The awakening ceremony had ended, and Li Chen had left the infirmary. He had suffered no serious injuries, only losing consciousness for a short while. He was fine.
Su Baozi stepped on his own not-so-fat shadow and asked, "Brother Chen, are we really going to Canglan Academy?"
Li Chen nodded. To him, one academy was as good as another. He preferred somewhere quieter, and competition at Imperial Capital Academy was too fierce. He wasn't very keen on going there.
Canglan Academy was more relaxed, taking a hands-off approach.
It was fairly friendly to students like them.
Su Zhe recalled, "I heard things aren't very peaceful at Canglan Academy right now. Apparently, their spirits were crushed in last year's academy competition at Imperial Capital Academy, and now the whole academy has started slacking off."
"Oh? How do you know about all that?"
Li Chen was a little puzzled. In his eyes, Su Baozi was a lazy little fatty who loved to eat and did nothing but sleep or slack off all day. It was strange that he had actually started looking into other things.
Su Zhe said calmly, "I looked it up especially to deal with my dad. When I get back, I can have a chat with my old baby about it. Otherwise, I'll get a nasty beating."
He wasn't lying. He had gone to great lengths to attend the same academy as Brother Chen.
"Slacking off?" Li Chen thought for a few seconds, but didn't dwell on it. He hadn't even entered the academy yet, so there was no point in thinking too much about it. He responded to Su Zhe.
"Yeah. Good luck!"
Su Zhe: "..."
Before long, the two parted ways at a fork in the road.
Li Chen walked along the road, gazing at the still-setting sun. It was unclear what he was thinking about.
Perhaps he was thinking about where to go from here.
"Canglan Academy? Maybe."
In a dim conference room, quite a few people wearing white masks sat in silence. Not one of them spoke.
Suddenly, a man in a red mask stood up and spoke.
"Today, the Evil Cult attacked an academy in Magic City, but Chenlong Squad stopped them before they caused many casualties."
"However, it seems they acted on short notice and made no preparations. We even caught an Evil Cult member who couldn't escape in time."
He paused, then continued.
"Unfortunately, the Evil Cult member knew he couldn't escape and chose to blow himself up, injuring quite a few of the people involved in his capture."
"If any of you have any thoughts, please share them and offer your suggestions."
But no one answered, because they didn't know what the Evil Cult intended.
The man in the red mask said nothing more, choosing to remain silent.
After a moment of silence...
A clear female voice rang out.
"Chief, perhaps something was attracting the Evil Cult members, but they didn't get their hands on it. The place they attacked was the academy's awakening room. Perhaps it was an object, or perhaps it was a person."
"According to a member of Chenlong Squad, they barely fought the Evil Cult at all. The Evil Cult members only blasted a large hole in one end of the awakening room, and the only thing there was an awakening stone. There was nothing else."
The chief pondered her words for a while, then asked gravely, "Could they have done all that for an awakening stone?"
But he quickly dismissed the idea. Awakening stones weren't actually valuable, and anyone with a few means could obtain one, let alone a force as powerful as the Evil Cult. If all they wanted was an awakening stone, they wouldn't have gone to an academy and taken it so openly.
"Then what did they want? Could it have been a person?" The chief fell into thought.
But suddenly, a series of electronic pulses sounded in his earpiece, signaling that a message had arrived on his phone.
He reached into his clothes and took out his phone. Although the meeting was in progress, he was the chief, so it was fine. Besides, if he missed a message and it resulted in a major mistake, he couldn't bear the responsibility.
A dim light shone from the phone, and the eyes visible through his mask slowly widened.
The message had been sent by the captain of the Chenlong Team.
[File]
[Access clearance: S-rank]
[On the afternoon of September 7, a student with S-rank talent emerged at Chuanhai Academy in Magic City. The Evil Cult is suspected of discovering him and attempting to kill him. Special authorization has been granted to change this student's recorded talent to B-rank.]
[Student's name: Li Chen]
[After reading the details, immediately erase the file as a precaution.]
After slowly formatting and deleting the document, he formatted the phone as well. This was to keep others from seeing the file, and even more to protect the student named "Li Chen."
"Looks like there's no need to investigate further. Still, it's been a long time since an S-rank talent awakener appeared..."
After returning home, Li Chen didn't go to sleep. His feelings were complicated, because he had discovered that he had too little luggage—a pitiful amount.
He glanced at the clock on the wall, seemingly wondering whether to take it with him. In the end, he shook his head and looked at the photo beside his bed.
There were three people in the photo. One was a young Li Chen, and the other two were his parents, but their faces had been torn away.
He gently picked up the frame, glanced at it, and looked away. Perhaps he had almost forgotten what his parents looked like.
He had lost his parents when he was too young to remember. Before that, he had never known what they did every day, and had even complained about why they didn't spend time with him.
It wasn't until the day he suddenly received two urns that he learned he had become an orphan. He wasn't devastated. That day, he simply sat silently by his bed, gazing at the red moon outside the window all night, until the sun rose.
He didn't understand why he hadn't felt sad, or even shed a single tear.
Because of this, quite a few people learned about what had happened and cursed him as a heartless little beast. But he paid them no mind and didn't even take it seriously.
At the time, Su Zhe's father had even taken him to the hospital for a checkup, to see whether the shock had caused some kind of nervous disorder. But the results showed that he was perfectly healthy, even stronger than others his age.
Only, the doctor's expression had been somewhat complicated as he said, "This kid will probably have a hard time finding a girlfriend in the future. He has a congenital lack of emotion."
That was how Li Chen had become the person he was now, someone who liked to fall silent from time to time.
Lying in bed, Li Chen recalled the past. Though it had only been sixteen short years, he had no parents, and those sixteen years hadn't been easy.
Sometimes, it was only because Su Zhe stole his father's money that Li Chen managed to get by, at least without going every day unable to afford three meals.
"Forget it... Life will slowly get better."
A breeze drifted in through the old balcony, and with those thoughts, Li Chen slowly fell asleep.