The clash was lightning-fast, and so was its end.
People flowed through the plaza, and many experts noticed what was happening here. But it did not look like anything serious—more like old friends exchanging an enthusiastic greeting upon meeting—so no one paid it any mind.
Couldn't they see how harmoniously the two were chatting?
Shi Tiexin pulled up an old group photo, enlarged Gu Shaoqiu's position, and compared it back and forth with the fellow before him. "The one in this photo—is that you?"
Who was Gu Shaoqiu? The son of Director Gu from the Star Engineering Federation, distinguished by an innocent face. He had been like the boy next door, good for nothing but being handsome and yasashii.
And this guy in front of him? He seemed to have lost even the handsome and yasashii parts. He was a bona fide dead-fat otaku.
"It's me." The fat otaku looked at the photo, then at Shi Tiexin's fist, and said solemnly, "I was still very thin back then."
Shi Tiexin neither confirmed nor denied it. "Oh, I see."
"That's exactly how it was!" the fat otaku explained. "Shi Yuwei and you took the provincial examination, and so did I. You earned champion rank, and so did I. You studied in Shaluo City, and so did I. It was just that I didn't attend Lumen Academy or Tianqing Martial School. I went to Eighteen Bronze Men Culinary School."
Shi Tiexin narrowed his eyes. "Eighteen Bronze Men Culinary School? The place that calls itself the Dark Shaolin?"
"That's the one! The folding stools there—no, the food there was just too delicious. Look what I ate myself into." As he spoke, he bared his teeth in a simple, honest smile, making himself look utterly harmless to man and beast alike.
Shi Tiexin had