What a Shame, Beautiful Lady

The girl's voice was as sweet as a bell. From her voice alone, it was hard to imagine she was anything but beautiful.

But right now, that lovely voice had lost its brightness. It was full of exhaustion and pain.

In an instant, Zhou Sining had already imagined a hundred thousand words' worth of backstory.

He edged closer to hear better.

"Self-righteous?! You think everything I've done was self-righteous?!" the young man roared.

"What else would you call it? Throughout our first year of high school, I clearly rejected you every time you confessed, but did you respect that? No. You decided I was playing hard to get!"

The girl's voice grew more agitated. "How many times have you harassed me this year? How many rumors have you spread about me? Do you have any idea?!"

"You were kicked out of the Direct Line because your father made a mistake. What does that have to do with me? What, you think I could make the Shen Family elders commit corruption?!"

"Even after that, you had so many chances to grow up. Instead, you hid behind your status as a Shen Family heir and used your feelings for me as an excuse to do one ridiculous thing after another. You angered your own elders until they threw you out of the Shen Family completely, and you dragged me through all those rumors too!"

"And that's not even counting the party after the college entrance exams. I was just having a normal conversation with our class monitor, Bai Xing, and you used your feelings for me as an excuse to get drunk and beat him up. You were the one acting like an asshole. What did Bai Xing and I do to deserve that???"

At last, her emotions reached a breaking point.

"Shen Feng, all you care about is how much it hurts that I don't return your feelings. Have you ever cared how much it hurts me to be harassed by you?!"

"I've had enough of you!"

Shen Feng looked as though he had been struck by lightning. He fell silent.

A long, long time passed before his dazed, disbelieving voice emerged from the darkness.

"What?"

"I said I really, really hate you! I hated you a year ago, and I still hate you now!"

"People like you disgust me most. You make everything about yourself, think you're always right, and care only about yourself. Being utterly incompetent would be bad enough, but you refuse to own up to your mistakes and smear other people instead!"

"Since you won't listen otherwise, you're a fucking idiot. You make me sick!"

Shen Feng fell completely silent.

It seemed her words had hit him hard.

By now, Zhou Sining had a fair idea of what had happened.

His only regret was that the girl was too good-tempered. She had barely used any profanity.

If it had been him, he would have started with the guy's parents, worked his way through nine generations of relatives, made liberal use of anatomical terms, then drawn on ethics, sex, livestock, pets, and the funeral industry for good measure.

He would have cursed the asshole so thoroughly his own mother wouldn't recognize him!

The entire grove went quiet.

With the drama over, Zhou Sining turned to slip away.

Ring, ring!

The phone in his pocket suddenly went off.

Fuck, I forgot to turn off my alarm!

"Who's there?!" Shen Feng shouted. A Star Track flashed. "Radiant Light: Blindness!"

A dazzling orb of light that radiated scorching heat suddenly appeared in the grove.

As it lit up the area, Shen Feng spotted the stranger hiding nearby.

He immediately hurled the blinding orb at him!

"Are you insane?!" the girl cried, shocked and furious.

Radiant Light might be a bottom-tier spell, but it was still genuine Beginner Level 3 Magic. There was no way it was harmless.

Even if the stranger was a senior at Pearl Academy, taking Radiant Light: Blindness head-on while unprepared could very well damage his eyes and blind him!

Worse, what Shen Feng had done was a clear violation of the Mage Convention!

The girl reacted quickly and began casting.

A green Star Track flashed, and she stretched out her palm toward where the orb would land.

"Vines: Growth!"

In an instant, clusters of strange branches and magical vines burst from the ground, growing and twisting wildly.

They climbed between two trees in front of Zhou Sining, quickly forming a wall of greenery that blocked the blinding light of Radiant Light!

Zhou Sining slowly lowered his arm. His gaze cooled as quickly as the light faded.

He put away the Nether Separation Shield he had just summoned and walked toward them.

"Stop! Who are you?!" Shen Feng conjured another orb of Radiant Light.

"Stop it! Shen Feng, have you lost your mind?" The girl was furious too, and a Star Track rapidly formed before her.

With the light still illuminating the grove, the three of them could finally see one another's faces.

Zhou Sining glanced at the girl and paused. "Mu Nujiao?"

Shen Feng and Mu Nujiao both froze.

"Do we know each other?" Mu Nujiao searched her memory, but the young man before her remained a stranger.

"I know you. We can talk in a moment."

Zhou Sining fixed his gaze on Shen Feng. "You're the bastard who threw that Radiant Light at me."

Shen Feng glared at him. "You were eavesdropping on us, and you think you're in the right?"

Zhou Sining had been wrong to eavesdrop. He had even been about to apologize, but then Shen Feng had thrown a Level Three Radiant Light at him. That changed everything.

A Level Three Radiant Light could blind an ordinary person outright!

In a city, strangers were generally presumed to be ordinary people who did not practice Magic.

Using Magic against an ordinary person was treated as attempted murder.

There was no way Shen Feng didn't know that rule of the Mage Convention. He had done it on purpose!

"I can't be bothered arguing with you. Go explain yourself to a Judge in Court."

Zhou Sining took out his phone and called the police right in front of them.

He briefly told the officer what had happened, and the officer said they would arrive soon.

The arrogance drained out of Shen Feng at once.

"You actually called the police?!" Shen Feng stared at him.

Zhou Sining snorted. "Why wouldn't I? Don't tell me you've never heard of the Mage Convention. Or do you think real life is some brain-dead power fantasy where everyone's as stupid as you?"

"You...!" Shen Feng's face turned purple with rage.

"Mu Nujiao, stay away from that asshole. He might go rabid and bite you." Zhou Sining looked at her.

Though she didn't know Zhou Sining, Mu Nujiao took his advice. She quietly moved away from Shen Feng until she stood roughly in line with Zhou Sining.

They were still several paces apart, but the sides had changed.

A moment ago, she and Shen Feng had faced Zhou Sining together. Now she and Zhou Sining faced Shen Feng.

The sight made Shen Feng even angrier.

He glared at Mu Nujiao. "You're abandoning me for a man you just met!"

Zhou Sining and Mu Nujiao rolled their eyes at the same time.

"Idiot. You could sit at the same table as Yu Xiaogang."

The setting of this world of Magic was basically the modern world with a fresh coat of paint, so Soul Land existed here too.

Yu Xiaogang's reputation was just as terrible.

Judging by Shen Feng's faintly confused look, though, he probably hadn't read the web novel.

Before Shen Feng could speak, Zhou Sining turned to Mu Nujiao with a smile, his tone casual and lightly teasing.

"Having a creature like that cling to you for a whole year? What a shame, beautiful lady."

Before he knew she was Mu Nujiao, Zhou Sining had merely stumbled across some drama. He hadn't really favored either side, since he didn't know the truth.

But now that he knew it was Mu Nujiao and had experienced Shen Feng's idiocy firsthand, he believed her completely.

For Shen Feng to drive Mu Nujiao, a young lady from a prominent family, to swear like that took some doing.

Even when she lost her temper with Lu Nian in the original story, Mu Nujiao didn't seem to have sworn.

Good heavens, if he had pushed Mu Nujiao this far, how could anyone say she hadn't suffered?

Mu Nujiao nodded. She said nothing, but her actions showed she agreed with Zhou Sining.

Seeing how well the two got along despite having met less than three minutes ago made Shen Feng's blood boil.

He pointed at Zhou Sining and cursed, "Who the fuck are you? Get lost! What happens between me and her is none of your business!"

That insult had no bite at all.

Zhou Sining laughed and spread his hands.

"So what?"