Although everyone found Xu Yuan's antics a pain in the balls, not one of those who needed to sign up missed out.
Every martial arts student who had chosen Savage Bull Heart-Shattering Butt or Savage Bull Mountain-Treading Strike sent Xu Yuan a private message.
There was even a hint of bootlicking between the lines.
One absolute genius from No. 5 Middle School even sent, [Adoptive Father, teach me], which nearly made Xu Yuan give him a discount.
Yes, nearly. After all, they weren't biological father and son, so the accounts still had to be kept straight.
After Xu Yuan scheduled their individual technique coaching sessions based on whether they had bought leather armor and when they had messaged him, Saturday's challenge matches came to an end as well.
It was only six in the evening, still before the base closed. The kings of the grind plunged into the base's inner grounds despite their injuries.
They were a minority, though. Most people chose to give themselves a break.
As the saying went, tension and relaxation had their proper balance. Relentless grinding wasn't for everyone.
Xu Yuan didn't join the grind either. After cultivating day and night for several days, he needed to unwind a little too, so he left the martial arts base with Fatty and Luo Yaoxi.
"Where are we going?" Luo Yaoxi asked softly.
"I heard there's a really popular roast lamb place over there. They slaughter over a hundred sheep a day. It's too cruel. Let's go save half of one!"
With both hands tucked into his pockets, Xu Yuan spouted nonsense with a perfectly straight face.
Luo Yaoxi stood there blankly for quite a while before realizing that Xu Yuan meant to go eat roast lamb.
Yet the simple-minded Fatty actually caught on faster than Luo Yaoxi and had already started swallowing his saliva.
"By the way, why hasn't anyone noticed you all day? Does it have something to do with your divine ability?"
As they walked, Xu Yuan suddenly turned to ask.
With Luo Yaoxi's looks, she should have attracted attention wherever she went, yet she had spent the whole day among the crowd without anyone noticing her, as though she were invisible. Xu Yuan couldn't help finding that strange.
Luo Yaoxi looked at Xu Yuan in surprise, as though she hadn't expected him to guess that. Then she nodded gently, moved closer, and said quietly:
"My divine ability is called..."
"Ahem!"
An abrupt cough came out of the darkness. Luo Yaoxi stuck out her pink tongue. "Teacher Niu won't let me say."
Xu Yuan looked around in amazement. If Niu Gang's cough could reach them, he couldn't be far away. But how had someone so huge hidden himself?
Unable to figure it out, Xu Yuan didn't dwell on it. He soon led the two to the roast lamb restaurant called "Famous Sheep Under Heaven" and ordered half a lamb straight away.
At first, he had thought he could pack up the leftovers for his mother and little sister, but he soon discovered he had been overthinking things.
Half a lamb wasn't even enough for Fatty alone.
So he had no choice but to order another half.
After eating and drinking their fill, the three parted outside the restaurant.
With Niu Gang secretly protecting her, Xu Yuan wasn't worried about anything happening to the girl on her walk home at night.
If some blind fool really did harbor ill intentions toward Luo Yaoxi, they could probably hold his funeral banquet tomorrow, right?
At eight thirty, Xu Yuan returned home.
Zhang Yaying was processing beast hides, while Xu Kexin held Zhang Yaying's phone, watching something or other and laughing like a little lunatic.
"You're back, Yuanzi. Have you had dinner?"
Every time Xu Yuan came home, Zhang Yaying always asked him that.
"I ate. I brought back some roast lamb too."
"Roast lamb? What roast lamb?!"
Xu Kexin instantly turned toward him from the couch, her big, jet-black eyes seeming to shine!
Xu Yuan chuckled. "Xu Kexin, with an appetite like that, aren't you afraid you'll eat yourself into a little fatty? Let me tell you, once you're fat, losing weight is really hard. Your Brother Luo Han is a textbook example!"
"Snacks? Are there snacks too?"
Xu Yuan: "..."
Forget it. Let it all burn.
He put the roast lamb on the table and motioned for his mother and little sister to try some, then went to take a shower.
After showering and returning to his room, he immediately took out the sheet of paper Luo Yaoxi had given him.
Back at the roast lamb restaurant, he had wanted to search online for the design on the paper, but had held himself back.
Since Niu Gang hadn't told Luo Yaoxi what the design meant, he felt it would be better not to search for it in front of her either.
If the search turned up something bad and frightened her, wouldn't Niu Gang jump out and smash his head in?
Wait, can I even find it online? If I can, wouldn't Luo Yaoxi have searched for it herself? Or has that girl not bought a new phone yet?
Forget it. I'll search first and worry about that later!
Spreading the paper flat, Xu Yuan photographed the design with his phone and prepared to upload it to the Heavenly Network for a search.
But just before he pressed upload, his thumb suddenly stopped.
If this design made Niu Gang keep his lips so tightly sealed, the secret behind it had to be something significant.
If he rashly uploaded it online, someone might just show up at his home to check the water meter.
After hesitating for a moment, Xu Yuan decided to play it safe. He went out and bought a secondhand SIM card registered under someone else's name.
Only after all that trouble did he find a little information about the design online.
According to one post, the design was connected to an evil cult called the God Worship Cult, but the post didn't specify the exact connection. It only said that anyone who saw the design would suffer bad luck.
Xu Yuan felt a little creeped out.
In his old world, he would naturally have scoffed at this sort of supernatural mumbo jumbo.
But this was Earth Star. Things he thought couldn't possibly exist might well exist here.
Wasn't the Beast Ranking in his mind freaky as hell, for instance?
Still, he had already seen it, so worrying seemed pretty damn useless. He might as well learn more.
With that thought, Xu Yuan searched for the God Worship Cult.
This time, however, he couldn't find anything useful.
Is my level too low to qualify to know about it? Or is there some other reason?
Xu Yuan tried several different keywords;
[Who is the leader of the God Worship Cult?]
[What are the requirements for joining the God Worship Cult?]
[Do God Worship Cult members get the five social insurances and a housing provident fund?]
Yet no matter how he searched, he couldn't find any entries about the God Worship Cult.
Looks like it really is a matter of level. Maybe only those at the Bone Forging Realm or above are qualified to know about this stuff.
As Xu Yuan pondered, he took out the secondhand SIM card and crushed it into powder before heading back, wondering whether he should simply ask Lin Yuan or Niu Gang directly.
What he didn't know, however, was that his searches had sent Yang City's Martial Suppression Department straight into panic mode!
Someone suddenly shouted inside the normally quiet Supervision Division of the Martial Suppression Department!
"Someone has been detected uploading the God Worship Cult's divine seal!"
"Someone has been detected attempting to join the God Worship Cult!"
Those two shouts drew everyone still on duty at the Martial Suppression Department into the Supervision Division!
Every face turned utterly grave at the words "God Worship Cult"!
"Quick, identify the target!" someone barked.
"Identifying the target through the real-name-registered SIM card!"
"Found him! The target is Wang Erdan, living in the Jade View Residential Complex in the south of the city, Building Three, Unit Two, Apartment 506... wait, Wang Erdan died in a car accident a week ago..."
The tense atmosphere froze. The Martial Suppression Department members exchanged looks, suddenly caught in awkward silence.
Then someone suddenly said, "Are we being too nervous? I feel like the target doesn't know anything and only searched for the God Worship Cult online out of curiosity."
"Hm? Why do you say that?"
"Look at what this person searched for."
Puzzled, everyone gathered around the computer.
On the screen was a list of all the searches Xu Yuan had just made.
[Do God Worship Cult members get the five social insurances and a housing provident fund?]
[What is the relationship between the God Worship Cult and the Chicken God Cult?]
[Can you become a god by joining the God Worship Cult?]
Everyone's teeth ached. This bastard was clearly just trying keywords at random.
"Looks like this person is cautious, but genuinely doesn't know anything."
The person who had ordered them to identify the target earlier furrowed his brows. "Still, the God Worship Cult's divine seal appearing in Yang City is a fact. Effective immediately, the Yang City Martial Suppression Department is entering level-one alert. Put everything into tracking down traces of the God Worship Cult. If any God Worship Cult members are discovered..."
"Kill without mercy!"