After repeatedly confirming the news Chu Yi had reported, Jia Zhaoxian and Fang Shihui were so bitter they couldn't find the words for it. The trouble they'd gotten into was hard enough to stomach, but the real problem was how humiliating it was. And even that wasn't the worst of it—the whole affair made them look like fools, especially after Professor Wang Pang's critique.
It was as if the words "idiot" had been carved into their foreheads, impossible to scrape off. "Fuck him. If he won't let me live, I'll make sure he dies." Jia Zhaoxian's eyes bulged with rage. With a furious shout, he charged down the steps and raced toward Xu Yi.
"This is intolerable! If we can't take down Xu Yi, word of this will get out and we'll all become laughingstocks. It won't just disgrace us—it'll drag our families down with us. Everyone, now is no time to hold back. Are you prepared to fight to the death?" Fang Shihui cried coldly. Chu Yi and the others shared his fury and answered in unison, "We'll give it everything we've got!"
The group swept off in a cloud of dust, heading straight for Xu Yi's cave abode. The students who saw them recalled what had happened that morning at Zhaohui Hall and immediately realized something big was about to go down. The news spread from one person to ten, then a hundred, and soon it was all over the place.
When Jia Zhaoxian reached Xu Yi's cave abode, he shouted insults, trying to provoke Xu Yi into coming out. He cursed for a long time, but no one answered. Zuo Shihui and the others joined in the uproar, until someone said, "Looking for Xu Yi? He's playing chess in the Purple Bamboo Forest. You've come to the