Novel Full Chapter 20
Chapter 20: Becoming Talented Through Self-Study
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Meng Chao calmed his breathing.
He knew that he had arrived abruptly, so he could only respectfully serve the old man tea. He hesitated for a moment before he asked, “Senior, don’t you intend to do anything?”
When Ning Xueshi heard this, her pretty face turned red. “You’re being picky even when you’re stealing techniques? This is just a Grade One superbeast. Why would my grandpa need to take care of it?”
“Grade One superbeast?” Meng Chao was surprised, and his expression became strange.
Ning Xueshi frowned. “You can’t possibly be unable to identify a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider, right? If that’s the case, don’t cause us trouble here. You won’t be able to understand. Don’t waste your time.”
Meng Chao looked at the dying superbeast and could only brace himself while he said, “I know that it was originally a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider, but it’s not that now. Right now, it’s a Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider which is currently evolving and is stuck between a Grade One and Grade Two.
“Even though it still retains the outward appearance of a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider, many of its organs have already started mutating. Its newly born organs are very weak, and they’re much harder to handle compared to those of a mature Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider.”
“What?” Ning Xueshi was dumbfounded. ‘An evolving superbeast?’
The girl turned her head around and moved her mouth to ask for help from her grandfather.
The old man sank into deep thought, and his expression became grave.
He stared at Meng Chao with an intense gaze. “How did you know about that, boy? I’ve checked it carefully just now. Its outward appearance has not changed in the slightest. You ran over here and did not even look at it. How can you be sure that it’s currently evolving?”
“I heard it,” Meng Chao said. “This superbeast isn’t completely dead yet. Isn’t it shrieking right now? Seven-eyed Wolf Spiders and Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spiders might be from the same race, but they share a difference in grade. There’s a slight difference in their shrieks before they die, and it’s not hard to differentiate it.”
“Not hard…”
Ning Xueshi and her grandfather were rendered speechless.
“Stop trying to intimidate us. My grandpa didn’t manage to hear it, and you managed, intern?” Ning Xueshi placed her hands on her hips. Her gaze was wary, as if Meng Chao was a liar.
But the old man did not dare to underestimate him. “I haven’t asked for your name…” he said cautiously.
“I’m Meng Chao. My family is about to open a resource recovery company.”
Meng Chao was unwilling to let go of a chance to widen his network of connections, and he bowed to the grandfather-granddaughter pair.
It was the greeting between harvesters, and it was done meticulously and perfectly.
The old man became slightly more confident in him. He nodded and said in a reserved manner, “I’m Ning Shewo.”
“…”
They stared at each other. Three seconds later, Meng Chao came to a swift realization, and he tapped his head. “Ah, it’s you, Senior Ning? Your name travels far and wide, and I’ve heard of you a long time ago.”
“Enough with that. You’ve never heard of my grandpa’s name before, right? You don’t even know White-haired Ghostly Hands Ning Shewo? What kind of harvester are you? And you’re saying that you can tell apart the shrieks of a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider and a Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider? What a joke!” Ning Xueshi was angry.
“Xueshi, be quiet.” Ning Shewo was a person with great self-restraint. “My young friend, your hearing is great, and you’ve allowed me to widen my perspective of the world. Might I know of your master?”
“I’m self-taught, and I’ve been a harvester for decades,” Meng Chao said honestly.
The old man sucked in a deep breath.
“What’s the number of your company’s leader?” he asked cordially.
Meng Chao shut up.
He took two steps back and crouched down on the ground before he made a gesture. ‘I’m going to stop talking now. Please continue with your performance.’
Ning Xueshi was so angry that she felt like she was going to explode. She swore that she was going to teach the boy a lesson later.
The Seven-eyed Wolf Spider was losing the last of its life, so she had to race against the clock to harvest the freshest materials.
She got rid of all other thoughts and treated Meng Chao as if he did not exist.
Just when she was about to take action, Ning Shewo suddenly came up beside her.
“Let me do it.”
“Grandpa?”
“I’ll remove the outer shell first and suck away the sticky liquid to have a look. If none of the organs have mutated, you can take over.”
Ning Xueshi stomped on the ground furiously. She was so livid that she felt her world spinning.
Ning Shewo took a scalpel in each hand and started moving with familiar ease.
But his fingers started trembling lightly, and the tips of his scalpels also trembled slightly.
“I see, so Mr. Ning is injured,” Meng Chao mumbled. “No wonder.”
This sentence lit up the fuse in Ning Xueshi. She whirled around like a tornado and rushed in front of him. There was a scowl on her face. “Do you know the rules at all? Are you supposed to be running your mouth off right now?”
Meng Chao’s face turned red. When a harvester was performing meticulous work, their worst fear was someone bothering them. He had broken a law in the field, and he was in the wrong.
He fell into contemplation and thought that while the girl was a hot-tempered one, the grandfather was a pretty good person, and he was worthy of Meng Chao lending him a hand.
“Miss Ning, could you let me take a look at your tools? I need nine of the thinnest Bull Hair Exploratory Needles and three soft hooks.” Meng Chao lowered his voice. “By the way, do you have three hundred thousand cash in your account?”
Ning Xueshi was confused.
“This is what’s going on. Evolving Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider Infants are very fragile, especially their newly formed poison sacs. The sac membrane is as thin as a cicada’s wings, and it will tear at the slightest touch. The poison liquid will flow through the entire stomach, and all the materials will become useless.”
Meng Chao explained everything with a sincere look on his face. “Mr. Ning has problems with his nerves, right? He might not be able to complete the entire harvest on his own. That’s why I need to familiarize myself with your tools so that I can make some last minute preparations.”
His explanation just added oil to fire, and Ning Xueshi ground her teeth in anger. “Even if Grandpa is injured, he’s still the White-haired Ghostly Hands. How can a mere Seven-eyed Wolf Tiger cause any trouble to him? Besides, I’m here, why should I let you help?
“Wait. Three hundred thousand worth of cash? What’s that money for?”
“Naturally, it’s the money to hire me.” Meng Chao calculated with his fingers. “With your grandpa’s current condition, the things he harvests will definitely not be in a good condition. If you add all the things together, at most, he will only be able to harvest materials worth three hundred thousand to five hundred thousand. But with my help, my experience and your grandpa’s skills will work well together and increase our efficiency.
“We should be able to perfectly extract the poison sac, which is the most valuable item. It will sell for more than five hundred thousand alone, and when you add all the materials together, you will get nearly two million.
“There’s a price difference of more than one million in there. Since I’m still an intern and an assistant, and since it’s fate that we got to know each other, I can offer you a discount and just take three hundred thousand. Consider this as me making a contribution to society.”
Ning Xueshi stared at Meng Chao with her mouth open.
After a moment, she sucked in a deep breath, but just as she was about to explode…
“Xueshi, come here.”
It was her grandfather’s voice, and it was quivering, which was something that rarely happened.
The girl hurried to her grandfather’s side.
In just a few minutes, the old man seemed to have aged by five years. His white hair lost their spirit, and they drooped all over his face, sticking to his forehead, which was drenched in cold sweat.
Ning Xueshi looked in the direction of the old man’s rather unfocused gaze, and she saw balls of hideous-looking organs inside the Seven-eyed Wolf Spider after its shell was removed. They looked like deformed, mutated tumors, and they released a pungent smell.
After a single look inside, all the anger froze on her face, and she cried out, “These organs are wrong! This isn’t a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider!”
“It’s indeed not a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider, but is the much rarer Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Tiger, and it’s evolving, to boot.” Ning Shewo smiled wanly with dejectedness on his face.
Before him was a low-grade superbeast which had not even reached Grade Two. Its carcass was only worth a few million, which was nothing to Ning Shewo.
When his nerves were still in perfect condition, he could activate his supernatural abilities and use his naked eye to see through the layout and structure of the organs.
But now, he had lost his power and influence, and he was subjected to indignity. The White-haired Ghostly Hands was about to be defeated by a low-grade superbeast.
Ning Xueshi opened her mouth to say something when she suddenly remembered Meng Chao’s words. Shock filled her face.
By then, Meng Chao had already arrived behind the grandfather-granddaughter pair. He stood on tiptoes and cast a glance at the Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider’s abdominal cavity.
He remembered the rules of the harvesters.
Even if Ning Xueshi turned her head around to look at him, he still kept quiet and his lips closed tightly.
Ning Xueshi felt gloomy, but she gritted her teeth and said, “Please speak up, boy.”
“It’s still okay,” Meng Chao said.
“What do you mean ‘it’s still okay?'” Ning Xueshi’s eyes went wide.
“I’m saying that this Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider had a decent mutation. It’s a common one. It didn’t go through some sort of super evolution that’s rare and strange.” Meng Chao sighed in relief.
‘Common?’
The grandfather-granddaughter pair was dumbfounded.
A few hundred thoughts raced in Ning Xueshi’s head, and she asked in disbelief, “Y-You… Can you really help my grandfather complete the harvest and will only take three hundred thousand for it?”
“Five hundred thousand!” Ning Shewo stared at Meng Chao. “Lad, if you can really help me, even if you can’t handle the harvest perfectly, as long as it’s acceptable and the poison sac retains 70% of its poison, I will immediately transfer five hundred thousand to you!”
Meng Chao whistled. He could not help the corners of his lips curling up.
“I haven’t become a superhuman yet, so my strength and senses are just average. I can’t harvest a superbeast directly, I can only—”
Meng Chao originally wanted to say “I can only guide you to finish the job”, but when the words arrived at his tongue, he swallowed them and switched them to “I can only serve as your assistant.”
“Then, be my first assistant. Hand me the tools, spray the antidote, expose the incised area, mark the incision, and monitor the decaying rate of the organs… My granddaughter will serve as the second assistant. Will that do?”
“Sure.”
Meng Chao nodded. He brought out an antidote gel from his waist pouch and spread it over his hands. Then, he switched it to spray mode and sprayed himself from head to toe. He then stood to Ning Shewo’s right as his assistant.
Ning Shewo focused and calmed his breathing before he said, “No.3—”
Before he finished speaking, a No.4 hilt with a No.7 rhombus-shaped blade into his hands.
Ning Shewo frowned slightly.
The boy had a lot of theoretical knowledge, so he did not expect that he would hand him the wrong instrument right from the start. Could it be that he was just full of hot air?
“I know that you intend to use a No.3 hilt with a No.12 pincer-shaped blade so that you can first separate the book lung. Regardless of whether it’s a Seven-eyed Wolf Spider or a mature Seven-eyed Dragon Wolf Spider, this would definitely be the perfect move for it.
“But this is an evolving monster, and there are a lot of leaf-shaped wrinkles on its sac-shaped book lung. Please look carefully. Its structure is very fragile, and it’s connected tightly to a lot of other areas. If we act recklessly, we might damage its appearance.”
Meng Chao tapped it lightly with an exploratory needle. “I suggest that we start from the vessel located behind the book lung. We’ll separate the veins in reverse and clear up its surroundings before we deal with the book lung itself. Don’t worry, these veins are much sturdier than they were previously, and they won’t snap easily. Elder Ning, what do you think?”