Today, Magic City was hit by torrential rain unlike anything it had experienced in decades.
Deafening roars echoed continuously over Shilan High School.
One luxury car after another drove in or out through the school gates in orderly fashion.
Chu Zihang rubbed his hands together and stood at the door of his classroom, gazing expectantly at the entrance.
Every time a car pulled up to the school gates, his anticipation grew.
A school like Shilan High School normally didn't allow private cars through its gates.
But in weather this awful, it was only natural for parents to grow anxious.
With rain coming down so hard, what if their "little princess" or "little prince" got soaked?
So a few parents in a hurry forced open the normally closed gates, and cars swarmed inside.
In weather this terrible, even a school like Shilan High School struggled to maintain any semblance of decorum. Parents and students were running around like headless flies, and the cars were just bigger, noisier "flies."
The cars, no matter how luxurious or expensive, all blared piercingly, but their noise was soon drowned out by the dense, heavy drumming of the rain.
The lawn was torn to shreds, and streams of yellow mud flowed along with the water.
Honestly, these wealthy people seemed even more flustered in the face of the storm than ordinary folks.
Chu Zihang, however, wasn't flustered. He waited patiently as rainwater poured from the eaves, almost like the Milky Way cascading down from the heavens.
He flipped open his phone and saw a text message. At once, he felt much more at ease.
The next moment, he looked toward the end of the corridor and spotted a younger student watching him calmly.
Chu Zihang knew who he was. The boy's name was Lu Mingfei. He'd been nobody just a few days ago, until a single look from him had left two "big shots" who were fighting at school frozen in terror.
Since then, the rumors about Lu Mingfei had grown more and more outlandish.
They said Lu Mingfei had been possessed by a ghost and had become terrifying.
They said Lu Mingfei's personality had changed completely and he'd become incredibly aloof.
They said that every time you spoke with Lu Mingfei, your neck felt colder and colder.
In short, Lu Mingfei had become the poster boy for the unsmiling, cold-blooded killer.
Now, whether they were his classmates or seniors from the year above, anyone who happened to run into him would keep as far away as possible.
In truth, it wasn't some sixth sense that made them do it. It was their instinct for self-preservation.
Now Chu Zihang, too, was feeling the force of that gaze.
In an instant, he sensed something impossible to describe beneath that calm: a keen edge.
The rain blurred all of Shilan High School into a sheet of leaden gray.
Chu Zihang was momentarily dazed. He looked at Lu Mingfei again: soaked through, wearing cheap sneakers, his school uniform jacket blotched with dark and light patches, wet hair plastered to his forehead. He looked even more inconspicuous than usual—almost bedraggled.
Looking at him like this, Lu Mingfei really didn't seem like anything special.
Yet when their eyes met again, Chu Zihang once more saw that unsettling calm.
It wasn't emptiness or apathy, but something... utterly steady, or perhaps a kind of absolute confidence.
That calm made Chu Zihang's heart clench again.
His instincts, his sixth sense, told him with absolute certainty that beneath that calm lay a razor-sharp edge.
It was as if an unrivaled, vicious blade had been forced back into a coarse, battered scabbard, locked away inside that seemingly ordinary body, behind those unnaturally calm eyes.
Chu Zihang's back stiffened without his noticing, and he began to sense more deeply the immense, indescribable "presence" surrounding the other boy.
Beneath the calm surface, it had built to its limit.
"Hello. Are you Chu Zihang, my senior?"
Lu Mingfei walked over and casually greeted him.
But Chu Zihang remained where he was, standing there in a daze. The rain outside and the commotion downstairs seemed to recede into the distance in an instant.
The rain kept lashing the world with wild abandon.
Chu Zihang immediately came back to himself. What he'd just sensed was the faintest glimmer of an unrivaled blade, appearing a fraction of a second before it was drawn.
That light held a calm so restrained it had reached its utmost extreme.
But Chu Zihang hadn't expected Lu Mingfei to greet him. He wasn't exactly the school's "cold male idol," but he certainly wasn't someone people could approach casually.
In the past, especially the boys, had always kept their distance from him, as if he were a mountain to be revered.
Chu Zihang had once possessed an aura that made every girl in school scream, something a little like Uchiha Sasuke's. Yet beneath Lu Mingfei's calm, it had vanished without warning.
Like a drop of water falling into the ocean, without even the faintest splash.
Or perhaps Lu Mingfei's current aura was so unique that it made even someone as distinctive as Chu Zihang seem utterly ordinary by comparison.
Seeing him, Chu Zihang felt at a loss.
Chu Zihang gave a rare cough, then replied seriously, "Hello, junior. Is there something you need?"
"Junior, has anyone ever told you that your gaze is a little scary?"
Faced with Chu Zihang's sudden concern, Lu Mingfei simply ignored it and said, "Senior, it doesn't look like this rain will let up anytime soon."
Chu Zihang didn't feel offended. Instead, he seemed relieved and continued eagerly, "Of course. The weather forecast said the typhoon changed direction in a very strange way. It gave no warning before making landfall, so no one was prepared."
"So that's it. A typhoon's here."
Lu Mingfei spoke with the same blank expression.
As if the typhoon in front of him were nothing worth noticing.
He knew very well that Odin was behind the typhoon's sudden change of direction.
That was why none of the high schools in Magic City had even had time to suspend classes.
Chu Zihang wasn't sure why, but he found himself saying more than usual. "Junior, most of the traffic in Magic City is paralyzed now, especially around our school. Your parents probably won't be able to drive over and pick you up."
"How about this? My dad will be coming to get me in a little while. I can have him drop you off, too."
Dragon Clan Duyang glanced at the downpour, as if it were swallowing the whole world, and agreed almost without thinking. "Thank you, senior. I'd be happy to ride with you."
Chu Zihang was taken aback again. He hadn't expected the other boy to agree so readily, as if he'd been waiting for Chu Zihang to offer.
But it didn't matter. His dad was coming to pick him up, so what was wrong with giving a classmate a ride?
Surely there was room for a third person in the car.
Du Yang looked up at the sky again. It was growing darker and darker—the kind of darkness... when the rain fell in a raging torrent!
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