It was another night without dreams. He woke up right on time, just after six in the morning, his mind still as clear as crystal and his whole body brimming with energy. He felt as fresh as a Chinese cabbage that had spent the night soaking in water.
When he woke, Zhang Tie first checked the clock in his room. The hands pointed to 6:08. Then he looked down at his underwear. His little brother stood tall and proud, but his mind was free of any stray fantasies. He reached in and felt around; neither his underwear nor his belly felt damp. He hadn't had a wet dream in days, and he'd been sleeping astonishingly well every night. He remembered that after finishing his cultivation the night before, he'd gone to the bathroom inside Castle of Black Iron, come back out, and gone straight to bed. He'd fallen asleep in no time and slept until now. Something like this had happened once in a while before, but only for a day. Now it had been going on for four days straight, so Zhang Tie couldn't help wondering what was behind it. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed to have started on the night he merged with Castle of Black Iron. But once he traced it back to Castle of Black Iron, he lost interest in investigating further. As far as Zhang Tie was concerned, the only thing about the place he understood was that its land was real and could make potatoes sprout. Everything else was beyond him.
He got up quickly, got dressed, washed up, and lit a fire in the kitchen. Then he put several washed sweet potatoes in the steamer to prepare breakfast for his parents. After picking out one washed raw sweet potato for himself, Zhang Tie left the house. He was heading out almost an hour earlier than he usually did for school.
It was still a little dark outside. After finishing the raw sweet potato in his hand for breakfast, Zhang Tie began running along the road. It was the same route to school as always, but somehow it felt different today. Everything seemed fresh. Even the raw sweet potato tasted better than usual. Zhang Tie decided he'd try planting sweet potatoes in Castle of Black Iron in a few days. It couldn't be that hard to grow them.
When a person's mood changed, everything else changed with it.
By the time he jogged to school, the sky had grown completely bright. The school gates had only just opened, and although Zhang Tie wasn't the first student there, he was certainly among the first. The sprawling campus was nearly deserted.
The entire classroom building for the graduating classes stood empty. Zhang Tie was definitely the first student from any of those classes to arrive. After entering his classroom, he felt a little like a thief and quietly shut the door behind him.
After the weekend, the floor was still fairly clean since no one had been in the classroom, but a layer of dust had inevitably settled on the desks and chairs. Zhang Tie took a dry hemp cloth from beside the classroom window and glanced around furtively again. Sure enough, no one was there. Reassured, he got to work, briskly wiping the dust from the desks and chairs—not just his own, but everyone's.
The dust that settled naturally on classroom desks and chairs was easy enough to wipe away. A single pass with a rag, then a couple of shakes by the window, and it was gone. That was the first thing every student did when they got to class.
After spending twenty minutes cleaning every desk and chair in the classroom, Zhang Tie saw that people had started arriving in the graduating-class building. He slipped out of the classroom and dawdled in the school bathroom until he'd taken a dump, then strolled back at his leisure. By the time he returned, just as he'd hoped, more than half the class had arrived. That ought to be a big enough surprise, Zhang Tie thought smugly.
Just as Zhang Tie had expected, the animals in the classroom were making a racket. Everyone was wondering who had cleaned the desks and chairs.
That made no sense. Who would be so kind?
"Hey, Big Head, you're here..." Barry, that fat bastard, came over and hooked an arm around Zhang Tie's shoulder. He asked in a conspiratorial whisper, "Notice anything different about the classroom today?"
"What's different?" Zhang Tie asked, outwardly calm but inwardly grinning. Go on, praise me. Hurry up and praise me. I'm waiting.
"Some idiot cleaned all the desks and chairs in our class. Ha... ha..."
Zhang Tie's polite smile froze on his face. He glared at the fat bastard through gritted teeth, wishing he could punch Barry in the nose and make it bloom again.
"Did you brush your teeth this morning? Why does your breath stink so much?" Zhang Tie shoved Barry away with a dark expression and slumped back into his chair, thoroughly annoyed.
Barry just stood there, baffled. He breathed into his hand and sniffed. "No way. I brush my teeth every day!"
Hearing the other animals gossip around him only made Zhang Tie feel worse.
"Ah, who was it? Who was so bored they had to give us a surprise?"
"Yeah, what an idiot. Couldn't have been someone from our class, could it?"
"Don't say that. You might hurt somebody's tender little heart. Maybe an underclassman's looking for a big brother in our class who can protect him!"
"My guess is someone's got a crush on me and is confessing!"
"Then why'd he clean the whole class's desks and chairs?"
"Could it be he's got a crush on all of us? Hahahaha...!"
"Uh-oh, everyone better watch out for their chrysanthemums..."
You bunch of bastards. If it weren't for the Merit Value, I wouldn't give a damn what happened to any of you, Zhang Tie continued to seethe. He made up his mind to check his Merit Value in Castle of Black Iron when he got home. If he got less than two points for this, he'd never do anything this stupid again. The ungrateful bastards.
It was just a minor disturbance. By the first class of the morning, everyone had forgotten about it. The first two periods on Monday mornings were Survival Class. The subject covered a lot of ground and could be downright eclectic. They often had different teachers, each of whom would talk about whatever they thought had to do with survival. Once, a teacher had even spent two hours giving a lesson on how to pick up girls, claiming it was an essential skill for having offspring—and the most important kind of survival lesson. Those two periods had left the animals in the class all worked up for a whole week.
Survival Class was everyone's favorite. The atmosphere was relatively relaxed; it felt less like a lesson and more like exchanging survival tips with an elder, which made it especially popular. After everyone waited eagerly, the teacher assigned to teach Survival Class that day finally walked into the classroom.
The moment they saw the most terrifying man in all of Black Flame City—the One-Eyed Dragon—the relaxed atmosphere in the classroom froze solid. Everyone straightened up in their seats and barely dared to breathe. Captain Colin alone had enough presence to crush a whole classroom of restless animals into dust.
The One-Eyed Dragon entered the classroom and stood calmly at the lectern. His sharp eye swept across every face like an arrow. For a full thirty seconds, he didn't say a word.
Zhang Tie had no idea what the One-Eyed Dragon was planning, but he couldn't help being affected by the atmosphere. He began to feel uneasy.
Only after the room had grown so quiet that everyone could hear an ant crawling across a sheet of paper did Captain Colin speak.
"Everyone's heard about the Red Scarf Bandit Group. I won't repeat it here. Today, I'm going to teach you one of the most important survival skills, and it has to do with the Red Scarf Bandits. Suppose you're outside the school and come across a member of the Red Scarf Bandits. He's standing right in front of you, just as I am now. What do you do? Don't rush to answer. Think it over carefully for two minutes. There'll be a reward for the right answer and a punishment for the wrong one. You can discuss it among yourselves..."
As soon as Captain Colin finished speaking, the whole class erupted into discussion. What should they do if a Red Scarf Bandit stood in front of them? Looking at Captain Colin's powerful, imposing frame and the expectant glint in his one eye, the animals felt their blood surge. If they came face-to-face with a notorious scumbag like a Red Scarf Bandit, someone everyone despised and wanted dead, what should they do? There was only one answer, of course...
"Obviously, beat the hell out of him!"
"Right! We'll rush him together and take him down!"
"Rid the people of this menace!"
"Charge in and kill him!"
The animals in the classroom began shouting. Some were still hesitating, weighing their options, but when the opportunists saw the faint smile tugging at Captain Colin's lips as he listened to their blood-pumping "declarations," they began to join in too. Fatty Barry was one of them. Zhang Tie watched everyone's reactions closely. At first, only Doug and Baghdad from the Airplane Brotherhood yelled that they'd beat the hell out of a Red Scarf Bandit. Barry kept his head down, squinting as he furtively studied Captain Colin's expression, while the others thought it over. But as they saw everyone else fired up, they gradually got caught up in it too. Shavin, who had no opinion of his own, watched Barry. When Barry started shouting, he joined in as well. Light and Sista were initially hesitant, apparently still considering their options, but when they saw Barry take a stand, they also joined him on the "fight" side. The classroom descended into chaos.
Zhang Tie was considering Captain Colin's question too. Unlike the others, who were getting carried away, two things came to mind. Why had Captain Colin, a man known for his courage and ferocity, raised this question in Survival Class? And what would he do if a Red Scarf Bandit really stood in the classroom right now?
Some people liked to go with the crowd whenever they had to make a choice. But Zhang Tie had been taught from childhood to let every choice test his heart. His mother had taught him that everyone's life was the result of a chain of choices made under different circumstances. Those choices joined together to form a life, and life was a road on which you answered to your own conscience...
Don't worry about what other people think. When trouble comes, follow your heart. If your conscience is clear, your life will be free of regret.