Chapter 228: Mist Bodhisattva Royal Academy of Sciences [Part 2]
Cillin turned to look. The school’s security guards had ran over to pull the students aside. Although the people of both sides were covered in blue and black bruises, overall no one was seriously injured. At the very least, their injuries weren’t life threatening.
When both parties had dispersed from the scene, the onlookers were almost gone too.
“Let’s go. Time to look for Three and Four.” said Cillin after he stood up and patted the grass on his person.
Bel pressed his hand horizontally across his forehead and peered at the surrounding school buildings. “And where do we find them? The hostel? I think they’re about to start class immediately.”
“Cillin, the electronic bulletin board over there displays the students overall result ranking!” The gray cat raised its paw and pointed down a certain direction.
A large bulletin board could be seen not far down that direction. It was specifically used by the school to announce the result of every overall test.
“Let’s check that our first and see if Three and Four are on the list.”
Cillin and Bel walked towards the bulletin board. Because the overall result ranking had been displayed for some time, not many people were staring at it.
Bel went up and down the top 100 name list under first grade students. Then, he said regretfully, “I don’t see Three or Four.”
“They’re there. Check out No. 31 and No. 37.” Cillin pointed at the names so Bel could see them.
“No. 31 Chang Xiao, and No. 37 Chang Fu? Isn’t it Three and Four?”
“Three and Four are their nicknames. Chang Xiao and Chang Fu are their true names.” Cillin explained*.
“I see.”
*In Chinese, Chang Xiao means “Eversmile” and Chang Fu means “Everblessed”. Also, I’d like you all to recall from Chapter 218 Part 2 that commoner kids aren’t normally given true names unless they grew up or encountered some special circumstances, which Three and Four did by entering this school.
Cillin moved his finger and tapped at Chang Xiao and Chang Fu’s name on the control panel beneath the bulletin board. It displayed their classes, the lessons they were currently attending and their classrooms.
Inside the school’s monitoring room, a person said, “Eh? Someone actually checked Chang Xiao and Chang Fu’s data today. Speaking of which, Chang Xiao and Chang Fu are commoners, aren’t they?”
Every operation to the bulletin board was displayed inside the monitoring room.
“They are commoners.” Another person said, “They ranked about 80 or so when they passed the admission test, but now they’re in the top 50 already. Their potential is pretty good. No one has ever checked their data until today though.”
The duo stopped paying attention after conversing briefly. After all, too many things happened everyday. They were used to unusual occurrences already.
Meanwhile, Bel and Cillin got ready to visit the classroom Chang Three and Chang Four were in. But since there were still two hours before end of class, they decided to take a stroll around the school first.
The school’s environment was pretty good, but there were also plenty of young boys and girls doing lovey dovey things in some quiet and remote forests. Almost all of them were of noble descent. Cillin felt a muscle in his face twitching constantly as Bel peeped around corners with a vulgar look on his face.
He was a genuine prince of the Blazing Eagle royal family! God knows what kind of thrilling reaction would be invoked from the citizens of Mist Bodhisattva Empire if they ever learned of their prince’s conduct.
The gray cat that had ran into the bushes to catch some small insects jumped back onto Cillin’s shoulder. Its mouth was still covered in pollens because it just ate two big butterflies. After licking its claws and wiping the corner of its mouth once, it patted Cillin and said, “Let’s leave, it’s going to rain immediately!”
Cillin looked at the sky. It was true that there were clouds floating towards their direction, but it didn’t look like it was going to rain.
Although it didn’t look like it, Cillin still did as the gray cat said. He waved at Bel once before running to a self-service vending machine to purchase two umbrellas. He was going to buy four umbrellas, but there were only two left inside this vending machines.
Although technological advancement was rapid these days, some primitive tools like this one hadn’t been phased out of the competition yet. Not many changes were made to these umbrellas either. A lot of people very much enjoyed holding a primitive tool like this and walking under a natural rain, experiencing the world that was being washed away by rain water. It was because natural and mild rain wasn’t available in many places.
As was predicted, the amount of clouds on the sky suddenly increased five minutes later. Raindrops began to pitter patter from the sky. The young lovers holding their trysts hastily broke away from their spots. Some of the children remote controlled their flying cars to come fetch them immediately, while the wilder ones held each other’s hands and ran across the rain while laughing.
Bel ran over, caught the umbrella Cillin had tossed at him and opened it above his head. He cursed, “It was a clear sunny sky one minute ago and now it’s raining? What the hell is wrong with this weather; it’s even worse than what we got at AF3.”
“AF3?” Cillin asked.
Bel shook off the water beads on his hair, raised his chin and was about to say something with a proud look on his face before he suddenly looked left and right at his surroundings. After confirming that no one was coming around the corner, he said in a small voice, “Your bro here studies in the Third Affiliated Higher Education Institution of the Royal Academy of Sciences, a.k.a. AF3. So? Envious, right?”
Bel didn’t try to hide this from Cillin. He knew that Cillin had already guessed his identity, so he was being pretty honest in this regard.
Cillin didn’t show too much of a reaction. Considering Bel’s background, it wasn’t strange that he would be studying in a good school. He could also imagine just how great it was among all Mist Bodhisattva higher education institutions considering that its title was attached to the name “Royal Academy of Sciences”. However…
“Why AF3? Does that mean that there’s an AF1 and AF2 before your school?”
Bel curled his lips. “There are three affiliated higher education institutions of the Royal Academy of Sciences, and we AF3s are the most normal of them all. The students in the other two schools are not human at all; they’re all freaks.”
Bel shivered for a little as if he recalled something terrible. Then, he turned around and said seriously to Cillin, “Seriously. Everyone in there is a freak! You must be more careful if you ever heard anyone declaring themselves to be someone from AF1 or AF2. Otherwise, you’ll be in a world of trouble.”
Cillin nodded. “I’ll remember this.”
Bel didn’t talk too much about things related to AF1 or AF2. Instead, he talked about himself and his two bad friends. The three of them were known infamously as the “Three Dissolute Musketeers” of AF3, and together they committed few good deeds but bucketloads of the opposite. The story probably couldn’t be finished even if he were to speak for a whole day.
Bel was just getting to an exciting point of his story when Cillin asked, “Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be studying in your school right now?”
Bel’s voice abruptly cut to a stop. “Ahem, er, sometimes you gotta adjust your mindset, right? You can’t just dump every bit of your focus into studying. My brain has a small memory, and I can’t absorb so many difficult things at once. I gotta come out and clear out my buffer once in a while, you know.”
Cillin was amused. Trying to say that you’re justified, huh?
Cillin wasn’t a person who would express too many opinions about others, however. Everyone has their own way of thinking.
Bel felt a little embarrassed by this turn of topic, so in order to divert attention he pointed at the gray cat and asked, “What is this cat listening to?”
Cillin turned to look. The gray cat wasn’t paying attention to their conversation at all. Instead, it was lifting its ears and concentrating on listening about something. Judging from the frequency of its whisker shake, Cillin knew that the cat probably had a new prey in mind. This fellow always shakes its whiskers at a certain frequency when it was listening to a prey’s movements.
Cillin flicked the gray cat’s ears. “What did you hear?”
The gray cat licked its mouth for a bit. “I heard frog croaks!”
“There are frogs here?!” Bel’s eyes lit up. “Back at AF3 Xing Ming, Ganuo and me used to barbecue the frogs we caught at our hostel. It’s pretty great!”
Under the fervent gaze of a cat and a man, Cillin headed towards the place where the gray cat said there were frogs. There was still more than an hour’s time before Three and Four finished their class anyway.
There was a lotus pond in Baelenbaatar, and there were a lot of frogs inside the pond. These frogs were unlike normal frogs in that they didn’t go through a metamorphosis period. It meant that these frogs had hatched directly into a frog instead of a tadpole.
The lotus pond was very big, and the weather in Baelenbaatar was very suitable for the growth and reproduction of this type of frog. One could hear frog croaks most of the time in a year. However, most of the nobles here viewed catching these sticky, slimy things as beneath their station, and some commoners didn’t dare to catch them. After all, it was good enough already that they were able to enjoy equal treatment in Baelenbaatar Middle School; they didn’t dare challenge that bottomline by wantonly capturing the frogs living inside the lotus pond. Plus some of them were loudly ridiculed and laughed at by the nobles when they were catching these frogs. Since then, very few people came to do such a thing.
Perhaps these frogs had gotten bold exactly because the students of Baelenbaatar didn’t try to harm them. They sat openly on lotus leaves, and they didn’t even bother to lift their hind limbs even though Cillin and Bel were clearly walking towards them. It was only until Bel had caught them with a wicked smile on his face that they let out croaked dully, and then they croaked no more because Bel had knocked them out skillfully and tossed them aside.
“That’s one. Let’s continue; we need to gather enough for a whole dish at least!”
Bel’s movements were extremely practiced. While holding an umbrella with one hand, he moved to grab the roadside frogs with the other.
The gray cat had already jumped into the pond to play. There were a lot of fat fishes inside the pond, not to mention the dumb frogs too. They were enough to keep it occupied for a while.
Cillin put the knocked out frogs into a bag and wondered how they should be eaten it later.
Chang Three and Chang Four, studying seriously in class, had no way of knowing that a pair of adults who were at least a dozen or so years older than them and supposedly a lot more mature were catching frogs from their school’s lotus pond.