"Teacher!" Tang San cried in alarm!
"I'll go get the dean!" Zhang Tianyu hurried out of Yu Xiaogang's office.
Seriously, if he didn't leave now, he'd burst out laughing right there!
After a series of emergency treatments, Yu Xiaogang finally came to again.
Looking at Tang San's exhausted appearance,
Zhang Tianyu laughed even harder to himself.
Tang Hao really was the best wingman.
Tang San was exhausted too and badly needed rest.
The original plan was for Tang San to bring over the food, let Yu Xiaogang eat and rest, then head back to the dorm himself. That would have been that.
But now Tang Hao had beaten Yu Xiaogang and worsened his injuries. That meant more trouble for Tang San, who had to drag his exhausted body through another shift caring for Yu Xiaogang.
Tsk, tsk, what a loving father and filial son!
After leaving Yu Xiaogang's office, Zhang Tianyu felt positively refreshed!
How to dispel your troubles? There's nothing like making trouble for Grandmaster!
......
A peaceful month passed.
During that month,
Zhang Tianyu carried on as carefree as ever, going to class, eating, and playfully flirting with Xiao Wu every day.
But Tang San and Yu Xiaogang had a miserable month!
Tang San, Xiao Wu, and Zhang Tianyu went together to register at Spirit Hall and collect their Soul Master stipends.
But Tang San couldn't feel happy at all.
The first reason, naturally, was that the Soul Ring's energy had exploded away while he was absorbing it.
The second was that his Soul Skill was out of control.
He was especially troubled when he heard Grandmaster Ma Xiunuo exclaim in surprise after learning that Tang San had absorbed the Soul Ring of a Mandala Snake:
"A Plant-type Martial Soul can actually absorb the Soul Ring of an animal Soul Beast?" After that,
Tang San felt neither happiness nor pride—only worry.
As the saying went, what use was a powerful Soul Skill if you couldn't control it? It was trash!
Yu Xiaogang had an even rougher month!
Even while recovering from his injuries, he dragged his battered body to the dean and asked about the problem of an uncontrolled Soul Skill.
But how would the dean know?
The dean thought the guy was going to write a paper on "uncontrolled Soul Skills." He said he'd never heard of anything like it and couldn't help.
So Yu Xiaogang went nearly mad. He ignored his injuries and spent every day poring over all kinds of texts, seeking out every friend with even the slightest connection to the matter to ask for advice.
Of course, he asked Flender too.
But none of them gave him anything useful.
At first, he'd been full of hope, certain he could find the cause. Once he found the cause, he'd find a solution.
But a month passed without a single result, leaving him in agony and frustration!
And terrified, too!
He didn't know when Tang Hao might come back.
If Tang Hao came before he'd solved the problem, he might not just beat him up—he might kill him!
Because Tang Hao now believed that Yu Xiaogang had ruined Tang San's first Soul Skill!
"What should I do? What should I do? What am I supposed to do?" Yu Xiaogang sat at his desk, clutching his hair and muttering to himself.
His face was deathly pale, his eyes unfocused, his beard unkempt and his eye sockets dark. He looked like he was about to die right there on your phone screen.
A knock sounded at the door.
"Who is it?"
Yu Xiaogang sprang up like a startled cat.
"Teacher, it's me."
Tang San's voice came from outside.
"Come in." Yu Xiaogang quickly composed himself.
"Teacher, have you found any relevant records yet?" Tang San asked.
Yu Xiaogang let out a deep sigh and shook his head.
Tang San was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Teacher, I have an idea."
"What?"
"I want to test my Soul Skill over on the training field," Tang San said. "Maybe I just had a problem controlling it that time."
Yu Xiaogang fell silent.
How could this thing possibly be a control problem?
Tang San continued, "Even if it goes out of control again, I can at least see how likely that is to happen."
Yu Xiaogang rose to his feet, looking a little helpless. "All right. Let's go together."
There was nothing else they could do, so they might as well give it a try.
On the training field, Tang San used the Soul Skill again and again. Even after he ran out of Soul Power, it never went out of control.
Yu Xiaogang's eyes finally brightened a little.
"That's enough for today. Go back and get some good rest, and recover your Soul Power. We'll test it again tomorrow."
"All right, Teacher."
Another month passed like this. Tang San kept using the Soul Skill, and it never went out of control again.
Yu Xiaogang thought to himself, Could that loss of control really have been a one-time accident? Was it just that Little San wasn't used to controlling his Soul Skill the first time he used one?
He didn't know if that was the truth, but at least it was an explanation.
Yu Xiaogang made up his mind: he would keep searching for the cause. If he couldn't find another explanation, he'd use this one when he saw Tang Hao again.
If Tang Hao refused to accept it and still wanted to kill him, there was nothing he could do. He'd just have to resign himself to death.
At last, the days that followed returned to complete calm.
Soon, the holidays arrived as expected, and every student excitedly packed their bags to go home.
Only Xiao Wu didn't look very happy. She even seemed a little sad.
"Tianyu, Xiao Wu, what are you planning to do during the holidays?" Tang San asked after packing his things.
After spending the term together, the three of them had become close friends.
They'd even become something like a love triangle,
though, of course,
this love triangle wasn't quite what you might imagine,
because Xiao Wu wasn't one of its three points.
"I don't know," Zhang Tianyu said. "I'm the only one left in my family. There's not much point in going back."
In the backstory, Zhang Tianyu was still an orphan. The Zhang Family had once been a clan whose inherited Martial Soul was a sword, but it had later been wiped out. Zhang Tianyu was the only one left.
Xiao Wu was taken aback. "My situation is pretty much the same as Tianyu's..."
Tang San didn't ask any more. He simply said warmly, "In that case, why don't you come visit my home with me?"
"Can we?" Xiao Wu asked, blinking.
"Of course. My dad will be really happy to see you two come back with me." As Tang San spoke, longing stirred in his heart.
He'd been an orphan his whole previous life. Now, after all this time, he finally had a dad, and he cherished him.
But your dad's gone, isn't he? He's already left! Zhang Tianyu thought. And nobody knows where he went. The book never said, either.
"He planted Ah Yin somewhere," the system said at that moment. "So he might have gone off to sow his wild oats."
Zhang Tianyu: ......
If that was really true, then it was a collapse of morality and a distortion of human nature.
"Tianyu, let's go, okay~?" Xiao Wu said, tugging on Zhang Tianyu's arm.
Watching the two of them act so intimately,
Tang San felt a knot tighten in his chest.
Before you continue