Warring States Survival Guide
Chapter 68 - 40: Getting a High School Diploma Counts as Success! _2

Chapter 68: Chapter 40: Getting a High School Diploma Counts as Success! _2

When Yayoi did the dictation, it was a complete mess—mistakes everywhere, missing words left and right. She could barely read it out at all. Her little face had gone pale from fright, regretting deep down that she hadn’t studied hard enough. She was terrified that Harano would kick her out of the literacy group.

Tao Liulang and Jing Qilang were even worse than Yayoi. Their minds went completely blank. The two of them fought tooth and nail and only managed to cobble together a tiny bit. They never expected that learning to read would be this hard, and had already started wanting to give up. Feeding donkeys seemed way easier in comparison.

Qing was the worst of them all. She only managed to write out a line and a half at the beginning, which was basically a blank sheet. She just sat kneeling and hanging her head, fists clenched tight, her whole body trembling, and the little tuft of hair on her head wobbled as if she were waiting to be beheaded.

Harano was stunned too. He didn’t expect the outcome to be like this—turned out only Ah Man, this wild kid, was special, and the rest were all worse than each other.

Ah Man was absolutely thrilled, laughing up at the sky, so happy she couldn’t help herself. She felt like she really was the smartest, and her habit of wanting more for herself was acting up again. The moment she had an advantage, she tried to hog all the teacher’s attention for herself, eagerly suggesting to Harano, "They’re just four idiots. Teaching them is pointless. Why not just teach me alone? Give me more time, I can learn faster!"

Harano was in the middle of regretting it himself, gave her a sideways glance, and said grumpily, "Shut it. You just... have a bit of talent, that’s all. Nothing to be so cocky about. Why should you get everything to yourself? You need to learn to keep your feet on the ground, stay humble, and live low-key. Otherwise you definitely won’t get far in life!"

Ah Man protested, "But I really am this smart, why should I pretend to be dumb? Otherwise what’s the point of my smarts?"

This wild kid even dares to talk back? Harano pointed to the desk, face stern, and treated her all the more like a wild child, saying, "Copy the book, go! Practice those chicken-scratch characters of yours—half the time I can’t even recognize what you’ve written!"

"Fine, I’ll copy the book, no need to get so fierce..." Ah Man still felt wronged and muttered as she went over, but didn’t dare argue further. After all, she really cherished this free chance to study. If she pissed Harano off for real and he stopped letting her freeload, she’d really be doomed.

Harano turned back to the other four and consoled them gently, "Don’t get discouraged. Hard work is more important than talent. As long as you keep at it, at worst you’ll just need more time than Ah Man—the results in the end will be the same."

Well, great, now everything was messed up. He only wanted to see if there might be any geniuses among these four, but after testing them out, not only weren’t there any, now they’d all wilted. All he could do was force-feed them motivational soup, trying desperately to even the playing field—sometimes, the gap between people is even bigger than between people and dogs. Ah Man goofs around for one night and equals Qing working hard for half a month—not a shred of logic to it!

"Yes, Master Saburo, I will work really hard! Please look forward to what I can do!" Yayoi felt relieved. As long as he didn’t kick her out, she was fine. She never planned to compete with Ah Man anyway, actually, she was a bit scared of Ah Man and never dared provoke her.

The Tao-Jing brothers bobbed their heads like pecking chicks, bracing themselves and promising they’d work hard too. Only Qing seemed pretty crushed, unable to accept being dead last, still hanging her head and staring at the ground, fists clenched, saying nothing.

Harano looked at her, updated her label in his mind from [weird, a bit stubborn kid] to [weird, a bit stubborn, but apparently with a strong sense of pride], but there was nothing more he could do for now. He could only leave her to shake it off on her own.

Damn it, cartoons really are unreliable—geniuses aren’t found in clusters at all, he never should have believed that crap!

......

Literacy class continued. Over a dozen days, the straight-A student Ah Man kept dominating the field, absolutely crushing everyone in speed, to the point where she was even using a different textbook from the rest. Yayoi did decently, her progress pretty good. The Tao-Jing brothers were just average—mediocre at best. And poor Qing ended up the class dunce, falling way behind everyone else.

Natural talent really is unpredictable. He used to think she’d at least make it into a second-tier school, but looking at her now, if she manages to get a high school diploma, that’d already count as success!

Harano was always soft on the weak. One afternoon, after finishing up seeing patients, the moment he walked out of the "Black Clinic", he saw Qing muttering to herself, scribbling and drawing on the ground, apparently doing her duty as a guard while also working hard to review her lessons.

She was working so hard that Harano couldn’t bear it, so he squatted down and gently tried to comfort her: "You don’t need to push yourself so hard. It’s okay to learn a bit slower. Ah Man can read and write in just a few months, but even if it takes you a year or two, it’s just a difference in timing—the end result is the same. Besides, you have strengths over Ah Man too—aren’t your martial arts way better than hers? I’d bet you could easily pin Ah Man down!"

Qing looked up at him, not happy to hear anyone talk down about Ah Man, not even him, and shook her head slightly: "Last time was a fluke. Ah Man was injured and had stuffed herself, that’s the only reason I managed to kick her. She’s actually amazing, invented a ton of life-saving techniques. If we really fought for real, I can’t say for sure I’d win."

"Oh, life-saving techniques?" Harano was immediately intrigued, his attention shifting, asking with great interest, "What kind of life-saving techniques?"

Qing opened her mouth, as if to speak, but held back, quickly lowering her eyes. Only her lashes quivered, and she said nothing.

She just wanted to save a little face for Ah Man. Truth was, Ah Man’s martial arts sucked, and the so-called life-saving moves she’d invented were even weirder:

If Ah Man met an enemy head-on, her first move was usually the "Ferocious Face Axe"—she’d raise her tiny axe high, scream and charge at the enemy, face all twisted, voice shrill, her little bean eyebrows scrunched together, basically looking like a short-legged demon bursting out of hell. The goal was to scare the enemy so badly they’d wet their pants and run away, leaving her completely safe.

But she’d never actually pulled off the first move. Usually, she’d go right into her second trick, "Slick-as-Oil Step": if the enemy wasn’t scared, she’d immediately turn and bolt. But this was just a feint—if the enemy tried to chase and attack her, she’d whip out her third move, "Shameless Dust Powder," fling a handful of quicklime into the enemy’s face, then go at them with her little axe.

If slinging lime didn’t work and she still couldn’t win, she’d actually make a run for it, using her fourth move, the "Empty Wild Bomb." She’d start chucking homemade gunpowder bombs left and right to create clouds of smoke, then sprint away as fast as she could, crying out the whole time for her parents, running for her life.

Best case, there’d be a river for her to jump into—she even invented "Well-Plank Feet" so she could sprint a short distance on the surface. Even if she fell in the water, no big deal—she was quite the swimmer and carried a pig-bladder float, so she could drift downriver for dozens of miles and still not drown, more than enough to shake off any pursuers.

Of course, she hated running away so much, thought it was disgraceful, so she started working on her fifth move, the "All Living Beings Equal Cannon." The idea was to take the fourth move and upgrade it to running off while cussing out the enemy as dung beetles, luring them to chase her, so she could find a corner, spin around, and blast them with a cannon—proving that martial arts are useless and brains are what really matter in real life.

Only, she never had money, always lost at gambling, could never afford an Iron Cannon, so this move remained a dream. She’d often complain to Qing about how unfair it was that they’d been born dirt poor.

Ah Man’s homemade set of "Life-saving Techniques" was honestly embarrassing, utterly shameless, nothing but dirty tricks, not a scrap of Martial Virtue. Qing was too shy to go into detail, but Harano totally misunderstood, thinking this must be their school’s secret techniques—after all, "life-saving techniques" were supposed to be secret. If it were him, he wouldn’t tell outsiders either, so he got it.

He gave a sheepish smile, ready to leave, but said one last thing: "Just pretend I never asked, but seriously, you really don’t need to make it so hard on yourself. You’re you—no need to compare with Ah Man, just take things at your own pace!"

Qing really was stubborn as a mule—she kept shaking her head, "I just feel like I’m letting everyone down. Can’t outlearn anyone, not trying to compete with Ah Man. She’s always been smarter than me, it’s only natural I can’t keep up. Otherwise Grandpa never would’ve picked only her to learn our Life-saving Style’s Yang Technique."

"Oh?" Harano paused mid-step, surprised to have accidentally heard something different. After nearly two months together, they’d never told him which Koka branch they belonged to—their vigilance seemed like pure instinct.

Which was only natural. If those two were dumb and sweet, acting all innocent with anyone and pouring out their secrets, they’d have been dead and buried long ago—he’d never have even met them.

Harano was very interested in this Life-saving Flowing Yang Technique. Even just hearing the name, it sounded impressive—he couldn’t help wanting to know more, to see if it might be useful for him, so he carefully probed, "What exactly is the Life-saving Flowing Yang Technique?"