Copper Trigram Immortal Master: "Northern River, what's that supposed to mean? You've gone way too far! The next full moon, at the Forbidden Summit. Do you dare show up?"
"Sure. You think I'm scared of a fake fortune-teller like you? But I'm busy next full moon. How about three months from now?" Northern River's Loose Cultivator agreed readily. "Also, how am I supposed to find you? You have too many identities. Change your disguise, and I wouldn't recognize you even if you stood right in front of me."
Copper Trigram Immortal Master was not only "proficient" in divination, but also quite skilled at disguises. Everyone in the group suspected he had often been chased down for getting his predictions wrong and had been forced to flee under new identities. Over time, he had developed an impressive knack for disguising himself and changing outfits.
"Three months it is! Just wait at the Forbidden Summit. I'll find you! I'd recognize that hateful face of yours even if you were burned to ashes!" Copper Trigram Immortal Master snapped.
"Then it's settled!" Northern River's Loose Cultivator remained perfectly calm, as though he had Copper Trigram Immortal Master firmly in the bag.
At this point, True Lord Yellow Mountain suddenly posted a smiling emoji and said, "It seems you're close to a breakthrough, Northern River, and need a battle as the catalyst to push through in one go? You've spent a long time in the fifth-grade Spirit Emperor realm. It's time you advanced. If I can spare the time on the full moon three months from now, I'll come to the Forbidden Summit to oversee your duel. I'll prepare a little gift for each of you while I'm at it."
"True Lord, you truly understand me!" Northern River's Loose Cultivator immediately lost his composure. True Lord Yellow Mountain was a senior of long standing. Anything he prepared would certainly be far more than a "little gift."
Even a few scraps slipping through these seniors' fingers would be treasures their juniors could only obtain through extraordinary good fortune!
"Since you've said that, True Lord, I won't leave Northern River out in the cold. I was originally planning to let him stand at the Forbidden Summit enjoying the cold wind for half the night," Copper Trigram Immortal Master said leisurely.
"..." Northern River's Loose Cultivator.
Bastard!
Just what you'd expect from a fortune-teller who toys with people's minds. What a dirty heart!
Northern River silently resolved that in three months, he would beat Copper Trigram Immortal Master so badly that even the True Lord wouldn't recognize him!
With that settled, the group chat fell quiet for the time being.
After reading the group's chat history, Song Shuhang felt a little worried. Would Copper Trigram Immortal Master and Northern River's Loose Cultivator really run off to the Forbidden Summit in the Forbidden City to duel three months from now? Given their personalities, they might actually do something that stupid. What if the staff caught them?
I'll make a note of this for now. Before leaving the group, I should remind them not to damage national cultural relics. That's against the law.
After closing the group chat, Song Shuhang opened the Jiangnan Region University Town website to check the day's news.
The campus website's top story was the inexplicable thunderstorm that afternoon. Just as Song Shuhang had guessed, the lightning had struck H City.
Those sudden thunderbolts out of a clear sky had caused power outages in parts of H City and the neighboring Jiangnan Region, leading to a string of accidents. Fortunately, there had been no casualties.
Further down were assorted news items about Jiangnan Region University Town: updates to the rankings of campus beauties and handsome guys; another star student conquering the nation by placing in a national competition; how much a quilt slept under by a graduating female student had fetched at auction; and so on.
Shuhang wasn't interested in these things. He only skimmed them so he would have something in common to talk about when chatting with other people.
Then he searched the campus website for driving lesson registration information. Lessons for an ordinary manual-transmission car cost 2,500 yuan. Student rates really were affordable. Here in the Jiangnan Region, once you left school, driving lessons started at ten thousand yuan.
Shuhang noted down the contact number. He planned to study the theory over the next few days, then register for driving lessons. The driving school offered scheduled theory classes, but studying on his own first and then registering directly for the test and lessons would be quicker.
Ding-dong~
A new campus news update caught his attention.
Just ten to twenty minutes earlier, the delinquents who hung around the alleys near University Town had been knocked flat by an unidentified expert, wiped out in an instant.
Most of these so-called delinquents were actually students, with a smaller number of young dropouts among them. Most were merely rebellious youths who sported outrageous hairstyles, pierced various parts of their bodies, and hid from their teachers in alleys to sneak a smoke.
Some also enjoyed forcibly "borrowing" money from younger students or timid older ones. To the delinquents, ganging up on someone and beating them was a hobby, while getting beaten themselves was an everyday occurrence. Since they had no gangs or organized groups, they didn't even qualify as street thugs.
Delinquents getting beaten up wasn't news. But nearly a hundred of them all getting thrashed within a few short minutes was another matter.
Photos taken on students' phones at the scene showed the delinquents' miserable condition. Every face was grotesquely swollen, painted in shades of blue, purple, and red as though they were about to perform in a Peking opera. It fit that saying perfectly: beaten so badly that even their mothers wouldn't recognize them!
The campus website buzzed with discussion.
Someone gloated, "Who did this? They really didn't hold back. Was it the Sanda Club or the taekwondo club? Or was the boxing club training its new members by teaming up to farm delinquents?"
An informed commenter wrote, "They were all knocked unconscious and are being taken to the hospital. None of them have woken up yet, so nobody knows who did it."
An armchair detective wrote, "According to the shopkeepers beside the alleys, nobody saw any big groups of delinquents fighting. And even if they were fighting each other, how could there be nobody left standing? They couldn't all take each other out so neatly. So an expert probably stepped in. One person, or a few people, took down all the delinquents."
"An expert? The kind who can fight eighty people alone? Haha," someone scoffed. There had been at least eighty delinquents beaten up, if not a hundred. To knock that many down within a few minutes, a martial arts hero would have to step right out of the television, wouldn't they?
"Maybe an elite special forces ace did it? They say those guys can take down an ordinary person like it's nothing. They could drop a dozen in a minute."
"Is the person above joking? Even if special forces aces really are that amazing, they have their own missions. Sending them after delinquents would be like shooting mosquitoes with a cannon!"
"Stop arguing. Won't we know who did it once the delinquents wake up?" someone replied.
Song Shuhang refreshed the page, glanced through a few more replies, then closed the news window.
The delinquents' business had nothing to do with him anyway.
Although Song Shuhang was only 175 centimeters tall, he was sturdy. He didn't look like the sort of person they could "borrow" money from. He and the delinquents practically lived in different worlds... barring anything unexpected, he would never have anything to do with them in his entire life.
He stretched, closed the campus website, and leaned back in his chair, emptying his mind.
That strange thundercloud from the morning kept lingering in his thoughts. Even as he tried to clear his head, lightning would flash through it from time to time, leaving him unable to settle down.
The next day.
Sunday, June 2. Clear skies.
Song Shuhang got up early. He had originally planned to stay up all night, but the series of events the previous day had left him feeling strange. For some reason, he had lost the urge to pull an all-nighter, washed up, and gone to bed early instead.
His roommates would be back at the dorm that evening.
After getting up and washing, Shuhang habitually opened the chat app in the bottom-right corner of his screen. His cousin Zhao Yaya still hadn't replied. It looked like he would have to wait another couple of days.
If my cousin still hasn't replied in two days, I'll give her a call, Song Shuhang thought.
Then he opened the Nine Provinces Number One Group again. Every glance put him in a wonderful mood.
But look too often, and it was easy to get drawn into their way of thinking.
The first message in the group was from Su Clan's Seven: "Sorry for worrying everyone. There was a small mishap with Little Sixteen's tribulation lightning, but I've dealt with it. After the mishap, Little Sixteen threw a bit of a tantrum. Still, I found her and took her away, so nothing too serious happened. It's just that somewhere near H City, a few... well, a few dozen ordinary people who didn't know any better were knocked unconscious by Little Sixteen. Nobody died. I'll be taking her back to the Su Clan Sect next, so I probably won't be online for the next few days. Anyway... please don't worry."
The message had been sent at three that morning.
Before you continue