Punishment

When Tang Wulin threw that punch, he did not hold back at all.

The instant his fist struck Xie Xie's face, Xie Xie's whole body snapped backward. He staggered several steps before his back slammed into the wall outside the door with a dull thud.

He did not go flying the way Zhou Changxi had.

But that punch was far from easy to take.

Xie Xie stood there with his head turned to one side, half his face swelling visibly, the corner of his mouth split. The corridor fell silent at once. Several new students peeking out of other dorm rooms froze where they stood, no longer daring to make a sound.

Inside the dorm room, Tang Wulin stood rooted to the spot, his chest heaving.

He still gripped the Star-Sinking Hammer in his right hand, a white Soul Ring slowly rising and falling at his feet, but the anger in his eyes had yet to fade. The floor beside the bed was a mess, the table stood crooked, the window was shattered, and half the upper bunk's bedboard had split. The entire room looked as though a small Soul Cannon had blasted through it.

Yun Xiao stood in the corner, his face deathly pale.

He no longer wanted to know which of these two new roommates was stronger. All he knew was that on his very first day living at school, he had watched one roommate knock someone out of the building and another get punched into the corridor wall. At this rate, Room 205 probably would not have to wait until tomorrow to become famous.

Just then, hurried footsteps sounded from the end of the corridor.

"Move aside!"

With that sharp shout, a tall, broad middle-aged man strode over. He wore an academy teacher's uniform, his expression dark and grim, with two teachers on duty following behind him.

He glanced first at Xie Xie, who was half leaning against the corridor wall, then at the nearly demolished furnishings inside the room. His temples throbbed.

"Who did this?"

No one spoke.

Xie Xie raised a hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and swept a cold gaze toward Tang Wulin inside the room, saying nothing.

Tang Wulin pressed his lips together and remained silent as well.

Yun Xiao swallowed. He felt that things would only get worse if he said nothing, so he finally steeled himself and raised his hand a little.

"T-teacher, those two were fighting."

The middle-aged man glanced at him.

"All of you, get out here. Not one of you is staying inside."

Ten minutes later.

The disciplinary office of Eastsea Academy's intermediate division.

Long Hengxu sat behind his desk, his face dark as his gaze passed over each of the four boys before him.

Zhou Changxi's face was mottled with bruises, and his clothes were disheveled. He was noticeably more subdued as he stood there. Half of Xie Xie's face was swollen, his expression icy as he leaned against the wall, looking as though he wanted nothing to do with anyone. Yun Xiao adjusted his glasses and stood properly, clearly the most clearheaded of the four. As for Tang Wulin, he still held that quilt in his arms, his head lowered and his gaze fixed on the little flower in its corner—the one that had been stepped on, then shaken clean by his own hands.

"Go on," Long Hengxu said coldly. "Who struck first?"

No one rushed to answer.

In the end, Yun Xiao spoke up.

He began with Zhou Changxi telling Tang Wulin to fetch water. He neither embellished the story nor deliberately favored anyone, simply doing his best to explain what had happened from beginning to end. By the time he described Zhou Changxi shaking the belongings out of the bag and stepping on the embroidered flower, Long Hengxu's expression had grown even darker. When he reached Xie Xie entering the room, Tang Wulin mistaking him for another troublemaker, and the two having another fierce fight inside the dorm room, even the teacher taking notes nearby could not help looking up at Tang Wulin.

A newly enrolled student had first punched Zhou Changxi out of a window, then fought fiercely with Xie Xie.

And from Yun Xiao's account, it had not even been a one-sided beating.

This was no longer something that could be summed up as an ordinary "fight between new students."

Once he finished, the office fell quiet for a moment.

Long Hengxu leaned back in his chair and lightly tapped the desktop with his fingers, his gaze settling first on Zhou Changxi.

"So you're saying you were the one who started the trouble?"

Zhou Changxi's face was ashen. His lips moved as he tried to find a few words to defend himself, but when he met Long Hengxu's gaze, he ultimately did not dare talk back. He only muttered, "...Yes."

"Someone had barely entered the dorm room, and you sent him to fetch water. While he was gone, you rummaged through his bag, scattered his belongings all over the floor, and stepped on his quilt." Long Hengxu's voice was not loud, but that only made their scalps tighten more. "Zhou Changxi, did you come here to study or to rule the roost like a bandit chief?"

Zhou Changxi lowered his head, not daring to make a sound.

"One demerit," Long Hengxu said coldly. "You're responsible for cleaning the dorm room this month. If it happens again, you'll be thrown out of the dormitory, and it will go on your conduct record."

Zhou Changxi's expression changed at once.

A demerit was already humiliating enough. An entry in his conduct record would have serious consequences for his future at the academy. But his wrongdoing this time was so obvious that he did not dare offer a single word in his defense.

Long Hengxu turned his gaze to Xie Xie.

"You." He looked at the injuries on Xie Xie's face. "You started fighting the moment you entered the room. You knew he was already furious, yet you refused to back off and insisted on meeting him head-on. You think you're quite the fighter, don't you?"

Xie Xie frowned.

"He lunged at me first."

"Then couldn't you dodge?" Long Hengxu cut him off. "Can't you speak, or can't you turn around and leave? That room is tiny, and you, an agility-type Soul Master, insisted on trading blows with him inside it?"

Xie Xie fell silent.

He had wanted to say that he had been dodging, but when he remembered those last few exchanges, he really had lost his temper too, so he said nothing more.

"Write a thousand-word self-criticism," Long Hengxu said. "You damaged the wall as well. You and Tang Wulin will split the repair costs."

The corner of Xie Xie's eye twitched.

"Why do I have to—"

"Because you were the one who hit that last wall," Long Hengxu said evenly. "What, is the academy supposed to foot the bill for your youthful hot blood?"

Xie Xie shut his mouth.

Standing nearby, Yun Xiao had thought he would probably escape unscathed. He had not expected Long Hengxu's gaze to turn and settle on him too.

"And you."

Yun Xiao froze.

"Teacher, I didn't fight."

"I know you didn't fight," Long Hengxu said. "But you were clearly in the room, watching everything from beginning to end. Why didn't you call a teacher sooner? If you're really so clever, you should have known things would get out of hand the moment Zhou Changxi started rummaging through that bag."

Yun Xiao was left speechless.

He had indeed been thinking that he should avoid bringing trouble down on his own head. He had intended to watch for a while and act only if necessary. Who could have known these two would each be fiercer than the other, making the whole affair explode like this?

"One week of cleaning duty," Long Hengxu said. "If you keep being so good at watching the show, you can keep doing it."

"...Yes."

Yun Xiao accepted it.

Only then did Long Hengxu finally turn his full attention to Tang Wulin.

This time, he studied him longer than he had the other three.

"Your name is Tang Wulin," he said slowly. "You're from Aolai City."

"Yes." Tang Wulin raised his head.

"I can understand you getting angry when someone messes with your belongings." Long Hengxu glanced at the quilt in his arms, then at the embroidered flower. "You weren't the first to get physical, and you weren't the cause of this incident. The academy won't misjudge that."

At those words, some of the stubbornness Tang Wulin had kept suppressed in his eyes finally eased.

But Long Hengxu's next words followed immediately.

"However—"

"You hit too hard."

"Punching someone out of a window, punching someone into a wall, and smashing up the dorm room—did that make you feel mighty?"

Tang Wulin pressed his lips together.

He knew those words were right.

During those last few exchanges, he really had grown frantic and seen red, never thinking about the consequences.

"You'll also receive one demerit, and you'll split the dorm room's repair costs with Xie Xie," Long Hengxu said evenly. "Also, starting today, for the next month, anyone who gets physical in that room will receive a harsher punishment. None of you will get away with it."

Tang Wulin stared for a moment.

"Teacher, I get a demerit too?"

"Shouldn't you?" Long Hengxu countered.

Tang Wulin opened his mouth, then finally lowered his head.

"...I should."

"Good, as long as you know."

Long Hengxu looked at him, but his tone did not grow any harsher.

"Having a temper and some spirit isn't necessarily a bad thing. But you're a Soul Master, not a street thug. Once you truly set foot on the path of a Soul Master, you'll face more things like this, not fewer. If you smash your way through everything with your fists, sooner or later you'll smash yourself into trouble."

After those words, the office fell quiet again.

Tang Wulin did not argue.

He could tell that Long Hengxu was not deliberately trying to keep him down, but genuinely trying to guide him.

Still, sound reasoning was one thing. Whenever he thought of that little flower being stepped on, his heart felt stifled all over again.

"And there's compensation." Long Hengxu checked the written record. "The window, the bedboard, and the walls. The finance office will calculate the exact amount. You'll have the result by tomorrow."

At the word "compensation," Tang Wulin's eyelid twitched slightly.

Money.

The little spending money he had was what his parents had given him for emergencies in Eastsea. If the compensation was too high, he really had no idea how he would get by afterward.

But with things having reached this point, all he could do was nod.

"Yes."

"All of you, get out." Long Hengxu waved a hand. "Go back and clean up the room. If I find out you're planning to keep fighting tonight, none of you will be sleeping."

Only then did the four boys file out of the disciplinary office.

Once the door closed, the teacher responsible for taking notes asked quietly, "Director, this Tang Wulin... wasn't he a little excessive?"

Long Hengxu leaned back in his chair, his gaze still fixed on the doorway.

"He was a little excessive."

"But have you ever seen a newly enrolled, one-ring student punch Zhou Changxi out of the building, then have a fierce fight with Xie Xie, and finally smash him into a wall?"

The teacher paused in surprise.

"But doesn't his file say he's a rank-eleven Tool Soul Master with the Star-Sinking Hammer as his martial soul?"

"I saw that," Long Hengxu said evenly. "That's precisely why we need to pay closer attention."

"Hammer-type tool martial souls aren't unusual. What's unusual is his strength, his reactions, and that moment of martial soul suppression. I know that boy Xie Xie. He has his eyes set far above his head. If Tang Wulin were an ordinary new student, there's no way Xie Xie would have suffered such a loss in that room."

"Let's keep watching."

"Children like this either quickly fade into the crowd, or... give people quite a surprise."

Meanwhile, the four boys returned to the dormitory building in silence.

The new students who had gathered to watch in the corridor had long since dispersed, but the broken window, crooked doorframe, and dent in the corridor wall remained, reminding everyone just how much havoc had erupted there.

When they pushed open the dorm room door, it was still a terrible mess inside.

The dust on the floor, the broken glass, the scattered bedboards, the crooked table and chairs—none of it had gone anywhere.

Tang Wulin walked in, first placing his quilt on the table, then crouching down and silently beginning to gather his belongings.

He did not look at anyone, nor did he intend to say anything.

Zhou Changxi stood in the doorway, clenching and unclenching his fingers several times. His expression was dreadful, but he simply did not dare provoke Tang Wulin again as he had earlier.

Those punches had been enough to frighten him.

Xie Xie leaned against the other side, glanced at the two remaining lower bunks, then looked at Yun Xiao and said coldly, "You, go up."

Yun Xiao paused, then immediately understood.

Xie Xie did not want anyone between him and Tang Wulin anymore, nor did he want to be next to Zhou Changxi.

"Sure." Yun Xiao reacted quickly, immediately gathering his few belongings and moving them to the upper bunk. "I'll sleep up top."

Xie Xie paid him no further attention and turned toward Tang Wulin.

Tang Wulin was bent over, gathering his clothes, and did not look up.

Silence hung between the two for several breaths.

In the end, Xie Xie spoke first, his voice quiet and devoid of any discernible emotion. "Back at the doorway, I didn't kick your things on purpose."

Tang Wulin's hands paused.

Two seconds passed before he answered evenly.

"I know."

He had actually already realized it.

At the very beginning, he had misunderstood.

But a misunderstanding was a misunderstanding. Once their fight had reached that point, a single word could no longer lightly turn the page on it.

After hearing that, Xie Xie offered no further explanation. He simply raised a hand, took a clean sheet from his Storage Soul Tool, and spread it over the remaining lower bunk. His movements were brisk, his expression still cold, as though that explanation had already been the limit of what he could offer.

Sitting on the edge of the upper bunk, Yun Xiao looked down at one, then the other, and finally became certain of one thing—

Room 205 probably would not know peace from now on.