Arrested by the Police

The next morning, Xia Ping woke up feeling full of energy. Before going to bed the previous night, he had spent three hours typing out sixty thousand words. Added to the thirty thousand he had already written, that made ninety thousand in total.

In another two or three days, he would be able to finish the entire work.

Although that might have seemed like a lot of work, it was nothing to him as a martial artist.

After breakfast, Xia Ping left home, intending to head to school. But he soon noticed a crowd of middle-aged men and women gathered nearby, chatting excitedly about the latest gossip.

"Have you heard? Two perverts ran naked near Tianshui City No. 95 Middle School last night. Society's really going downhill. Who would've thought anyone would do something so depraved?"

"Of course I heard. Apparently, the two perverts ran around the school one and a half times before someone called the police. Three police cars showed up right away, and more than ten officers jumped out and arrested them on the spot. Everyone clapped and cheered."

"Good! Perverts like that need to be arrested. How can we have public safety if they're left alone? I won't even dare let my daughter walk down the street in case those perverts attack her."

"I heard the two perverts were students at Tianshui City No. 95 Middle School."

"No way, they're students? Have they gone crazy? They're so young and already into that sort of thing. What beasts!"

"The College Entrance Exam is coming up. Maybe they're under a lot of pressure."

"Pressure or not, they can't run around naked. That's a crime."

"But we don't need to worry about those two perverts for now. According to the police, they violated the Public Security Administration Punishments Law and have been detained for seven days. They can't be bailed out."

"They'll be out sooner or later. We'll have to keep an eye on them then."

"Exactly. We have to watch them. Those two are potential criminals. We can't let our guard down."

The whole crowd chattered away, spittle flying.

Xia Ping was speechless. He was a hundred percent sure the two perverts who'd been arrested were Gao Wan and Yang Wei. He hadn't expected them to be so unlucky as to actually get caught by the police.

But he couldn't be bothered with them. He soon arrived at school, though today felt different from usual. After what had happened yesterday, he'd become famous in class.

As soon as he walked in, he felt countless classmates' heated gazes on him. They'd probably already heard that Yang Wei and Gao Wan, the two hapless brothers in misfortune, had been arrested by the police.

Xia Ping remained calm as he returned to his seat, completely ignoring the stares around him and getting to work on his writing. For him, writing was the real work. It was about to earn him a huge pile of Federal Coins.

The bell rang.

Their homeroom teacher, Qiu Xue, walked in. She immediately noticed two empty seats and asked in confusion, "Where are Yang Wei and Gao Wan? Why aren't they here?"

"Teacher, they were arrested!" one student shouted. "I heard they've been detained by the police for seven days, and they can't be bailed out."

Arrested? And detained by the police?!

Qiu Xue was utterly stunned. What on earth was going on?

She'd only been teaching for half a year and had taught some troublemakers, but she'd never imagined one of her students would get arrested by the police. What could they possibly have done to get arrested?

"What happened? Why were they arrested?" Qiu Xue hurriedly asked. She'd had something to take care of yesterday and had left Tianshui City after class. She'd only returned that morning, so she had no idea what had happened at school.

"They ran around naked near the school, doing something so depraved that some justice-minded women called the police and had them taken away," one student replied, his expression extremely strange.

He'd been there last night. When the police arrested Gao Wan and Yang Wei as criminals and bundled them into the patrol car, the two had screamed themselves hoarse, like pigs being slaughtered. The sound had stayed with him; it was enough to make anyone who heard it weep.

A group of women had even thrown eggs and cauliflower at the two of them. They'd looked utterly miserable.

Qiu Xue was dumbfounded. "Why would they run around naked at school?" She remembered that those two students weren't very nice, and sometimes bullied their classmates.

But they shouldn't have done something so depraved.

"Maybe they were under too much pressure," Xia Ping answered casually.

Too much pressure?!

A wave of scornful looks came from the class as everyone stared at Xia Ping. What pressure? When you got down to it, wasn't it because that bastard had made them sign a contract, forcing them to run naked around the school?

Yang Wei and Gao Wan had been arrested by the police because of this bastard. In ancient times, that would've been like forcing someone into prostitution. Yet here he was, saying they'd done it because they were under too much pressure. How shameless could he be? How could his skin be so thick?

"Too much pressure?"

Qiu Xue didn't know the details, but that did seem like a reasonable explanation. Weren't they under pressure? The College Entrance Exam was only five months away. It was an important turning point that would decide the course of their lives.

She'd even held a class meeting yesterday and organized a discussion about their future paths, explaining how important the exam was. That must have added even more pressure to the two boys, leaving them unable to cope and driving them to run naked around the school.

Sigh. When all was said and done, it was her fault. She hadn't paid enough attention to her students' mental well-being or helped them relieve their stress in time. She hadn't expected something like this to happen, and for them to get arrested by the police.

At that thought, Qiu Xue couldn't sit still. "Everyone, since something like this has happened, we'll make today's class a study period. I'm going to the police station to see the two students and find out if they need any help."

With that, she hurried out of the classroom.

The classmates beside him all looked at Xia Ping, the instigator, with strange expressions. But he remained perfectly calm, completely unaffected by their gazes.

"A study period? That works out. I can use the time to finish writing the rest of the story as soon as possible." Xia Ping was delighted. If he didn't have to attend class, he'd have plenty of time to write his novel.

The day passed in the blink of an eye. School was peaceful today, and the defeated Xiong Batian seemed to have vanished without a trace. Apparently, he'd been sent to Tianshui City No. 1 People's Hospital for treatment and wouldn't be back anytime soon.

Yang Wei and Gao Wan had also been arrested. They wouldn't be out until seven days later.

"Whew!"

When Xia Ping returned home, he ate dinner, went back to his room, and typed furiously. He wrote for several more hours, churning out a full 120,000 words that day, then uploaded them all at once to the internet.

He opened Penguin and checked his novel's page. Since it had only been posted for a short time, the site hadn't had a chance to feature it yet, and there weren't many reader comments. Things looked rather bleak.

"This can't go on. I have to take the initiative and drum up some publicity. I'll make this novel blow up." A glint flashed in Xia Ping's eyes.