High School of Demon Hunting
Chapter 627 - 296 Choice_1

Chapter 627: Chapter 296 Choice_1

In life, people are constantly faced with all sorts of choices.

For instance, when to get up in the morning, what to eat for breakfast, how much work to tackle in the morning, whether or not to have afternoon tea, how late to stay up working at night, how many rounds of a game to play before bedtime, and so on.

Choices are everywhere, infused in every aspect of our lives to the extent that some even define ’the freedom of choice’ as the true essence of freedom.

However, for Zheng Qing, in his eighteen years of life, there seems to have been scarce opportunities for choice.

Coming from a family of scholars, the moment he was born into this world, the elders had already planned everything in the foreseeable future for him – when he should start learning, when he should start studying poetry, whose calligraphy to practice with, what time to sleep every day, and so on.

If it weren’t for his never ending headaches, and Mr. Wu, the man with the round face and affable demeanor, Zheng Qing would probably be in a normal university now, sitting in a spacious, bright classroom, looking at a thick course outline, listening to the professor talk about things he knew to be completely useless upon stepping out of university.

But his timeline diverged when he was eight years old.

As though a big hand had reached in from the river of time, forcibly steering a boat headed straight forward into another path.

The life originally arranged for him by his family started showing peculiar alterations from that moment on.

For example, he gained a mysterious tutor who was seldom seen, there appeared a Yellow Flower Cat in the bookstore which could stand upright and open drawers to steal dried fish; and on his twelfth birthday, he went to a magical market, saw a husky with three heads, and a mermaid that blew bubbles in a bathtub.

As these changes accumulated and settled over time, a significant transformation took place – a few months ago, he took an entrance exam for Wizard University in his dream and scored well enough to enter this amazing university.

When he was still confused about the situation, his family once again made a decision for him: since the university had accreditation from the Ministry of Education, his family happily sent him there – a university that provided full scholarship for bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees.

"People always made decisions for me, maybe today, it’s time for me to make a decision..."

Zheng Qing held the red flame in his hand, dumbfoundedly staring at the puddle in front of him.

The shimmering water reflected a blurry face, though the features were unclear, a single red right eye was vividly mirrored, sparkling wonderfully under the light of the ripples.

It looked extraordinarily similar to the eyes of the demons outside of the ’Four Image Array’.

Just like the eyes of the pig-demon he saw through the ’Ost’s Guard’ at the Great Ming Pavilion.

Thinking about this, Zheng Qing felt increasingly depressed.

Because he remembered many details that he had subconsciously ignored before.

For instance, when he was in the Great Ming Pavilion, many wizards on the streets erected ’Ost’s Guard’, yet only the place where Zheng Qing was standing got discovered by the pig-demon, who charged right at him; likewise, on the special flight for new students, when he was face-to-face with a female demon named Nikita in the crew’s rest area, the frantic look in her eyes and her low whispers; and not long ago, during the night patrol at Lin Zhong Lake, the Kappa Monster jumped out just when he was passing by.

If he could dismiss one incident as bad luck, two incidences as misfortune, then after the third, fourth, and fifth times, even Zheng Qing, however obtuse, finally noticed these strange occurrences.

He slightly narrowed his right eye, hiding the somewhat dazzling redness.

During the previous medical examination at the university clinic, whether it was the therapists or the professors of the academy, they all told him to relax, not to worry if a ’bit of blood stasis’ would impact him, and not to care about day rumors in college.

Naturally, Zheng Qing gladly accepted their advice, not paying attention to his right eye’s blood stasis – at that time, he was full of confidence in his identity. Having grown up on steamed bread and rice porridge, didn’t he know exactly what ’species’ he was?

But now, looking at the threads of red in his eyeslit, Zheng Qing felt somewhat unsure.

He was afraid to confirm his own identity.

If the demons can always accurately track him, there would be only two possibilities: he’s a special kind of demon, or he is ’Monk Tang’s Flesh’ that the demons really, really, really liked – the outcomes were so deplorable that for a while, Zheng Qing was uncertain which he leaned towards.

But ultimately, there was one thing he could be certain of, that the group lurking outside with monstrous fire in their eyes, was most likely drawn here by him.

Zheng Qing, holding up the red flame in his palm, tilted his head back, and pressed hard into his right eye. Along with a slightly numbing sensation around the eye socket, the warmth in his hand gradually disappeared. He did not look in the mirror, but Zheng Qing knew that the red flame was probably pushed back into his eye again.

"Ugh!"

He groaned, covering his head, his legs giving out from under him, and he knelt on the ground.

A severe headache suddenly overcame him, as if someone was wielding a chisel to his skull with a big iron hammer from the outside; it was also like a balloon, hidden in his head, was suddenly inflated.

In Zheng Qing’s memory, since the age of eight, he seemed to have never experienced such a severe headache.

Indistinct arguments from his peers reached his ears. Whether to fight, to leave, or to stay, each choice was laden with risk, but also had its advantages. Everyone was holding onto their opinion, each convinced they are right.

Zheng Qing covered his eyes and slowly sat up.

The headache came quickly, and left quickly too; it was as if something had chiseled his skull, making his brain clearer than ever.

Rationality—or perhaps the shadow of experience that kept popping up in his mind—told him that staying within the hunting team, relying on others to continually "ward off disaster," was his best chance for ultimate survival in this hunting ground.

After all, nobody knew it was him who had attracted these demons; nobody was going to blame him for it.

Except for himself.

This was also what his "emotions" told him: it was wrong to stay in the hunting team.

It wasn’t fair to put others in danger because of him.

Nor should he push others towards the abyss of death because of his own predicament.

Thinking of Blue Bird, who was swallowed whole by the white Wolf Demon King, and Xiao Xiao, who was crammed into the mouth of the formidable Diamond Monkey, Zheng Qing’s heart felt as if it had been brutally stabbed hundreds of times.

He reached into the grey cloth bag around his waist and pulled out a stack of talisman papers.

Now that he knew those creatures were after him.

Well, things had naturally become much simpler.

"Turns out making choices isn’t an easy thing after all."

Chuckling softly, he tied two Armor Horse charms on each of his legs, then he tied two more, then another two—until he could not stack any more charms.

"Running with these later will surely make quite the spectacle."

As this thought flickered in Zheng Qing’s heart, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of regret. If nobody knew what he was doing, even the most spectacular display would be like a grand parade in the dark, somewhat regretful.

He opened the law book in his hands and intoned three short incantations with a slightly regretful voice:

"Sleep Without Hearing!"

"Sleep Without Perception!"

"Sleep Without Wisdom!"

An invisible wave emanated from the law book and enveloped the entire array in a blink of an eye.

Thump, thump, thump.

The sound of bodies falling to the ground one after another echoed in the air.

Zheng Qing squinted his right eye, turned around, and looked at his comrades who had fallen into a deep sleep. He clicked his tongue—"Ah, I should have saved the last chant. I had planned to leave you guys a few words... but under the effect of ’Sleep Without Wisdom,’ you can’t hear anything when you sleep!"

"Miscalculated, miscalculated."

Zheng Qing shook his head, finally giving up on the idea of leaving a small note. Instead, he added an ’Oster’s Guardian’ charm for himself and stepped directly out of the scope of the Four Image Array.

The surrounding demon crowd became agitated, but under the powerful restraint of their respective leaders, they could only stare with blood-red eyes, drooling all over the ground.

"Want to eat me, huh?!"

Zheng Qing roared with laughter and yelled out:

"If you want to eat, come and get it!"

"I’ll be waiting for you at the horizon... Don’t blame me if you can’t catch up and I don’t invite you!"

With that, he vanished in a flash, reappearing already beyond the demon crowd’s first line of defense. Like a wisp of blue smoke, he sped off in the direction of the horizon.

The demon crowd stood stupefied for a few seconds, then they roared in furious embarrassment and turned around, frantically chasing after him.

Seen from the sky, on the green canvas below, a small red dot led the way, followed by a pitch-black tide of beasts that pursued him like a storm of sand.

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