"If a ferocious beast had really sneaked in, or something serious had happened, wouldn't my cousin have warned me to be careful?" Gu Yuan sat on the edge of the ring.
Zhang Yining froze for a moment.
"Yeah, I guess she would..."
"Exactly." Gu Yuan spread his hands and continued analyzing the situation.
"So the reason this matter alarmed the Destiny Bureau probably isn't that it's terrifying in itself. It's more likely that her family has some special background, or that a martial artist is involved."
Zhang Yining rubbed his chin and nodded thoughtfully.
"Does the author hope readers will remember our domain, Taiwanese Novel Network, ? Read to your heart's content!"
"So it might not be a ferocious beast incident after all?"
"Most likely not." Gu Yuan nodded.
"Besides..."
Gu Yuan brushed the dust off his pants and stood up from the edge of the ring.
"If something really serious happened, the people tall enough to hold up the sky would take care of it. There's no way it'd be our turn to worry about it—we're just high school students."
He looked up at the clock on the wall.
"Anyway, I'm done chatting with you. I have to head to the Destiny Bureau. You can keep practicing here."
At that, Zhang Yining replied with a solemn expression, "Fine. I'll let you off this time. Next time, I'll show you the power of Haicheng No. 1 High School's Perfect Tiger Leopard Fist!"
Gu Yuan had just jumped down from the ring when his foot slipped. He nearly stumbled and fell face-first onto the floor.
Haicheng No. 1 High School's Perfect Tiger Leopard Fist?
How could this guy say such an embarrassingly chuunibyou line with such a straight face?
And after failing to even touch the hem of Gu Yuan's clothes in ten minutes, where on earth had he gotten the confidence to make that threat?
"Sure. See you next time, Haicheng No. 1 High School's Perfect Tiger Leopard Fist."
Suppressing the grin threatening to stretch across his face, Gu Yuan tossed out those words and turned toward the martial arts gym's entrance.
He hadn't even made it outside before he lost control and broke into a jog.
If he stayed another second, he was afraid he'd burst out laughing like a pig.
The Destiny Bureau wasn't far from the city center.
Gu Yuan strolled along the road and reached the Destiny Bureau's imposing entrance in about five minutes.
Two enormous white marble lions stood guard on either side of the entrance, baring their fangs and looking mighty and fearsome.
Gu Yuan walked inside as if he knew the place by heart. He did, after all—he'd been coming here a lot lately.
He'd massaged Shen Tingxue for ten days to get the traits above her head. His fingers had nearly fallen off.
But it had all been worth it.
What goes around comes around, and when it came to taking advantage of someone, there were only two possibilities: never doing it, or doing it countless times.
"What are you here for, young man? Come over and sign in."
Gu Yuan had just stepped onto the stairs, about to enter the building, when someone knocked on the window of the security booth beside him. A slightly hoarse voice came from inside.
He stopped and turned toward the voice.
The young guard who usually played games and slacked off in the booth was gone.
In his place sat an old man in a white short-sleeved shirt, holding an enamel mug.
The old man was bald on top, with only a sparse fringe of hair around the sides. Sunlight glinted off his shiny scalp. It was the classic horseshoe-shaped bald spot.
But the instant Gu Yuan got a good look at the old man, he froze as if he'd been hit with a binding spell.
His eyes fixed on the words floating above the old man's head.
[Steel Bone]!
Purple!
Gu Yuan felt his breathing stop.
A purple trait!
Ever since he'd gained the ability to see people's traits, most of them had been white. He'd occasionally come across a few green ones, but blue traits were rare.
Even the one above his cousin's head was only blue.
Yet this old, balding man guarding the entrance had a purple [Steel Bone] above his head!
If Gu Yuan could get his hands on it, wouldn't he take off like a rocket and become a human tyrannosaurus?
He eagerly focused his attention, hoping to see what it would take to acquire this purple trait.
The next second, Gu Yuan froze.
There was nothing.
Below the four purple characters, there was nothing at all—not even a punctuation mark.
No hint of the conditions for acquiring it.
Gu Yuan rubbed his eyes, refusing to believe it.
Still nothing.
What was that supposed to mean?
He could see it but not touch it?
What the hell was the difference between that and letting a eunuch visit a brothel?
Dangling meat right in front of him and not letting him eat it—wasn't that just messing with him?
Gu Yuan was on the verge of losing it. His mind raced.
Could the trait be so high-quality that his current level was too low for him to trigger its acquisition conditions?
Whatever the reason, seeing such a juicy prize and not being able to get it was worse than being killed.
"Hey, hey! Young man! What are you standing there for?"
The old man in the security booth was getting creeped out by Gu Yuan's stare.
The kid stood there, staring straight at him. His expression kept shifting between fervor, greed, and sheer anguish. It was so animated that he looked like a lunatic.
The old man shuddered and instinctively clutched his enamel mug tighter, taking half a step back.
The young man looked pretty normal, but could he be gay?
Were young people's tastes really that extreme these days? Even old men weren't off-limits?
The more the old man thought about it, the colder his back felt.
"Are you going in or not? Are you signing in?"
The old man's shout finally brought Gu Yuan back to his senses.
Seeing the old man's expression, Gu Yuan immediately realized how strange he'd been acting.
"Ah, sorry, sir."
Gu Yuan scratched his head.
"Something suddenly came to mind, so I spaced out. I spaced out."
"Spaced out?" The old man looked him up and down suspiciously.
"Then why were you staring at this old geezer? Do I have flowers growing on my face?"
"No, I just thought you had a very distinctive air about you. You look like a hidden master." Gu Yuan made something up on the spot.
"I'm here to see my cousin, Shen Tingxue, the captain of Team Three. I'll sign in now."
With that, Gu Yuan expertly pushed open the side door to the security booth, picked up the visitor log and a pen from the desk, and quickly wrote down his name.
As he wrote, he couldn't stop sneaking glances at the old man's head.
I really want that...
If only I could just take it by force.
"Are you done?" the old man asked impatiently, watching him dawdle.
"Almost, almost."
Gu Yuan set down the pen and slid the sign-in sheet across.
"Sir, I'll be heading in now."
Gu Yuan left the security booth and headed toward the Destiny Bureau's main building.
As he walked, he kept looking back, reluctant to take his eyes off the old guard's head.
Sitting in his chair, the old guard felt Gu Yuan's gaze and became even more certain of his suspicion.
This young man definitely wasn't normal!
Who in their right mind would keep staring at an old man? His gaze was practically dripping with desire—he could knit a sweater with it!
"Young people these days... Society's really gone downhill..."
The old man shook his head, took a sip from his mug, and shut the security booth window tight.
Gu Yuan finally looked away and sighed.
Once he got stronger, he'd take that [Steel Bone] trait for himself sooner or later.
He gathered himself and quickened his pace into the Destiny Bureau's office building.
People streamed through the lobby. Law enforcement officers in uniform hurried past, and the atmosphere felt somewhat tense.
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