Doubt

Morning.

Lin Feng was woken by the noise outside the door.

"It's five o'clock."

Glancing at the time on his phone, Lin Feng was still very sleepy, but to avoid worrying his family, he quickly got dressed and walked out of his room.

"You're all up so early?"

The sun hadn't fully risen at five o'clock, and the sky was still very dim, especially in the Anbian Residential Area.

The living room lights were on, and his family was gathered around the dining table, eating breakfast and chatting softly.

It was clear that everyone was in a good mood.

"You're up, go wash up quickly."

Seeing Lin Feng appear, his family immediately focused their gazes on him.

Except for Ma Lele's pure happiness, his mother, Old Ma, and his elder sister's eyes held complex emotions: pride, excitement, unease, and more.

"Why are you up so early?" Lin Feng asked.

Even his sister, who usually loved to sleep in, was up earlier than him. It was truly not easy.

Judging by his family's mental state, Lin Feng knew they must not have slept well last night, having been in a state of both excitement and unease.

They held beautiful hopes for the future, yet deeply feared that it was all an illusion, unattainable.

"I broke through to Body Cultivation Eighth Stage yesterday."

To dispel his family's worries, Lin Feng said with a smile.

As expected, upon learning that Lin Feng had broken through to Body Cultivation Eighth Stage, the unease in his family's eyes significantly diminished, replaced by more anticipation for their future life.

"How did you break through so quickly?" Lin Fang asked excitedly.

With each stage of Body Cultivation broken through, Qi and Blood would become more abundant, and overall physique and combat power would directly increase. This would translate to at least thirty extra points on the college entrance examination, which was clearly good news.

Breaking through from Body Cultivation Seventh Stage to Body Cultivation Eighth Stage overnight gave Lin Fang a lot of confidence.

They finally began to believe that Lin Feng had been hiding his talent all these years; otherwise, how could he have broken through so quickly?

"I told you all, I'm a Martial Arts genius. I was just being low-key before," Lin Feng joked. "You'll get used to it slowly."

"Mhm, that's a good habit to get used to," Lin Kerou said with a smile.

"I'm going to wash up."

Saying that, Lin Feng walked into the bathroom.

After a simple wash, Lin Feng looked at himself in the mirror. His originally pale complexion had become a bit more rosy, but the dark circles around his eyes made him look unwell.

It was no wonder. It was almost three in the morning after he broke through to Body Cultivation Eighth Stage last night, and he had only slept for two hours. Moreover, the quality of sleep was very poor; that Nightmare would occasionally harass him, preventing him from truly falling asleep.

Having not slept much for two consecutive days, Lin Feng felt a bit groggy.

After breakfast, as his family members left for work one after another, Lin Feng stayed home alone.

He wasn't going to school today; he needed to prepare for today's challenge at the martial arts hall arena.

After breakfast, the extremely sleepy Lin Feng sent Gao Hai a text message on his phone, then returned to his room and lay down on the bed for a second sleep.

He slept until noon in this second sleep, only waking up when he heard the doorbell and getting up to open the door.

"It's much more well-behaved during the day."

Lin Feng noticed that the Nightmare's spiritual fluctuations were significantly weaker during the day and not as active as at night, allowing him to finally get a good night's sleep.

It seemed he needed to change his lifestyle habits from now on.

"Yang Fan, why are you here?"

Opening the door, Lin Feng was a little surprised to see that besides Gao Hai, Yang Fan was also here, carrying food with both hands.

Seeing Lin Feng ask this, Yang Fan seemed a bit speechless.

Big brother, such a big event, and it's about you, why aren't you excited?

"Brother Feng, haven't you checked the forum? Ye Qiu has already been exposed."

Gao Hai said excitedly.

"Yeah, it was exposed around ten o'clock. Now I don't even need to make a move; the whole school knows about this."

Yang Fan walked into Lin Feng's house. This was his first time in the Anbian Residential Area.

As a rich young master living in the inner city, Yang Fan lived in a villa. The house of about twenty to thirty square meters before him was not even as big as one of his rooms, and it wasn't even renovated. Although he had never been to such a dilapidated place, Yang Fan acted very at ease, showing no signs of being unaccustomed.

Lin Feng secretly nodded at this.

"Make yourselves comfortable."

Lin Feng took out two cans of drinks from the refrigerator and casually tossed them to Gao Hai and Yang Fan. "Eat and chat."

"You bought lunch, and it tastes pretty good," Lin Feng said to Yang Fan.

The lunch consisted of six dishes and one soup, with four meat dishes and two vegetable dishes. Among the meat dishes, there were even two dishes made from Demonic Beast meat. They were rich in Qi and Blood and tasted very good, clearly not dishes that could be stir-fried in the small restaurants downstairs in the Anbian Residential Area.

"Mm, my housekeeper made it."

"You're eating too? Has the forum post already reached third place?" Lin Feng asked curiously.

"More than third, it's already second."

Yang Fan quickly replied. His post had directly exploded the forum.

"Brother Feng, take a look yourself," Yang Fan said.

Lin Feng took out his phone and opened the Martial Artist Forum.

On the homepage, in the top ten list for Jiang City's daily news popularity, "High School Student Beats Up Martial Artist" ranked second.

Click count: 4.89 million, Likes: 2.56 million, Reposts: 1.29 million, and Comments reached a staggering 7.59 million.

The most liked comment, directly pinned to the top, read: "Lin Feng and Yage! This is the most melodramatic love tragedy I've ever heard in my life."

"Yang Fan, delete the comment. Don't get involved with Yage anymore."

Lin Feng frowned. He didn't know Yang Fan would write such a dramatic story. He didn't care, but it was clearly not good for Yage.

"Oh, I'll delete it then."

Seeing Lin Feng was a bit angry, Yang Fan quickly logged into the Martial Artist Forum and deleted his comment.

However, even so, someone had already screenshotted it, and the comment itself couldn't be deleted.

Scrolling down the comments, Lin Feng began to read.

"Mom, someone's showing off here, come quick."

"Nonsense, hiding talent? I'd have to be an idiot to believe you."

"Are high school students' minds this complicated these days?"

"This little brother is so touching, handsome and talented too."

"Giving up a Ninth-Rank Purple Scale? Who would believe that? Do you really think you're Ye Qiu?"

"Ye Qiu is here, and I object."

"Such a dramatic love story, forgive me for not believing it."

"Just beat someone at Body Cultivation Ninth Stage, still a long way from being a Martial Artist!"

"No matter what, I have to go see it today. It's at Thunder Martial Arts Hall, which district is it in?"

In the comment section, nine out of ten comments were skeptical, clearly doubting the authenticity of the event.

They even suspected that the poster was Lin Feng himself, aiming to create hype and sell ad space.

"Brother Feng, should we explain?" Yang Fan asked.

"Yeah, Brother Feng, they're all questioning you, we need to explain," Gao Hai said while eating.

Lin Feng casually put his phone away, not paying much attention to the doubts.

The more they questioned, the more topics there would be, the higher the popularity, and the more valuable the ad space would be.

"Don't mind them, I've already broken through to Body Cultivation Eighth Stage."

"So fast?"

Yang Fan and Gao Hai were both surprised and delighted. They felt even more confident about the arena challenge that night.

One could imagine the sensation it would cause if Lin Feng truly fought a Martial Artist while at Body Cultivation Eighth Stage today.

Being able to defeat a First-Rank Martial Artist at the Body Cultivation stage would be an extremely rare feat; even Ye Qiu, who was currently the most talked-about, couldn't achieve that.

Talent and combat power were two different things.

This was especially true for students at the Body Cultivation stage.

The Body Cultivation stage and the Martial Artist stage were two insurmountable boundaries.

Except for some top families, like geniuses cultivated by the Glorious Clan, who might be able to challenge higher ranks due to their inherited bloodline talents.

It could be imagined that if Lin Feng won, it would definitely attract the attention of some top clubs and teams.

At this moment, the three of them were unaware that as the posts on the Martial Artist Forum continued to ferment, more than one club had already started paying attention and were specifically researching and discussing it.

This included the Juxing Club.