"Deserter"

The piercing alarm rang. Chu Fei woke up feeling more refreshed than ever before.

Ever since coming to this world, he had never had a proper rest. He had slept wonderfully last night.

Was it the effect of the Wisdom Dewdrop?

There was no time to think too much. Chu Fei swiftly dressed, washed up, assembled, and ran.

During the run, Chu Fei basically confirmed it: the Wisdom Dewdrop could help him sleep better, slightly improve his physical fitness, and seemed to have given his body a grasp of techniques for exerting force and conserving energy.

"The effects of the Wisdom Dewdrop still need to be further explored."

After the run, Chu Fei and Jiang Shaohu fell out—Chu Fei had snatched second place, leaving Jiang Shaohu in third, where he received the whip.

Yielding? That did not exist.

Hiding his abilities? Even less possible.

The little boat of friendship... what was that supposed to be?

Under such forceful "encouragement," competition was not fierce but brutal. Things like friendship had no soil in which to grow.

The morning was chemistry, the afternoon biology. Neither class left homework.

Chu Fei was not whipped today.

"No homework after class!" Li Honggang cheered. The youths chattered away, immensely relieved.

The bell for evening self-study rang. Cao Liwen carried in a stack of test papers, placed them before the youths, and said:

"Pass them back. Four papers per person. The key material from the past two days is all on them.

It's eighteen hundred now. Papers will be collected at twenty hundred. There's plenty of time."

The cheerful atmosphere came to an abrupt halt, leaving only the rustle of test papers.

Chu Fei flipped through the papers. There was not much content, but there was not little, either.

If he knew it, fine. But if he did not...

The classroom was unusually quiet, filled only with the scratch of pens.

But in less than half an hour, anxious sounds began to arise.

Sighs, heavy breathing, frantic page-turning, teeth grinding, soles scraping the floor, desks being dragged, bodies twisting and squirming...

Smack!

There was also the sound of a whip.

The Whip Holder's voice echoed through the classroom. "Do not disturb others!"

Before long, another crack of the whip sounded. "No whispering. This is a warning. Do it again, and it will be treated as cheating!"

Cheating started at five lashes!

The noisy sounds vanished at once. Only after a while did they resume, far more cautiously.

Chu Fei shut out all outside distractions and focused on answering the questions.

Time ticked away.

Suddenly, footsteps sounded. The four instructors had arrived and lined up across the podium.

Almost at the same time, Cao Liwen tapped the desk. "Time's up. Stop writing immediately. Those in the back, collect the papers and pass them forward."

After a brief pause, he suddenly barked, "Jiang Shaohu!"

"Teacher, I didn't write my name!"

Cao Liwen snorted. "Playing clever little tricks! This is the last time!"

The twenty-seven test papers were soon placed before the four teachers.

More than half an hour later, the grading was complete. The papers were divided into three piles.

The first pile was the smallest, the second the largest, and the third somewhat smaller.

Cao Liwen flipped through the test scores. The rustling sound made quite a few students tremble.

Chu Fei stared at the papers, his palms damp.

If he did poorly, he would receive "encouragement" from the whip.

And if he had gotten a key point that the teacher had specially emphasized in class wrong, then blessings truly came in pairs!

Though he felt he had answered smoothly, who could claim absolute certainty?

Cao Liwen set down the papers and spoke. "When I call your name, come forward."

The atmosphere instantly tightened.

"Zhang Xuan, Li Honggang, Lu Hong."

"Chu Fei!"

Chu Fei's entire body tensed, but he still walked step by step toward the podium.

The four stood before the podium. Cao Liwen gave a slight nod. "Not bad. Perfect scores. Ten yuan reward for each of you!"

Four larger coins were pushed before Chu Fei and the others.

Chu Fei and the other three abruptly relaxed. Their chests heaved violently from their sharp breaths.

The four thanked the teacher together before accepting the coins.

Cao Liwen flipped through Chu Fei's paper, then said to him, "Hold out your left hand!"

Chu Fei extended his left hand.

Cao Liwen grabbed the bamboo switch beside him and struck.

Chu Fei snatched his left hand back as if shocked, then pressed it tightly to his chest, his teeth grinding audibly.

Cao Liwen looked at Zhang Xuan next. "Hold out your left hand!"

Zhang Xuan shrank back.

Smack!

The bamboo switch lashed directly across her left cheek.

Zhang Xuan screamed, clutched her face, and collapsed to the floor trembling. Blood quickly seeped through her fingers.

Cao Liwen looked at Li Honggang. "Left hand!"

Li Honggang shot out his left hand.

The bamboo switch struck his palm, and Li Honggang instantly pulled it back.

But Cao Liwen did not stop. "One more!"

Li Honggang gritted his teeth and held out his left hand again, not daring to hesitate in the slightest.

Only Lu Hong remained.

Lu Hong squeezed his eyes tightly shut and proactively extended his left hand.

"Fine. Nothing for you."

Lu Hong hurriedly withdrew his hand, his face full of lingering fear.

Cao Liwen continued, "Untidy papers, alterations, and so on. One warning. If you four can maintain your current learning state, you will at least become Semi-Awakened in the future. You may even go to the battlefield.

The battlefield cannot tolerate carelessness, regret, or revisions.

All right, go back."

Zhang Xuan climbed to her feet, sobbing.

Cao Liwen tapped the desk with his finger and stared coldly at Zhang Xuan without speaking.

Zhang Xuan immediately stopped crying.

Chu Fei and the other three returned to their seats. Cao Liwen began flipping through the second stack of papers.

The rest trembled like leaves.

The roll call continued.

This batch had a full seventeen people.

Cao Liwen pointed out each problem and asked why they had gotten it wrong.

There had been no difficult questions on the test. Every knowledge point had been taught, and the teachers had even called on students in class to answer questions about the key points.

This time, Cao Liwen did not do it himself. The Whip Holder beside him came over to strike them.

Fortunately, the Whip Holder's whip was only one meter long. It still hurt, but it was not quite so outrageous.

By the time the seventeen people had finished receiving their "encouragement," it was already 21:16.

Cao Liwen said coldly, "The rest of you, come over."

The remaining six students walked forward trembling.

The seventeen before them, who had actually done fairly well, had received as many as ten lashes. How many would they receive?

Cao Liwen stood up directly. "Come outside with me! Everyone together."

The six instantly went deathly pale.

Chu Fei, Zhang Xuan, Li Honggang, and Lu Hong followed behind Cao Liwen.

Cao Liwen headed all the way to the north side of the square. Under the hazy lights, four old men with bodies of rock-like muscle stood like asuras; the softly twitching whips in their hands resembled venomous snakes in the Dark Night.

After Chu Fei and the other twenty-one arrived, those six were still dawdling.

Cao Liwen said nothing. He merely raised his left hand and checked his watch.

One of them let out a cry and sprinted to Cao Liwen's side, where he stood trembling.

With someone taking the lead, the others immediately followed suit.

Then Jiang Shaohu suddenly took off running—but in the wrong direction.

He raced down the mountain, much faster than during the morning run!

Cao Liwen simply watched him and coldly uttered two words: "Deserter!"

Chu Fei stared blankly as Jiang Shaohu ran farther and farther away, vanishing beyond the lights.

The next moment, a scream rang out. Then a burly figure emerged from the darkness.

It was Captain Huang!

Captain Huang's unmodified right hand was like a pair of pincers, gripping the back of Jiang Shaohu's neck as he dragged him back. In the pitch-black night, the electronic eye in his left socket flashed red.

Jiang Shaohu screamed and frantically clawed at Captain Huang's arm, but could not leave even a mark. Instead, his own fingernails cracked apart, his fingers a bloody mess, yet he remained unaware of it.

Captain Huang raised Jiang Shaohu one-handed. Two old men bound Jiang Shaohu's hands and hung him up.

Jiang Shaohu struggled and screamed.

One old man took out an even thicker, longer whip and swung it through the night sky, unleashing a terrifying shriek.

At the sight of that whip, Chu Fei felt his heart constrict.

It looked to be three meters long, winding like a venomous snake.

The old man flicked his wrist. The long whip tore through the air and lashed viciously across Jiang Shaohu's back.

The sound of tearing silk rang out, followed by a shrill scream that carried far into the night. It startled chickens into crowing and dogs into barking.

The long whip danced.

After three lashes, Jiang Shaohu could no longer scream. Only his body twitched in the darkness.

The old man lashed him ten times before slowly putting away the "long" whip.

Jiang Shaohu was utterly motionless.

Indistinct chunks slid down from his back, and blood scattered across the ground with the sway of his body.

A cool mountain wind blew through, yet it chilled Chu Fei to the bone.

The other four youths standing at the classroom entrance were like statues.

Suddenly, a frail girl screamed and rushed toward the cliff on the west side of the square, plunging into the darkness.

Her scream echoed through the mountains, swiftly fading into the distance before abruptly cutting off.

Cao Liwen said nothing. He continued looking at his watch.

The remaining three youths exchanged a glance, then gritted their teeth and trembled as they walked toward Cao Liwen.

The old man put away the three-meter whip and switched back to the two-meter one.

At this sight, quite a few people let out a breath of relief—though the two-meter whip was also terrifying, compared to the three-meter one, it was practically gentle.

Those five received between six and nine lashes each. They were not killed, but they could no longer stand.

Chu Fei and the others stepped forward and carried them to the medical room.

The healing device could repair wounds, but severe injuries still needed several hours to fully recover. The recovery process was unbearably itchy. These people were probably not going to sleep tonight.

If they slept poorly tonight, they would surely doze off tomorrow, miss lessons, fail their tests, and get beaten again!

Chu Fei thought of it. Everyone else had thought of it too.

Someone cautiously, tremblingly asked for leave.

Cao Liwen said flatly, "Tomorrow is the weekend. You have one day of rest. No one is allowed down the mountain."

"Whew..."

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

Chu Fei had only been struck on the palm and did not need treatment, but he turned and walked toward Captain Huang.

Captain Huang looked at Chu Fei without speaking.

Chu Fei took out the ten-yuan coin he had just received and said directly, "I want to buy something."

"Ten yuan, huh? You can only buy some basic anti-inflammatory medicine, low-grade hemostatic medicine, bandages, daggers, and other little things."

Chu Fei nodded.