Bu Liuxing sat beside the desk, perfectly still.
Nervously biting his nails, he lowered his head and saw the ruby on his protective talisman shimmering.
At that very moment, he could clearly feel that the manuscript on the desk held an unusually powerful allure for him.
That strange allure went beyond anything ordinary—it definitely wasn't just his desire to read acting up.
It was like hunger or thirst, or the way your eyes couldn't help straying toward a gorgeous woman in a miniskirt on the street.
His lips were dry, his eyes fixed straight ahead. The seconds ticked by, each one dragging unbearably for A Xing.
"I mustn't look! Absolutely mustn't look!"
Only then did Bu Liuxing understand what Teacher Victor had meant by "knightly jousting."
This wasn't some simple contest of endurance.
—it was a battle of wills.
There was definitely something wrong with those pages. They were imbued with powerful magic or some kind of superpower.
A Xing stared gravely at the bookcase, its shelves crammed with the journals of other passengers.
Several shadows darted from the darkest depths of the shelves, perhaps mice.
The faint scurrying sounds set A Xing's nerves on edge, and his eyes grew bloodshot.
If the passenger guidelines were accurate, then there was no doubt about it—David Victor was an Armadillo Hunter.
After Teacher Victor left, the oppressive feeling gradually faded, allowing Bu Liuxing's mind to find a sliver of clarity amid the fear.
When he thought back over the past ten minutes or so, he suddenly came to his senses. Perhaps many passengers, like him, had been drawn to the articles in The Sun Times, like insects catching the scent of rotting flesh and flying straight into the mouth of a carnivorous plant.
Realizing this—
—Bu Liuxing immediately pulled out his phone.
But his thumb hovered over the unlock button, unable to press it. At that moment, he felt deeply ashamed.
"When I parted ways with Big Brother Xue Ming, I promised I'd try my luck with the other passengers. But what am I doing? What am I doing?!"
He slapped his cheeks, trying to shake off the manuscript's allure. Frustrated and heartsick, he stomped his feet in anger.
"I can't cause him any more trouble! He said he'd be really happy if I found out anything useful. I hardly ever get to see Big Brother Xue Ming smile. Anything that can make him smile is very, very important!"
At last, he understood—
—why the old passenger who had guarded his clothes outside the restroom was always talking to himself.
There were many deadly temptations in this underground world, luring people into frenzied pursuit. Sometimes even your own mind betrayed you, making you believe false signals and mistaken instructions.
Only by speaking your thoughts aloud and constantly reinforcing them could you keep yourself from being ruled by bewildering hallucinations.
Just as Bu Liuxing had learned his lesson and was about to get up and leave, another powerful sense of shame held his legs back.
It was as if two icy hands had seized his ankles. He couldn't move another step.
"I promised Victor I'd guard this manuscript for him."
Bu Liuxing's breathing grew heavier. The one-meter-ninety giant began to pant like an ox.
"From the moment we met, Teacher never once put on airs with me. He opened his heart to a stranger, shared his troubles, and asked for help. Even if he's an Armadillo Hunter, even if he's an enemy, I accepted this challenge, so I absolutely can't give up or break my word!"
There were five minutes left—
—Victor would be back in five minutes at the earliest, nine at the latest.
"He cut open his own hand to write a good story, just as if he were fulfilling a promise to his readers. Teacher is a man of his word. Writing a living, bloody severed hand—it must have hurt, right? It must have hurt so much."
Bu Liuxing pressed his lips together and crossed his arms, his eyes burning with defiance.
"How can I let him down? If I promised him, I have to see it through. Otherwise, how am I supposed to beat him?"
He swallowed nervously, but his eyes kept drifting toward the manuscript on the desk.
"Even if Teacher is a Hunter, I'll wait until after our duel to ask him what's going on. Then I'll decide whether to punch him. Teacher's only one meter eighty, and he doesn't look sturdy at all. I'm not afraid of him in a fight."
He reached up sharply, cupped his chin, and forced his head straight.
"Don't do it, Bu Liuxing."
A Xing scolded himself fiercely.
"Don't peek. Don't get impatient."
Just then—
—David Victor came back.
The eccentric writer pushed open the door.
Bu Liuxing felt as though he'd just returned from the Gate of Hell. He jumped to his feet. "Teacher! You're back? Does that mean I won?"
"No." Victor looked apologetic. "The train has just entered Northern Territory Zone Seventy, and it's a little cold. I came back to change. Besides, it wouldn't be very polite to go to the dining car in my pajamas."
"Oh, I see." Bu Liuxing sat back down and nervously checked the time on his waterproof watch. Less than two minutes had passed.
After changing, Victor slowly walked out. Before leaving, he asked A Xing, "Sorry to get your hopes up. You didn't peek at my draft, did you?"
"Don't worry, Teacher!" Bu Liuxing answered at once. "I won't look! No matter how many times you come back to change, I'm fine with it. I could guard it for another half hour!"
At A Xing's answer, Victor looked as though he'd lost something precious, a deep sadness in his expression. It took him a long time to recover from that sorrowful mood before he brightened up again.
"Not bad. Very good, Bu Liuxing. You really do have a good eye. If I could get my hands on your journal, it would make for a fascinating life story!"
A Xing asked another question. "Teacher, you..."
"Yes, I'm a Hunter." Victor admitted it openly and without hesitation. "To write better stories, I win your journals through one duel after another. It's like the famous author Hemingway. He seized on his good friend's shameful love affair and risked destroying their friendship to put the material in a book, turning it into a treat for readers."
A Xing fell silent—
—he rarely went completely quiet.
After Victor left to properly prepare the coffee, the suffocating pressure around him faded. Only then did A Xing finally realize that the joust had truly begun.
"In that case, I definitely can't lose."
He hurriedly opened his phone and searched through the journals.
He and Jiang Xueming had copied their phone data to each other's devices. Their investigation records were shared, so there was no way to separate out a journal belonging to just one of them.
It contained all kinds of information about Jiang Xueming, including his [love affair] with Mrs. Canaan, as well as Jiang Bailu and the Universal Elixir.
He thought carefully about how terrifying it would be for Big Brother Xue Ming if these things ended up in the newspaper.
David Victor made his way to the dining car.
As he passed through one carriage after another, the passengers, who had been chatting animatedly, fell silent at once.
Only after he left did they recover from the oppressive atmosphere and begin whispering among themselves.
"That's a VIP from the guest carriage."
"Which one?"
"David Victor. The Boss likes him a lot. He's a translator."
"When he passed me, it felt like someone had their hand around my throat."
"There's always something nearly fanatical about those distinguished guests. It's unsettling."
Mr. Victor had changed into a respectable outfit.
He wore a dress jacket and tight leather trousers, giving him a dashing look. On his feet were bright red cloth boots with upturned toes. A black velvet scarf and silver hair ornaments set off his golden curls. A belt made of seventeen silver medal buckles cinched his waist. He twirled a fountain pen in one hand and carried a square doctor's bag in the other—an extremely flamboyant ensemble.
A frosty wind blew in from the cold reaches of the Northern Territory beyond the carriage. Many passengers had already pulled down their windows, but when they saw the flamboyant, foppish writer pass by, they instinctively hunched their shoulders and shrank away toward the cold windows.
Victor reached the dining car and took several ingredients for White Lady coffee from his heavy doctor's bag, then began making it.
Just then, Jiang Xueming entered the dining car. He still wasn't reassured. Thinking of Bu Liuxing so distracted by all sorts of things that he could barely find his way, he had waited only ten minutes or so before deciding to go look for him.
Then Xue Ming spotted the oddly dressed man with golden curls in the dining car.
Unlike the other passengers, the golden-haired man made no effort to avoid him and didn't seem afraid at all.
That made Xue Ming pay closer attention. He put on a false, customer-service smile and greeted him.
"Hello! What should I call you, sir?"
Victor fiddled with the bottles and jars on the table, paying Jiang Xueming no attention as he immersed himself in making the coffee.
Jiang Xueming moved closer, got a good look at the man, and asked again without rushing him. "Hello! My name is Jiang Xueming. What should I call you, sir?"
"David Victor." Hearing the newcomer give his full name, Victor replied politely.
Jiang Xueming reached into his pocket for a cigarette, but Victor stopped him with a look.
So Xue Ming put the cigarette away. He didn't take out his phone to show a photo either, not wanting to leave behind any strange loose ends.
He continued with his questions.
"Mr. Victor, have you seen my friend?"
"What does he look like?"
"He's tall and big, a one-meter-ninety bruiser. He looks very likable and approachable."
"Does he have big eyes? I'm not sure if he's the person you mean."
"Yes, he has big eyes and wears the standard passenger spirit garment."
"Anything else that stands out?"
"He's not very bright, cries easily, gets worked up in a temper, and has trouble controlling his emotions."
"Is he your friend?"
"He's a very important friend."
After that, the two of them fell silent.
Victor's eyes, like emeralds, were fixed intently on Xue Ming. He was like a scanner, trying to see the story written on Xue Ming.
Jiang Xueming didn't avoid his gaze. He circled around to Victor's side, blocking most of the passage.
—If Xue Ming didn't move, Victor wouldn't be able to go back the way he'd come.
Victor finally answered. "Yes, he's in my carriage."
"You're making coffee for him?" Jiang Xueming asked. "Could you take me to see him?"
Victor continued, "It'll probably take a few minutes. Could you do me a small favor? Answer a few questions."
Jiang Xueming replied, "What do you need me to do? Ask me anything."
"What flavor does your friend like?"
"Thirteen parts sugar. He really likes sweets."
"What about the acidity?"
"You'll have to ask his attendant. I don't know anything about coffee."
"Then I'll make it the usual way. Does he have any preferences about latte art or how it's stirred?"
"You'll have to ask his attendant that too."
"Could you find me two packets of sugar and two cartons of milk?"
"No problem."
"Jiang Xueming, if you're looking for him, why not call him?"
"I want him to meet some new people on the train and find out what's going on at our destination. But calling him out of the blue might interrupt his socializing. Mr. Victor, think about it. If you were enjoying a conversation with this young man and he suddenly had to take an urgent call, with no idea when he'd be back, it would probably spoil your mood."
"You're right. That's very considerate." Victor's face broke into a delighted smile.
During the few minutes it took to make the coffee,
Jiang Xueming found the experience rather strange. He felt very comfortable talking with this stranger.
The way the other man made coffee and treated the ingredients was serious and attentive. He was a highly skilled barista.
There was just one thing that puzzled him—
—Xue Ming could smell the perfume on this man that he'd smelled on Liuxing, as well as incense and blood.
He didn't immediately point out these disturbing and alarming details. He simply waited quietly for Mr. Victor to speak first.
If Bu Liuxing had already met with disaster, there was nothing he could do. If Bu Liuxing was being held hostage by the other man, there was nothing he could do about that either.
In this awkward social situation, he felt utterly powerless.
All he could do was probe through various topics, looking for a sense of security.
"Mr. Victor, are you a barista? Your technique looks very professional."
"No. I write articles for newspapers, mainly novels. Coffee can calm me down, and it can also excite me."
"Hmm."
Victor asked, "Jiang Xueming, you don't seem to trust me very much."
Jiang Xueming added an explanation. "When you're away from home, it's easy to feel uneasy."
Only three short minutes had passed since the [joust] officially began.
The coffee dripped from the filter into the gleaming White Lady solution.
Victor picked up the thread of [unease] that Xue Ming had mentioned.
"It's like when a teacher calls on you to recite Lu Xun in class. You happen to remember every word of Wild Grass, but you still feel a little uneasy, right?"
"That's an interesting way to put it." Xue Ming looked at the liquid in the coffee cup. "Mr. Victor, could you explain it in more detail?"
"There are two reasons for that uneasiness. The first is that the teacher may not ask you to recite Wild Grass at all. Maybe the text you need to recite is Hot Wind, something you weren't expecting." Victor couldn't find a spoon and was stumped at the counter.
Jiang Xueming immediately understood what he meant. He searched the cupboard for utensils alongside Victor, then said, "Right. On this train, I'm just worried all sorts of unexpected problems will suddenly crop up."
As he searched, Mr. Victor finished his explanation. "The second reason is that you memorized both collections, but then the teacher feints and doesn't call on you at all."
"Yes. I prepared all sorts of things for this trip. If I don't end up needing them, it feels like I've wasted my time." Jiang Xueming found a pair of chopsticks. "Victor, were you planning to stir the coffee? Would chopsticks work? There aren't any spoons here."
"No." Victor's expression was kind as he explained carefully. "A spoon is a spoon, and chopsticks are chopsticks. Just like the texts, they can't be mixed up. Even the way you stir it will change the coffee's flavor."
That meticulous, serious attitude gave Jiang Xueming an inexplicable sense of kinship.
"Mm. You're right. I..."
The next second, Jiang Xueming froze and fell silent.
Because he clearly saw that the coffee on the counter beside Victor had originally been a murky mixture, with a fluorescent sheen, milk residue, and all kinds of irregular brown specks.
When they had lowered their heads to look for a spoon and then looked up again,
in the space of just a few dozen seconds—
—the coffee had already been stirred.
For a fleeting moment, though his spirit garment shielded him and layers of spirit cloth wrapped around his Inspiration, Xue Ming could still sense—
—something beside Mr. Victor seemed to have helped him stir the coffee.
Just now, Xue Ming had glimpsed a vague, whip-shaped outline in the steam rising from the teapot. It seemed to be a tail.
It looked like a soft, boneless worm—a spirit serpent made of crimson flames. The tip of its tail was shaped like a flirtatious little heart, and it had just slipped away from the coffee cup.
This extraordinary flash of Inspiration made Jiang Xueming instinctively wary. It seemed some kind of demon was dwelling inside Victor.
"One cup's ready. It needs a little time to cool, so I'm going to make a second." Victor spoke as he continued fiddling with the containers. "It'll probably take a few more minutes."
Jiang Xueming stopped speaking of his own accord and simply listened.
Victor busied himself at the counter and resumed talking about empathy.
"Actually, I'm just like you, Jiang Xueming. My life is full of feelings of [unease], too."
"I write novels for The Sun Times. Every time I start writing, that feeling of unease comes over me. It's like God has his hand around my throat, but won't quite kill me."
"Will my manuscript be rejected when I submit it? Will it be published in the paper without any revisions?"
"Amid that suffocating panic, I don't feel as if I've grabbed a lifeline and crawled ashore until the manuscript has been revised and finalized. Then I get a brief moment of peace. But it never lasts long."
"Because an even greater sense of crisis comes rushing over me almost immediately."
"Does anyone care about my work?"
"That can't be right, can it? Surely at least one person does?"
"When I don't see congratulatory letters from readers, or can't even get a single comment, it only makes me more and more uneasy. Even bad reviews would help."
"Whenever I see other popular publications, I'm amazed by the wild imaginings of their authors and their work, and that only makes me even more uneasy."
"My thoughts turn over and over in my mind. I rack my brains, wondering how I can steal their readers, or snatch them away, or use my writing to trick, seize, and plunder them."
"As long as someone responds to me, even if their criticism is as foul as a dog's mouth, I'll be as happy as if I'd had a caramel macchiato, savoring every word. That's the response I get when I open my heart, and it helps me examine my own thoughts more clearly. Thank you, Jiang Xueming. Thank you for listening to all my complaints."
By the time he finished speaking, the moment had come—
—Victor turned around, hiding the second cup of coffee behind his back.
"Jiang Xueming, when we venture underground, we'll run into all sorts of dangerous and terrifying things. If all you do is defend yourself, that feeling of [unease] will only grow stronger until it slowly drives you mad."
"I'm a station VIP, so you could say I'm your senior. The BOSS also wants people like us to find opportunities to guide the passengers and teach you how to survive in this underground world."
"Speaking from my own experience, staying clearheaded amid [unease] or [madness] isn't something you can achieve through reason or careful thought alone."
Jiang Xueming had missed Victor's magic trick again, simply by letting his attention slip for a moment.
By the time Victor turned back to tidy the dishes, the second cup of coffee had been stirred. Jiang Xueming hadn't seen a spoon at any point.
He only heard Victor speaking softly, guiding the way ahead and describing things in a gentle, easygoing voice.
"I overcome my inner fears by writing. Those horrifying monsters and Spirit Calamities, those bizarre phenomena that make people tremble with fear—all of them set my creative urge ablaze, and courage wells up endlessly inside me. That's why I believe it's very important to find something you can anchor your courage to. I prepared a gift for your friend."
Jiang Xueming said, "Is it this cup of coffee?"
Victor said, "It's more important than the coffee."
"I should thank you on my friend's behalf," Jiang Xueming replied sincerely. "It seems he's very lucky to have met you on this train."
Victor stressed, "If you're observant enough, opportunities to get lucky are everywhere. It's just that, most of the time, that bitch Lady Luck favors the brave."
The two of them continued farther into the carriage.
The other passengers nearby were having a rough time. They had piled on top of one another to hide in every corner of the carriage, and some had even climbed into the luggage racks and curled up in the shadows.
At that very moment—
—Bu Liuxing was barely managing to cover his eyes.
He was certain that the pages on the desk had to be some evil wizard's spellbook. Otherwise, why wouldn't his hands or eyelids obey him at all?
In this silent struggle, A Xing felt his mental energy draining away at an alarming rate. It was as if he'd stayed up for days on end, but his body hadn't caught on and was still so excited that it refused to sleep.
"Don't look. Don't look at it. Don't look!" he kept reminding himself, determined not to do anything that would violate a knight's code of conduct.
But it was as if a cat in heat had taken up residence in his heart. There was no quelling his desire to peek at the manuscript.
He hunched over and buried his head between his thighs, trying to fight the terror of his emotions slipping out of control. He tried to distract himself in the darkness, to escape beyond the illusion.
Just then, a rustling sound dragged him violently back to reality.
Overcome by curiosity, he jerked his head up and looked at the desk without thinking. The sound was coming from the desktop!
"What is it? What's over there?!"
He leaned in for a closer look. When he saw the foreign objects on the desk, he nearly felt his soul leave his body.
A neat stack of manuscript pages was wrapped in a black envelope, with only its thick, still-unsealed flap exposed.
A dozen or so fat rats were crouched beside the little box of sealing wax, gnawing on the envelope around the manuscript.
Even without counting their tails, they were nearly twenty centimeters long. Every last one of them was grotesquely well-fed.
The sound A Xing had heard was the glossy-furred rats gnawing on the manuscript.
He hadn't even had time to yell, "You vermin!"
A Xing gritted his teeth, grabbed the desk lamp, and swung it at them. The Rose Shining Stone on his chest spewed crimson flames, burning like a blazing rage.
The rats scattered in chaos, squeaking among the shards of shattered glass from the lamp. Then, as if drawn by some delicious food, they swarmed the black envelope again, gathering and scattering under Bu Liuxing's vicious blows—
—even after some of them had been beaten into pulp, the others seemed to be under a spell. Undeterred by the threat of death, they surged forward one after another to bite at the black envelope.
"You filthy vermin! You're going to get me killed!" A Xing clutched the remaining half of the lamp's handle, looking shocked and furious.
He snatched the envelope out of the swarm. The black paper was covered in dense tooth marks, enough to make his scalp crawl. Several rats were still clinging to it.
He slapped them to the floor one by one, knocking the overzealous rodents down. Another rat seized the opportunity to bite hard into his knuckle. Taking a chunk of flesh wasn't enough for it; it clung to the wound, gnawing and sucking at the blood!
Pain made him clench his teeth. He squeezed the vermin in his hand until its eyes bulged and it went limp, then threw it to the floor and stomped its head to pulp. Only then did the fearless rats settle down a little.
The envelope had been more or less intact, but the few slaps he'd just dealt had torn several gaping holes in the manuscript's cover page. He could just make out the title of the main text.
"What am I going to do? What am I going to do?!" A Xing stared at the tattered manuscript in his hands, frantic. "There's no way I can explain this now!"
He looked down, wanting to find a few rat corpses to prove his innocence—but suddenly realized that almost none of the "rat-meat crackers" left on the carpet were still there.
A few scraps of carcass remained, but the other rats promptly dragged them under the bed, deeper into the shadows.
They trampled through the blood that had spilled from Teacher Victor's arm, dirtying the floor and carpet. He could have made out the splatter from the rats crushed under his boots, but now there was nothing left to identify!
"Victor, I'm sorry." Bu Liuxing was frustrated and aggrieved. "I'm afraid you won't believe a word I say, no matter how I explain this now."
His hands trembled as he picked up the envelope and pages. He thought carefully about it. What kind of story could make these rats so fearless of death, as if they were under a spell and driven mad, willing to trample their companions' corpses just for a glimpse?!
He hesitated for only an instant before tearing his gaze away from the alluring, dreamlike evil text.
"David Victor, if those rats are some dirty trick you pulled during our knights' Tournament, trying to frame me—accusing me of peeking at your manuscript and looking at your ass—then you've seriously underestimated me!"
Fierce determination blazed in his eyes, just as it had when A Xing first met Big Brother Xue Ming.
"I feel a ball of fire burning in my chest. The heat of my feelings is about to burst out!"
He tucked the manuscript into his spirit garment, pressed it tightly against his chest, and abruptly flipped the bed in the studio over, iron frame and all.
"This isn't a [Tournament—Knightly Joust], where you and I compete to see who's braver and fight until one of us dies—"
The rats beneath the bed fled in every direction, then sensed the presence of the evil text and began to huddle together again, as if to menace and intimidate him. They bared their sharp teeth at Bu Liuxing in unison.
He bent down, his eyes darting back and forth with the scattered rats, until he finally fixed on his target.
"—it's a [Tournament—Championship] where I have to defeat my immature self to claim the final victory. I've already got it by the throat."
Those vicious rats mangled the flesh of his palm in an instant, leaving bloody wounds beneath his thumb and around his wrist.
He suddenly grabbed three of the fat rats darting about.
The rats in his hands twitched unnaturally. They made swallowing motions, but his thick fingers held their throats in a crushing grip.
Fragments of the manuscript's envelope came tumbling out of their mouths, only for them to bite down and swallow them again. It was as if the vermin were under an evil spell, endlessly repeating the same act of swallowing.
Victor pushed open the studio door, and Jiang Xueming followed him inside.
The moment they entered, the two of them caught the strong smell of blood.
A Xing knelt on one knee before the manuscript, fitting the final scrap of envelope back into place. Behind him lay the neatly arranged corpses of dozens of rats, like spoils of war brought back by a knight from the battlefield.
He'd turned the entire carriage upside down. In just a few minutes, he'd used brute force to tear the workspace to shreds, leaving hardly any furniture intact.
—There was nowhere left for the rats to hide.
His hands were covered in bite wounds. In the deepest ones, bone was already visible.
They hadn't even seen him look up before they heard his soft murmur.
"David Victor, the winner's been decided!"
He put the final fragment in place. The Rose Shining Stone on his chest no longer glowed.
"Our duel is over. Let's talk about the journal in the cabinet!"
In that instant, Bu Liuxing rose to his feet.
He strode over with his bloodied fists raised, ready to show Teacher Victor the reach of his 193-centimeter frame and let him taste a heavyweight punch from a ninety-kilogram man.
His fist was like a cannonball!
There was no fear left in his heart, no more of that inexplicable pressure.
His punch swept up a gust of wind and blood droplets, then stopped abruptly at the tip of Jiang Xueming's nose.
At that moment—
—A Xing saw Jiang Xueming's quieting gesture and immediately calmed down.
"What's going on, Ming Ge? Why are you standing right next to this guy?"
Jiang Xueming held out the White Lady coffee. First he brought it to Mr. Victor's lips and let Victor take a sip to make sure it wasn't poisoned. Then he held the same cup out to A Xing.
"Drink it. It'll heal the wounds on your hands. This Mr. Victor is a station VIP, and he's just told me a lot about you. Whatever your grievance is with him, finish your coffee and talk it over afterward."
Victor was both disappointed and happy—
—disappointed because the kid really hadn't taken another look at his manuscript. A manuscript was like an author's ass, and even the sexiest, most alluring one had gone unnoticed. That made it a spectacular failure.
—happy because he'd finally finished the little task the BOSS had assigned the VIP: helping train the passengers.
The mix of sorrow and joy was too precious to waste. He immediately picked up his pen and began writing furiously in the filthy, wrecked studio, recording the feeling.
"After more than two hundred failures, an ordinary passenger has finally passed this trial. Perhaps my experiences adventuring in the underground world as a VIP have been too harsh and grueling, making my standards far too strict."
"But I've been lucky and earned Lady Luck's favor. Now I can prove to the BOSS that this kind of high-pressure, realistic training works. This kid did very well. He kept the two things separate and crystal clear, like [chopsticks are chopsticks and spoons are spoons], and handled everything beautifully."
"But there's one thing I have to point out. Bu Liuxing, if you run into someone like me somewhere else next time, beat him up first. Then decide whether you want to make the bet."
Teacher Victor's face darkened as he looked at the studio, which seemed to have been hit by a tornado. He reiterated his point to Bu Liuxing.
"You're far too honest, far too easy to fool. That kind of passionate sincerity almost makes me want to cry. You could break my bones and reconnect them with the Universal Elixir easily, but you went this far for a joust, for a promise. You may have the spirit of a knight, but fixing up my studio won't be so easy."
"Huh?" Bu Liuxing scratched his head and tugged at Jiang Xueming's clothes. "Ming Ge, what's the teacher talking about?"
Without even turning his head, Jiang Xueming found a relatively intact chair in the carriage and sat down.
"He's praising you."
Before you continue