Even after a maybe unnecessarily eventful night, school tolerated no breaks. Especially an elite school such as Chen Ling's.
It might come as a surprise, but she didn't get much sleep last night. It definitely had nothing to do with half a dozen people being slaughtered in her house by the cat in her room. And she was absolutely not afraid of the cat that murdered seven people.
Though that sounded sarcastic, the latter part was true, because Chen Ling knew he would never hurt her, and as far as she understood, he killed those people to protect her.
In any case, she matured a lot. It might have something to do with their link, but she learned from Xiaohei that tolerance was foolish and showing weakness was asking for trouble.
Now she had to go to school, where the bullies are. But she was not scared, she had Xiaohei with her. It was ok to bring a tiger to school because he was her legal contract beast. Because that was how it works. Naturally this system was abused by rich kids with rare, strong pets to bully others.
"What is this?" Xiaohei's gruff voice, reminiscent of a bad guy from a hamlet inspired lion movie, rang into her head.
"That's a collar, it shows your status as affiliated with the humans."
"I see." Her sister explained to him tactfully, not mentioning anything about pets and servitude, which would definitely set him off.
The moment the door opened...
"HISSS!!! MY EYES!!!" Steam leaked out of his eyes, which were, based on experience, highly sensitive to light. Turns out there was no sun in his old world, which was destroyed by a mysterious ball of light in the sky. Chen Ling dreamed that maybe Xiaohei witnessed the birth of the sun.
Problem solved. Her sister placed a small pair of sunglasses on his head, along with a scarf in case he wanted to blindfold himself. Fortunately it was just his eyes, so he could still walk around.
She set off to school with Xiaohei in her school bag. He was small so he fit nicely. He fell asleep quickly, as he was nocturnal, made clear by his black fur and hypersensitivity to light. He was capable of waking anytime though.
Chen Ling walked to school thinking about Xiaohei. She found him by a stream with heavy injuries, which was healed with in a day. Then he woke up, made a contract with her, and got rid of a bunch of bad people. It was definitely destiny.
She learned he was curious, and was apparently self learning the human language all night. It seemed he hoped to study the current state of the world through human literature.
"Good morning teacher Wu
She greeted her teacher, Ms. Wu, upon arrival.
She went to her desk at the far right of the classroom, a nice window seat. When she sat down, she immediately felt a squish. There was gum planted on her seat. She immediately saw a few girls snickering in the corner of her eye.
Fortunately, she was prepared. She had talked to her sister instead of holding it in and suffering alone, and her sister taught her a few tricks. She pulled a small spray bottle from under Xiaohei, and sprit some on the gum on her skirt and seat, it quickly hardened and she flicked it off without a trace.
She did not let the girls see though, in case they were to feel provoked, and harass her harder.
She quietly listened to the lecture, and received reminder of the quiz in later in the day. Xiaohei had woken up, and listened quietly as well. He had also casually intercepted few spitballs flying toward the back of her head.
"You are being assaulted by weak projectiles. This is obviously a provocation! You must answer them, trample the aggressor, if you can't, I can do it for you, just ask." She was thinking that Xiaohei was starting to act like a devil whispering next to her ear, constantly telling her to fight the girls taunting her.
"You can't just hurt people like that! We'll get in trouble!" Chen Ling has to teach Xiaohei that violence was not the only answer, but he usually seemed unconvinced.
It was now study break. There would also be a quiz after this, she knew what that meant.
"Hey hey~ Chen Ling~! Can we borrow your notes please~!" The mean girls approached her quickly. Their insincerity was sickening like putting salt instead of sugar in your cookies. The leader was fancy dressed girl with lots of accessories, and her hair done real nice. One could tell she was rich by the aura she exudes. The 'My family is rich so I'm better than you' aura. Chen Ling was taught to ignore them, and that she did.
"We'll even give you a gift for helping us~!" One of the girls immediately stuck out her tongue, and took out the piece of gum in her mouth.
She proceeded to stick it in her hair when something swatted her away.
"Eh? What was that?"
"What happened little Feng? Why aren't you sticking it in her hair?"
"I tried but something hit my hand." They looked at Chen Ling suspiciously, but none of them saw her move, so they didn't know what happened.
"Here you try." She handed off her gross leftovers to her friend, who had the same result.
"Whatever, just give us your notes." They gave up on it, and reached for her back.
Then her hand was swatted away again, but she caught a glimpse of it this time. It appeared long and scaly. She was starting to feel nervous.
"Hey, maybe we should leave..."
"Don't be a coward, let me do it." The lead girl said arrogantly, and strutted to Chen Ling.
"Give me your notes, or else." Her hand reached directly for her bag, when she saw something long and scaly, with red following eyes thrust out the bag, flying into her mouth.
"KYAAAH! W-what's in there?!" She fell on her butt, her face pale, spitting constantly at the floor. She had no idea what went flew in her mouth.
Then a long, thin scaled serpent slithered out the bag, raising it's head.
"""KYAAAH! SNAKE! CHEN LING BROUGHT A SNAKE TO SCHOOL!""" The three girls screamed and practically flew backwards. Their faces were white like ghosts as they constantly checked their wrists, did it bite them earlier?! Their ruckus quickly drew the attention of the classroom.
"What's all this noise!" The teacher entered the classroom upon hearing the commotion.
"Teacher Wu! Chen Ling brought a snake to school! It bit us!" The lead girl said, pale faced at the thought of a snake entering her mouth.
Teacher Wu frowned. It was one thing to bring a snake. That was fine as long as it was a certified contract beast. But it was another thing for it to bite people.
"Chen Ling, What's this snake they're talking about?" She was a fair teacher, and decided to hear both sides of the story.
"What snake?" Chen Ling innocently smiled and asked. Teacher Wu frowned again, someone was lying here.
"She's lying! We all saw it, it's in her bag!" The three 8-year old girls hid behind the teacher and clutched her skirt adorably. They did not dare approach.
"Chen Ling, may you open your bag for us please?" She asked politely to the young girl.
"Of course!" And unhesitatingly opened her bag. All the students were curious upon the lively event, and wanted to glimpse a peek of the rumored snake. The teacher and mean girls also looked carefully, as it was potentially dangerous.
And everyone saw it...
"Nyaaaa~!"
An adorable black cat with big eyes and twitching ears popped it's head out the bag.