What if I don't want to ascend to immortality?

Chapter 45 Dean Xiang Zi
Han Jie glanced in the direction of the subway exit and asked, "Should we turn back?"

Meng Qingtong shook her head. "If a spiritual student goes missing, the Spiritual Security Bureau will definitely get involved. It's not our place to worry about it."

In noisy environments, telepathic communication has a huge advantage, and it is no longer necessary to judge general emotions based on facial expressions.

Han Jie frowned and said, "But I feel like you're in a bad mood."

“There’s nothing I can do. Tao Yang just came looking for you this morning, and then he disappeared this afternoon. If he’s still missing after 48 hours, it’ll be treated as a missing person case. It’s fine if the Ling’an Bureau contacts me, but what if they question you? Just thinking about it gives me a headache.” She adjusted her backpack and prepared to get into the car.

Even before peak hours, the subway station was already bustling with people. The passenger density was on a completely different level compared to high-speed trains heading to other cities.

Han Jie frowned and stepped forward, quickly using his physique to create a small area around Meng Qingtong, shielding her inside. He said unhappily, "Couldn't we wait until the car arrives?"

Meng Qingtong adjusted her posture in the small space he had marked out, and looked up at him. "Who knows when Dean Gu will be able to send it to you? Even if it comes, you still have to study it and take the exam. It might be over by the end of the month. I don't like to procrastinate. I prefer to get things done sooner rather than later."

Besides, she was quite happy to squeeze onto the subway together like this; she could smell Han Jie's scent just by shoving her nose forward a little.

She used to think that the descriptions of masculine scent in novels meant body odor, but now that she had taken the opportunity to sniff properly, she realized that it wasn't like that at all.

It wasn't actually the taste, but rather the atmosphere that made you blush and your heart race.

She glanced around, temporarily disconnected the telepathic communication, and secretly thought that next time she would simply delay and come during peak hours.

"What's wrong?" Thinking she had something to say, Han Jie immediately lowered his head and asked.

The warmth of his breath brushed against my temples, making my ears burn.

Unable to find an excuse, Meng Qingtong simply confessed, "I want to chat with you like this. I enjoy it."

"The carriage is noisy, I'm afraid you won't hear me."

Her eyes lit up, and she went along with it, saying, "You can come closer."

Han Jie lowered his head slightly and said with a smile, "Is that so?"

The heat was getting closer, and it felt like my ears were about to melt... Meng Qingtong shrank her neck and hummed softly, "Well, isn't this just fine?"

“Okay.” He stopped there, unconcerned about the stares of others, maintaining the pose that could easily be mistaken for a pervert, and smiled, “So… what do you plan to talk about like this?”

Meng Qingtong's brain was about to overclock and crash. She bit her lower lip twice with her sharp little tiger teeth in a short while, still unable to think of anything to talk about to get the taciturn man to talk more. "Hmm... anything is fine. I, I like to hear anything."

"You like listening to whatever I say?"

"Yes. I like hearing it that way."

Meng Qingtong answered absentmindedly, while mentally making excuses for herself: girls are like that, it's normal for their emotions to fluctuate during their periods.

I've actually lost a lot of health, so what's wrong with giving me some mental mana?

"Okay, fine." Han Jie cleared his throat, skillfully lowering his tone slightly to make his voice sound deep and magnetic, and slowly said, "Next, I'm going to tell you about the questions you got wrong during your tutoring session the other night."

"Eh?"

Amidst the clamor of the subway, the pink bubbles that filled the air burst with a "pop"...

When she got out of the car, Meng Qingtong's face was still as red as if she had a fever.

Han Jie then proceeded to explain academic questions to her the entire way, doing so meticulously like an extremely dedicated tutor.

However, he maintained that incredibly ambiguous pose the entire time—his arms were wrapped around her, his head lowered to her ear, his warm breath assaulting her side repeatedly as he spoke.

So, she felt a mix of pleasure and embarrassment: the tingling sensation on her cheeks and ears, the shame of having gotten the question wrong when it wasn't actually that difficult, and the sadness of being punished for explaining the question in this setting.

The mix of feelings gave her a subtle illusion that she had been teased (or rather, manipulated) on the tram.

She patted her face, thinking with distress, "I hope I don't develop some strange fetish..."

Perhaps due to the predominant ethnic group's enthusiasm for construction, Dongding City ranks third in the world in terms of size, second only to Huangding and Zhengding, the central cities of the same ethnic group.

A massive metropolis naturally requires a well-developed transportation network. Five ring roads, sixteen subway lines, and twelve elevated maglev train lines together form the arteries of this crouching behemoth. In addition to the normal branch lines, new technologies such as tunnel rails and mini-Airbuses are also being rapidly promoted.

Han Jie was in a state of curiosity about everything new, so of course he wouldn't be willing to ride a public bicycle just to save money.

Since the tunnel spirit rail only offers single-seat cabin service for the time being, he directly called a nearby Mini Airbus on his mobile phone, paid for two people, and started a flight journey with Meng Qingtong that did not require him to expend his own spiritual power.

Looking down at the ground through the window, Meng Qingtong said with a sigh, "Only at times like this do I feel a little regretful. My talismans and arrays can't fly freely, and I can't see the scenery that those with spiritual magic and magical artifacts can see..."

Han Jie replied naturally, "Whenever you want to fly, I'll take you."

"Should I use your Wind and Thunder Wings or Flying?"

“I hate it.” He rationally made the best choice: “That one is stable and won’t crash.”

"Forget it, you've poured your heart and soul into sightseeing. You're willing to spend that much, but I'm not." Meng Qingtong turned and glared at him. "I feel bad even if you spend money on this little Airbus. If it weren't so hot, I could have easily taken you there by bike. Consider it exercise."

"No need. I'd rather you save your energy and be more attentive during tutoring sessions."

"Oh, I know, Teacher Han," she replied reluctantly.

Upon arriving at their destination, Han Jie noticed that Meng Qingtong hadn't even glanced at the small supermarket by the roadside, but instead headed straight for the old iron gate with the sign "Dongding City Children's Welfare Institute." He asked curiously, "You won't let me buy anything, and you won't buy anything either. Isn't it a bit impolite of you to come empty-handed like this?"

Meng Qingtong waved her hand, "Ninety percent of my income goes to this place, why would I do those superficial things? Besides, the director gets angry and says every penny should be spent wisely. Once when I came here to buy some notebooks for my younger siblings, she scolded me, saying she had a way to buy them wholesale at a much cheaper price, and that I should just give her the money directly."

She snorted and said angrily, "From now on, I'll only give money. Let's see what she can say about me now." The gatekeeper, of course, recognized Meng Qingtong. As soon as he saw her, his wrinkled face broke into a smile, and he insisted on taking a piece of candy from the table for her.

She smiled, took it, and put it in her pocket.

"Xiaotong, did you bring your boyfriend to see the hospital director?"

"Oh, this is my teacher, a visiting professor at the Second Affiliated Hospital. He's been working with me on commissions." Meng Qingtong quickly raised her voice to explain, "He knows about our institute's affairs, and he's curious, so he wanted to come and see for himself."

"Look, look, what's so interesting!" A second-floor window was flung open, and a sharp-eyed, even somewhat fierce, old face popped out, shouting in a booming voice, "This dilapidated place is nobody's business. If it weren't for you idiots donating money to support it, it would have been razed to the ground and a shopping mall built long ago. I've told you eight hundred times, go to your classes and run your errands, as long as the money's there, that's enough. What are you doing here in your old age? You don't mind coming all this way, but I find it annoying!"

Han Jie looked up and knew that it must be Xiang Zi, the person Meng Qingtong was closest to in this world, the former caregiver and current director of the Dongding City Children's Welfare Institute.

When Meng Qingtong was adopted into the daycare, Xiang Zi was one of the caregivers in charge. When he was transferred to the kindergarten as a teacher, he was responsible for Meng Qingtong's academic classes as she grew up.

After experiencing various twists and turns, Xiang Zi became the dean and struggled to keep the mess afloat, which became the main reason why Meng Qingtong saved money and kept donating.

When discussing these matters, they used the divine sense frequency, and Han Jie inadvertently captured additional information.

Although Meng Qingtong never directly called Fang Min "Mom," she regarded Fang Min as a tolerant and doting mother in her heart, and she used all her rare acts of coquetry and whining on Fang Min.

She referred to Xiang Zi as "Dean Mom" ​​repeatedly, but her feelings for Xiang Zi were more like those for a strict and difficult father.

Thinking about it this way, of the three most important non-blood-related relatives in Meng Qingtong's life, only Aunt Huang Yin, whom she had never met before, was the only one she hadn't met yet—Han Jie, who was treated as a combination of parents and was both strict and gentle and patient.

He secretly made up his mind that he would find an excuse to visit that person when he returned from his business trip.

Of course, it wasn't for the simple reason of finding out who might be Meng Qingtong's parents in advance. Rather, he had always suspected who had placed the Ten Thousand Demon Spell deep within Meng Qingtong's soul.

Logically, the person with the best chance of doing this was Xiang Zi, the primary caregiver.

But now he saw Xiang Zi with his own eyes.

She was a mortal, with no fluctuations of spiritual power, only natural spiritual energy freely and irregularly spreading around her.

"Alright, have you looked enough?" Meng Qingtong couldn't help but whisper a reminder, "I know you came with me to confirm something, but don't keep staring. The headmistress has a bad temper."

Before she could finish speaking, Xiang Zi's face at the window darkened even more. She stared at Han Jie and asked, "Who is this now? Meng Qingtong, you've really grown up! You can't even stand it when you're almost an adult? You're in such a hurry to find a boyfriend, and you even brought him here to annoy me? Do you think I'm living too long?"

Meng Qingtong was about to explain when Xiang Zi spoke up again: "You're already here, why are you standing down here in this heat? Come up and talk. You have good taste in boyfriends, they're better looking than my rich guys back then. It's understandable that you'd have a little romance like this."

As she walked towards the office building, she said helplessly, "It's a teacher from the Second Hospital. They work with me on projects and know I often come here, so they came to check on me."

"You're kidding me. He hasn't even grown a beard yet, and he's a teacher at your Second Hospital. Why don't you just say he's a professor?"

"He really does receive the treatment of a distinguished visiting professor. I even helped him get it."

Just then, a group of little kids from the nearby kindergarten finished class and came over. Seeing Meng Qingtong in the distance, they all ran a few steps closer, bowed their heads, and shouted, "Hello, Sister Qingtong!"

"Hello, hello, how are you all?" Meng Qingtong smiled brightly and waved to them. "Let's go eat, I'll come see you later."

She took two steps, then suddenly turned around, pointed at a little boy, and shouted, "Pengpeng, shoelaces!"

The little rascal quickly squatted down and tied his loose shoelaces that were about to come undone.

Seeing that the children's clothes were newer than Meng Qingtong's, Han Jie felt slightly displeased.

But when he thought that Xiang Zi's clothes made him look older than Meng Qingtong, he gradually felt relieved and vaguely sensed a line of inheritance.

Xiang Zi left the window open and launched into another tirade against the group of children who had just finished class: "Just because your sister Qing Tong is here doesn't mean you can run wild! Who gave you permission to run around like this? What kind of behavior is this! And those two with their collars unbuttoned, stand in the corner after dinner! You have no manners, which family would dare to take you in!"

Entering the building, Han Jie frowned and said, "We're both deans, but this one's words are quite rude."

Meng Qingtong sighed softly, "At first, I didn't understand either. I just thought she was so irritable. But after I actually took charge of a bunch of younger siblings, I realized that the little devils in this place can't be treated like ordinary children. Being stricter and fiercer is actually for their own good."

"Besides," she seemed to recall some unpleasant memory, her expression darkening slightly, "children aren't stupid. They'll eventually figure out who's truly kind to us and who has ulterior motives. If it weren't for Headmistress Mama, you can't even imagine how many terrible things would have happened here. After all, in many people's eyes, those here are just unwanted children, like stray dogs on the street—they can be coaxed with a bone, kicked when they want, or tricked into coming back to eat dog meat..."

She shook her head, abruptly changing the subject, "So, as long as Dean Fang is here, I will do my best to support her. Dean Fang and Aunt Huang may have helped me more, but it is because of Dean Fang that I am the Meng Qingtong they can see, not... a little stray dog ​​that can be bullied at will."

"You little wild dog, you're always talking nonsense." Xiang Zi came out of the office and stood at the top of the stairs, his hand on his hip, a gesture that was very similar to Meng Qingtong's. "It's 0075 now, the sob story isn't popular anymore. Hurry up and come up here, help me look at last month's accounts, my reading glasses are no good, they hurt my eyes."

"Where's Uncle Kun? What's he busy with?"

"Someone's daughter is engaged, and I'm helping to decorate her new house in Beiding. I need to ask for leave, but I don't pay enough, so I feel bad refusing. What can I do?"

"Okay, okay, I'll help you check. You really dare to criticize my math score."

Xiang Zi turned to look at Han Jie, "Isn't your teacher boyfriend here too?"

"A teacher is a teacher, don't add suffixes randomly." Meng Qingtong looked at the ledger on her desk, feeling a headache coming on.

Han Jie walked straight over and said with a smile, "You guys chat, I'll just watch."

Xiang Zi picked up the reading glasses hanging around her neck, glanced at Han Jie, then turned to look at Meng Qingtong. Her face was full of wrinkles, and she squeezed out a sentence: "You had such bad luck before, so you used it all up in one go?"

This time, Meng Qingtong didn't retort.

She simply looked at Han Jie's serious and focused expression, pursed her small lips, and smiled.

(End of this chapter)