Xiao Family's Revenge, Secret Arrows

Just as Tang San was about to fire his sleeve arrow, Ji Yuan forcibly cut off a breath in his chest.

The mechanism's click caught in his palm, and the arrow did not shoot out.

Anger rose in Tang San's eyes.

He did not understand why his body had stalled again at such a critical moment, but the hidden arrows were already upon him. He could only twist sharply at the waist and let one of them graze the fabric over his arm.

Xiao Wu rushed straight to the edge of the arena from below. "Zhou Ming, how dare you use hidden weapons!"

The teacher's expression changed as well. "Stop!"

How could Zhou Ming be willing to stop?

He had taken Xiao Chenyu's money, and he still had another move hidden in his sleeve. As long as Tang San bled, he could pass off what happened after the poisoning as an accident.

The wind around his feet shifted, and he circled behind Tang San. A second volley of hidden arrows was already clasped between his fingers.

Ji Yuan would not let Tang San kill someone in full view of everyone.

Nor would he let Zhou Ming get away so easily.

Roots burrowed beneath the arena, traveling along the wooden beams. Their metallic barbs concealed their presence as they shot upward beneath where Zhou Ming was about to land.

The moment Zhou Ming's foot touched down, a sharp thorn suddenly pierced through the sole of his shoe.

"Ah!"

He screamed and dropped to his knees, sending the hidden arrows in his hand flying wildly off course.

Ji Yuan had not pierced too deeply. He had only delivered the poison.

The Datura Snake venom weakened his soul power, the hallucinogenic poison nurtured from Xiao Wu's essence muddled his mind, and a trace of the metallic aura from the iron mother metal Ji Yuan had just digested was mixed in as well, making the wound ache to the bone.

Tang San became three or four figures before Zhou Ming's eyes.

He could not tell who was who. All he heard was Xiao Chenyu shouting from below the arena.

"Useless trash, get up!"

The poison twisted those words into hostility.

Zhou Ming turned around and flung his wrist wildly, sending three hidden arrows straight at Xiao Chenyu.

Xiao Chenyu's expression changed. "Zhou Ming, are you insane?!"

He summoned his wolf martial soul and scrambled into a roll to the side.

The first hidden arrow nailed itself into the ground by his foot.

The second grazed his pant leg.

Liu Qiang blocked the third with a wooden placard. After the arrowhead embedded itself in the board, black spots began to emerge.

The surrounding students recoiled in an uproar.

The teacher rushed onto the arena and barked, "Zhou Ming, stop!"

Zhou Ming clutched his foot and rolled around on the ground, shouting incoherently, "Don't come closer, don't come closer! Tang San is behind me!"

Tang San stood where he was, his expression grim.

His sleeve arrow had not fired, and his Blue Silver Grass had not touched Zhou Ming. Yet Zhou Ming had suddenly injured his foot and then turned around to shoot at Xiao Chenyu. No matter how one looked at it, the whole matter was strange.

Xiao Wu leaped onto the arena and stood in front of Tang San. "Teacher, he used poisoned hidden arrows first. Everyone here saw it!"

Xiao Chenyu climbed up from the ground, his face livid. "Tang San is behind this!"

Tang San looked at him. "I stood here without moving."

Xiao Chenyu pointed at Zhou Ming's foot. "Then what happened to his foot?"

Before Tang San could speak, Xiao Wu snapped back, "Maybe he fell down by himself? Aren't you upperclassmen the best at beating up your own people?"

Someone below the arena could not help but laugh.

Xiao Chenyu was struck right where he had been humiliated yesterday, and his expression grew even uglier.

The teacher crouched down to inspect Zhou Ming's foot. There was blood on the sole of his shoe. The wound was tiny, but it had turned black.

He then picked up the hidden arrow lodged in the wooden placard. After catching the scent on its tip, his face darkened.

"Poisoned."

Zhou Ming was still shouting, "Boss Xiao, save me! You were the one who sent me! You were the one who gave me the money!"

The moment those words came out, the entire training ground erupted.

Liu Qiang hurriedly backed away.

Xiao Chenyu rushed over, trying to cover Zhou Ming's mouth. "What nonsense are you talking about?!"

Xiao Wu kicked away his reaching hand. "What, trying to silence him?"

Xiao Chenyu snapped, "Little girl, don't slander people!"

Tang San walked up to the teacher and raised the sleeve that had been grazed by the hidden arrow. "Teacher, the arrow came from a blind angle beneath my ribs. If I had been any slower, I would have been poisoned."

The teacher's expression darkened further.

He could pretend not to notice the switched list, but a poisoned hidden arrow and a student publicly identifying Xiao Chenyu—this could no longer be suppressed.

"Xiao Chenyu, Zhou Ming, come with me to the Academic Affairs Office."

Xiao Chenyu gritted his teeth. "Teacher, Tang San must have tampered with something too!"

Tang San looked at him. "Where's the evidence?"

Xiao Chenyu was left speechless.

The wooden spike beneath Zhou Ming's foot had already been withdrawn by Ji Yuan. The cracks in the arena floor returned to normal, leaving only an inconspicuous fissure that blended into the old damage. No one would investigate it.

Ji Yuan's roots retreated underground, sweeping away every trace of poison before plugging the hole with wood shavings.

Clean.

Tang San had no idea what had happened. Xiao Wu thought Zhou Ming had brought it upon himself, while the teachers saw only a poisoned arrow and a situation spiraling out of control.

Xiao Chenyu could suspect whatever he wanted, but he could not produce a shred of proof.

Zhou Ming was carried away by two teachers, still shouting wildly, "Boss Xiao, I didn't mean to shoot you! I saw Tang San standing beside you!"

Xiao Chenyu's chest rose and fell with rage, yet he did not dare say another word.

Xiao Wu pulled a face at him. "That saying about lifting a rock only to smash your own foot—it fits you perfectly, doesn't it?"

Xiao Chenyu turned and glared at Tang San. "Just you wait."

Tang San's expression turned cold as well. "I'll be waiting."

Ji Yuan had no interest in empty threats.

The crowd was what truly mattered.

The chaos had packed every student on the field together. Soul power fluctuations were in complete disarray, while fear, anger, and excitement all drove their blood and vitality upward.

It was the perfect time to cast a net.

He did not act through Tang San. Instead, he released a batch of spores as fine as dust through the cracks beneath the arena.

The wind blew in from the other side of the field.

The spores drifted along the hems of clothes, through hair, over shoes, and into sleeves.

Lower-grade students, the teachers handling registration, upper-grade elites—even several instructors standing at the edge to watch the excitement—were all marked by him.

For now, these spores neither sucked blood nor released poison.

They only hid.

As Tang San stepped down from the stage, Xiao Wu was still checking his sleeve. "Are you hurt?"

Tang San shook his head. "Just the clothes were torn."

Xiao Wu frowned. "That won't do. Let Grandmaster take a look later. You can't be careless with something poisoned."

Tang San had his own concerns as well.

Zhou Ming's injury was far too strange.

He lowered his voice. "Xiao Wu, did you see anyone make a move just now?"

Xiao Wu rolled her eyes. "You're still trying to make excuses for them? Zhou Ming has done too many bad things. His foot slipped, and even heaven couldn't stand the sight of him."

Tang San did not ask again.

Ji Yuan gently withdrew the roots wrapped around Tang San's heart meridian.

Good.

Xiao Wu would explain it with luck. Yu Xiaogang would explain it as rejection. Tang San would explain it as an error in the hidden weapon.

Everyone would skirt around the truth.

The tournament was temporarily suspended.

The teachers took Xiao Chenyu and Zhou Ming away, but the students remained clustered around the field, unwilling to leave.

Wang Sheng ran over, his face full of satisfaction. "Boss, Xiao Chenyu is really finished this time. He got exposed in public by one of his own people!"

Tang San shook his head. "Not necessarily. His father is still the city lord."

Xiao Wu protested, "So the city lord's son can use poisoned arrows?"

Wang Sheng lowered his voice. "That's true, but the academy might not dare punish him too severely."

Tang San looked toward the Academic Affairs Office, his voice turning colder. "If there's a next time, I won't hold back."

Hearing that, Ji Yuan only found it laughable.

Hold back?

You might not even get to decide when you make a move.

News soon came from the Academic Affairs Office.

Zhou Ming had violated the rules by using a poisoned hidden arrow. He was disqualified from the tournament and given a major demerit. Xiao Chenyu, implicated in the matter, received a severe warning from the academy and was suspended from the remaining matches.

This result made Xiao Wu slap the table on the spot.

"Is that all?"

Wang Sheng gave a wry smile. "Sister Xiao Wu, that's already considered severe."

Xiao Wu was so angry she wanted to go argue with them, but Tang San stopped her. "Making a fuss now won't help."

"So we're just letting it go?"

Tang San looked in the direction Xiao Chenyu had left. "We'll remember it for now."

Ji Yuan was even better at remembering than Tang San.

Deeper spores had already been planted within Xiao Chenyu, Liu Qiang, Zhou Ming, and several older students.

They were not threats.

They were new sources of energy.

By evening, the competition ended hastily. As the people from Seventh Dormitory returned, they were still discussing what had happened during the day.

Xiao Wu cursed the entire way back.

Tang San listened, but one hand remained pressed against his belt. Clearly, he was still thinking about the wound on Zhou Ming's sole.

Ji Yuan did not continue to provoke him.

Suspicion was nothing to fear.

Suspicion without evidence would only gradually be buried beneath exhaustion.

Night fell, and the lights throughout the academy went out one by one.

Ji Yuan's consciousness awakened through the spores he had scattered during the day.

Dozens of tiny points of perception lit up at once.

The senior students' dormitory, the teachers' duty room, the equipment shed beside the field, the outer wall of the academic affairs office—every marked person was within his web.

Xiao Chenyu lay on his bed, muttering curses about Tang San.

Liu Qiang curled up on another bed, too afraid to respond.

Zhou Ming's foot was wrapped in medicine, and even in his sleep, he was still gasping in pain.

Ji Yuan did not devour them immediately.

He merely sent a wisp of the residual poison forced out of Tang San's body toward the nearest spore through underground roots.

The first dormant poison seed fell into Liu Qiang's meridians.

Then came the second, the third, and more spores began to awaken in the darkness.