enjoyed the content, so it only took him until 11 pm to finish the entire book.
While he was reading, he made some notes of the details. After finishing the novel, there were two rough styles of time and place embedded in his mind. Mostly, it combined Han style with Hu styles, with some added elements from the pre-Qin and Yuan dynasties. The ornamentations can also grow off the foundations of Ming and Qing interpretations of north and south, utilizing traditional patterns such as thunder clouds…
“Crap, it’s 1:00 am again… And it’s still raining?!”
Meng Fan showered then opened his window slightly, eventually falling asleep to the sound of the rain.
…
“The rain stopped.”
Meng Fan woke up, taking a look outside. He immediately bounced out of bed, changing and running out the door.
“Ding. You can do it, you have ran 2 kilometers, elapsed time 22 minutes and 43 seconds.”
Before the running app had even begun to alert him, the projections in his head had already rung with the sound of completion.
“Beep. Run 10 kilometers, completed task [Travelling Deity] Phase 1. Reward: Accomplishment score +1, endurance +1.”
As the prompt appeared, Meng Fan felt like he had suddenly been injected with steroids. He had thought running 2 kilometers had fatigued his body, emptying it of fluids and energy. Yet like an empty gas tank, he felt the energy and blood return to his vessel, the heaviness in his feet was disappearing, his heartbeat slowing down to normal…
“Why does it feel like the effect of this +1 endurance is way more effective than my original endurance?!”
Meng Fan continued for another 300 meters, slowly feeling the changes in his body. He always felt that his original endurance had been less than 1, hence the reward must have increased his stamina significantly.
Regarding the specifics of these numbers, Meng Fan was still very curious.
For example, his hand speed according to the proportions added was 3, running speed was 2, and endurance—well, calculating it now, Meng Fan felt incredibly weak.
“Ding. You’ve ran 3 kilometers, elapsed time 32 minutes and 22 seconds.”
After his endurance was improved, Meng Fan’s 1 km time was greatly reduced, from 11 minutes per kilometer for the first two laps to under 10 minutes in the third.
From his first kilometer until now, he could only be described as a god of progress.
Although the speed of 10 minutes per kilometer is still beyond garbage!