Zhao Yutong strode ahead, her pink‑and‑white backpack on her shoulders. She quickly left the limping Zhang Wuyong behind.
[Serious Warning! The host's actions have aroused the intense suspicion of Zhao Yutong, direct disciple of the Second Peak. To ensure the host's success in infiltrating the righteous Immortal Sect, please kill her as soon as possible to keep her quiet.]
[Mission: Successfully eliminate Zhao Yutong. Reward: 50 points. Time remaining: 24 hours.]
Another warning flashed before Zhang's eyes.
He glanced at the task bar.
Yesterday, the prompt had only mentioned "alertness." Today, it had escalated to "intense alertness."
He checked the previous mission. He was still short five "female disciples of the Immortal Sect" from earning the Gold Card.
There was nothing he could do for now. He would have to finish it tomorrow.
Keeping her expression carefully neutral, Zhao Yutong walked out of the school gate and found her mother's car.
"Wuyong's not coming?" her mother, Zhu Zhengwen, asked casually.
"He's very busy. Don't worry about him," Zhao snorted.
Zhu Zhengwen gave her daughter a suspicious look.
After they got into the car and pulled away, she asked as she drove, "What's wrong? Did you two have a fight?"
"No." Zhao paused, then pressed on, reluctant to drop it. "Mom, I'm the top student in our grade, right? Number one in the whole year."
"Yes," Zhu Zhengwen replied. "What about it?"
"Nothing. I was just asking." Zhao rested her right elbow on the windowsill, supported her chin with her hand, and watched the pedestrians on the roadside recede from view.
Her expression was very dark.
Perplexed by her daughter's mood, Zhu Zhengwen could only mutter a few platitudes about "not relaxing just because you're ahead."
Without a ride, Zhang could only limp out of the campus and flag down a taxi.
Another night passed.
The next day, during every break, he stood guard in the corridor outside the classroom, doing everything he could to find someone to "help him cultivate."
Meanwhile, Tongtong from the neighboring class often stood at her own doorway, watching his back with resentful eyes.
The task panel in his vision went berserk, constantly throwing up urgent warnings urging him to kill the witness as soon as possible.
Zhang pretended not to notice her at all.
He seized every opportunity, refusing to let any potential "female disciple" slip past.
His back felt as if a thorn were lodged in it; cold sweat soaked his shirt. It was as though a thousand needles were pricking between his shoulder blades.
By afternoon, the system's warnings had become a flood, flickering like a virus over his interface.
At last, that afternoon, he managed to get the final five female disciples to complete their progress bars.
A golden card, like a shooting star, fell from the sky before his eyes and hovered in front of him.
[The host has successfully forced twenty female disciples of the Second Peak of Rongyang Immortal Sect to assist in cultivation and has obtained one Gold Card. Use the Gold Card to draw for items such as martial arts manuals, divine weapons, and magical artifacts: Yes / No.]
Zhang let out a long breath.
For the moment, he closed the system interface.
Standing beside him, Qian Shu said, "I get it now. You were doing it to piss off your childhood sweetheart from the next class, weren't you?"
"Your childhood sweetheart is the top student in the whole grade, and you still refuse to ask her for help. Instead, you deliberately have other girls tutor you right in front of her."
"You're just cheating on her in public, aren't you?"
Zhang kept his head down, working on the newly issued physics test.
He randomly filled in the multiple‑choice questions, then flipped to the long problems.
Hmm, I don't understand this one. Next.
Okay, I don't understand this one either. Next.
Right, I don't understand any of them.
He began sketching flowers in the blank space. "Do you really think I'm as idle as you? My mind is entirely focused on studying right now."
Qian Shu glanced over at the rose on the paper, then bent back over his own test. "Do you know who that girl was just now—the one who came to teach you? Her name's Yao Xueqin. She usually ranks second or third in the elite class."
"So?" Zhang asked after thinking for a moment.
"That girl's usually really aloof. She never talks to boys. Why do you think she suddenly decided to tutor you? She did it on purpose."
Zhang froze.
He had no impression of Yao Xueqin before this and had never spoken a word to her. When he needed one last person to complete his tally, she had stepped forward to "help him cultivate," and he had simply been grateful.
Halfway through, though, the prickling at his back had abruptly vanished.
When he turned around, Tongtong was already gone.
He reopened the system and checked the list of completed missions.
The price had been steep. He could only hope the Gold Card would prove worth it.
At this point, only a single mission remained marked "Incomplete":
The one that required him to silence Tongtong.
That mission was destined never to be cleared, so he left it alone.
Closing the interface, he went back to doodling until the physics teacher began explaining the problems.
After school, there was still no sign of Zhao Yutong.
She had left before he even stepped out of the classroom.
Leaning on his crutch, Zhang walked slowly along the road leading away from the campus.
The students around him were either energetic or exhausted. On the basketball court, the sound of balls striking the hoop echoed again and again.
Once he passed through the school gate, he did not call a taxi. Instead, he limped on until he reached the intersection after the corner.
A few students were already smoking outside a small shop near the gate.
They jostled and shoved each other; one of them stumbled straight into Zhang's path.
Zhang gave him a single glance.
"What are you looking at?" the boy snapped, crushing out his cigarette and glaring back.
Zhang lifted his crutch slightly.
One of the other boys immediately grabbed his friend and pulled him aside to clear a path.
Zhang lowered his crutch again and continued forward.
"Are you crazy? You really want to pick a fight with him?" the second boy hissed. "Do you even know who that is?"
"Who?" the first boy asked.
"That's Zhang Daquan. Back in junior high at Shaoyang Middle School, he took on three guys at once and beat them all down. He nearly broke the leg of a girl who bullied his girlfriend. He's ruthless. He used to be the school tyrant at Shaoyang. Nobody dared mess with him."
The first boy shrank back. When he saw the limping figure up ahead turn around and look at them, he quickly averted his eyes and did not dare meet Zhang's gaze.
Zhang turned away again and kept walking.
He found it a little absurd that people called him a "school bully" in junior high.
From beginning to end, he had only ever gotten into one fight: he kicked the girl who bullied Tongtong until she clutched her leg and cried, and beat up the three sycophants who followed her.
That girl and her three lackeys had been notorious on campus; few students dared provoke them.
They were noisy, but not very good at fighting.
After Zhang was suspended, he had assumed they would come looking for revenge.
Instead, they tracked down someone who knew him and treated him to a meal.
For no obvious reason, his reputation as the "school tyrant" was sealed.
Enough. A real man does not dwell on past glory.
First things first—head to the park and draw that Gold Card.