The weather was lovely that day.
The azure sky looked washed clean, without a cloud for miles. The sun hung overhead, pouring down warm light that bathed the entire courtyard in gold.
Xu Tianyuan lay on a lounge chair, wearing only a thin shirt, his eyes closed and his face full of contentment.
A cup of soy milk and two fried dough sticks sat on the courtyard's stone table. That was his breakfast, long since cold, and he still hadn't gotten around to eating it.
It was probably a little past ten in the morning.
He had been enjoying himself.
Then, suddenly, he heard someone calling his name.
"Xu Tianyuan!"
"Xu Tianyuan!"
The urgent, aggressive shouts carried over the courtyard wall, shattering Xu Tianyuan's pleasant dreams.
Xu Tianyuan frowned, opened his eyes, and looked toward the courtyard entrance.
A row of people stood there.
They were Meng Hongchen, Ma Rulong, Mi Jia, Xiao Xiafeng, Chen Fei, and Lin Xi.
Apart from Meng Hongchen, all five of the others looked ready for a fight, their eyes wide, fists clenched, and faces filled with fury.
For some reason, they made it look as though he had robbed them.
Xu Tianyuan silently grumbled to himself.
To be fair, he really had taken Xiao Hongchen's money.
But that was compensation for emotional distress. An entirely different matter.
Ma Rulong strode into the courtyard, pointed a finger straight at Xu Tianyuan, and roared in fury.
"Xu Tianyuan! You vile bastard, you deserve to die!"
"Because of you, Xiao Hongchen still hasn't recovered. Now we're heading to the tournament one key fighter short!"
Hearing that, Xu Tianyuan roughly understood what this was about.
But he still couldn't make sense of it.
He remained on the lounge chair, not even bothering to lift his eyelids, and drawled lazily.
"Hold on. Leaving aside the fact that Xiao Hongchen fell over on his own that night, his injuries weren't even serious. Find any healing Soul Master, and he should've been good as new within a week at most."
"Coming here to hassle me out of nowhere-have you got nothing better to do?"
Xu Tianyuan rolled his eyes hard.
He genuinely felt that they were deliberately targeting him.
He remembered the events of that night perfectly clearly.
Xiao Hongchen had told him to "get lost." He had recorded it, activated Muscle Mode, beaten him down with two axe blows, and collected tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins in compensation for emotional distress.
What was that called?
That was called a fair duel conducted before witnesses.
Not killing Xiao Hongchen had already been an act of great kindness, a concession to Jing Hongchen.
And now they were turning around and making trouble for him? What kind of logic was that?
"Bullshit!"
Ma Rulong was clearly furious at Xu Tianyuan's attitude.
He stepped forward, the veins in his neck bulging.
"Although I don't know why Dean Jing ultimately didn't hold you responsible, Xiao Hongchen was injured at your hands. There's no denying that!"
"Yes, his injuries healed long ago. But the real problem isn't his physical wounds. It's the shadow over his mind that he can't escape."
At that, Ma Rulong was once again overcome with anguish.
He strode up to Xu Tianyuan, seized his collar with both hands, and hauled him off the lounge chair.
"Do you know? Xiao Hongchen has shut himself in his room for these past three months! He has no appetite for food or drink. It's like he's lost his soul!"
"How is Xiao Hongchen supposed to compete in that state?"
"And the culprit behind all of this is you!"
Ma Rulong's words did have reason and evidence behind them.
Every word struck the others beside him straight in the heart.
Mi Jia, Xiao Xiafeng, Chen Fei, and Lin Xi instantly turned grim, glaring at Xu Tianyuan through gritted teeth, fire blazing in their eyes.
They had begun preparing for this tournament six months in advance.
They sparred together every day, trained together every day. Only they knew how much sweat they had shed and how many injuries they had suffered.
They had worked themselves to the bone to win the championship at the continental advanced Soul Master academy tournament and bring glory to the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy.
But now Xiao Hongchen, the team's backbone, couldn't compete.
Against Shrek Academy, their chances of victory had dropped by at least half.
They had already lost before the fight even began.
"So when all's said and done, Xiao Hongchen just couldn't handle the pressure and has now turned into an idiot, right?"
Xu Tianyuan curled his lip.
How was that his fault, too?
He had delivered those blows himself. He knew exactly what he had done.
Of those two axe blows, one had struck the black ice iron armor and melted it into a ruined mess. The blade of the other had stopped right before Xiao Hongchen's nose, without touching so much as a hair.
Restraint and artistry in perfect harmony.
If that had left Xiao Hongchen with a shadow over his mind, it could only mean that this gifted student's resolve had never been particularly sturdy to begin with.
Xu Tianyuan glanced at the hands gripping his collar.
Then he slowly raised his head and looked Ma Rulong straight in the eyes.
"For something like this, you need to go to Xiao Hongchen and talk him through it. Why come here and whine at me?"
Xu Tianyuan's tone abruptly turned cold.
His lazy expression vanished.
In its place came an oppressive presence that was impossible to describe.
"You have three seconds. Let go now."
"Otherwise, you can say goodbye to those hands today."
He didn't regard Ma Rulong as a threat in the slightest.
Not only that, he wouldn't regard them as a threat even if everyone here attacked him together.
There was no special reason. It was simply confidence born of strength.
A level forty-seven Soul Ancestor, with Soul Power as pure as a Soul Emperor's.
Not to mention that the sun was directly overhead.
These small fry in front of him really weren't worth much.
"Big talk!"
"Arrogant!"
Among the academy's younger generation, Ma Rulong was unquestionably the senior figure. Everyone who saw him had to respectfully call him Brother Ma. No one had ever threatened him like this.
Worse, the person threatening him was the notorious Xu Tianyuan, the useless prince.
Ma Rulong had always been proud. Even knowing that the man responsible for shattering Xiao Hongchen's resolve was this very Xu Tianyuan, he still thought nothing of him.
After all, in a real fight, he was confident he could defeat Xiao Hongchen.
No matter how capable Xu Tianyuan was, he had probably only beaten Xiao Hongchen that night through a sneak attack or some underhanded trick.
If he had been the opponent instead...
He could beat Xu Tianyuan until he couldn't tell north from south!
Besides, several of his teammates for this tournament had come with him today. Even if Xu Tianyuan was fairly strong, once they all attacked together, how could they fail to take him down?
Of course, it would almost certainly never come to that.
He thought he alone would be enough.
"For these past three months, all I wanted was to be a model student who basked in the sun after waking up, ate when hungry, and slept at night, repeating that routine day after day."
Xu Tianran also understood that there was no reasoning with them now, so he decided to let his fists do the talking.
He seized Ma Rulong's wrists, muscles rippling throughout his body. "But today, you bastards just had to come asking for a beating, just had to provoke me, just had to cross my bottom line..."
"Then you can all end up like Xiao Hongchen and forget about entering that damned tournament!"
Before you continue