Watching the lewd smiles with which those bastards from the Airplane Brotherhood pointed at him after class—and the mockery behind those smiles—Zhang Tie immediately knew they had found out about his being a human punching bag. He had no idea how they'd learned it, but somehow they had. It was his gut feeling, and it was rarely wrong.
After two classes, the whole herd of animals had stampeded to the toilet and back. Now they stood in the corridor outside the classroom, shooting the breeze. The morning sun shone lazily on them, warm and comfortable. Like moldy salted fish fighting over a single patch of sunlight, they jostled back and forth along the corridor. When they saw Zhang Tie approaching with a dark look on his face, those bastards from the Airplane Brotherhood deliberately turned their gazes elsewhere. One by one, they lifted their heads to watch the clouds, putting on a carefree air, as if they had all become poets.
Damn it! Beneath their carefree expressions, Zhang Tie could see them rolling on the ground with laughter. Their faces were stiff with forced solemnity, but they were probably already laughing themselves into cramps.
"Go ahead and laugh. Don't hold it in. It's hard work!" Zhang Tie walked over and said it flatly. The bastards could no longer hold back. One by one, they burst into loud laughter.
"Brother, did something upsetting happen to you yesterday? Tell us about it and make us happy too. Hahaha..." Sista, that lecher, waggled his eyebrows at him. The whole pack of bastards laughed even harder.
"You bastards knew yesterday, didn't you? And you kept it from me, letting me almost get beaten to death!" Pretending to be furious, Zhang Tie grabbed Sista by the collar.
Sista hurriedly raised both hands. "Who told you to be so full of yourself? Baghdad guessed it ages ago. He just thought you were so full of yourself that he couldn't bear to tell you. What was it you said yesterday...?" That lecher Sista began pitching his voice high and mimicking Zhang Tie's words from the day before. "'Oh, you know, my biggest weakness is that my heart is too soft. I can't stand seeing others in a bind. After Captain Colin begged me for ages, I finally agreed, despite my reluctance. It's all because I'm such a good person and do too many good deeds. What can I do? Even something like getting intimate with a beauty and being paid for it has fallen into my lap. And I get to work out, too...'"
Remembering how he'd shown off in front of them the day before, the bastards burst into another round of laughter. Zhang Tie thought about it and felt a little embarrassed too. The Hua Clan really had an old saying that hit the mark: Don't put on airs, or you'll be struck by lightning. He'd only shown off a little yesterday, and sure enough, karma had come for him.
Zhang Tie looked at Baghdad. The bastard shrugged indifferently. "Captain Colin is a part-time instructor at the Iron Thorn Combat Hall. He used to like referring our seniors and upperclassmen there for part-time work. And without exception, every job was as a human punching bag for some rich kid."
"How come I didn't know about this?" Zhang Tie asked glumly.
"It's no secret. You just don't pay attention to news about the Battle Hall. Those little brats have rather particular requirements for their sparring partners. Because of their height and physical development, their partners can't be adults who are much taller than them. Kids their own age can't take their punches and kicks. Only people our age are suitable. We're older, and naturally a little stronger, but we haven't ignited our Divine Palace Bright Points, so our strength hasn't completely surpassed theirs..."
"What, it wouldn't work if we were stronger than them?" Hans asked curiously from the side.
"Of course not. If you were stronger than them, how could they knock you down?"
"Isn't it just sparring? Why do they always have to knock us down?"
Baghdad folded his arms and sneered. "That's the difference between us and the rich. We don't think alike at all. Someone stronger than those little brats could certainly be their sparring partner, but that isn't what they need. Know why? Because those rich people want their children to grow up believing they can easily knock people like us down and trample us underfoot. Once that confidence and psychological advantage take root, their aura can suppress you completely, just like a natural predator suppresses its prey. They'll have the upper hand from the start. Even if you reach the same level as them later, you still won't be their match. There's a lot of mysterious stuff involved. It's a secret inheritance. I only heard about it by chance from someone who works at the Battle Hall."
Even Zhang Tie had never heard of such a theory before, so he was taken aback. But the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. Otherwise, wouldn't it be better for the Battle Hall to find a young man his age who had ignited his Divine Palace Bright Points to spar with those little brats? There had to be plenty of people like that in Black Flame City, like Gelis. That guy was already a Level 2 Battle Soldier. What shocked Zhang Tie even more was that this was actually a secret inheritance. A secret inheritance was knowledge known only to a select few, while the public remained ignorant. What the public knew was common knowledge; what it didn't know was a secret inheritance. Such knowledge came at a steep price, and most cultivation methods and martial skills were secret inheritances. He'd heard that before the Great Cataclysm, humanity's system of secret inheritances had already grown highly developed. Back then, some of these inheritances were called intellectual property protection, others patents, and the even more confidential ones circulated only among a handful of secret religious groups—for example, knowledge about the uses of crystals. Now, in the Black Iron Era, most secret inheritances belonged to one organization or another. Industry associations, religious groups, trade unions, sects—all of them had their own secret inheritances. These were the foundation that allowed those organizations to survive and thrive in this era; outsiders had no chance of learning them. The abacus Zhang Tie had learned might be a little useless, but strictly speaking, it was also a secret inheritance, since that skill was practiced only among the Hua Clan. Tang De had warned him back then never to pass it on to outsiders, and that breaking the rule could lead to extremely serious consequences.
In this era, besides resources, possessing just one secret inheritance of great value—knowledge or a skill—could send someone soaring to success overnight, bring in a fortune, and let them carve out a territory and establish their own power. Of course, it could also make them a thorn in someone else's eye, a splinter in their flesh, and one careless moment might leave them a corpse. A secret inheritance meant knowledge and skills, but behind that knowledge and those skills lay naked self-interest. Control the knowledge and skills, and you controlled the benefits. That was the rule of secret inheritances, and it seemed not to have changed at all since before the Great Cataclysm.
"If you can avoid this part-time job, then don't do it. Getting abused by those little brats all the time might leave you with some kind of psychological scar. Once you have one, becoming a strong fighter will be difficult!" Baghdad offered his sincere advice at last.
"I'll think about it. But first, I'll work the full 600 hours..." Zhang Tie deliberately wore a miserable expression and told them about the contract. The enormous compensation clause of nearly ten gold coins left everyone dumbstruck.
So what if it's a secret inheritance? Damn it, is it really that impressive? What kind of secret inheritance could beat my Manjusaka Karma Myriad Fruit Tree and the Iron Fetus Body-Tempering Fruit it's going to grow next? Just from the name, that Iron Fetus Body-Tempering Fruit sounds incredible. The most important thing is, it seems that as long as I keep getting beaten up, it'll grow. Where else could I find such a good deal—taking other people's money while they beat me half to death and temper my body for me, then feed me fruit? What psychological scar? Zhang Tie didn't have the slightest trace of one.
Just as Zhang Tie rolled his eyes, about to tell them how Mary had praised him and rub it in, the whole corridor suddenly fell silent. He turned his head and saw Teacher Daina walk into the tiered classroom carrying a mold shaped like a snail. The animals in the corridor fell quiet for a few seconds, glanced at each other, then surged into the classroom with even more force than they used to rush to the toilet, all desperately scrambling for the front-row seats near Teacher Daina.
Across all of National No. 7 Boys' Middle School, only during Teacher Daina's classes did the animals rush into the classroom of their own accord without needing a bell. Gelis and his lackeys naturally took the best seats in the front row. The Airplane Brotherhood claimed the seats toward the back in the middle—not good, not bad.
Once she saw that everyone had arrived, Teacher Daina didn't waste time. She went straight into the lesson, picked up a piece of chalk, and swiftly wrote two characters on the blackboard: the subject of today's class—
Blood Clan!
Teacher Daina's beautiful eyes swept across the room. Every animal sat bolt upright, their backs as straight as spears, each one wearing a solemn expression and displaying an eagerness to learn.
"Class, today I'll be teaching you about the Blood Clan. The Blood Clan of our era is nothing like the Blood Clan before the Great Cataclysm. Before the Great Cataclysm, the Blood Clan were vampires from works of art and myth, capable of turning into bats. They weren't a real species. In the Black Iron Era, the term refers to all kinds of wild and alien creatures mutated after the Great Cataclysm. The creatures we generally call the Blood Clan have the following characteristics. First, their bodies are completely crimson, like blood, making them easy to recognize in the wild. That's how they got their name. Second, all Blood Clan creatures love blood. They're carnivores and the most dangerous predators in the wild. Any animal with blood in its body could become their next meal. Third, after mutating, all Blood Clan creatures undergo enormous changes in their bodies and physiological functions, developing strange abilities that make them more dangerous and harder to deal with. Next, we'll use the most common member of the Blood Clan, the Blood-Sucking Snail, as an example and discuss how to deal with one if you encounter it in the wild..."
Zhang Tie stared blankly at Teacher Daina's lovely face and listened to her heavenly voice, utterly enchanted. No one really cared what Teacher Daina was teaching. For many of them, simply watching her stand there and hearing her voice was the greatest blessing in life.
He'd heard that terrible incidents had once occurred in Teacher Daina's classes, making her extremely angry. As a result, the Seventh National Boys' Middle School in Black Flame City had one of the strangest school rules in the whole city: whenever students attended Teacher Daina's classes, they had to keep both hands on their desks, where they could be seen. So in Teacher Daina's classroom, from the podium, every animal looked like a well-behaved little kindergarten student, sitting bolt upright with both hands folded on the desk, their faces all showing a ravenous thirst for knowledge. Before long, the sound of throats bobbing as they swallowed rose and fell throughout the room, along with the sound of someone playing wooden fish beneath the desks through a layer of fabric. In short, there were all kinds of freakish things going on.
Teacher Daina's classes always sent Zhang Tie into a strange and thrilling fantasy, just as he was now...
Teacher Daina wore a short skirt, revealing a stretch of plump, snow-white thigh so dazzling it made one's eyes swim. Her blouse's buttons were stretched open by her full breasts. She sat on the classroom podium, with only Zhang Tie and Teacher Daina in the whole room. When she called him over, she leaned down, pressing her magnificent chest together to form a ravine so alluring it made him lose himself. Then she pushed Zhang Tie's head into it and laughed seductively. Just as Zhang Tie was about to suffocate in that snowy softness, Teacher Daina pushed him away, held up two beautiful fingers, took out a thin tube, and began blowing pink bubbles. The bubbles floated up, then burst one by one against Zhang Tie's face, their pop like spring's hand caressing his cheek. Zhang Tie was completely lost in those pink bubbles...
"Sweetheart, do you want to come?" Teacher Daina asked with a seductive smile, beckoning to Zhang Tie with her finger...
"I want to!" Zhang Tie suddenly stood up, startling the Airplane Brotherhood members beside him. The class had just ended, and Teacher Daina had asked whether anyone had a question and wanted to stand up and ask it. Zhang Tie suddenly sprang to his feet and shouted, nearly scaring the life out of the people beside him.
In an instant, everyone in the classroom turned to stare at Zhang Tie, who had suddenly stood up and shouted. He felt the heat rise in his body. Gelis, sitting in the front row, turned around and looked at Zhang Tie with great displeasure. Gelis had been working up two questions about Blood-Sucking Snails so he could pretend to be a good student and strike up a conversation with Teacher Daina. But before he could even stand, this guy who had come out of nowhere had stolen the spotlight that should have belonged to him.
The instant he stood up and shouted those words, Zhang Tie had already come completely to his senses. Then, seeing the sharp looks all around him, he broke out in a cold sweat.
"Do you have a question about today's lesson?" Teacher Daina asked leisurely.
Fortunately, Zhang Tie had some quick wits. In an instant, he thought of a question that might explain things.
"Teacher Daina, I've more or less remembered everything from today's lesson, but I have a question about something else related to biology. I wonder if you could answer it for me?" Zhang Tie asked, improvising...