Chapter 5

Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios

He carried a few bags of ingredients and walked towards his residence with the cute girl.

Along the way, he attracted the attention of many people.

“Niu Niu, if you dare to fall in love in high school, watch how I’ll teach you a lesson!” A mother who was passing by pointed at Qin Ming and the girl’s backs as a negative example and began educating her daughter.

Qin Ming vaguely heard that mother’s voice behind him and was speechless.

How stereotyped. Does a girl you bring home have to be your girlfriend?

Can’t you be a kind person doing a good deed?

He glanced at the girl beside him. She was touching her stomach with a distressed expression. It seemed that she was really hungry.

“If you don’t mind, you can have a meal at my place. I’m about to make dinner too,” Qin Ming said.

“Really!” The girl’s eyes lit up again.

“Yes.” Qin Ming nodded. It was just an additional bowl of rice. At least, that was what he thought now.

With Qin Ming’s nod, the girl immediately became excited.

The changes in her emotions were all evident.

He had to admit that she was a very predictable girl.

Qin Ming lived on the third floor. There was a room and a living room in his apartment. Although it was not spacious, all the necessary furnishings were available.

After entering, he found the phone that he had discarded previously, inserted his SIM card, and handed it to the girl.

“You use it first. I’m going to cook,” Qin Ming said as he turned around and walked into the small kitchen connected to the living room.

He was not living with his parents. In the past three years, Qin Ming had been cooking for himself most of the time, so he was more adept at it now.

Gu Tao took the phone and hurriedly thanked him before dialing a number.

“Hello, Dad, it’s me…

Yes, yes. I lost my wallet and phone. I’m using someone else’s phone now.

He’s a kind person. Not only did he lend me his phone, but he also cooked for me. That’s right, I’m at his house now.

Oh, it’s a boy. He should be around my age. What? There’s no need to send anyone. I can go back myself. I’m already 16 years old…”

As Qin Ming cooked, he pricked his ears. Although he could not hear the voice on the other end of the phone, the girl seemed to be explaining something anxiously.

“Yes, yes. Don’t worry, Dad. I can definitely handle it.”

The call went on for ten minutes.

Then the girl came over and patted Qin Ming’s shoulder.

“Are you done?”

“No, um, my father wants to talk to you…” Gu Tao said awkwardly.

Qin Ming understood after thinking about it carefully. After all, his daughter had lost her phone and wallet in another city. It was no wonder that her parents were anxious when she suddenly said that she was in a stranger’s apartment.

“Hello, hello.”

When the person on the other end of the line heard Qin Ming’s voice, he fell silent for a moment before his strong voice sounded.

“I’m her father. Thank you very much for helping my rash daughter. I’ll get her brother to pick her up as soon as possible. In the meantime, can I trouble you to take care of her?”

Fortunately, this girl’s father was reasonable and did not say anything extreme.

Qin Ming glanced at the girl beside him.

The girl was staring at the stew in the pot with glowing eyes. She opened her mouth slightly as if she was absorbing the fragrance of the meat in the air.

She no longer looked embarrassed. Compared to her father on the other end of the phone, this pot of stew seemed to be more attractive to her.

“Yes, no problem.” Qin Ming agreed without much thought.

Since someone was already on the way to pick up the girl, it was fine for him to let her stay for a while longer.

After that, the two of them chatted for a while. Most of the time, it was the girl’s father thanking Qin Ming. However, Qin Ming noticed that while this father was thanking him, he was also trying to find out more about him.

Although he said that he was not worried, her father was still worried. He just did not express it.

Qin Ming also learned from this father that the girl had sneaked out of the house. It was the first time she had wandered far from home.

He could not tell that such a cute girl was also a brat.

He told her father what he could and consciously avoided what he could not tell him.

After all, the other party was someone with an unknown background to him. He could not possibly tell him everything about himself.

The call only ended when the girl’s father realized that he could not get anything out of him.

It doesn’t seem like an ordinary family… Qin Ming looked at his old phone and thought to himself.

Through their conversation just now, he sensed that the other party did not seem like an ordinary person in terms of his manner of speech.

Just a few minutes of conversation made him feel a little pressured.

The girl sensed that his call was over and immediately pointed at the stew in front of her. “Can we have this pot of soup now?”

She looked like a glutton in her impatience.

“Another half an hour…” Qin Ming said casually and continued to prepare the other dishes.

Meanwhile, the girl seemed to be very interested in his cooking. She leaned on the dining table at the side and watched him cook.

“What’s your name?”

“Gu Tao—it means peach.” The girl gave her name without hesitation.

“Your name is Qin Ming, right? I heard you talking to Dad just now,” Gu Tao said.

“Yeah.”

The two of them knew each other now.

“May I ask who your father is…” Qin Ming could not help but ask.

“My father is an instructor in Gulan Academy.” Gu Tao divulged information about her father without much thought.

An instructor from Gulan Academy? No wonder… Qin Ming thought.

Although Gu Tao made it sound casual, the faculty of Gulan Academy were not ordinary instructors.

As the number one academy in the Southeast Province, Gulan Academy had been established for more than 50 years. Its quality of teaching was excellent, and its faculty were top-notch talents in their fields.

There were countless geniuses who graduated from this academy, and some had even become famous big shots.

As a result, the prestige of Gulan Academy was well-known in the entire country. To Qin Ming, who was about to graduate from high school, it was the college that he wanted to enter the most.

Unfortunately, admission to Gulan Academy was highly competitive every year. There were too many people who wanted to enter.

Although Qin Ming’s cultural class grade was not bad at the school level, his achievement was considered mediocre at the provincial and national levels.

It was virtually impossible to get into the humanities department of Gulan Academy.

As for the three major cultivation departments, they had always been popular not only in Gulan Academy, but in all the colleges in the country.

With the cultivation talent he had displayed today, it was impossible for him to enter even the cultivation department of most of the ordinary colleges.

To put it bluntly, he was just an ordinary person without any cultivation talent.

In the current martial arts era, one could obtain good achievements and social status in other professions through hard work and dedication.

However, if one wanted to reach the pinnacle of one’s life and pursue the essence of the world, one had to be a cultivator.