Wu Siduo

"Hey, Lin Xun."

The red-haired girl set the small brocade box in her hand on the table, lifting her chin slightly.

"See this?

White Tiger Pill.

A treasure passed down through my family. This one was given to me by my dad.

It strengthens the foundation, replenishes vitality, doubles the speed of soul power cultivation after consumption, and can even improve one's physique. In the entire first grade—no, in the entire junior division—who else gets treatment like this?"

The boy sitting opposite her looked at the brocade box, his eyes lighting up briefly before he put on an obedient, ingratiating smile. "That amazing? Lend me one, then. Once I save up enough money, I'll pay you back when school starts."

"Lend?" The girl pulled the brocade box back, eyeing him warily. "Do you know how precious this is? My dad said I can't give it to outsiders."

"I'm not an outsider. What's our relationship? Besides, I'm only borrowing one. I'll definitely return it when school starts. I swear." The boy held up three fingers as though taking an oath.

The girl hesitated. She stared at his fingers for several seconds before finally snorting and pushing the brocade box toward him. "Fine, fine. Pay me back when school starts. Don't make me wait too long."

The boy accepted the brocade box with a brilliant smile. "Don't worry. On the first day of school, I'll return it to you personally."

"As if you'd dare not to." The girl turned her head away, thinking that they would see each other again when they entered the intermediate division anyway. If he failed to return it then, she would make him her little lackey.

Little did she know that when school began, she searched the vast intermediate division of Star Luo Academy but could not find that blond-haired boy.

Only a letter remained.

Do not disturb. I have transferred schools.

There was even a drawing of a White Tiger Pill on the back of the letter.

In this life, Lin Xun had not actually been born in Donghai City, but in Star Luo City.

At first, he had studied at Star Luo's junior academy, where there had been someone in his class who was famous throughout all of Star Luo City.

Wu Siduo.

She was hailed as Star Luo's greatest genius of the past century.

That was actually rather modest. Judging by initial talent, Wu Siduo was Star Luo City's greatest genius in twenty thousand years.

She possessed twin top-tier martial souls, as well as a self martial soul fusion skill that was only theoretically possible.

That alone was enough to prove just how exceptional she was.

Naturally, Lin Xun had initially wanted to obtain her breakup points, but they had been too young at the time. He simply could not pull it off.

He had all the skills for romance, yet nowhere to put them to use.

If he had stayed, he would have had to spend several more years playing a nurturing game with Wu Siduo. So, when it was time to enter the intermediate division, he decisively transferred to Donghai Academy.

For a genius born with full innate soul power, transferring across regions was no problem at all.

After all, Donghai Academy had far too many potential breakup targets, not to mention Gu Yue, who could provide an enormous number of breakup points. He could not possibly give up an entire peach orchard for a single peach.

He just had not expected this girl to chase him all the way to Donghai Academy.

Wu Siduo stepped down from the competition platform, her wine-red curls swaying slightly. She walked straight through the crowd, stopped in front of Lin Xun, and stood there.

Without saying a word, she folded her arms and watched him. Her catlike eyes narrowed slightly, and a faint, ambiguous smile hung on her lips.

The two boys following beside her stopped as well.

Zhang Yangzi looked at Wu Siduo, then at Lin Xun, unable to hold back any longer. "Wu Siduo, you know each other?"

"We do." Wu Siduo drew out her words, as if she had chewed on them for quite some time before finally spitting them out. "More than that. This is the Lin Xun I told you about—the one who tricked my family out of a White Tiger Pill, said he'd return it when school started, then transferred away and ran off! Lin! Xun! Classmate!"

"Junior, what's going on?" Mu Xi frowned slightly as she asked Lin Xun, "Who is she?"

"Childhood sweethearts, that's all." Wu Siduo answered before he could, though her tone remained as sharp as ever.

"What!?"

Mu Xi's pupils contracted slightly. She had never known that Lin Xun had a childhood sweetheart.

So Zi Xin did not even count as his first love.

"I only borrowed it," Lin Xun corrected.

"Then pay it back." Wu Siduo held out her hand, palm up, curling her five fingers at him. "The White Tiger Pill. Now! This instant! Immediately!

If you can't return it, I'll let you have a taste of a martial soul fusion skill right now."

Lin Xun fell silent for two seconds.

"I ate it."

"...You ate it?"

"Yeah. It tasted all right, just a little bitter."

Wu Siduo drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the amusement in her eyes had vanished completely, replaced by a far more dangerous gleam.

"Do you know how important that White Tiger Pill was? Do you know how I felt when I couldn't find you on the first day of school?"

"How did you feel?"

"Like hanging you from the gates of Star Luo City."

By then, people around them had already begun discussing it heatedly. After all, Lin Xun was quite well-known at Donghai Academy, not to mention Wu Siduo, the newly transferred genius girl.

"Actually, there are more pills." Lin Xun took a pitch-black, round medicinal pill from his soul guidance storage ring.

The White Tiger Pill was not meant to be swallowed directly, but refined. Its internal energy was extraordinarily abundant and needed to be refined and absorbed over multiple sessions.

However, this one was not Wu Siduo's pill, but one he had exchanged from the system shop. The White Tiger Pill Wu Siduo had originally possessed was actually flawed; if she absorbed it, problems were very likely to arise.

The method for making White Tiger Pills had long been lost. Only a few families in Star Luo City still had some left behind by their ancestors. Lin Xun, meanwhile, had absorbed a genuine, complete White Tiger Pill ten thousand years ago.

That was why he had recognized it at a glance.

He had mentioned it to Wu Siduo at the time, but she had only taken it as a joke. Although she later had her father examine it, her father had said there was no problem as well.

After all, no one would believe the words of a boy under ten years old.

So, in the end, Lin Xun had used this method to take the White Tiger Pill away and leave without a sound. It was precisely to prevent Wu Siduo from directly absorbing it and harming the foundation of her future cultivation.

Wu Siduo looked at the black pill before her, which lacked even the slightest smooth luster and resembled some kind of leg-stretching, eye-rolling death pill. The veins at her brow twitched.

"Why did my White Tiger Pill turn black!?"

"Lin Xun, you really are something."

Her voice was cool and clear, carrying the crispness unique to a young girl, yet wrapped in the furious pride of a tsundere. She enunciated every word with perfect clarity, and her voice carried through the entire crowd.

"Do you think I care about a single White Tiger Pill?"

The moment those words came out, the entire place erupted.

Everyone thought she was distressed over that priceless, foundation-strengthening wonder pill, of which her family only had three each year. Yet she herself had never truly been angry about the pill from beginning to end.

That White Tiger Pill had been a precious treasure specially prepared by her father to temper her cultivation foundation. It had been the most precious possession of her entire youth.

Yet when she had willingly lent it to him, it had not been because she was foolish. It was because she trusted him.

For three years in Star Luo's junior division, they had been classmates. Others only saw her as a peerless genius who stood high above all others and kept strangers at a distance. Only Lin Xun had been different.

He would come over with an obedient, endearing smile and strike up a conversation with her. He would flatter her pride and praise her. He would wheedle and coax until her heart softened. She had never made an exception for anyone in her life, yet for him alone, she had broken that rule and given away her most precious cultivation treasure.

How could Wu Siduo not know that Lin Xun intended to absorb it? She also knew he could never repay it. She had even planned it all out: once school started and they entered the intermediate division, she would force him to acknowledge the debt and make him her personal attendant. From then on, whether cultivating, competing, or attending class, he would have to follow her.

As Star Luo's number one genius in twenty thousand years, it was the first time in her life that she had taken the initiative to accommodate someone, the first time she had eagerly awaited a reunion when school began, and the first time she had promised someone a uniquely special treatment.

And what happened?

On the day school started, she had packed her things early and waited at the entrance to the intermediate division half an hour in advance. She waited from the first faint light of dawn until the sun hung high overhead.

She searched every training ground, classroom, and dormitory in the entire Star Luo intermediate division. She asked every teacher and student she could find. Yet from beginning to end, there had not been the slightest trace of Lin Xun.

In the end, all she received was a flimsy sheet of letter paper.

Do not disturb. Transferred schools.

Six simple words—heartless and perfunctory.

He had not even said goodbye. He had been too stingy to offer even a single explanation.

He had coaxed away her trust, taken her most precious possession, and then vanished into thin air without a word, cutting off all contact completely.

Over the past three years, whenever she thought of it, the pride in her heart felt as though someone had ruthlessly trampled it beneath their feet.

Was she angry because the pill was gone?

With her talent and resources, she might not have been unable to obtain another one. Nor did she necessarily need this particular pill so badly.

What the girl was angry about was that the trust she had given him, unlike any other, had been carelessly betrayed.

She was angry that all her expectations had come to nothing.

She was angry that, in his eyes, she seemed to be nothing more than a stranger he could fool at will and discard once he was done.

As though she did not even deserve a proper farewell.

That was why, even though the resistance had been immense, after a month of effort, she had still persuaded everyone involved and transferred to Donghai Academy.

"So you ate it. Fine." Wu Siduo's hands, hanging at her sides, quietly clenched into fists. Her proud nature refused to let her plainly voice her grievance, so she could only hide herself behind a hard exterior.

"I can let the pill go. I, Wu Siduo, am not so lacking in pills that I need one for cultivation."

"But what gave you the right to leave without saying goodbye?"

This question had weighed on her heart for months, and now it finally burst from her lips, carrying all the pent-up frustration she had suppressed for so long.

The surrounding crowd instantly fell silent, finally sensing that something was off.

So the genius girl had not truly been angry about being cheated out of a pill. She had been angry because someone had quietly abandoned her.

Mu Xi frowned tightly and turned to look at the calm-faced Lin Xun, her emotions a tangled mess. She had never seen Lin Xun act so irresponsibly toward anyone, and she had not expected him to have such a past of stringing along a childhood sweetheart.

But suddenly, her eyes lit up.

If she told Zi Xin about this, wouldn't Zi Xin finally see Lin Xun for the scumbag he really was!?

Lin Xun looked at the girl before him, whose eyes had grown faintly hot, and sighed softly in his heart.

He understood perfectly.

Wu Siduo had been proud for so many years, surrounded by admiration. Her talent was unmatched throughout the city, and everyone fawned over her and respected her. Only he had shattered all her sense of superiority and expectations back then.

If he tried to explain this, there was no way she would believe him.

Forget it. He would just take the loss.

Lin Xun fell silent for a few seconds, then raised a hand and put the black pill back into his soul tool storage ring.

He decided to exchange for a White Tiger Pill from the system shop and return it to her instead.

"This really was my fault."

"The transfer procedures were handled too hastily at the time, and everything was rushed..."

"Rushed?"

Wu Siduo let out a cold laugh and cut him off, every word striking straight at his heart.

"You were so rushed that you didn't even have time to send a single message?"

"We spent three years as classmates at Xingluo Junior Academy. You came up to talk to me whenever you had nothing to do, always trying to chat with me. Why weren't you in a hurry then?"

"When you begged and wheedled me into lending you the White Tiger Pill, you sweet-talked me with more than twenty lines in one breath. Your mouth was so sweet then—why weren't you in a hurry?"

Lin Xun was instantly left speechless.

Having lived through three lifetimes, he had encountered all sorts of people, and he had sweet-talked more people than he could count.

But someone with Wu Siduo's personality was truly the type he had the least idea how to deal with.

Proud, stubborn, single-minded, and exceptionally sharp and perceptive.

Tricks did not work on her. She no longer believed a single word of his honeyed lies, and he could not even begin to reason with her.

More and more students gathered around the training ground to watch, forming layers upon layers of onlookers as hushed discussions rose and fell.

Zhang Yangzi and Wang Jinxi were perceptive enough to quietly retreat to the outskirts long ago, taking the initiative to help separate the crowd and stop those students trying to squeeze forward for gossip, lest the situation spiral completely out of control.

Wu Siduo raised a hand and fiercely rubbed the corner of her eye with the back of it, wiping away every trace of that pathetic moisture.

Then she flicked her hand, tossing all the loose wine-red curls beside her ears behind her shoulders.

Her movements were crisp and decisive. Deliberately putting on an unconcerned appearance, she crossed her arms and straightened up again.

When she spoke once more, all the grievance had vanished from her voice, leaving only pride and forcefulness.

"Do you know why I specifically transferred into Class One?"

Lin Xun quietly looked at the girl before him.

The answer had long been obvious. There was no need to guess.

"I came here specifically to find you."

"Just wait. In this Promotion Tournament, I'll personally beat you senseless."

The girl's clear voice rang out with conviction.

With that, she did not linger for even another second before turning and leaving.

Everyone's gazes first followed that red-haired figure as she walked away. The next moment, they all turned back in unison, fixing firmly on the lone Lin Xun in the middle of the field.

The training ground fell silent. Countless gazes focused on him, and the atmosphere was at its peak.

Mu Xi tilted her head, looking at the helpless expression on Lin Xun's face, and suddenly could not help letting out a soft laugh.

"Not bad, Lin Xun. You really do have quite a few romantic debts."

Lin Xun sighed faintly, his face full of frustration.

"Senior Sister, please don't pile on too."

The curve of Mu Xi's lips simply would not go down.

More, give me more!

That way, her best friend could see reality clearly and realize that Lin Xun was a complete scumbag!

System Points +5

System Points +5

"..."

There was no doubt that this matter had spread through Donghai Academy again, thoroughly cementing his already widely discussed reputation as a scumbag.

Not long after, Mu Xi left as well. Lin Xun was the only one left standing there, stewing in frustration.

Very soon, Xie Xie and Yun Xiao, having heard about the matter, arrived.

Lin Xun glanced at the two of them and sighed. "Actually, I'm really not a scumbag."

Xie Xie stood nearby, holding back his laughter so hard that his shoulders shook. At last, he could not endure it any longer and burst out laughing.

He patted Lin Xun on the shoulder and said earnestly, "Brother Xun, I understand. You're not a scumbag."

Lin Xun rarely heard something so sensible and turned to look at him.

"You just want to give every girl a home."

Expressionless, Lin Xun removed his hand from his shoulder.

Yun Xiao added from the side, "Brother Xun, I understand you too. There's a saying that goes like this—"

"Being ambiguous with everyone is innocent; being deeply devoted to one person is the real crime."

Lin Xun: "..."