An Unequal Fight

None of the students beneath the ring disagreed with Qin Shuyu; in fact, they felt her words made perfect sense.

Zhou Yuhu was, after all, the third-place winner of the school-wide fighting tournament, and even the combat instructors spoke of him with high praise, claiming he would surely make a name for himself in the city-wide tournament. To use him to teach the scrawny Shi Feng a lesson was, quite literally, using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

"He's acting so tough now, but I bet Shi Feng will be on his knees begging for mercy in a minute."

"That goes without saying. Do you even know who Zhou Yuhu is? I give it less than ten seconds before Shi Feng is flat on his back."

The male students in the class whispered about Shi Feng's inevitable fate, chuckling to themselves.

"What is wrong with you people? Is this how you treat your own classmate?" Zhao Ruoxi looked at the students, her expression filled with indignant questioning.

The class fell silent at once, though the looks they cast toward Zhao Ruoxi were filled with disdain.

A gaudily dressed girl curled her lip and whispered, "Pfft, she's just got a pretty face. If it weren't for Brother Long, do you really think anyone would listen to you?"

The other girls nodded in agreement, not holding their class monitor in any regard at all.

Although the girl's voice was low, everyone present heard her clearly. Lin Feilong, standing to the side, felt refreshed and thoroughly enjoyed the sentiment.

Zhao Ruoxi turned her head away in anger, refusing to look at them any longer.

Lin Feilong walked over and said with feigned gentility, "Ruoxi, I know you feel obligated to intervene as the class monitor, but Shi Feng brought this upon himself; you can't blame everyone else. Besides, with that scrawny frame of his, no one believes he can win. You're basically throwing your money into the water. I'll go talk to Brother Hu in a bit and tell him to forget about your money—let Shi Feng pay it all back."

"I am helping Shi Feng because I am the class monitor, but as for the money, I never expected to get it back," Zhao Ruoxi said, casting a cold glance at Lin Feilong. "It's you who took the recommendation quota that should have belonged to Shi Feng. Instead of helping him now, you're standing here making snide remarks. Aren't you worried about what people will say behind your back?"

"And you call this a sparring match? A third-place school champion against a student who doesn't even know the basics of combat—how can you even say that with a straight face?"

Every word Zhao Ruoxi spoke was like a pearl of truth, piercing Lin Feilong to the core. Combined with her elegant and refined beauty, her words carried an indescribable weight that struck at his heart, leaving him pale and speechless.

As Zhao Ruoxi had implied, every class was allotted a certain number of recommendation quotas, reserved only for students whose academic grades ranked in the top twenty. Lin Feilong had struggled to secure his own spot in the city-wide fighting tournament; if others found out that he, the great Lin Feilong, couldn't even earn a recommendation quota as a university student, it would be the ultimate humiliation.

The school had previously considered this "face" issue and ruled that the top five students could receive a quota regardless of their grades. However, Lin Feilong had only ranked ninth, so he naturally didn't qualify. He had petitioned the school for an exception, and since he ranked thirtieth—not far from the top twenty—the school had agreed, provided he could get someone else to yield their spot. How he convinced them to give it up was entirely his own business.

He had originally intended to use the collective will of the class and his own reputation to easily crush a weakling like Shi Feng, tossing him a few scraps of benefit to finish the matter. He hadn't expected Shi Feng to act so differently, appearing to hold him in zero regard and showing no fear of his threats. Now, being mocked by Zhao Ruoxi, the fire in his heart burned with an inextinguishable rage.

"Fine, it isn't an equal match, but can you blame anyone for Shi Feng's weakness? Who agreed to the fight? You can't blame me for that."

Lin Feilong's bloodshot eyes flickered toward Zhao Ruoxi. Had she not been so stunningly beautiful and alluring, he would have slapped her across the face already. He held back; using force was unwise, and Zhao Ruoxi's family background was not simple. If things went wrong, his life would be ruined. Thinking of how he might toy with her in the future, his rage cooled slightly.

You brat, making me look like a fool—just you wait, Lin Feilong thought, staring daggers at Shi Feng on the ring as he made a silent vow.

Shi Feng, standing on the ring, sensed Lin Feilong's hostility and offered a dismissive smile.

However, he conceded one point to Lin Feilong.

This was indeed not an equal fight.

In his previous life, even though his physical fitness couldn't compare to top-tier fighters, he had still managed to beat them into the ground. He relied on the life-and-death struggles he had endured in God's Domain. A "hero of a hundred battles" is forged by surviving a hundred battlefields; it is difficult not to become a master when you have walked that path.

Many martial arts masters trained on the edges of thousand-foot cliffs, using that sense of teetering on the brink of death to hone their skills. However, such methods were too dangerous for ordinary people, who would likely go insane or lose their lives.

Having experienced so many hyper-realistic life-and-death battles in God's Domain, his combat experience and technique had improved by leaps and bounds, far exceeding the level of any national fighting tournament.

Ten years later, any melee player with a shred of fame could easily defeat the current fighting champion of Jinhai City, let alone someone who had been the Guild Leader of Shadow Studio.

The school fighting tournament was, in his eyes, nothing more than children playing house. Furthermore, his current physical condition actually surpassed his peak in the future; dealing with five or six Lin Feilongs would be a trivial matter.

"You've got a lot of nerve, looking around while you're in the ring. Watch how I deal with you!" Zhou Yuhu charged at Shi Feng, swinging a palm toward his face, intent on humiliating him immediately.

Shi Feng saw the move coming and didn't even flinch. Facing someone with more raw strength than himself, he simply threw a casual punch toward Zhou Yuhu's face, ignoring the incoming slap entirely.

Zhou Yuhu hadn't expected Shi Feng's punch to be so precise, aimed directly at his face, and instinctively raised his hands to block.

Seeing this, the corners of Shi Feng's mouth curled upward. He quickly executed a hand-blade strike toward Zhou Yuhu's neck, moving with lightning speed. Zhou Yuhu couldn't react in time, and the strike landed with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel, cutting across the carotid artery.

Zhou Yuhu's vision blurred instantly; he felt as if he couldn't breathe, and his entire body went limp.

Shi Feng didn't give him a moment to recover, driving a fist into Zhou Yuhu's flank. Zhou Yuhu tried to defend, but his body refused to obey. He felt his stomach churn as if being shredded by knives, and a mouthful of bile surged up his throat. His vision went dark, and he couldn't even manage a scream.

Zhou Yuhu instinctively tried to collapse, but Shi Feng gave him no chance, landing punch after punch into his side and then his ribs. After a barrage of straight punches, Zhou Yuhu vomited the acid from his stomach and slumped to the ground like a dead dog.

The entire arena fell into a deathly silence.

It had all happened too fast—so fast that no one could even process what they had seen.

The combat instructor, acting as the referee, finally snapped out of his shock and immediately declared the match over, naming Shi Feng the winner, before rushing to Zhou Yuhu's side to check on him.

He truly hadn't expected that Zhou Yuhu, the school's third-place winner, wouldn't even last a single exchange against this scrawny youth.

It wasn't that Zhou Yuhu was weak; it was that the youth walking away was simply too strong. He had watched several of Zhou Yuhu's matches, and the boy was definitely formidable—even the instructor would have found him difficult to handle.

After examining the injuries, the instructor was stunned. The technique was terrifying; every strike had been perfectly calculated. Only two or three ribs were broken, avoiding any life-threatening damage, though Zhou Yuhu would be in agony for at least a month before he recovered.