Straight to Sixth Grade!

The leader was the tallest of the group. He wore a sixth-grade uniform and had an arrogant look on his face.

He shoved Li Wei aside, making him stumble and nearly fall.

"Get lost, pipsqueak."

The tall student didn't even glance at him, his voice full of derision, as though it were only natural.

"Sixth graders get their food first. That's the school's rule. Don't you know that?"

Li Wei was furious but didn't dare speak. He could only pick up his tray from the floor and silently retreat to the back of the line.

The surrounding students were silent as cicadas in winter, evidently accustomed to this kind of rule.

"It's those sixth graders again!"

Zhao Jie's fists creaked as he clenched them, but the classmate beside him held him back tightly, leaving him to curse under his breath.

"Pah! Just because they've trained two years longer than us, who do they think they are?"

But cursing couldn't change reality.

Faced with the oppressive fluctuations of the sixth graders' qi and blood, most of the fourth graders instinctively lowered their heads.

Li Wei, who had been shoved to the floor, turned alternately pale and red. In the end, he humiliatingly bent down, picked up his battered, misshapen tray, and prepared to retreat silently to the back of the line.

Here, fists made the rules, and he couldn't afford to provoke them.

But just as he turned around, a hand settled on his shoulder, neither too firmly nor too lightly, stopping him from retreating.

The hand was small, even bearing the warmth and softness peculiar to a child, yet it seemed to contain the strength of a mountain, leaving him unable to move another inch.

Li Wei froze and looked back in astonishment, only to see Chen Fan's face, as calm as ever.

"F-Fan?"

Chen Fan paid no heed to his astonishment. Taking the still-dazed Li Wei with him, he walked slowly forward under the gaze of hundreds of people in the cafeteria and stopped once more in front of the tall sixth grader.

They stood less than half a meter apart.

One was big, the other small; one tall, the other short. The contrast was striking.

"Apologize."

Chen Fan spoke in an even voice.

"Then get to the back of the line."

Boom!

After a moment of deathly silence, an even louder clamor erupted in the cafeteria.

The tall sixth grader at the head of the group first dug at his ear in disbelief, then burst into an outrageously loud laugh along with the companions beside him.

"Hahahaha! What did I just hear? This pipsqueak wants me to apologize?"

"Is his brain broken? What class did this idiot escape from?"

"Little junior, do you know who you're talking to? Believe it or not, I'll punch you right back into your mother's womb!"

The tall student laughed so hard he doubled over, looking at Chen Fan as though he were a clown jumping about on stage.

Li Wei was scared out of his wits. He clutched Chen Fan's clothes tightly, his voice trembling and almost breaking into a sob. "Fan! Forget it, let's go. We can't afford to mess with them..."

Zhao Jie grew anxious too. He rushed forward in a single stride and stood in front of Chen Fan, shouting with a fierce front that concealed his fear, "What do you think you're doing?! You're older and picking on the younger ones. Have you no shame?!"

Chen Fan's brows finally drew together slightly.

He extended a finger and gently nudged Zhao Jie, who was blocking his way, aside, looking past him.

His gaze settled on the tall student's face once more, and a barely perceptible chill entered his voice.

"I hate repeating myself."

The smile vanished from the tall student's face, replaced by a vicious, savage look.

"You little bastard, you're fucking asking to die!"

With an explosive shout, the power of his qi and blood surged through his body. Like a leopard poised to strike, his right arm bulged with muscle as he unleashed a fierce cannon punch straight at Chen Fan's face, the blow howling as it tore through the air!

He had put seventy percent of his strength into that punch, enough to crack a granite slab used for training!

He was going to make this brat who didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth lie on the floor like a dead dog in front of the whole school!

Cries of alarm rang out across the cafeteria.

Li Wei and Zhao Jie were so frightened that they shut their eyes.

Yet faced with this powerful, heavy punch, enough to make his peers' livers and gallbladders burst with terror, Chen Fan's response was simplicity itself.

He didn't even move his feet.

Only when the wind from the punch reached him did he raise his right hand, unhurriedly spreading his fingers. Though he moved second, he arrived first, casually meeting the other student's fist, which was as big as a cooking pot.

One palm, one fist.

Under countless tense, terrified, and gloating gazes, they collided with a boom!

The expected sound of bones snapping and tendons tearing never came.

The moment that fair, clean palm touched the fist, the savage grin on the tall student's face froze.

He felt as though the force of his punch, enough to split stone monuments, had struck a bottomless bog. All its power was swallowed and neutralized in an instant, vanishing without a trace.

How was that possible?!

His pupils abruptly contracted. Before he could recover from his immense shock, those seemingly slender fingers suddenly closed around his fist, gripping it like iron pincers.

"Crack!"

A crisp sound of breaking bone rang clearly through the noisy cafeteria, making everyone's scalp go numb!

"Ah!"

Agony swept through the tall student's entire body in an instant.

His scream had barely left his mouth when a terrifying, irresistible force erupted from that small palm.

The force was overbearing and pure, crushing everything in its path!

The tall student and the two companions behind him who had been waiting for a good show looked as though they had been struck head-on by a charging iron-armored rhinoceros. Their bodies doubled over like shrimp, and they flew backward, screaming.

"Bang! Crash!"

The three tumbled like gourds rolling across the ground, crashing into two dining tables along the way and sending people sprawling. Soup and vegetable leaves spilled all over the floor before the three finally slammed heavily into the ground seven or eight meters away, producing a series of dull, thunderous impacts.

The entire cafeteria fell deathly silent.

Hundreds of pairs of eyes stared fixedly at the inconceivable sight, their minds blank.

On the floor, the three sixth graders who had been so overbearing moments ago curled up, clutching their misshapen wrists and wailing like pigs being slaughtered.

Back where he stood, the small, slender figure slowly withdrew his hand.

He didn't even glance at the three on the floor again, as though he had merely swatted away three buzzing flies.

He turned to Li Wei, who had been completely petrified, his mouth wide enough to fit an egg, and calmly pointed at the empty food counter.

"Go get your food."

"Don't waste time."

When his voice fell, the entire place remained deathly silent.

But the deathly silence in the cafeteria was soon broken by muffled groans from the corner.

The tall sixth grader whose knuckles had been crushed struggled to his feet with his companions' help. His face was twisted with pain and humiliation, and beads of sweat the size of beans rolled down it.

He stared venomously at Chen Fan, his gaze like a snake's. Pointing at him with his uninjured left hand, he rasped through a gap in his teeth, "Y-you just wait! This... isn't over!"

After delivering his threat, however, he and the other two didn't dare linger another moment.

Under gazes filled with a mixture of awe and fear, they supported one another and fled the cafeteria with their tails between their legs, like beaten dogs.

Only after the bullies had made their sorry departure did the stagnant air in the cafeteria seem to begin moving again.

Almost instantly, every student looked at Chen Fan as though they had seen a ghost.

The crowd instinctively parted to either side, clearing a wide passage, as though some invisible force field around him kept anyone from approaching.

Chen Fan took the still-petrified Li Wei to the front and got their food, with Zhao Jie escorting them, chest out and head held high, like a victorious general.

The atmosphere at the table was strange.

Zhao Jie couldn't sit still, as though nails were growing under his backside. He leaned close to Chen Fan and lowered his voice, his face full of worry. "Boss, that guy's name is Sun Hao. He's in sixth grade, class one! I heard his classmates are really protective of their own. Now that you've beaten him up, the others will definitely come!"

"That's how it always happens in the novels I've read!"

Without looking up, Chen Fan calmly continued shoveling down his food and gave a brief, indifferent reply.

"Eat."

He ate extremely quickly, yet there was nothing crude about his movements. Every mouthful was precise and efficient, as though eating itself were a form of cultivation, a way to replenish his body's energy.

Three minutes later, his tray was empty.

Chen Fan put down his tray and got up to leave, saying only, "Finish eating, then cultivate."

Zhao Jie watched his departing figure, a brilliant light bursting from his eyes.

Now that was a true heaven's chosen!

His mind was free of distractions, and he made every second count!

To him, the turmoil outside mattered less than a single grain of rice on his plate!

"I get it!"

Zhao Jie's fighting spirit soared. He hastily stuffed his food into his mouth in a few bites, grabbed his tray, and shouted, "Boss, wait for me!"

With that, he shot after him like an arrow loosed from a bow.

Only Li Wei and the other fourth graders were left behind, disheveled in the wind.

That afternoon, in the martial arts training hall.

Wang Zhen strode in, sweeping his gaze around the room before finally fixing it on Chen Fan, who had already entered a meditative state.

His usually stern face wore an exceedingly strange expression, as though he wanted to laugh but was doing his utmost to hold it in, making his whole face look somewhat contorted.

"Chen Fan."

Wang Zhen's voice rang out in the quiet hall.

Zhao Jie jolted and sprang up from beside Chen Fan.

Like a mother hen protecting her chicks, he spread his arms and stood in front of Chen Fan, explaining urgently, "Teacher Wang! This wasn't Boss's fault! The sixth graders struck first. They were older and picking on the younger ones, and we..."

Wang Zhen raised a hand, cutting him off.

He could no longer hold back the expression on his face. His mouth stretched into a broad grin, revealing a row of white teeth, and he laughed heartily. "I know."

He looked at the tense Zhao Jie and Chen Fan, who had just opened his eyes, and added another sentence.

"I just wanted to say... well done!"

"Huh?"

The entire class was instantly petrified, their jaws dropping to the floor.

Was this still the iron-faced King of Hell who was so strict he seemed almost inhuman, who wouldn't blink an eye when punishing someone with laps?

A student had been in a fight, and instead of reprimanding him, he said well done?

Wang Zhen stopped laughing, his expression abruptly turning deadly serious.

He walked around the still-dazed Zhao Jie and stopped in front of Chen Fan, looking down at him.

"The fourth-grade curriculum has nothing more to teach you."

Looking at Chen Fan, Wang Zhen made his announcement, enunciating every word.

"I've discussed it with the principal."

"Starting tomorrow, you're going straight into sixth grade, class one!"