Lin Yun's Lackey

Ye Xiao set down his chopsticks and looked up.

He looked at the bowl of soup, then at the face of Sun the Lackey.

"Put the soup down."

His voice was calm, as if he were commenting on the nice weather.

Sun the Lackey froze for a moment, then grinned even wider.

He turned to Zhou the Lackey and said, "Did you hear that? He told me to put the soup down."

Zhou the Lackey laughed as well. "Well then, why don't you put it down?"

"Fine, I'll put it down."

Sun the Lackey loosened his grip.

The bowl hit the table, egg drop soup splashing across the surface and onto Ye Xiao's cuff.

The cafeteria fell completely silent.

Everyone watched the scene unfold.

Some gasped, some excitedly pulled out their phones, and others secretly sent messages under their tables—

"Come quick, Lin Yun's men are messing with that Martialist!"

Ye Xiao looked down at the soup stain on his sleeve.

It was his only long-sleeved T-shirt; he had washed it so many times the color had turned gray.

In the old schoolbag his foster father left behind, there were two other shirts, but both had holes in them.

He looked up at Sun the Lackey.

"I said, put the soup down."

Sun the Lackey felt a chill under his gaze, but with three people standing behind him and dozens watching, he couldn't back down.

"I put it down, didn't I?" He pointed at the mess on the table. "Look, isn't it sitting there just fine?"

Zhou the Lackey chimed in, "What, you're not happy? If you're not happy, hit me then. Come on, come on, I'll stand still, just try hitting me."

He patted his own face, grinning obnoxiously:

"Hit right here. A Martialist, how much strength could you possibly have? A hundred pounds? Two hundred?"

"If you break anything, it's on me. I won't fight back."

Someone in the cafeteria let out a laugh, but quickly stifled it.

Ye Xiao looked at him and spat out a cold sentence.

"Did Lin Yun send you here to mess with me?"

The men's expressions shifted at the mention of the name, but they quickly retorted.

"Hmph, we just don't like you, you nepotism hire!"

"This has nothing to do with Brother Yun!"

"Even if Brother Yun didn't say anything, we still want to teach a nepotism hire like you a lesson!"

"..."

Hearing this, Ye Xiao let out a scoff.

"So, it was Lin Yun who arranged for you to mess with me."

The men were stunned, realizing they had slipped up.

Just as they prepared to argue.

Ye Xiao stood up.

His chair scraped against the floor with a harsh, grating sound.

A powerful aura surged from Ye Xiao's body.

It sent a shiver down everyone's spine.

Sun the Lackey and Zhou the Lackey instinctively took a step back—then realized what they had done, their faces turning ugly.

Ye Xiao didn't look at them.

He simply pushed his tray toward the inner edge of the table, as if to protect it.

Then, his calm gaze fell upon the three of them.

"How exactly do you want to mess with me? You three cowards."

Sun the Lackey stood frozen, his face flushing red and then turning pale.

He had been scared into retreating by Ye Xiao simply standing up.

In front of dozens of people, he had been intimidated by a Martialist.

"You motherfucker, you dare call us softies?"

He lunged forward, reaching out to grab Ye Xiao by the shoulder.

Ye Xiao stopped in his tracks.

He didn't turn around; he merely lowered his gaze to look at the hand resting on his shoulder.

"Take it off."

Sun the Lackey's hand was trembling, but he didn't pull it away.

"You goddamn—"

He didn't finish his sentence.

Ye Xiao moved.

He didn't turn around, nor did he throw a punch.

He simply dipped his shoulder slightly, and then—

A massive force surged from Sun the Lackey's palm, as if he had been struck by a sledgehammer.

His entire arm went numb, and he staggered backward uncontrollably for three or four steps, crashing into the table behind him and flipping over with it in a loud clatter.

A chorus of gasps erupted in the cafeteria.

No one had seen exactly what happened.

They only saw Sun the Lackey reach for Ye Xiao's shoulder, then Ye Xiao's shoulder gave a slight twitch, and Sun the Lackey went flying.

Zhou the Lackey turned pale: "You—"

Ye Xiao turned around and looked at him.

"Still want to fight?"

Zhou the Lackey glanced at his companion on the floor, then back at the two men behind him.

There were three of them.

Ye Xiao was only one person.

He gritted his teeth: "All together now!"

The three men charged forward simultaneously.

Zhou the Lackey took the lead, while the other two flanked from the sides. Screams rang out across the cafeteria as tables and chairs were knocked askew.

Ye Xiao stood his ground, not moving an inch.

Zhou the Lackey's fist arrived first—a full-force strike from a B-rank profession: Vajra Arm, packing roughly three to four hundred pounds of force, enough to shatter the bones of an ordinary person.

Ye Xiao raised his hand.

He didn't punch; he simply raised his hand.

His palm was like an iron gate, catching that fist with absolute stability.

The repeated compression and tempering of the 120th layer of the Mud Embryo Realm!

It had forged Ye Xiao's physical foundation to be incomparably solid!

Zhou the Lackey was stunned.

His fist was gripped as if by iron pincers, unable to move a muscle.

You have to understand!

He was a powerhouse at the eighth layer of the second realm!

Yet he was being toyed with by a piece of trash from the first realm!

"You—"

Ye Xiao tightened his fingers.

Crack!

The sound of bone fracturing.

Before Zhou the Lackey's scream could escape his throat, Ye Xiao had already released his grip and stepped forward in one fluid motion.

This single step covered two meters, slamming him directly into the chest of the man on the left.

That man felt as if he had been hit head-on by a truck; he flew backward, crashing into a dining table two meters away, sending soup and food splattering everywhere.

The man on the right was already paralyzed with fear, his fist held in mid-air, not daring to strike.

Ye Xiao turned his head to look at him.

"Do you still want to fight?"

The man's knees went weak, and he collapsed to his knees.

"No, no more fighting..."

A deathly silence descended upon the cafeteria.

The three people on the ground were in a sorry state: one clutched his shoulder and groaned, another gripped his wrist and shrieked, and the third knelt on the floor, trembling.

Ye Xiao stood in their midst, not a single drop of sweat on his body.

He lowered his head to look at his fist—a faint golden light was fading from his knuckles.

The surrounding students scrambled to pull out their phones to take photos and record videos.

The three men struggling in agony on the floor, disregarding their pain, hurriedly roared at the top of their lungs.

"No photos allowed!"

"Put your damn phones away, all of you!"

"Whoever dares to record a video, just wait for our ruthless retaliation later!"

"..."

Some students were intimidated by the trio's threats and silently lowered their phones.

But there were also those who were bold enough, or simply wanted to stir up more trouble.

They recorded the video and immediately uploaded it to the school's internal forum.

In no time at all, the footage of Ye Xiao brutally beating the three men went viral.

It drew the attention of the entire student body!

Just then, Fatty Wang, who had just returned with a fresh tray of food, stared at the scene before him in utter shock.

"Good heavens."

"Ye Xiao, you beat up Lin Yun's lackeys?"

Ye Xiao offered a faint smile.

"They provoked me first, so I had no choice but to fight back."

Fatty Wang gave him a thumbs-up in admiration.

"Badass!"

"Those guys definitely deserved a beating!"

At this moment, the cafeteria manager, alerted by the students, rushed over.

When he saw that people had been fighting here, breaking tables and disrupting the other students' meals, a look of fury immediately crossed his face.

He unleashed the power of the Eighth Realm, suppressing the entire room.

The previously noisy scene fell instantly silent.

"Who gave you permission to fight in the cafeteria?"

"Everyone involved in this fight, get over here!"