The students of the Federation Comprehensive Academy hung their heads in dejection. Even several of their teachers watched Xie Yanbai with terror written across their faces.
Xie Yanbai was still disheveled and filthy, his clothes in tatters, but the gazes turned on him were filled with fear and wonder.
"You lost."
Xie Yanbai's eyes flashed like lightning as he spoke in a deep voice. In stark contrast, Dou Bo's face was ashen.
Seeing those horrified gazes, Xie Yanbai felt an indescribable exhilaration. Although his life at Zhongda Academy had been far from satisfactory, he still felt deeply attached to it. He barely knew the Academy Head, for instance, but there were still people at the academy he cared about.
The teacher who had taught him [Carmine Finger], and Mi Xiaqing, his closest friend, who had been killed by Tang Hanpei...
He could disregard whether the Academy Head lived or died, but he could not disregard Zhongda Academy's decline. It was where he had studied and grown. When he saw Tang Hanpei defeat the Academy Head, he had felt as though someone had slapped him hard across the face twice.
And so he had made this trip to the Federation Comprehensive Academy.
Looking at those young, proud faces, now covered in fear and anger, Xie Yanbai suddenly recalled his time in the jungle.
Gravely wounded, he had fled into the jungle and barely escaped death.
Even killing the weakest beast demanded the strength of nine oxen and two tigers. Death loomed over him every day, and he dared not relax for even a moment. There was no fine food, no beautiful women, not even the most basic guarantee of his own safety. One careless mistake, and he would become a feast in some beast's belly.
He struggled through the jungle like