The Thirteen Trials of the Deceptive Monk

"Xiao Qing, hurry up!" "Don't even think about running!"

Xiao Qing leaped up, landing on the back of the sofa and grabbing Lü Wenjun by the collar. She said fiercely, "I was the one who suffered last year, the newcomer isn't going to run away now!"

"We have two new candidates!" Lü Wenjun shouted. "Our outstanding and intelligent Miss Pershka is also very suitable for this position!"

Pershka rolled her eyes: "You've thrown away both your dignity and your gentlemanly manners, haven't you?"

"That kind of stuff can't be eaten, and how could I let go of an opportunity to drag you down into the mud with me!" Lü Wenjun said righteously. "Share the burden! Share the burden! I strongly demand an equal split!"

"Rejected." Ye Jinfa sipped his tea. "Pershka possesses powerful blessings; weak curses have no effect on her."

"Huh?" Lü Wenjun was dumbfounded. "Why??"

Pershka replied matter-of-factly, "I am the daughter of a witch."

"Hey, seriously, don't you guys think the True Witch is going too far? Her immense magical power is already excessive, and now she's adding a powerful blessing to it, why is that?"

"Don't say things like that, you descendant of an immortal," Ye Jinfa said. "If I were to cast a curse on her myself, it should be effective, but that would be a truly powerful curse. What do you say, Lü Wenjun?"

Lu Wenjun sighed deeply, "I want holiday overtime pay..."

"4000 magic coins".

"I'll do it..."

They discussed the specific arrangements for the Autumn Harvest Festival for a while before the meeting adjourned. Pershka went to the library to study, while Lü Wenjun listlessly went to his monster class.

He seriously doubted whether he had made the wrong choice: being in the student council felt just like being in another small secret service organization, with missions being sent out every few days, and people being driven out of their comfort zones and into a pile of trouble. The idyllic campus life of living a peaceful life in hiding seemed to exist only in his imagination; the reality was that every day was chaotic and noisy, like the protagonist of some kind of episodic drama.

He entered the classroom with this melancholy feeling, sat down next to Ling Gong, and asked, "Do you think I have the potential to become the protagonist?"

"If Wenjun were to act in a sitcom, he would definitely have no problem," Linggong said with full confidence.

"Why are you limited to comedy? Your acting range is so narrow. Can't you do something more mainstream, like isekai adventure or something?"

Reiko pushed up her glasses: "Generally speaking, the protagonists of adventure stories don't run around wearing grass skirts, you know."

Lu Wenjun retorted: "Look, the straw hat boy has been popular for over twenty years, and the grass skirt boy will definitely be popular one day too."

"Yes, it's this style of pestering others in insignificant places that has a particularly comedic quality."

Professor Lingge shrugged, causing her large, glossy black wings to unfurl with a whoosh. The two quickly stopped whispering.

The charismatic professor waited patiently for the bell to ring, his gaze sweeping across the classroom like a knife before revealing a beautiful yet dangerous smile.

“It seems like we haven’t taken attendance in a long time,” she said cheerfully. “And the first class this afternoon is the perfect time for attendance. Let’s see which overconfident students are absent from the required course.”

Lu Wenjun immediately looked at the seat to his right. Clearly, the hero Faris was suffering terribly from the magic poisoning, so much so that he had resolutely abandoned his required class to take another nap. He swallowed hard, listening to Ling Ge utter names that were obviously not in the classroom: Red Ghost, Blue Ghost, a certain lion-headed student named Paru, the ghost Momo who had drifted off to who-knows-where, and—

"Good Faris".

Lü Wenjun tried his best to imitate his buddy's tone: "Here, here, here!"

Ling Ge stared at him with a half-smile.

"Your facial expressions are very well imitated," she said. "If you could dye your hair blonde too, I might consider letting you get away with it. Now, here's a question for you, no incentive points."

Lu Wenjun stood up with a flattering expression: "Yes..."

Imagine you are a local guide leading tourists along a mountain path. You suddenly discover a cloud spirit lurking in the mist, a mountain demon following you from behind, and a night demon poised to strike from above. What is the best course of action for you?

Without hesitation, Lü Wenjun said, "First, beat all the tourists unconscious."

The students looked at him with admiration, thinking that Master Lü was truly a good friend. He not only helped people answer the questions but also put on a full show, even adjusting his answers to the classic Faris style.

Ling Ge shook her head with some regret: "I'll consider you passed. Please sit down."

"Huh?!" "Why?!" "That was actually the correct answer?"

Professor Lingge popped up images of three monsters: "The Cloud Path will increase in size according to the observer's fear; the Mountain Spirit will be caught up more easily the more timid the person is; the Night Demon will become the thing you fear. These are three classic stress-based monsters—the more panicked the person is, the stronger they become."

“Unfamiliar outsiders will experience all sorts of fears, and even weak monsters can become troublesome ghosts under their influence. Therefore, controlling the person being protected is the best decision, which is what we often call situation assessment.” Ling Ge opened her book. “Today you will encounter several classic stress-reactive monsters, which are important knowledge points for this semester. I hope that students who are absent can arrive before the second half of the class, otherwise their final grades will likely be quite poor.”

A cacophony of noise filled the classroom as the skippers' friends frantically sent messages. Thanks to Lü Wenjun's tireless efforts, Mr. Faris finally burst into the classroom 10 seconds before the start of the second half of the class, and then greeted the usual practical session with an air of blissful ignorance.

Unfortunately, he was startled by the little monster and screamed, then was given a free set of punches by the transformed behemoth, finally landing in a huge pile of vomit that the Night Demon had transformed into.

Jiujiu Mu, who had witnessed all of this, was laughing so hard that he unfortunately slipped and followed in Jiujiu Mu's footsteps.

After class, Ling Gong whispered, "Sometimes I wonder if Lord Ling Ge just enjoys torturing his students."

"How could that be? Look how deeply he remembers this knowledge point after this experience!" Lü Wenjun said gloatingly.

Faris responded with a straight middle finger, then staggered off to the school clinic for magic poisoning treatment (he still spoke in a classical Greek style). Jiujiu, with his stinky hair, listlessly said, "I'm going back to wash my hair... Xiaolinggong, remember to find me some makeup clothes..."

“Okay, Grandma.” Reiko paused and then corrected herself, “Oh no, Lord Hisukumi.”

"Grandma, have you become interested in cosplay again lately? You have such a wide range of interests!"

Jiujiu Mu turned his head in surprise: "Don't you know, Xiao Wenjun? This is preparation for the autumn festival."

Lü Wenjun was puzzled: "Isn't the Autumn Harvest Festival a festival to celebrate the harvest?"

"That's why everyone dressed up as ghosts and started a grand parade."

Lu Wenjun slowly ran his hands through his hair, preparing for another round of shocks from his understanding of the supernatural world. Ling Gong considerately explained, "Wenjun grew up in the outside world..."

"Oh, no wonder you're so ignorant." Jiu Jiu Mu adopted a tone of speaking to a child. "Hey, Wen Jun. Speaking of autumn, it's all about harvest. So why are crops able to produce such a bountiful harvest?"

"So, it involves cultivating the land, fertilizing it, and then absorbing nutrients from the soil."

Jiujiumu patiently guided him: "Then, where do the nutrients in the soil come from?"

Lu Wenjun began to pursue the almost completely forgotten high school biology textbook: "Decomposers, led by scavengers, break down the remains, debris, and excrement of animals and plants into inorganic matter that returns to the environment, becoming nutrients for autotrophic organisms, thereby maintaining the stability of the entire ecosystem."

“You understand perfectly well,” Jiu Jiu Mu said, clasping his hands together. “That’s right, the creatures are able to thrive thanks to the dead!”

Lu Wenjun stared wide-eyed as the deity spoke: “Without corpses, there would be no food or nutrition; animals would grow thin and plants would wither. Moreover, without the joint efforts of the spirits underground and the living on earth, the soil would not become fertile. In other words, it is the combined efforts of the deceased and the living that enable the earth to achieve its annual bounty.”

"...Haaaaaah?"

Lu Wenjun rubbed his forehead and asked, "Grandma, let me confirm. Do you mean that the 'Decomposers' of the Otherworld are actually ghosts or undead?"

Nodding.

"Do they fertilize the soil by working in places like the underworld or hell?"

Smile.

"So the Autumn Harvest Festival, a festival to express gratitude for the harvest, is also... a festival to thank the deceased??"

"As expected of young Wenjun, he understood everything at once!"

Jiujiu stood on tiptoe and patted his head encouragingly. She concluded, "That's why everyone dresses up as ghosts and spirits; it's to show respect for the deceased. And the dead will secretly come to earth at this time to celebrate the festival with the living."

After finishing her explanation, Jiu Jiu Mu walked away lightly. Ling Gong asked worriedly, "Wen Jun, are you alright?"

"My brain is screaming in desperation, and common sense is bleeding."

Linggong exclaimed, "They've been in school for almost three months and they still don't have common sense..."

“The knowledge we’ve formed over the past eighteen years isn’t something we can just throw away!” Lü Wenjun clutched his head. “And what’s with that claim? Working overtime after death? Is the underworld such a work-oriented place? They said death would bring liberation, but it turns out there’s work to be done?!”

"After all, the Myriad Spirits Palace isn't wealthy enough to support billions of idle spirits."

"Suddenly, I truly felt how incredibly long the road of life really is..."

They chatted as they walked out of the classroom. Ling Gong carried a paper bag and walked side by side with Lü Wenjun on the way to Shui Jing Ting.

"I commissioned a makeup outfit from a teacher at the Udumbara Academy, and I'll also deliver a package for her while I'm at it," she said enthusiastically.

"That NEET girl can actually make clothes..."

"Teacher Youtanhuayuan is a big name in the subculture field!" Linggong explained. "She not only contributed a lot of original materials and fan works to the forum, but also participated in the design of many jade pendant games. It is said that she even contributed to the establishment of the forum itself. Such a teacher is certainly an expert in cross-dressing."

Thinking back to the cheerleader outfits, bunny girl costumes, and bizarrely realistic prank dolls from not long ago, Lü Wenjun had to admit that Miss Hisamitsu was indeed quite something. But he found it hard to connect those strange costumes with Reiko.

Miss Reiyumi strictly adheres to her model student persona, spending most of her time in her bookish pink blouse and sailor skirt, only occasionally changing into her shrine maiden attire for ceremonies. If Reiyumi were to wear a cheerleader outfit or a bunny girl costume…

"Um…………"

"I don't quite understand why Wenjun suddenly gave me such a dirty look."

"No, you misunderstood. I was just imagining your Harvest Festival costume."

Ling Gong's glasses reflected a cold light: "Is the Autumn Harvest Festival that Wen Jun imagines to be some kind of shameless festival?"

"I wouldn't dare, so please don't look at me like that, it's really scary." Lu Wenjun raised his hands in surrender. "Then please wait at the door for a moment, and I'll come in after I've checked the situation."

Reiko thought for a moment, then said with a mischievous smile, "Could it be that Miss Hisamitsu is the type who doesn't care much about her appearance at home?"

"She's gone so far as to completely lose her personality. You could tell how weird she was at the last dinner party, right? I think she's become a complete shut-in."

One day before their midterm exams, while playing board games, they went to the Water Mirror Pavilion for fried chicken. Everyone had a great time that day, except for one minor drawback: Miss Hisamitsu didn't leave her room the entire time they were having the meal.

She chats with guests through magical projections and eats remotely using magical tools. Even though the dining table is only two floors below, she insists on not showing her true face, as if communicating with others would wither her away.

"It's really rare to reach that level. But, I don't think Ms. Hisamitsu is as withdrawn as Ms. Polly, is she?"

"Don't try to understand, just feel."

As soon as Lü Wenjun stepped into the room, he used his schoolbag to shield his head, unsurprisingly blocking a pair of demonic claws. However, he couldn't stop the ear-piercing noise: "This is outrageous! Trying to assassinate me with bread this early in the morning!!"

“First of all, I was severely poisoned by magic at the time, yet I still thought of cooking for you. Shouldn’t you be grateful for your roommate’s kind heart?” Lu Wenjun said emphatically. “Secondly, Ling Gong came over to deliver something to you. Hurry up and put your pants on, Miss. It’s already autumn, and you’re still running around in a T-shirt. I’m afraid you’ll catch a cold.”

Hisamitsu, who was gesticulating wildly, stopped abruptly upon hearing this: "Ah... speaking of which, there is such a thing, I forgot to prepare..."

She pondered for a while, then pulled a bundle of strips of cloth from a drawer and tossed it to Lü Wenjun.

"Go."

"What do you mean?"

Hisamitsu announced matter-of-factly, "Blindfold her and bring her in."

Lu Wenjun took the strip of cloth, nodded, and took a deep breath.

"Are you some kind of mob boss?! People are already at the door and you're blindfolded? Why? I don't understand. Is there something in this tiny three-story building that outsiders can't even see?!"

Hisamitsu said seriously, "You see, if guests see something like this... you know, it's not good for outsiders."

"Give me a reasonable explanation or I will never do such a stupid thing."

"It's for her own good, that's all," Hisamitsu said impatiently. "If you understand, then hurry up and go!"

Lu Wenjun carried the strip of cloth out the door, his face beaming with smiles as he looked at Linggong.

“Here’s the thing, Linggong,” Lü Wenjun said. “Next, I will blindfold you and have you enter my house in complete darkness. I hope you can remain as calm as possible, don’t scream or struggle, and just do as I say, okay?”

Miss Linggong's eyes seemed to be looking at a naive and shameless rookie kidnapper.

Chapter 91 A Woman of Unparalleled Beauty

"Wenjun, listen to me."

"Yes."

"The reason I haven't reported to the teacher and launched a defensive attack yet is entirely because I still have a basic degree of trust in you."

"I am extremely grateful."

"And now, this pitiful amount of trust is dwindling at a visible rate, do you understand?"

Lu Wenjun covered his face: "I apologize on behalf of that idiot Jiuguang... Please forgive her..."

So Reiko took off her glasses, covered herself with a cloth, and groped her way into the room like a blind person. Hisamitsu snatched the bag from her hand, glanced at it, and exclaimed with delight, "That's wonderful, Reiko! This is exactly what I wanted!"

"I'm so glad you received it, although I don't quite understand why you asked me to come all the way to deliver it."

"There's no other way. I can't trust that idiot Nerd, and Mingxiao is clumsy and will mess it up again." Jiuguang put away the bag. "Wait a moment, I'll go get your custom-made costume!"

"Um, the regular set is fine with me..."

"How could that be? Our Reiko is so cute, of course she should wear a special one~"

Hisami hurriedly ran up to the third floor, then ran back down carrying two large cloth bags. She pulled the blindfolded Reiko into the restroom, and soon after, strange conversations could be heard coming from behind the door.

"Ms. Hisamitsu, is this really a ghost costume?"

"Seriously, really, it's an extra-standard white sheet."

"But the fabric feels too thin..."

"It's just your imagination. It's hypersensitivity to touch caused by visual impairment. Okay, hurry up and take it off!"

Lu Wenjun crept stealthily to the door, his ears perked up, trying to catch every useful piece of information, like a well-trained high elf spy. Upon hearing the door open, he sprang back to the sofa, casually opening his disguise magazine, his expression unchanged: "You two got it done?"