Dispute

After returning to the Shen Family, Bi Kai went to the General Affairs Department to register, have his name entered into the rolls, and collect his waist token, Monthly Stipend, and so on. Previously, father and son had used temporary passes issued the night before.

Zhuang Jin had originally wanted to accompany him, but Bi Kai refused, saying there was no need for the trouble. Perhaps Bi Kai already felt indebted and did not want to burden him further. Zhuang Jin did not insist. He went alone to the Skill Transmission Department and collected the Quiet Cultivation Manual for the One to Three Meridian stages of the Black Fiend Art, as well as the Black Fiend Palm booklet.

Afterward, he went to the Pill Department and bought two doses of Black Essence Powder. He did not buy the Black Fiend Palm Medicine Pack, however. Because his body was still depleted, he planned to heed Ping Yongfeng's advice and focus first on improving his cultivation realm.

When he returned to the Formal Martial Artist dormitories, Ding-grade Room 51, someone had already come back.

"Ha ha, Jinzi, you're here!" The moment he entered, he heard Xiong Lei's delighted voice, followed immediately by a complaint. "That day, when you told me you were just a little short, I thought you meant you were just a little short of Grasping Blood Qi. Who would have thought you were the same as me—just a hair away from breaking through the bottleneck? That was hardly decent of you. You kept me in the dark so badly!"

Seeing that Xiong Lei had indeed filled in the gaps himself, Zhuang Jin did not explain. He merely smiled faintly.

"Also, I heard all about what happened last night. You smacked Wang Rui half to death with one palm and saved Bi Kai. That was downright imposing and domineering—amazing! Too bad I didn't get to see it..." Xiong Lei rattled on in startled bursts.

Zhuang Jin gave him a surprised look. What had happened last night had already spread among the Martial Students this morning, but there was a divide between the Martial Students and the Formal Martial Artists. Had the news really traveled here so quickly?

However, once he saw someone, he immediately understood.

Besides himself and Xiong Lei, there were three others in the room. One was Xiang Qichen, whom he had met before at the same Training Ground. Another was an unfamiliar roommate in gray robes, somewhat taller and looking mild and amiable. He was presumably one of the two from other Training Grounds who had broken through to become Martial Artists on the same day as Xiong Lei. The last person was, unexpectedly, Qian Wende!

Qian Wende actually broke through to become a Formal Martial Artist too? Zhuang Jin looked deeply at him, suddenly recalling certain details he had overlooked in recent days.

After the Beggars incident, Qian Wende began distancing himself from the little group formed by Xiong Lei and me. He stopped sharing insider tidbits with Xiong Lei. At the time, I only thought he had seen me get tangled up in trouble and decided our little group was no longer worth currying favor with. But now that I think about it, perhaps he had already begun to feel something about Grasping Blood Qi then. He realized his own talent, thought highly of himself, and that was part of it too.

Besides, why had Qian Wende not told Ping Yongfeng after Grasping Blood Qi, like Xiang Qichen and Xiong Lei had?

That was the result of his own folly. On the first day, he had shamelessly tried to ask for an extra bowl of Qi Channel Opening Soup and had nearly been thrown out. Later, Ping Yongfeng somehow learned of it. Once, when he saw Qian Wende practicing Stance Training incorrectly, he berated him, saying, "With the likes of you, you still dare to make a nuisance of yourself, eating more and taking more?" Qian Wende had been so frightened that his face turned pale. Knowing Ping Yongfeng had a poor opinion of him, it was no wonder he had not dared to speak up after completing the first step of Grasping Blood Qi.

Xiong Lei introduced them to Zhuang Jin one by one. "This is Xiang Qichen, Brother Xiang. You know him too, Jinzi. He became a Martial Artist in fourteen days—the number one among our batch of Martial Students. This is Lin Hong. He broke through on the same day as me. There's another who broke through with us, called Jiao Kun, but he went out and isn't here. And this last one, you know him too, Jinzi. It's Dezi. He even told us quite a few insider tidbits."

When Xiong Lei introduced him, Qian Wende spoke with some pride. "Today, while I was practicing Stance Training, I kept practicing and then suddenly broke through. I thought I would still have to wait another two days!"

Zhuang Jin greeted them one by one. Just as he was about to make up his bed, he saw that the berth where he had originally placed his bedding had already been neatly made up—but it was clearly not his bedding. Looking around, he found that his bedding had been moved to the lower berth of the bed by the door.

Seeing Zhuang Jin's gaze sweep across the room, Qian Wende came over with an ingratiating smile. "Brother Zhuang, with my fat build, it's inconvenient for me to climb in and out of an upper berth. I'm also afraid of the cold, so I can't sleep well in that lower berth by the door. I wanted to discuss switching berths with you."

As mentioned before, this dormitory had eight berths. Xiang Qichen and the others had already claimed four inside. Of the two remaining beds and four berths, one bed was by the door. With the weather gradually turning colder, opening and closing the door as people came and went inevitably let in cold drafts. Zhuang Jin's bedding had originally been on the lower berth of the other bed, the best of the remaining four berths. Now Qian Wende had moved it to the lower berth by the door.

You directly moved my bedding over and set up your own, and you call that discussing it with me? No wonder you were capable of trying to eat more and take more Qi Channel Opening Soup on your very first day!

Zhuang Jin was so angry he laughed. He looked at Qian Wende. "You said you wanted to discuss it with me, right? Fine. My answer is no switch."

As he spoke, he rolled up Qian Wende's bedding and tossed it onto the lower berth by the door, then moved his own bedding back.

It was not that Zhuang Jin absolutely had to fuss over a berth. It was that Qian Wende was clearly treating him like a fool!

Through all the previous incidents, he had long since seen this man's true nature clearly: thick-skinned beyond measure, trimming his sails to the wind, with no moral bottom line. Even if Zhuang Jin agreed to switch berths, Qian Wende would not be grateful. Instead, he would label Zhuang Jin as "easy to talk to" and push his luck, climbing right up his nose, testing more boundaries bit by bit in hopes of taking even greater advantage.

Rather than being pushed to his limit until he could endure no more and then tear all pretense apart, it was better to establish from the start that he was not someone to be trifled with. Qian Wende needed to know that this tactic would not work on him, and that he should go find someone else to use it on.

The moment Zhuang Jin spoke with anger in his voice, the dormitory atmosphere immediately tightened.

"We're all in the same dormitory. Living together is fate." Xiang Qichen frowned and mediated with the bearing of the dormitory's elder brother. "Dezi was wrong in this matter. Even if he wanted to switch berths, he should have said something first."

There were no real rules regarding the dormitory berths. Whoever came first and claimed one owned it. Zhuang Jin had placed his bedding on that berth, clearly claiming it. Qian Wende had boarded first and bought the ticket afterward, switching places without Zhuang Jin's consent. He truly had no ground to stand on.

"Yes, my fault, my fault!" Qian Wende's expression stiffened for a moment, but he quickly recovered his smile and admitted his mistake.

"But you too, Jinzi. It's only a berth, nothing that serious. Did you really have to fuss over every last detail and speak with such fire?" After criticizing Qian Wende, Xiang Qichen turned to criticize Zhuang Jin as well.

Unlike Qian Wende, who had immediately admitted fault, Zhuang Jin merely raised his head and glanced at Xiang Qichen upon hearing this. It was as though he were saying, If a berth is nothing serious, then why don't you switch with Qian Wende? He did not say it aloud, though. He simply lowered his head again and continued making up his bed.

That response, where silence spoke louder than words, left Xiang Qichen standing there awkwardly, frozen in place.