The Girl, the Old Man, and the Dog

Perhaps because it only served breakfast, the shop was rather deserted in the afternoon.

The little girl sat on the steps, staring blankly into the distance.

Her brow was somewhat broad, giving her a vaguely vacant, foolish look. She was not particularly pretty either—just an ordinary-looking girl, not even delicate or refined.

Yet Ronan still gave her a second look.

There was nothing unusual about her.

And yet Danger Perception told him that this shop was highly unusual.

So he walked over on his own initiative.

"Excuse me, do you sell food here?" Ronan asked.

The little girl sat on the steps as if she had not heard him, utterly motionless.

The dog was just as lazy, not even wagging its tail.

In the entire shop, only the wrinkled old man seemed to notice Ronan. He forced an unpleasant smile, gestured at him for a long while, then pointed at the electronic display beside him.

It listed the prices of various breakfast items and the hours they were sold.

Ronan had actually noticed it long ago. He merely wanted to get closer and see what exactly was strange about this newly opened shop.

The Danger Perception his mother had solidified for him before her death had never been wrong.

After a brief pause, he smiled and nodded to the old man before quickly leaving.

Since he could not spot any flaws for now, he would wait until the day it revealed one.

Ronan's back gradually vanished beneath the shade of the campus trees.

October on Azure Ring Island already carried a hint of chill.

The old man suddenly cursed, "Nosy bastard!"

Though he seemed to be cursing at thin air, the girl sitting on the steps abruptly let out two strange chuckles.

"Hehe."

The old man looked uneasy upon hearing her laughter, but also angry. "Even if you're a higher-up with S+ authority, what do you mean by this?"

"Do you people not even trust me, Silver Fox? If you hadn't blocked the doorway just now, I'd have taken care of that brat already!"

As soon as he said that, all the awkwardness and embarrassment vanished from the old man's face, replaced by murderous intent.

The girl ignored him. She suddenly stood up and smacked the dog hard on the head!

"Shaobing!"

The big dog sluggishly climbed to its feet.

The girl led the dog deeper into the campus.

The old man clenched his fists, his forearms trembling.

Only after making sure no one was around did he begin cursing under his breath. "That fucking Rose Blood Knight! What kind of shitty organization is this?"

"Didn't they say I'd be the one making the move? Why did they send another lunatic?"

"What the hell is this supposed to be? Some damn S+ assassin who brings a dog along?"

"They've got terrible naming sense too..."

What Silver Fox did not know was that after the girl led the dog down the tree-lined path, she encountered a tall, middle-aged man around the corner. The man always wore a cheerful smile.

"You Rose Blood Knights really won't give up, will you?"

The man sighed. "That old man was Silver Fox, wasn't he? The Li Family is determined to clear every obstacle for Li Nanbei."

"What a pity. If you hadn't stopped him, he would already be dead."

The girl remained expressionless, still looking dull and foolish.

The dog lazily wagged its tail.

"Even if you don't speak, you can't hide your identity. The only ones who can make Silver Fox so obedient are the four highest-ranking S+ assassins of Rose Blood Knight."

"You're a woman, so you definitely aren't Spinning Top or Mantis. I heard Black Lily is no longer young, so her Disguise Technique surely cannot be this good. That means you're Xiao An."

The middle-aged man looked at her coldly. "Ronan is someone I, Fan Wenbin, intend to protect. You Rose Blood Knights can give up now."

The girl remained silent. After a long while, she forcefully patted the dog on the head.

"Shaobing!"

"Let's go."

With that, the girl and dog went around Fan Wenbin and vanished at the end of the tree-lined path.

Naturally, Ronan knew nothing about what had happened in the little shop or along the tree-lined path.

He arrived at the designated exam room as scheduled.

More people had signed up for the Leap Grade Exam than he had expected—over twenty, surprisingly.

Since it was computer-based and the classroom was fairly large, everyone sat scattered about.

Ronan casually found a seat in a corner.

The classroom was fitted with cameras covering every angle, and there were dedicated human proctors as well, making cheating virtually impossible.

After turning on his computer, he found that there were still five minutes before the exam officially began.

Feeling a little bored, Ronan looked around.

A young boy sat to his left.

This boy was very unusual.

Almost at first glance, Ronan narrowed his eyes—only those who knew Ronan well would understand that this instinctive action was a sign that he was about to analyze a person or situation.

That boy... was very beautiful.

Yes, the other party was clearly male, yet his features were so delicate that "handsome" did not suit him. Only "beautiful" could describe him.

Even Ronan, who normally had little feeling for appearances, found him especially stunning at first sight.

Yet that was not what made Ronan curious.

His instincts told him that the boy before him was anything but ordinary.

"Interesting... I've run into a lot of unusual people today..."

Ronan silently withdrew his gaze. A tiny place like Bo Ning Academy actually had so many people capable of triggering his Danger Perception.

Oh, right. There was also a dog.

This world did not seem so easy after all.

He cleared his mind and focused.

A while later, the exam began.

The Leap Grade Exam was generally more difficult than the graduation exam for the Basic Class.

Only in this way could they ensure that students advancing a grade were not getting into the Advanced Class early through opportunism.

This exam had a total of 150 questions, covering every subject taught in the Basic Class. The difficulty was relatively high for Basic Class students, but the most outrageous part was the sheer breadth of knowledge involved!

This placed extremely high demands on one's foundations.

Almost immediately, several students frowned.

The exam was harder than they had imagined.

The two proctors looked at those frowning students with sneers, thinking to themselves, "How could the Leap Grade Exam possibly be so easy?"

"These overambitious fools—over twenty people actually came to skip a grade this time. Do they really think Bo Ning Academy is some third-rate school like the one next door?"

With that mindset, the two gradually let their gazes wander.

But in the next second, both of them revealed shocked expressions!

They saw that the two people in the corner were answering questions at an unbelievable speed!

Both boys looked unfamiliar, so they were probably new students who had enrolled in the Basic Class this year.

The two seemed completely unrelated, yet when answering questions, they were astonishingly alike.

Both were expressionless and utterly focused, answering at an inconceivably fast pace!

"Access the question bank and see what's going on!"

The two proctors exchanged a glance, immediately used their authority, and began secretly examining the two.

But what they saw gave them a fright.

For the moment, they did not know the two boys' accuracy rates, but their speed was absurdly fast!

Within thirty minutes, the two had almost simultaneously completed nearly two-thirds of the test—one hundred questions!

"Too fast... too fast! These aren't multiple-choice questions... Even blind guessing couldn't be this fast, could it?"

"With that typing speed... are they getting the answers the instant they look at the questions?"

"Impossible! How could there be such monsters in this world? Even if there were, there couldn't be two of them!"

The two proctors looked as though they had seen a ghost.

Their expressions turned extremely grave. They could not even be bothered to watch the others anymore, focusing most of their attention on the two boys.

About ten minutes later, the red progress bar representing the remaining questions turned gray.

That meant someone had completed every question and submitted their paper!

Who was it!?

Both proctors looked up at the same time!

Yet when they looked up, Ronan had already risen to his feet, nodded to them, and quietly left the examination room.

Almost at the same time, the other handsome youth who looked like a girl lazily stretched.

He glanced at Ronan in surprise, seemingly astonished that someone had actually finished faster than him.

But he did not dwell on it. He likewise greeted the proctors and left the classroom.

The two proctors looked at each other, unable to stop themselves from whispering privately:

"What was that?"

"Who are those two kids?"

Unable to resist, they used their authority to pull up the two youths' test papers.

One of them was named Ronan. They found him somewhat familiar.

The other's surname was Bai.

One of the most important characters in this book made a grand entrance! Throw flowers! Please vote daily.