In Mountain City at the height of summer, the weather was unpredictable, and rain often came without warning.
Toward evening, passersby saw the sky suddenly darken and hurried into a jog, hoping to get home before the downpour arrived. Even if anyone noticed what was happening in the alley, they had no time to spare it a second glance before running off.
Lin Gejie glared furiously at Huang Li and his group blocking the alley exit. Having finally managed to hurt Lu Yao, they all looked smug.
After finishing their part-time job, Lin Gejie and Lu Yao had planned to take the alley as a shortcut home. They had been walking along normally when Huang Li and his lackeys approached from the other end of the alley.
Lin Gejie had been talking to Lu Yao at the time and, not paying attention, accidentally bumped into Huang Li and the others.
Lin Gejie, Lu Yao, and Huang Li were all students in Class 8, Year 2, at Mountain City No. 1 High School.
Everyone at Mountain City No. 1 High School knew that Huang Li had gotten into the city's best high school through connections. Yet even there, he had not reined in his arrogance. Instead, relying on his family's wealth and influence, he had caused no end of trouble at Mountain City No. 1 High School.
Although they were classmates, they had always stayed out of one another's way and had never interacted before.
The moment Lin Gejie realized he had bumped into someone, he instinctively apologized first. To his surprise, Huang Li and his group immediately started hitting him without a word. Caught off guard, Lin Gejie took a heavy punch from Huang Li.
Lin Gejie had a fiery temper. How could he swallow that insult? He immediately started fighting Huang Li and the others.
Huang Li's side had the advantage in numbers. Lu Yao could hardly stand by and watch his deskmate get surrounded and attacked, so he naturally joined the fight.
Lin Gejie looked guiltily at Lu Yao beside him. "Sorry, Yao. If it weren't for me, you wouldn't have gotten dragged into this."
When Huang Li saw that his group still could not beat Lu Yao, he flew into a rage and pulled out a small knife, waving it around.
To protect Lin Gejie, Lu Yao was accidentally slashed across the face by Huang Li's knife. Fortunately, he dodged in time, so it only cut the surface of his skin, drawing a thin line of blood.
Hearing Lin Gejie blame himself, Lu Yao casually wiped the blood from his face with his index finger. His expression remained cold as he said, "It's not because of you. They were targeting me. You don't need to blame yourself."
In fact, Huang Li had heard Lu Yao's name back in Year 1, but he had never seen him in person.
After the Year 2 classes were assigned, he saw Lu Yao's cold, refined features, then compared them with his own ordinary face and developed something like jealousy. That feeling reached its peak after he was rejected by the Year 2 school beauty.
Huang Li had recently been pursuing the Year 2 school beauty. His pursuit had been so high-profile that practically the whole school knew about it. Yet the girl rejected him outright, saying that she liked Lu Yao.
Feeling humiliated, Huang Li flew into a rage and wanted to target Lu Yao to prove his own charm to that girl.
One day after school two weeks earlier, he had suddenly stopped Lu Yao and said he was going to teach him a lesson because Lu Yao had stolen his girlfriend.
Hearing Huang Li say that, Lu Yao only found him baffling. Without even raising his eyes, he walked straight past Huang Li.
Huang Li was enraged by being ignored. He rushed forward to teach Lu Yao a lesson, only to be dealt with effortlessly.
Huang Li had failed to beat Lu Yao alone before, so today he had cowardly brought several helpers.
Lu Yao felt that today's matter had nothing to do with Lin Gejie. He said to Huang Li, "This is between us. It has nothing to do with him. Let him go, and I'll stay."
The moment Lin Gejie heard that, he panicked. "Yao, what are you talking about?! How could I leave you alone to fight this bunch of bastards?"
There were so many people on Huang Li's side. If he left now and made Yao fight alone, he would be no better than an animal.
Hearing their conversation, Huang Li laughed triumphantly. "Neither of you is going anywhere! Lu Yao, today I'm going to see whether you can still act so damn cocky in front of me!"
Huang Li had no intention of letting Lin Gejie leave. In his eyes, Lin Gejie would only hold Lu Yao back. The only reason he had managed to hurt that little bastard Lu Yao earlier was because Lu Yao had been protecting Lin Gejie.
Dark clouds gradually gathered, the sky growing darker and darker as though a heavy rain was about to fall.
Lu Yao glanced at the sky and impatiently pressed his tongue against his cheek.
"Quit talking. Come at me together."
The sooner this was over, the better.
Seeing Lu Yao's impatient expression, as if he were in a hurry to get home, Huang Li recalled a rumor he had heard and burst out laughing mockingly. "Lu Yao, there's nobody at your home anyway. Why are you in such a rush to go back?"
The lackeys behind Huang Li all burst into laughter when they heard that.
Huang Li's words, "there's nobody at your home," carried a double meaning. One meant that no one would be home when Lu Yao returned; the other was a jab at Lu Yao's parents being dead.
Mountain City was a small town. Whenever anything happened, nearly every household knew about it.
Lin Gejie had been Lu Yao's deskmate since Year 1, so he had naturally heard about Lu Yao's family. The moment Huang Li cruelly tore open that wound, rage flared in his chest. "What the hell does someone else's family have to do with you? Did you fall into a shit pit earlier? Why does everything you say sound like you're spraying crap?"
After cursing Huang Li out, Lin Gejie looked worriedly at Lu Yao beside him.
Lu Yao's expression did not change. His voice was low as he said, "It's fine."
Lu Yao had heard far worse things than Huang Li's words at the funeral.
Lu Yao's gambling-addicted adoptive parents had been notorious in the area for their obsession with gambling. One night in the spring of last year, the two got utterly drunk after winning some money.
Late that night, they suddenly started causing trouble while drunk in the street.
While the pedestrian light was red, the two of them had even lain dazedly on the road.
At that moment, a truck came around the corner. Because of a blind spot and the dim light, the driver did not notice the two people lying drunk in the middle of the road and drove right over them.
Clearly, those two had gotten themselves killed in their drunken madness, yet Lu Yao gained a reputation for bringing death to his parents and being a harbinger of disaster.
"I said back then that Old Lu and his wife never should've brought this kid home. Look, he hasn't shed a single tear. He's like some kind of monster."
"What bad luck. I say this kid is a harbinger of disaster, born to bring death to his parents. Otherwise, why would his biological parents have thrown him away?"
"Old Lu listened to some fortune-teller back then, who said that raising a boy could improve his gambling luck. That was why he brought him home. Who knew his fortune wouldn't improve, but he'd lose his life instead?"
At the funeral, Lu Yao lowered his eyes and knelt straight-backed before the mourning hall, seemingly unaware of the gossip and strange looks around him.
Lu Yao had known since childhood that he was not their biological son. Whenever his adoptive parents lost money when he was young, they would viciously beat and curse him, blaming him for not bringing them good gambling luck.
That only began to improve in recent years, after Lu Yao grew older and became capable of fighting back.
The weak feared the strong, the strong feared the ruthless, and the ruthless feared those who did not fear death. After Lu Yao fiercely fought back against his adoptive father once, his adoptive parents, who bullied the weak and feared the strong, never dared provoke him again.
Although the truck driver who had killed his adoptive parents voluntarily offered Lu Yao tens of thousands in compensation, that amount only covered a small portion of the gambling debts his adoptive parents had left behind.
Other than that old, empty house, all Lu Yao inherited from his gambling-addicted parents was an enormous debt.
To repay the debts his adoptive parents had left behind, Lu Yao had spent the past year working himself to the bone at part-time jobs whenever he was not in class. One of his main sources of income was power-leveling accounts for Heroes Glory.
Remembering that he still had a Heroes Glory power-leveling order to finish that night, Lu Yao did not want to waste any more time on Huang Li and his group.
Having just been fiercely cursed out by Lin Gejie, Huang Li was burning with anger as well.
Fine threads of rain began drifting down from the sky, and the two sides collided fiercely once more in the drizzle.
Seeing Lin Gejie being beaten back step by step by Huang Li, Lu Yao yanked him over and shielded him behind himself.
He raised a hand to catch Huang Li's fierce punch, then pulled hard and slammed Huang Li heavily onto the ground, splashing water across the alley.
From the corner of his eye, Lu Yao spotted a baseball bat in a nearby pile of trash. He pulled it out and shoved it into Lin Gejie's hands. "If someone tries to hit you, just swing this around as hard as you can. Then they won't be able to hit you."
Lin Gejie also realized that protecting himself meant helping Lu Yao, so he began wildly swinging the baseball bat like a madman.
Seeing Lin Gejie like this, Huang Li and his lackeys realized they could do nothing to him, so they all turned to gang up on Lu Yao.
After settling Lin Gejie, Lu Yao finally let loose completely.
He was agile and skilled, utterly beyond comparison with Huang Li and his lackeys, who only knew how to rely on brute force.
His fists carved sharp arcs through the air. Watching Lu Yao's punches land solidly on Huang Li and his lackeys, every blow hitting flesh, even Lin Gejie could not help feeling his teeth ache for them.
Even after Huang Li was beaten to the ground in a miserable heap, he refused to admit defeat and stubbornly threatened, "Lu Yao, just you wait. This won't end here."
Seeing Lu Yao frown, Huang Li thought he was about to keep hitting him. He hurriedly scrambled to his feet and stumbled out of the alley without looking back.
When his lackeys saw Huang Li vanish, they too hurriedly fled.
After seeing Huang Li and the others run away, Lin Gejie noticed that Lu Yao was still frowning. "Yao, they've all run away. What are you thinking about?"
There was a hint of confusion in Lu Yao's voice. "Did you hear anything strange just now?"
Lin Gejie scratched his head. "No, Yao. Let's go. It looks like the rain's about to get heavier."
When they reached the alley entrance, Lu Yao's ear twitched. He suddenly turned around and followed the sound toward a discarded cardboard box deeper in the alley.
Lin Gejie followed behind him with a baffled expression.