After leaving the elevated spectator stand, Zhang Lexuan did not return to the inner courtyard.
As usual, she went to the outer courtyard library.
The library was as quiet as ever. The setting sun slanted through the high windowpanes, illuminating the slowly drifting dust.
She walked to the corner by the window and lay down in the reclining chair, imitating a certain someone's usual manner.
Warm light fell over her, pleasantly soothing.
Zhang Lexuan knew these few days were the most crucial stretch of the elimination matches, and Lin Mo probably would not come.
But she still wanted to wait a while.
What if?
What if he came, only for her to miss him?
Everyone said waiting was the hardest thing to endure.
But Zhang Lexuan did not think so.
Precisely because she never knew when the person she hoped for would appear, or how he would appear, waiting itself brimmed with anticipation.
Besides...
Zhang Lexuan slowly closed her eyes.
She always felt as though her heart had already been waiting for many, many years.
Elsewhere, after the match ended, Lin Mo and the other three did not go to the cafeteria. Instead, they went out for a picnic.
It could not be helped.
All three of them craved Huo Yuhao's grilled fish.
Only when dusk fell did the four quietly return to their dormitories.
After returning to their room and washing up, the two prepared to meditate and cultivate. But before they formally began, Huo Yuhao did not hurry to sit upright.
He leaned back gently.
He pressed his entire body, along with all his weight, against Lin Mo's back.
"Lin Mo."
Huo Yuhao suddenly spoke.
"Mm."
Lin Mo answered and waited a while, but nothing followed. He was just about to turn around when Huo Yuhao's voice sounded again.
"Nothing."
The softly spoken word betrayed no emotion.
Lin Mo did not think much of it, assuming the guy was acting crazy again. He closed his eyes and sank into meditation.
Yet Huo Yuhao, behind him, showed no intention of closing his eyes to cultivate. Instead, he waited quietly until he was certain Lin Mo had sunk completely into meditation before slowly turning around.
Kneeling on the bed, he gently wrapped both arms around Lin Mo's waist from behind, then tightened them little by little.
Huo Yuhao rested his head on Lin Mo's shoulder, rubbed his cheek against the crook of the boy's neck, and greedily breathed in deeply.
That scent belonging to the Mystic Bird, belonging to heaven's mandate, mingled with the faint fragrance of soap on the boy's body. It left his body and mind melting, willing to sink into it forever and never let go, no matter what.
"Heh..."
A low laugh, soft and satisfied, spilled from Huo Yuhao's lips.
"It's all right, Lin Mo. It's all right." His voice was lowered to the barest whisper, as though he were speaking to the person in his arms, yet also as though he were murmuring to himself.
Lin Mo did not like him now. That was all right.
He treated Wang Dong'er and Xiao Xiao well only because they were girls.
But she was a girl too.
When the time was right, she could change back into girls' clothes, stand openly before Lin Mo, and tell him her real name-
Huo Yuhan.
In the darkness, Huo Yuhan's eyes were terrifyingly deep, their tenderness almost pathological.
"I'll always find a way to make you keep looking at me, forever and ever."
"And only me."
Just one day of competition had eliminated most of the new students. Those remaining to compete the next day were the top sixteen teams in this year's freshman assessment, forty-eight new students in all.
Lin Mo also accompanied Huo Yuhao and the other two to the assessment area, though he would not compete that day and had come purely to watch.
Once the drawing of lots was complete, the freshman assessment's round of sixteen officially began.
The competition areas had been expanded once again, with matches starting simultaneously across eight spacious arenas. The matches had barely begun when a tiger's roar caught Lin Mo's attention, and he followed the sound toward Arena Six.
Evil Eye White Tiger? Hell Civet?
Lin Mo raised an eyebrow. When those two Martial Souls came together, there was an eighty percent chance they had a Martial Soul Fusion Skill.
Then he took a stroll around the other arenas.
After making a complete circuit, his conclusion was:
Barring any surprises, their opponents in the final would definitely be the team with the Evil Eye White Tiger and Hell Civet Martial Souls.
Lin Mo was still pondering when two startled cries suddenly reached his ears.
"Class monitor!"
"Huo Yuhao!"
Lin Mo's gaze instantly turned cold. With a flash, he returned to Arena Two, just in time to see the invigilator carrying Huo Yuhao out of the arena.
Almost instantly, Lin Mo appeared in front of the invigilator.
He reached out and took Huo Yuhao from him, his brows drawn almost into a single line. At a thought, an ever-burning lamp lit above the head of the person in his arms with a soft puff.
Looking at the glaring smear of blood at the corner of Huo Yuhao's mouth, Lin Mo ultimately could not resist reaching out to wipe it away.
Huo Yuhao's eyes were tightly closed, his breathing faint.
His entire body lay limply in Lin Mo's arms.
To be honest, he did not particularly like Huo Yuhao. He could even be said to dislike him.
Yet at that very moment, looking at the body in his arms, whose breathing was so faint it was almost inaudible, a surge of anger still sprang unbidden from the depths of Lin Mo's heart. His eyes froze over inch by inch.
As though sensing Lin Mo's anger, a clear, piercing cry suddenly burst from his body!
"Screee!"
It was the Mystic Bird's long, furious cry.
Violent heavenly might erupted outward with him at its center, bearing down like an invisible mountain. Caught off guard, the nearby invigilator's expression abruptly changed, and that pressure actually forced him stumbling two steps backward!
That heavenly might also reached Xiao Xiao in the arena in an instant.
In a flash, Xiao Xiao felt a vast, familiar power descend from the heavens, like sacred wisdom pouring into her through the crown of her head!
Her pupils suddenly lit up.
The music of the Ninephoenix Worshipping Flute in her hands abruptly grew impassioned. Its soaring sound waves layered upon one another, with clear phoenix cries faintly entwined within them.
At the same time, the three great cauldrons that had stood in three separate positions began trembling violently.
The three cauldrons resonated together, like a hundred rivers returning to the sea.
Before everyone's astonished eyes, a colossal cauldron twice the size of any of the previous ones emerged in midair.
Strange runes faintly appeared upon its surface.
An indescribable majesty burst forth with that tremendous sound.
"Humm-humm-!"
Lin Mo froze at the sight of that great cauldron.
Never mind how closely that colossal cauldron resembled a bronze vessel from the Shang dynasty. Those strange runes surrounding it... weren't they oracle bone script?!
Xiao Xiao held that three-ring Soul Elder off for a full fifteen seconds.
The instant the fifteen-second countdown ended, a golden pillar of light suddenly rose behind Xiao Xiao.
The wings of Wang Dong'er's Radiant Butterfly Goddess had actually turned entirely brilliant gold. As that golden light soared, she rose like a butterfly bathed in flames.
The golden pillar of light curved as she rose, transforming directly into a terrifying, gigantic crescent-shaped blade of light.
At that instant, even the air seemed to be torn apart.
Indescribably powerful Soul Power fluctuations permeated the entire arena.
Wing Guillotine + Butterfly Goddess Light + Power Accumulation!
At the sight of that enormous blade of light, the opposing three-ring Soul Elder was frightened out of his wits on the spot. However confident he was in his formidable defense, he absolutely did not believe he could withstand that strike.
The invigilator flashed into the arena, intending to pull that three-ring Soul Ancestor out, only to get himself caught as well, drawn in by Xiao Xiao's State's Mighty Weapon.
The enormous golden blade of light was already hurtling toward them.
The oppressive force of that golden blade of light was so powerful that even with his Soul Emperor cultivation, he felt as though he were suffocating.
At the critical moment, a huge fiery-red hand appeared in midair without anyone knowing when. It seized the golden blade of light, then crushed it with a puff.
Lin Mo looked at the unharmed three-ring Soul Elder.
Then he looked at the unconscious Huo Yuhao, and at Wang Dong'er and Xiao Xiao lying on the ground.
He said nothing.
After laying Huo Yuhao flat on the ground, Lin Mo straightened and walked toward that three-ring Soul Elder, one step at a time.