Chapter 21: Confidential

Qi Shao felt that Xie Sen was too strange, having suddenly jumped into the pool to swim, just after he gave the contract beast a bath in the pool. He stood and watched for a while, and soon found something wrong. The pool water was clear, the water was less than two meters deep and could be seen at the bottom. The person he thought was going to swim, had his hands and feet paddling around without any regularity, not at all like swimming, and was gradually sinking to the bottom.

Qi Shao’s face changed. ’Poof,’ he jumped into the water, and with two or three strokes, he reached Xie Sen’s side, and grabbed the unconscious Xie Sen out of the water.

Xie Sen woke up, opened his eyes, saw the snow-white ceiling,and had the faint smell of disinfectant between his nose. He tilted his head, and saw Maine sitting on the stool next to the bed.

Maine, with one hand on his chin, dropped his hand when he saw him wake up and leaned forward to ask, “How are you feeling?”

Xie Sen sat up and looked around the all white walls. “I’m fine. Is this a hospital?”

Maine nodded, “You fell into a coma last night, and have been asleep for eight hours.”

Xie Sen looked at the time, it was already after six o’clock the next morning. He remembered falling in the water and rubbed his forehead. Qi Shao would definitely think it was because he was an idiot. He lifted the covers off the bed, and asked Maine as he put on his shoes, “You’ve been taking care of me?”

“Mm.” Maine got up. “Wait, I’ll ask the doctor to check your body, and make sure it’s okay before you do the discharge procedure.”

“Don’t bother, I’m fine,” Xie Sen thought to himself, I know better than the doctor what my condition is. “I have to go to work!”

Maine frowned. “How can you be healthy? The doctor said you are overworked and malnourished. Your condition is very bad.”

Xie Sen was speechless. There weren’t even vegetables here. Malnutrition was normal, okay? As for the fatigue, he was not very tired at all.

At Maine’s insistence, Xie Sen was examined, and the doctor said, “There is nothing serious, pay attention to more rest and take more nutrient solution.”

Xie Sen was confused. What was nutrient solution?

The doctor saw his expression and sighed, “Did you forget to drink it? No wonder you aren’t getting enough nutrition. The Ministry of Health has issued many reminders that you must drink one bottle of nutrition solution every week. You young people just don’t listen.” He wrote a list. “Buy a bottle of nutrition liquid, drink it as soon as possible, and then you can be discharged.”

With Maine’s help, the discharge process was quick. Xie Sen sat on the passenger side with a 300ml bottle of green liquid, and asked curiously, “What’s this made of? I can’t believe it costs 100 star coins a bottle.”

Maine set the course and replied, “The juice of various large non-edible plants is mixed, so it is rich in the nutrients we need.”

Xie Sen suddenly realized, no wonder the people here eat meat every day and don’t get sick. They still had plant nutrition supplements.

He took a sip of the nutrient, and his face instantly wrinkled into a ball. It was too hard to drink! The heavy grass smell, slag taste and indescribable spicy taste mixed together. It wasn’t like nutrients but like poison.

Maine tilted his head to look at him. “Not used to it? How long has it been since you’ve had one?”

“I don’t remember.” Xie Sen said vaguely.

Maine frowned. “Nutrition is limited to one bottle per citizen per week, so if you miss it, you can’t buy it.”

Xie Sen didn’t expect to be able to buy such a terrible thing, but he nodded, as he thought about the meat of his meals in the past few days, and forced past his discomfort to finish the nutrient in one big gulp.

The two returned to the apartment. Xie Sen showered and changed into a set of clean clothes. From the bedroom next door, Maine also happened to change clothes. His hair was slightly wet, apparently he also just finished showering.

“I’m off to work. See you tonight.” He waved his hand at Maine.

“You haven’t had breakfast yet–” Maine’s words were interrupted by a ringing tone, a communication for Xie Sen.

Xie Sen picked up, then hung up not long after. He spread his hands. “I have time for breakfast. the manager asked me to take the morning off and go back to work in the afternoon,” he bemoaned. “And I’m not allowed to work late without a full health certificate from the hospital!”

Maine said, “You’re short of money?”

“Yeah,” Xie Sen. “I’m glad I made some money at the school forum, otherwise I’d be really broke.”

When he saw Maine was walking towards the kitchen, Xie Sen quickly ran over, took his arm, and pointed to the couch, “To thank you for staying with me all night, I’ll make breakfast. You sit and relax.”

Maine looked at his hand and nodded. “Okay.”

Xie Sen went into the kitchen, opened the System, looked at the remaining energy value of fifteen, gulped, thought, and closed the System.

The most that could be exchanged was one chili pepper, and if he wanted to make the most of it, he’d have to exchange it for an explosively spicy one, which wasn’t suitable for breakfast. He made the usual fried meat, and when he was done, he asked Maine, “Is there a supermarket around here?”

“Yes, it’s three hundred meters out on the right.”

Xie Sen said, “I’ll go to the supermarket to buy some things. Do you need anything?”

“No, I’m going out later, I’ll be back around 6 pm,” he said, as he opened his bracelet and operated it a few times. “You have access to the gate, so you can open it yourself.”

Xie Sen didn’t expect him to trust him so much and said, “Good brother, don’t worry. I won’t touch anything.”

Maine hmmed, and went back to his room to change his clothes.

When Maine came out of his room, Xie Sen was stunned to see him wearing a black duck-tongue hat, a black combat suit, and black military boots.

“What are you doing?” Why do you look like you want to fight and do something bad?

Maine looked at him, hesitated for a moment and spat out the words, “Confidential.”

Xie Sen became more and more curious and worried about what he was up to, but Maine didn’t want to tell him, so he couldn’t do anything about it. Unless…stalking!

The two of them went out together. Maine went to the parking lot, and Xie Sen headed the way of the supermarket. Xie Sen went forward only two steps, saw Maine go into the parking lot, turned around in a hurry and hid in the corner. He decided to wait for Maine’s shuttle to come out, then immediately go to the parking lot to drive his shuttle and follow Maine.

The driving speed inside the neighborhood was slow, so as long as he was fast, he should be able to keep up. However, after waiting for a long time, he didn’t see Maine’s shuttle come out. Only three strange shuttles and a minivan came out of the parking lot.

Xie Sen thought about it, opened his bracelet and checked to make sure there was only one exit from this parking lot, then continued to wait.

At the corner, his light blue shuttle and Maine’s black shuttle were parked side by side. He knocked on the window of the black shuttle, but there was no response, so he peered through the window and saw nothing.

If Maine was there and saw him like this, he would have reacted, which could only mean that Maine was not there. Maine didn’t fly this shuttle away!

So mysterious. Xie Sen was more worried. Could it be that Maine blacked out, usually just in disguise, and secretly had started to prepare for the bad things to come?

No, maybe it was something else, Xie Sen thought to himself, Maine had given him access to the gate of his residence. He was such a nice person, so easy to trust others, where did it look like he had gone to the dark?

He left the parking lot, went to the supermarket as planned, and bought ten pounds of meat and some salt, which was the only common condiment here.

Back at the apartment, he went straight into the kitchen, and opened the System to exchange a huge spicy pepper that grew on the chili pepper bush. He came close to smell it, and could smell the spicy scent.

He took out a small bowl and ordered the chili pepper bush, “explode into the tiniest powder in the bowl, don’t spill it outside the bowl!”

The chili pepper bush with red chili pepper branches carefully reached into the bowl and stuck to the bottom of the bowl. The red chili pepper powder looked especially good against the white bowl.

Silently, the pepper exploded in place and became a fine red powder, a little of which floated in the air, and caused Xie Sen to choke and cough like crazy.

Xie Sen hurriedly took a plate to cover the bowl, complimented the chili pepper bush, and then recalled it to System.

Xie Sen cut off a big piece of the meat he bought back, and put the rest in the refrigerator.

He cut all the large pieces into long strips and coated them in the powder from the chili pepper bush. When it was done, the kitchen smelled so spicy that Xie Sen’s eyes and nose were red. He gulped while he opened all the air vents, and fled out of the kitchen with the big plate with the jerky on it.

He put the jerky on the table, drank two glasses of cold water, and washed his face with cold water before he felt better.

When he came out of the bathroom, he looked at the jerky with glowing eyes. He was about to eat it when his communicator suddenly rang.

“Hi, Xie Sen. This is Ma Qun, the director of the Plant Research Institute,” the caller said.

Xie Sen remembered him. “Hello, Ma Qun. What can I do for you?”

“As far as I know, your graduation exams are over, and the next two months are for internship, so I am looking for you, to invite you to intern at Plant Research Institute.”

Xie Sen had no intention of changing jobs. “Thank you, but I have already found an internship.”

“I don’t think there is a better place for you than the Institute. You are a natural born grower.” Ma Qun’s words were earnest.

The corners of Xie Sen’s mouth twitched. He was that much of a grower? The people at the care center said he was a natural born caretaker, but was he either a plant or an animal?

Xie Sen said politely, “Thank you, I’m very happy with my work so far.” Growing plants wouldn’t give him energy.

Ma Qun’s tone was regretful, “You have good talent and solid expertise. It’s a pity you don’t come to the Institute.”

Xie Sen politely agreed, and when he hung up the communication, he thought, As expected of a director, he speaks so well that he even praised his solid expertise.

He soon understood why Ma Qun had praised him so much. He had just hung up Ma Qun’s communication when he received his graduation exam report card. It included everyone in the department, with himself circled in red in the first row, and then sorted in order of good or bad grades.

He looked at the same names on the top one and two rows of the report card, and fell into deep thought. The Plant Department shouldn’t be the most garbage department in the school, right?

He got first place!

He went to the school forum to look up the Plant Department, but before he could find what he wanted, he saw his name appear on the hottest topic at the top.

[Shocked! Scrap Xie graduated first in the Plant Department!]

Xie Sen rolled his eyes. Your whole family is scrap! He clicked in and saw a row of neat and tidy replies: [the Plant Department was finished!]