Merely a Little Wind and Frost (Seeking Reads)

After Tang Hao vanished, the small woods returned to a deathly silence.

Zhao Wuji struggled to roll over, looking at Flender beside him as he cursed in a slurred, incoherent mess.

"Flender, you old bastard! This is all your fault, getting me beaten to a pulp for no reason!"

Flender, sporting a face swollen like a pig's head, felt like crying but had no tears left.

"How was I supposed to know that was the Clear Sky Douluo? What kind of Title Douluo wears a tattered cloak in the middle of the night to play bandit? My luck is cursed—how am I supposed to show my face tomorrow?"

That pit-digging bastard Yu Xiaogang had actually hidden the fact that Tang San's father was Tang Hao!

Flender retorted without a hint of politeness.

"What do you mean 'my fault'? If you hadn't followed along to watch the show, would you have gotten this beating?"

The two stared at each other, silently greeting every generation of Tang Hao's ancestors in their minds.

They even dragged Tang San into their curses.

"That brat is definitely a jinx!"

Zhao Wuji was filled with grief and indignation. "His master was turned into a eunuch by him, and the two of us were beaten into pig heads by his father."

"Shut your mouth, Old Zhao." Flender hurriedly cut off Zhao Wuji's grumbling.

That loose tongue of his—he'd just been beaten, yet he still hadn't learned his lesson.

What if Tang Hao was still nearby? Wouldn't that be a disaster?

Flender sighed, clutching his aching lower back as he struggled to climb to his feet. "Stop howling, save your breath and help me up."

Zhao Wuji rolled his eyes. "Why should I help you? Why don't you help me?"

"Nonsense, I'm the Dean! Do you want me to dock your pay?"

"What else can you do besides dock my pay?"

The two supported each other, standing up shakily.

Zhao Wuji suggested, "Should we go find Shao Xin for some sugar beans to heal up? I'm afraid I'll scare the students to death looking like this tomorrow."

"To hell with that!" Flender glared at him, hissing in pain as the movement pulled at his wounds. "If I go there, where would I put my face as Dean?"

Zhao Wuji wasn't having it, holding out his hand. "Fine, we can tough it out, but this matter today won't be settled for less than one hundred Gold Soul Coins."

"Mental damages, lost wages, nutritional fees—if you're short a single copper, I'm coming for you."

At the mention of money, Flender panicked. "Are you robbing me? One hundred Gold Soul Coins? Why don't you just sell me instead? One coin at most, take it or leave it!"

"One coin? You're treating me like a beggar! Two coins!"

"Deal!"

The moonlight stretched their shadows long across the ground.

Two old bachelors with a combined age of over a hundred years limped away, slinking toward the dormitories in defeat.

The next day.

The sun rose as usual, but the Shrek Academy training grounds were deathly quiet.

Yu Xiaogang was bedridden, while Flender and Zhao Wuji collectively claimed illness, hiding in their rooms and refusing to show their faces.

Oscar and Ma Hongjun had no choice but to train on their own.

Tang San woke up with a start in his dormitory.

The duration of the High-Level Bad Luck Talisman had expired.

He touched the large bump on the back of his head and pulled out the remaining poisonous needles from his backside, his brain still buzzing.

Immediately, the memories of yesterday flooded back like a tidal wave.

First, his hand slipped, triggering his hidden weapons; then he stepped on a banana peel, and his Ghost Shadow Perplexing Track turned into a "left foot stepping on right foot" Thomas flair.

Finally, with a textbook-perfect sliding kneel, he had driven his Hidden Weapon Box straight into Yu Xiaogang's lower regions.

The entire sequence of moves had been so silky smooth it made one's scalp tingle.

Every scene was like a resounding slap to the face of the "pure and noble Tang San"!

"No, I have to go explain this clearly to Teacher!"

Tang San scrambled off the bed and bolted straight for Yu Xiaogang's dormitory.

Pushing open the door, a thick, pungent medicinal scent rushed out to meet him.

Yu Xiaogang lay flat on the wooden bed, his lower body wrapped in thick white gauze, looking like an unearthed Pharaoh.

Hearing the door open, Yu Xiaogang opened his eyes.

The moment he saw it was Tang San, the hatred in the depths of Yu Xiaogang's eyes was almost impossible to suppress.

He was filled with hate!

He had only had half left to begin with, barely enough to keep a shred of hope alive.

As a result, this rebellious disciple had performed an outrageous slide-kneel, directly crushing it!

He sliced Tang San into ten thousand pieces a thousand times over in his heart.

But he could not flip the table.

Not when this brat's father was Tang Hao, and not when he possessed twin martial souls and innate full soul power.

He was also the only straw he had left to prove that he was not a failure.

Once he turned against him, he, Yu Xiaogang, would be reduced to a disgraced, castrated wretch.

If not for all these reasons, Yu Xiaogang would have nearly summoned Luo Sanpao to fart Tang San to death.

Deep breath.

Deep breath again.

Yu Xiaogang forcibly suppressed the urge to kill Tang San, struggling to squeeze out a benevolent expression.

Yet, paired with his deathly pale face, this smile looked even worse than crying.

He spoke weakly in his hoarse, duck-like voice, "San, you're here."

Tang San was overwhelmed with shame, his head bowed, not daring to look at Yu Xiaogang at all.

He opened his mouth, but did not know how to defend himself.

Should he say his hand slipped? That he stepped on a banana peel? If he said that, let alone his teacher, even he himself would find it utterly ridiculous.

"Thump!"

Tang San's knees went weak, and he knelt heavily before the bed.

"Teacher, I, I am sorry!" Tang San's eyes were red-rimmed, his voice choked with sobs.

Hearing the sound of knees hitting the floor, Yu Xiaogang shuddered, the excruciating pain in his lower body surging to his brain like an electric current.

You rebellious disciple, you still dare to kneel?

It was this very kneel yesterday that nearly sent me to my grave!

Yu Xiaogang gritted his back teeth, forcing himself to put on the air of a detached, high-minded expert: "Get up, San. Your teacher... does not blame you."

Tang San looked up abruptly, his face full of astonishment.

"Teacher."

Yu Xiaogang closed his eyes and looked up at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle, his voice filled with thirty percent desolation and seventy percent detachment: "In any case, this half of your teacher's body was already gone; keeping it was just for show."

Tang San felt as if his heart were being twisted by a knife, the guilt threatening to drown him.

His teacher's lower regions—both times, it was his own doing.

"Besides, San, your teacher believes you didn't do it on purpose."

Yu Xiaogang continued: "San, the physical body is merely a shackle that hinders the truth. By doing this, you have actually severed my last remaining worldly distractions."

"From this day forward, I shall become a pure master of theory!"

Tang San was dumbfounded.

What a magnanimous heart! What a realm of existence!

He had committed such a monstrous mistake, yet not only did his teacher not blame him, he had actually realized the truth from it!

He was completely brainwashed by this thick-skinned, majestic radiance.

"Teacher, I swear, I will provide for you and see you to your final rest! If I break this oath, may heaven destroy me and the earth annihilate me; may I suffer a miserable death for all eternity."

Tang San raised three fingers, his words ringing with conviction.

As he spoke, a few tears streamed from the corners of his eyes.

Yu Xiaogang wanted to raise his hand to show the depth of their master-disciple bond.

But the moment he moved, it aggravated the injury in his crotch, sending a heart-piercing, bone-gnawing pain that made cold sweat pour down his face.

He could only let out a long sigh, his tone carrying the exhaustion and relief of one who had weathered the vicissitudes of life.

"San, do not cry."

"This bit of pain in my broken body is but a mere trifle of life's hardships."

As soon as these words were spoken, the atmosphere in the room instantly became solemn.

Tang San could no longer control his emotions, throwing himself onto the edge of the bed and wailing loudly.

Yu Xiaogang reached out a withered hand and gently patted Tang San's back.

The master and disciple, one crying his heart out, the other grimacing in agony.