Dazed and muddleheaded, the world spun around him. His mind was a chaotic haze, unable to tell east from west.
His consciousness seemed enveloped in a deep black fog.
In his daze,
he seemed to hear something by his ear—piercing ridicule...
"With your background, just be a low-born and behave yourself!"
He seemed to see something before his eyes—vicious mockery...
"I'd say you don't know the height of heaven or the depth of earth. Could it be that you still want to become some kind of superior?"
Amid shadowy shapes, scenes like dreamlike bubbles and phantoms flickered through the darkness. Someone seemed to be speaking to him. Though the image had already become utterly indistinct, that voice seemed to rise from the deepest depths of his heart. It was so clear, so vivid—he could hear every trace of subtle ridicule and disdain.
"Talking about striving upwards? Not everyone is qualified for that. Studying, cultivating—those are fundamentally not things someone like you can even think about. Don't think I'm just shooting my mouth off. Other than the run-of-the-mill Essence Cultivation Technique, what else do you know?"
"With your assets, buying a copy of Basic Fist Arts was already your limit, wasn't it? Yes, I admit you've mastered your Basic Fist Arts, but so what if you trained them to excellence? With Basic Fist Arts alone, you can't even get into the lowest-ranking Combat Club. Even if you did, you'd only be going there to throw away money. You wouldn't earn a single Star Yuan."
"Even leaving force arts aside, it's even more impossible for you to accomplish anything in mind arts cultivation. Look at this. Do you know what it is? This is an Auxiliary Cultivation Manual! Never heard of it, have you? Jealous? Of course you are. With your financial means, you can't even come into contact with my lowest-grade Auxiliary Cultivation Manual. Without one, when in the year of the monkey and month of the horse will you cultivate the Six Fundamental Mind Arts to the first level?"
"The Minor Provincial Examination isn't far off. Can you afford Body Nourishing Essence Food? How long will it take you to achieve Condensing Essence into a Ball? Can you obtain an Auxiliary Cultivation Manual? How long will it take you to cultivate at least two of the Six Fundamental Mind Arts to the qualified second level? I'm afraid not even one is possible. Without that, you won't even qualify to take the Minor Provincial Examination."
"If you fail the Minor Provincial Examination, you won't be able to continue your advanced studies. What second road will you have left to take?"
"If your force arts are no good, how will you get into a good gang? If your mind arts are no good, how will you get into a major corporation? If neither good gangs nor major corporations want you, where will you find resources? In twenty or thirty years, others may have already soared to great heights, while you can only roll about in the dust and filth."
"But this isn't really your fault. Blame fate."
"Not just you—everyone has to look at their origins. Take Young Master Shen, for example. Perhaps he ate Body Nourishing Essence Food for every meal from childhood, had scholars instructing him every day, and had Auxiliary Cultivation Manuals piled across his entire bookshelf—things others could never imagine even in their dreams. As for me, I'm not that much better off than you. But unlike you, I know how to assess the situation. I know when I should kneel."
"If I hadn't served Brother Chong wholeheartedly, someone with my abilities could never have come into contact with an Auxiliary Cultivation Manual. And for someone like you, who came from an Orphanage, there's even less to say. It has nothing at all to do with whether you work hard or not. It's simply that the Orphanage can't give you any support."
"Every year, the Orphanage director sends a few people here, making it seem as though they've given you a little hope, a path. But I'm telling you, without resources to support you, your so-called path was, from the very beginning, a—dead, end, road."
"If your fate is no good, don't talk about backbone or dignity. If your head is hard and your bones are tougher still, the only ending will be having your skull smashed and your bones broken."
"If you had been born into wealth and rank, this would be called diligent self-improvement. But you weren't, so you're merely someone who doesn't know when to advance or retreat, who can't tell good from bad."
"And those who can't tell good from bad often don't meet a good end..."
Then, he seemed to witness a provocation, an unfair match, and finally a beating. He saw himself struggle with all his might, but in the end, his cultivation was too weak, and he was brutally humiliated.
Pain and humiliation existed side by side; unwillingness and dejection arrived together.
The voice faded away. The images vanished. His consciousness seemed to return to that darkness. Yet at the very bottom of the darkness, a flame swelled explosively.
Anger, anger—anger at his own circumstances.
Anger, anger—anger at that laughter and mockery.
But what enraged him most was not what those people had said. What enraged him most was that even he, in the deepest part of his heart, could not deny that what that person had said... was right.
His origins truly were poor. Let alone support for cultivation, even simply staying alive required him to fight with all his strength. How could someone like him compete with those born into better circumstances? Just how could I stand before that person and tell him openly and honestly that heaven never seals off every road for a person, that success depends on human effort?
The Minor Provincial Examination was not far away. It seemed I really couldn't do it...
But... but... but...
I still...
Wasn't willing to accept it—!!
His immense rage exploded as though heaven and earth were being split apart, instantly tearing through the fog and darkness enveloping his consciousness. His consciousness seized back control of his body. He suddenly opened his eyes, and light rushed at him. With a kick of his legs, he sprang to his feet. His eyes split wide with fury as righteous indignation erupted from his heart, surged backward into his throat, and, unable to endure any longer, burst out in a long howl.
"Ah----!!"
Clang, crash, a jumble of noise—and then silence.
Light entered his eyes, and his pupils adjusted the amount of light they took in, swiftly bringing the dazzling scene into focus. As his howl ended, the scene before him also became clear. Once he saw everything before him clearly, Shi Tiexin froze.
This was not any place he had imagined.
When he woke, he had thought he would be in his own shabby little room. Or perhaps some kindhearted person would have taken him to a hospital. Or perhaps, uncared for by anyone, he would be lying beside a trash bin in some shabby alley. The trash bin seemed the likeliest possibility. After all, he did not have the money to purchase medical insurance, so there would be no automatically responsive medical services.
But the scene before him was wrong.
Very wrong.
So wrong that Shi Tiexin, who had just been shouting himself hoarse in righteous fury, was instantly dumbfounded.
—This was a bright, spacious room, lined neatly with many wooden desks. The desks were strangely styled, with four wooden legs and two desk cubbies. Their design was quite ancient, like the props and sets in television dramas depicting the era of the Central Star's great development at the beginning of the epoch.
Behind the desks sat rows upon rows of young men and women, two to a desk, sharing the same ancient-style wooden benches. Though he was seeing them for the first time, words such as "classmate" and "deskmate" immediately surfaced in his mind. There was no sense of unfamiliarity at all; it seemed he had long been accustomed to such a life.
These people were all students?
More information flashed through his mind, and Shi Tiexin immediately understood. These people were indeed students, only here they were not called students, but "high school students."
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