34: Rules

"Green..."

"No need. Mentor Jordan is so busy, we shouldn't trouble him."

Thoughts raced through Liam's mind. He quickly weighed the pros and cons, then adopted a benevolent expression and said, "I still trust you. I believe you definitely wouldn't lie to me, right?"

"Mr. Liam, how could I dare to lie in front of you? Even with ten times the courage, I wouldn't dare."

"Every word I've said is the truth."

"I assure you, similar incidents will absolutely not happen again in the future." Green quickly made a guarantee, wanting his superior to see his sincerity...

"Hmm..."

"Let's let this matter go..."

"However, Green, I also owe you an apology. My attitude just now wasn't very good, and I'm afraid I might have scared you."

"You won't resent me, will you?"

Liam offered his usual warm smile.

"No, no..."

"How could that be, Mr. Liam?"

"You're also doing it for my own good, I understand all of it."

"In the future, if this student has any shortcomings, I'll still have to trouble you, sir, to guide me more..."

Green replied with a face full of sincerity.

Deep down, however, he would never again trust Liam and his fake smile. He had been deceived by his amiability before... Green now understood:

Everyone he had met in the academy recently had been very friendly, and his few friends had all been genuinely good to Green.

The worst he had encountered was Henry, who merely wanted to offer Green a special companion service. He was only after Green's magic stones, and everything followed the principle of equivalent exchange.

So Green had been complacent... But this time was different. Liam actually wanted to cut off Green's path.

Once Green was expelled from the Apothecary lab, he would be completely ruined... Green knew from reading cultivation novels that an enemy who obstructs one's path is an irreconcilable foe!

"Whether this guy Liam was deliberately targeting me, or just in a bad mood and using me as a punching bag, I really felt just now that he wanted to kick me out of the lab..." Green thought silently to himself. "My strength is weak now. I am the meat, and others are the cleaver. My future and destiny are in Liam's hands."

Only by biding my time and waiting for the right moment is the best strategy.

However, Green wasn't that magnanimous. On the little notebook in his heart, he had already written down the name of his first enemy—Liam.

The grievance of today, in the future, shall be repaid tenfold... "Green..."

"It's good that you can understand my painstaking efforts..."

Liam looked at Green's honest, big face, which was full of trepidation, and smiled with satisfaction:

"Green, you haven't been in Old Sam's Lab for long, so I can understand that you don't know some of the rules."

"After making this mistake, you need to reflect carefully, build good relationships with the senior apprentices, and clearly understand our rules, got it?"

"Yes, Mr. Liam, I will definitely study the lab's rules carefully." Green nodded and said.

"Alright, go get busy. You haven't been here these past few days, so a pile of work has accumulated..."

"Okay, Mr. Liam, I'll go get busy right away."

...Leaving Liam's small lab, Green returned to the main experimental hall.

The layout of the entire Old Sam's Apothecary Lab was very simple.

There was one main experimental hall covering nearly two hundred square meters, plus a row of four small experimental rooms next to it. These four experimental rooms were all similar in size, about twenty square meters each.

This was also the standard area and layout for a C-grade lab. It was said that B-grade and A-grade labs were even larger.

These four small experimental rooms were the workspaces for Old Sam and the three supervisors.

"Andy..."

"I want to ask if our lab has any unwritten rules?" Green walked up to his mentor and asked. For the first two months, Green and two other apprentices from the same year were all taught by Andy to learn the experimental procedures.

After spending a month with Andy,

Green found that Andy was the kindest-tempered among the three work groups in the entire lab.

When the three probationary apprentices joined this group for internship, the other senior apprentices were unwilling to take them on, fearing trouble, and all refused.

So Andy had no choice but to take on three newbies by himself.

Can you believe that those senior apprentices, who were only one or two years ahead of Green, dared to push all the tasks onto Andy—a two-star Apothecary apprentice who had been in the academy for thirty years and had twenty years of lab work experience?

This also showed how good-tempered Andy was. If it were Green, he would show them how to clean up their act...

"Green, you're back. Is everything alright?"

"Liam didn't do anything to you, did he?" Andy asked with concern.

"No, I just got a good scolding."

"Andy, you still haven't answered my question?" Green replied.

"That's good then..."

Andy breathed a sigh of relief when he heard this.

"You took such a long, unexcused leave this time, a good scolding is getting off lightly."

"It's also my fault for not telling you. I thought none of you would take leave during this year of study."

"After all, there's nothing much going on in the academy. You just spend two hours in the lab every day, so why would you need to take leave?"

Andy paused, carefully choosing his words, and said, "Our lab indeed has some unofficial rules. Every lab will have such situations; I've been in several labs, so I have a rough idea."

"Let me first tell you about the rules for taking leave."

"In Old Sam's Lab, if you want to take leave, you must submit a report three days in advance and get the approval of your direct supervisor, which in our group means Liam's approval."

"At the same time, someone must take on your responsibilities, meaning during your leave, someone must do your work so that work is not delayed."

"If you don't find someone to do your work, Liam will not approve your leave."

"This is called—Backup."

"That is to say, your sudden leave this time could not possibly have gotten Liam's approval."

"If Liam uses this as a reason to say that you do not comply with lab management, have a very improper learning attitude, and are absent without cause, he can apply to the Apothecary Association to have you removed from Old Sam's Lab."

"Your performance during this time hasn't been very good, and I vaguely feel that Liam might have an issue with you."

"So I was very worried that he would use this matter to make things difficult for you."

..."Ha..."

"How could that be? Just because my performance was a bit poor, he wants to dismiss me?"

"That's too outrageous?!"

Green was somewhat incredulous. The malice he had felt from Liam earlier was correct.

It was true, he was intentionally targeting Green...