Frequent Invitations (Part 1)

Actually, after Ronan lifted his eyelids, his vision remained blurry for another two seconds. When it finally came into focus, all he saw was a wall.

The person in front of him was tall and brawny, a full head taller than Ronan. With his back blocking the sunlight, his entire face was shrouded in shadow. Seeing him so suddenly was rather frightening.

But once Ronan shifted his angle and looked again, the sturdy body was topped by a fairly honest-looking face, still carrying the youthful immaturity of a student. He barely had any facial hair, and the way he laughed with his mouth wide open was oddly endearing.

After thinking back for a moment, Ronan realized that his own deadpan expression and muttering had probably stood out too much. The other person had waved to test him out of genuine concern.

He smiled back. "I'm fine. I just spaced out for a moment."

Spaced out? The Other Side immediately wore a broad, understanding grin that said, "You might be putting on a brave face, but we're both men—I get it." Then he introduced himself. "Good thing you're fine. I'm Xue Lei, from He Wu District, Tenth Grade."

"Ronan. Also Tenth Grade, from He Wu District."

"Huh, you're in He Wu District too? I'm on Shuang He Road. Where are you?"

"Blue Bay Community. I only moved there recently."

"That's not far at all. What a coincidence!" Xue Lei clapped his hands and laughed heartily. "To meet by the roadside is fate itself. Just call me Lei Zi."

...He was definitely from the martial-arts world.

Ronan was choked up by the other boy's wuxia-style phrasing. He had no idea whether it was intentional, and for a moment, he did not know how to respond.

But Xue Lei's big mouth could carry the conversation all by itself. "Then I'll call you Nan Zi. Fate is fate! Actually, I'd already walked past you just now, but I heard your aura resonating—buzz, buzz, buzz—like you were chanting a spell. It sounded like breathing practice, but not quite, and then I saw your complexion... like that. I thought something had gone wrong with your training. Heh, good thing you're all right. Good thing you're all right."

At words like breathing practice and training, Ronan's heart stirred, and he gave Xue Lei another once-over. He noticed that Xue Lei's clothes were rather unusual. They looked like a training uniform from some fitness center—light gray, with a distinctive three-legged cauldron emblem on the left chest.

Noticing where Ronan was looking, Xue Lei puffed out his chest.

"This is our dojo's training uniform. Nice, right?"

"Uh... it was you?" Ronan answered irrelevantly, because a memory had surfaced from the depths of his mind. That burly build, that gray jacket—both looked increasingly familiar.

Xue Lei did not understand. "You know me?"

Ronan prompted him. "This morning, outside the South District 2 Changing Room."

"It was you!"

Xue Lei recognized Ronan too, but his reaction was strange. He first glanced back over his shoulder, then lowered his voice. "You should be okay, right? Those people should've all been driven off..."

"Yes. Thank you for coming to my aid." Ronan thanked him in the same "martial-arts world" style.

Sure enough, truth was stranger than fiction. This burly classmate before him was the Kind Soul who had helped him out that morning. In a massive campus housing hundreds of thousands of people, the odds of running into each other again were truly minuscule.

"It was nothing, nothing. I was just passing by and happened to catch it."

Xue Lei waved his hands repeatedly, but after only a few words, excitement was already written all over his face. "Nan Zi, I could tell your body is a bit weak, but your moves were pretty sharp. You were precise about where you struck, too. Have you trained before?"

As he spoke, Xue Lei gestured animatedly. He was just short of touching Ronan to demonstrate.

Ronan did not know whether he should fend him off. At that moment, someone suddenly called out from behind Xue Lei.

"Lei Zi, what are you doing?"

At the voice, Xue Lei's body stiffened. He immediately pulled back his hand, plastered on a smile, then turned around. "Xiaolin, over here. I ran into a classmate I know..."

A few seconds later, a tall, slender girl walked over and naturally hooked her arm through Xue Lei's, making their relationship clear. If nothing else, their heights were quite well matched.

Xue Lei hurriedly introduced them. "This is my girlfriend, Chen Xiaolin. She's a year above us... This is Ronan. He lives in He Wu District too, around Blue Bay, right?"

Ronan smiled and nodded without saying much.

Chen Xiaolin had a short, layered haircut, jeans, and a simple white top, giving her a clean and capable look. Her facial contours were sharply defined, and her slightly upturned eyes made her seem shrewd and sharp. The balance of power between her and the guileless Xue Lei was obvious at a glance.

However, Chen Xiaolin was very tactful in dealing with people. Calling him "junior," she greeted Ronan with a smile, her manner perfectly measured.

Seeing the couple together, Ronan did not want to intrude any longer. He prepared to leave, but he certainly needed to properly thank Xue Lei for helping him.

"About this morning..."

He had barely begun when Xue Lei started frantically signaling with his eyes. Ronan froze. Seeing Chen Xiaolin frown beside him, he understood that there were complications and that it was not appropriate to speak openly.

After some thought, he simply held out his hand. "You two go ahead. Lei Zi, let's add each other as friends... okay?"

"Of course, of course."

Xue Lei grinned and reached out, pressing his wristband against Ronan's.

"Buzz, buzz, buzz!"

"Buzz, buzz, buzz!"

The moment they touched, both wristbands began vibrating almost simultaneously, with startling intensity.

"Oh, come on—two swords united! Ah!" Xue Lei cried out.

His final cry was a pained groan after Chen Xiaolin viciously pinched his waist.

Ronan, meanwhile, confirmed that it was the alert vibration for a high-priority message. Raising his wrist, he saw that the sender was Li Mingde, the Tenth Grade full-time advisor, ordering Ronan to report to his office at five o'clock.

Probably because yesterday's skipped classes and missed exam had come to light.

Beside him, Xue Lei finally realized what was happening. After checking his own message, he bared his teeth. "Old Immortal Mingde has summoned me. Nothing good can come of that."

Ronan looked up at him. "You too?"

Xue Lei blinked. "What?"

After a moment of blankness, Xue Lei immediately understood. When he looked at Ronan again, his expression was full of "kindred spirit" sentiment. "You didn't join any clubs either?"

Ronan immediately realized that his earlier judgment had been slightly off.

Xue Lei was already grumbling to himself. Spreading his hands, he said, "I really wanted to join a club, but I checked out the martial arts clubs and fitness clubs, and they were way worse than our dojo. There was really nothing interesting... Oh, right, shall we go over together?"

"My time is five o'clock."

Xue Lei was overjoyed. "Mine's five too! Talk about fate—let's go together!"

Chen Xiaolin, standing beside them, thought of something and asked Ronan, "You didn't join a club, so you must be a freshman who just got into the institute?"

Ronan nodded.

Chen Xiaolin's eyes immediately lit up. "Junior, which middle school did you attend before? He Wu Experimental too, like Lei Zi?"

"No, I went to No. 6."

"Xia City No. 6 Middle School? A prestigious school! But that's a long way from He Wu District..."

"I used to live in Na De District. I only moved to He Wu District after getting into Zhi Xing Institute."

"Na De District? That's already the core district, isn't it? The housing prices there are astronomical!"

"Not too bad."

Ronan found Chen Xiaolin's household-background-investigation style of questioning a little hard to handle, and he became even more inclined to leave.

But Chen Xiaolin was already smiling as she suggested, "It's almost four now. With Advisor Li waiting for us, we won't be able to get anything done anyway. Why don't we sit in an ice cream shop for a while? You two can head over when it's time."

Naturally, Xue Lei agreed. Ronan found it hard to refuse with Xue Lei there, so he nodded and accepted.