The aftermath of that report in the Beta Town Post did not simply fade away.
The next day, Zheng Qing heard that Instructor Zhu Si had used the Wall-Hanging Curse on an Alpha Student who had questioned her illegal dealings with the North District Wizards during class, hanging him upside down from the ceiling for more than half the lesson.
It was said that by the time class ended, the poor kid's head had swollen like a pig's, and he was immediately sent to the School Hospital—Lin Guo told Zheng Qing that even now, the kid still suffered from slurred speech and occasional brief convulsions.
That afternoon, Alpha Castle and the First University's Professor Joint Conference received a strongly worded protest letter from the student's parents, along with a brief inquiry from Danhaag.
Then Instructor Zhu Si, who had been employed for less than a month, was honorably suspended. The school also issued an emergency notice criticizing the incident and repeatedly stressing that teaching should focus on guidance and education, and that corporal punishment of students in any form was prohibited.
This small incident, intertwined with the imminent School Hunting Meet, made the atmosphere on campus increasingly chaotic. It was like an open-air market, with everyone shouting, yet no one able to hear what people farther away were saying, able only to focus on the stall right in front of them.
For example, Zheng Qing.
Surrounded by the noise of academic pressure, hunting competition training, the Seven Deadly Sins trial, and Zhu Si's punishment, he quickly learned to focus only on whatever was closest at hand—concentrating on class during class, burying himself in food while eating, pretending the Seven Deadly Sins were non-existent whenever the masked man did not come looking for him, and training with the hunting team whenever