Chapter 243: Chapter 243

Did I arrive at a bad time? But it’s clearly afternoon already; could something important have happened today? After scanning her fingerprint, Jing Shu entered the Medicinal Herb Association. She noticed some event taking place in the lobby but didn’t pay much attention as she headed up to her experimental field on the third floor.

This time, she wasn’t going to eat or cause trouble. She planned to silently plant something in her experimental field and then leave, while also checking on the plants she’d cultivated these past few days. After all, as a member of the Medicinal Materials Association, she needed to show some concern for these things and couldn’t just completely abandon her responsibilities.

Wang Danai nodded. "You just had to pick today of all days to come, and at this time too... Sigh."

"What’s wrong?" Jing Shu planted the treated Seeds in the rack of her field, labeled them accordingly, and entered the information into the main database.

That way, once the tobacco germinated and matured into a medicinal ingredient, it would be counted as her accomplishment.

"Yesterday, our Medicinal Materials Association was challenged by people from Ta City. After two days of contests, they’re about to succeed, and you show up right at this moment..." ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴡᴀɴᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴇᴀᴅ ᴍᴏʀᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs, ᴘʟᴇᴀsᴇ ᴠɪsɪᴛ NoveI★Fire.net

Wang Danai said helplessly, "Now they’re scrambling to find someone to take the blame. We were even thinking about calling you earlier, but unfortunately, we didn’t have your contact information. And yet, here you are, delivering yourself to our doorstep."

Jing Shu gaped, astounded by the coincidental timing. Challenged? Our Medicinal Materials Association is being challenged? She couldn’t believe it; this had to be a joke.

"Ta City is supposed to be under Wu City’s administration, but obviously, no one wants to be subordinate. Ta City isn’t happy about it, so they came up with this method. Oh dear, you’d better leave quickly," Wang Danai urged Jing Shu, telling her not to get involved.

Having planted her Seeds, Jing Shu obviously wasn’t planning to stay any longer. "Okay, then I’ll be going now."

Just as she was speaking, a crowd surged in from downstairs. Although the third-floor cultivation area was large, Jing Shu’s enclosed private experimental field was quite small, and it soon became overcrowded.

Chairman Tie squeezed through the crowd, his bulky figure pushing people aside. "Make way, make way! Didn’t I tell you? Our savior from the Wu City Herbal Medicine Association has arrived! As the star of the grand finale, a genius like her can’t possibly arrive early, right? Those so-called experts from Ta City are nothing compared to Jing Shu!"

The surrounding murmurs grew louder as everyone began to ask who she was and what made her so impressive as to receive such praise from Chairman Tie.

Those who knew about a previous incident quickly embellished their accounts, mentioning things like President Zhou begging a genius from a prestigious medicinal family to return, and how she was usually very diva-like.

Some even revealed that President Zhou had offered her plenty of benefits just for showing up, essentially elevating Jing Shu to the heavens in an instant.

Jing Shu frowned. Her timing was indeed terrible. She whispered to Wang Danai, "Where is Zhou Bapi?"

"Ahem, I mean, President Zhou... isn’t he back yet?"

"President Zhou hasn’t returned yet. You’re on your own now."

Chairman Tie’s eyes gleamed as he rubbed his chubby hands together excitedly. "Come on, Jing Shu, our association’s super genius! It’s all on you to redeem our reputation."

Jing Shu rolled her eyes. "Sorry, Chairman Tie, but I’m not the super genius you’re talking about. Besides, I just came to pick something up and I don’t even understand what you’re all talking about. If even your President can’t handle it, then I definitely can’t either. Excuse me, please; I need to go home."

The surrounding murmurs grew even louder.

"How can she act ? Wasn’t she supposed to be incredible?"

"Exactly! The association is facing a matter of life and death now."

Chairman Tie said, his smile genuine but his tone carrying a grinding threat, "Jing Shu, you are a part of the Medicinal Materials Association. Right now, our Medicinal Materials Association is being utterly humiliated. They’re trampling all over us, practically shitting on our heads! This is the moment for you to show your strength. The people from Ta City are downstairs, challenging our legitimate association. If they win, the government will allocate half of our resources to them. If we win, their association will be merged under our Medicinal Materials Association. As an official member of the Medicinal Materials Association, if you deliberately hold back and we lose, you won’t be able to escape your share of the responsibility."

Jing Shu narrowed her eyes. She hated being threatened more than anything. She couldn’t help but scoff, "Hmph. It’s clearly you lot who were beaten. What does that have to do with me? If responsibility is to be assigned, then it’s everyone’s collective responsibility. In that case, let’s all be unable to escape it together."

Jing Shu had no intention of competing at all. As an outsider, if she really competed, wouldn’t she suffer a terrible loss?

Chairman Tie was stunned for a couple of seconds. He genuinely hadn’t expected someone Jing Shu’s age to face societal pressure so calmly. His purpose in bringing so many people was to leverage public opinion—the pressure from everyone urging her to compete, combined with his own "sugar-coated bullets." How could this young girl refuse to step up? Yet, she remained so composed and simply wouldn’t agree to compete.

Lost. We’ve definitely lost, Chairman Tie repeated in his mind. But before they lost, he had to find a scapegoat!

That person had to be Jing Shu. Otherwise, he couldn’t bear the responsibility of the association losing half its annual resource allocation.

To be honest, Chairman Tie himself had no solution, so subconsciously, he felt they definitely couldn’t win.

"Wait! Jing Shu!" Chairman Tie shouted. "If you can solve one problem on the stage today, it will count as solving one problem for your vice-president assessment. What do you think? Perhaps today, on stage, you can solve an assessment problem right then and there! After that, once you’ve cultivated good medicinal herbs, you can be directly promoted to vice-president!"

Making grand promises? Who couldn’t do that? He certainly could!

Jing Shu raised an eyebrow. This... seems quite convenient, she thought.

"So, what exactly is the competition downstairs? An academic contest? A cultivation contest?" Jing Shu asked. If it was about academic knowledge, she would definitely give up. After all, she really didn’t understand anything about cultivating medicinal materials.

Chairman Tie wiped the sweat from his forehead. She took the bait...

"We need to keep up with the times. The apocalypse is here. All pre-apocalypse theories and academic knowledge are useless now. What we need to compare is who can cultivate effective medicinal materials in the apocalypse—that’s the core. The method doesn’t matter. Meanwhile, due to issues with weather, temperature, humidity, and so on, many plants are experiencing all sorts of problems."

"So, the people from Ta City have brought medicinal materials with problems they’ve encountered during cultivation. If you can revive their medicinal materials, Wu City scores 1 point. If the people from Ta City can revive Wu City’s medicinal materials, they score 1 point. The current score is Ta City 5, Wu City only 2."

After hearing the rules, Jing Shu’s lips curved slightly upwards. Could this be considered a tailor-made promotion package just for her?

"So, Chairman Tie, you said that solving one of these problems would count as one of my assessment challenges?"

Chairman Tie nodded three times consecutively. "Definitely. It absolutely must count."

"Alright, I’ve recorded that. Let’s go and take a look then."