"You weren't having a nightmare!"
"That man was Oscar..."
Lin Yan's expression held a mix of stifled laughter and guilt. On the one hand, he found it funny what Oscar had done to Dai Mubai; on the other, he felt a little bad about not holding back his strength.
"Sorry, Mubai."
"It was my first time fighting someone, so I didn't quite control my strength."
Dai Mubai didn't blame him. Instead, he gave Lin Yan a faint smile.
"It's fine. We're all brothers."
"I'm happy from the bottom of my heart that you're so strong. How could I blame you?"
"Just hurry up and heal me. Once I'm better, I'll teach this guy a proper lesson."
As he spoke, he shot Oscar a venomous look.
He'd wondered how he could have suddenly dreamed that someone was stuffing his mouth in such a short time. It turned out this kid was behind it.
"I... I was only trying to help. I really didn't mean to."
Oscar knew he'd meant well but nearly choked Dai Mubai to death. His eyes began darting away despite himself.
At that moment, Yu Xiaogang, the teacher, finally came over.
"Enough. You're still in class. Do you think this is a playground? You have no discipline at all."
Everyone looked at Yu Xiaogang strangely, unsure what had gotten into him all of a sudden.
Lin Yan, Dai Mubai, and Oscar hadn't said a word, yet he was the one getting angry first.
"Your performance was simply awful. As Soul Masters, you don't even understand the effects of your own Soul Skills. How can you fight on a battlefield like that?"
Clearly, Yu Xiaogang was directing those words at Lin Yan.
"And you, Dai Mubai! You have Soul Power at level 37, yet you lost to Lin Yan, who's level 36. Is your White Tiger Martial Soul a sick cat?"
"What did you say?"
Dai Mubai hadn't felt much when he lost to Lin Yan, but after Yu Xiaogang berated him, anger suddenly surged within him.
His heterochromatic eyes stared straight at Yu Xiaogang. If the other man weren't a teacher, he might already have attacked him.
Yu Xiaogang faltered under that glare and turned his eyes away, clearing his throat.
"Hmph. So much for so-called monster geniuses. I'm very disappointed in your performance today. You'll all be punished. Run from the academy to Suotuo City and back. I want you to complete ten round trips before lunch."
"There are rocks prepared at the academy gate. Each of you will carry one. Remember, you're a team. If even one person fails to complete the punishment, none of you will get to eat."
Even the girls behind them were stunned by this.
"Seriously! Are you picking a fight with us? You even had the rocks prepared in advance!"
Ning Rongrong didn't put up with Yu Xiaogang for a second. She immediately fired back at him.
"If you want us to do running drills, just say so. Why make up this whole 'one person makes a mistake, everyone gets punished' routine? Do you think it makes you look clever?"
Yu Xiaogang's face turned ashen. He stammered for a long while without coming up with a rebuttal, because that was exactly the excuse he'd come up with to raise the team's cohesion.
Once he had all the students bound together as one, his beloved disciple Tang San would have a powerful team absolutely loyal to him.
Unfortunately, the path there was full of thorns...
The scene fell silent for a long while. In the end, Flender emerged from the shadows to mediate.
"Enough! Grandmaster is a teacher at our academy. Just follow the training plan he's assigned. Now go run."
"Mubai, if you're badly injured, you can go back and rest first."
"No! They're a team. If Dai Mubai goes back to rest, someone else will have to run ten extra laps and carry his rock too."
Yu Xiaogang seized the chance to speak, straightening his back beside Flender.
The sight made everyone furious, especially Dai Mubai. He couldn't take it anymore.
But Lin Yan stopped him and shook his head.
"Forget it, Mubai. I'm the one who hurt you, so go back and rest. I'll run those ten laps and carry the rock for you."
Lin Yan wasn't pretending. He genuinely wanted to help Dai Mubai. Leaving aside the fact that he'd stolen his good buddy's girlfriend, he and Dai Mubai had gotten along very well over the years.
Dai Mubai sat on the ground, his eyes full of emotion as he looked at Lin Yan.
He remembered the four of them clasping hands in the dorm a few days earlier. That line—"Brothers in our hearts!"—clearly hadn't been just talk for Lin Yan.
At death's door, he jolted upright. Gritting his teeth through the pain that still hadn't fully subsided, he got to his feet with Ma Hongjun and Oscar supporting him.
"Lin Yan! You're a real brother."
"I've decided—you're my brother for life! Brothers in our hearts!"
"So what if it's a weighted run? A little injury like this isn't enough to make my brother shoulder my burden. What kind of man would I be then?"
As he spoke, Dai Mubai worked himself into a frenzy. He yanked off the Blue Silver Emperor Lin Yan was using to heal him, then strode toward the bamboo basket at the academy gate.
Everyone watched his retreating figure with solemn respect. Moved by the atmosphere, Ma Hongjun and Oscar also looked at Lin Yan with tears in their eyes.
"Brothers in our hearts!"
With that, the two of them followed Dai Mubai. They put on the bamboo baskets bearing their names, hefted the boulders, and ran toward Suotuo City without looking back.
Lin Yan watched the three men grow smaller in the distance, until they were nearly out of sight. His expression turned a little bewildered.
What was going on? Was this a good thing or a bad thing? Why were all of them so bizarre?
He couldn't understand Dai Mubai and the others' thought processes or what hidden meaning they'd drawn from his words, but... somehow, he seemed to have grown closer to them without even meaning to!
Only the girls, Lin Yan, and Tang San remained.
The girls exchanged glances. Then Ning Rongrong gave a cold snort, shot Yu Xiaogang a glare, and dragged Zhu Zhuqing and Xiao Wu off to find their bamboo baskets.
The three girls walked away together without even letting their eyes linger on Tang San for half a second.
At last, Yu Xiaogang realized how serious the problem was.
He seemed to have taken things a little too far...
It was true that everyone had become united, but why did it feel as though the leader of that group had changed from his beloved disciple Tang San to Lin Yan?
Tang San's gaze was complicated. He felt as if he'd been ostracized.
That feeling had been with him ever since his first day at the academy, when he'd wanted to pick a fight with Lin Yan.
A few days ago, at least Xiao Wu had been on his side. But ever since they returned from the Star Dou Forest, she had gradually begun to distance herself from him too.
"Teacher, I'll go running too."
Tang San told Yu Xiaogang dejectedly, then headed to the academy gate to find his rock...
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