When Wei Qi saw his goddess crying, he immediately threw caution to the wind and roared at Jiang Fan.
"Jiang Fan! Are you even a man?! You actually made a woman cry! Apologize to Shuyao right now, or see how I teach you a lesson!"
As Wei Qi spoke, he raised his fist. The bushel-sized fist crackled with the sound of popping bones. The next second, with a snap, his bulging muscles burst straight through his uniform sleeve, sending scraps of fabric flying.
Jiang Fan glanced at Wei Qi's arm, as muscular as an elephant's leg, his pitch-black eyes as still as an ancient well. His gaze shifted, settling on Tong Shuyao again.
Seeing Jiang Fan look her way, Tong Shuyao felt immensely smug, a hint of mockery concealed in her eyes.
You dared talk to me like that. See? All I had to do was squeeze out a few tears, and someone stood up for me.
Apologize! Hurry up and apologize!
Just as Tong Shuyao was gloating to herself, Jiang Fan slowly spoke.
One word.
"Scram."
In an instant, the smugness Tong Shuyao could barely suppress collapsed into utter disbelief. She felt a humiliation unlike anything she had ever experienced.
Even Wei Qi froze for a moment. He had just shown Jiang Fan his strength as a middle-stage martial apprentice. Any ordinary person would have been trembling with fear by now, obediently doing as he was told.
Yet Jiang Fan ignored his threats and intimidation, telling his goddess to scram right in front of him. Was he so arrogant that he wasn't afraid of dying?
"Jiang Fan, looks like you really aren't afraid of dying. You asked for this!"
With that, Wei Qi swung his fist at Jiang Fan's face.
He had been sick of looking at that hateful pretty face for a long time. Today, he would beat that pretty face into a pig's head.
Facing Wei Qi's fist, Jiang Fan spoke without a ripple of alarm. "There are surveillance cameras in the classroom. I guarantee that if you throw that punch, you won't need to take this year's martial exam."
As those words fell, Wei Qi's fist abruptly stopped right in front of Jiang Fan's nose.
Wei Qi truly wanted to flatten Jiang Fan's face with one punch, but what Jiang Fan said was also true.
As a candidate preparing for the martial exam, if he picked a fight in the classroom and beat up an ordinary student, once it was reported, losing his eligibility for this year's exam would be the least of it. In serious cases, he might be barred from taking it for two or three years.
Causing severe injury or disability to the other party, for example, was one of those serious cases.
Thinking of Jiang Fan's mere 19 N of blood and qi, trash who couldn't even measure up to an elementary school student, Wei Qi felt he had better withdraw his hand. He was a middle-stage martial apprentice, after all. This punch might very well kill Jiang Fan outright.
If he really killed someone, forget the martial exam-he would be sent straight to prison.
Jiang Fan really was trash. His blood and qi were so low that he wasn't even worthy of this one punch.
"Heh." Jiang Fan scoffed, mockery showing in his eyes.
Wei Qi was stifled with frustration! His face turned livid and purple, and his bloodshot eyes looked as though he wanted to swallow Jiang Fan alive and flay him.
Suddenly, cries of astonishment erupted one after another from the boys in the class.
"It's Lan Shengxue! Look, it's Lan Shengxue!"
"Wow! School beauty Lan is so gorgeous! She's like a fairy descended to earth. Her skin is so fair it's glowing, and even her figure is flawless."
"I can't take it. I'm about to faint. Someone pinch the spot above my upper lip."
"Not only that, she's a late-stage martial apprentice! Nobody knows how much blood and qi she has now, but rumor has it she'll definitely break through to martial artist before the college entrance exam. When that happens, our Ancheng No. 9 Middle School will be famous, one hundred percent!"
"Oh my god! She's beautiful, has such wonderful poise, and her martial talent is this astonishing too! She's practically a fighter jet among goddesses!"
"..."
At that moment, boys and girls alike-almost everyone-looked at Lan Shengxue with amazement in their eyes.
This was still very different from when Tong Shuyao had appeared earlier. Tong Shuyao was pretty, the sort of girl almost any other girl would envy upon seeing her.
But Lan Shengxue's beauty was as noble as a snow lotus on an iceberg, leaving her fellow girls without even the courage to feel jealous.
Jiang Fan readily followed everyone's gaze and, through the classroom window, saw the girl walking along the corridor.
The girl wore the standard Ancheng No. 9 Middle School uniform, her long hair cascading like a waterfall. Her only hair ornament was a straight hair clip above her ear, the snowflake on it particularly eye-catching.
On her face, so fair it seemed to glow, her features were finely defined, as though she had received the Creator's favor, sculpted like jade and carved with painstaking care.
Rather than being casually pinched and kneaded into shape and left at that, like ordinary people.
Tong Shuyao and Lan Shengxue were both school beauties of Ancheng No. 9 Middle School, but anyone who wasn't blind knew that Tong Shuyao was completely outclassed in both poise and looks.
Not only that, Lan Shengxue's martial talent was beyond first-rate, far beyond what ordinary geniuses like Jiang Youtian and Wei Qi could compare with.
Forget comparing themselves to her. Lan Shengxue was a chasm they could hardly cross, a towering peak they could hardly climb.
As for why Tong Shuyao had been ranked alongside Lan Shengxue as a school beauty of Ancheng No. 9 Middle School, that was naturally because Tong Shuyao had pulled strings behind the scenes, spending quite a bit of money to bribe classmates into voting for her.
Everyone at No. 9 knew about this, but out of consideration for the fact that she was also a great beauty, nobody exposed her to her face.
"Wow! She's really so beautiful!" Wei Qi wore a lecherous expression, drool practically dripping from his mouth.
Tong Shuyao stood right beside him and heard his words clearly, leaving her seething with envy, jealousy, and hatred.
"Yes, Lan Shengxue really is beautiful. Wei Qi, since you like her, why don't you pursue her? You're a middle-stage martial apprentice genius, after all. I believe that with your outstanding talent, Lan Shengxue might just agree to your advances."
Hearing that, Wei Qi hurriedly pulled his gaze back.
Lan Shengxue was indeed prettier than Tong Shuyao and carried herself better, too, but in terms of personality, she was an ice-cold beauty through and through, to be admired from afar, not trifled with up close. She had an air of someone untouched by the mortal world's smoke and fire, making others afraid to approach, as though approaching her would itself be a desecration of a deity.
He still preferred someone with a touch of the mortal world like Tong Shuyao. Besides, Tong Shuyao was gentle and delicate, and her voice was soft, easily stirring a man's desire to protect her.
"Shuyao, don't misunderstand. I wasn't looking at Lan Shengxue just now, and I've never had any intention of pursuing her. You know you're the one I've always liked."
That's more like it.
Tong Shuyao felt considerably better. Although she didn't like Wei Qi, his family was well-off, and he was a martial genius, so she could keep stringing him along for now.
"Ahem..." Tong Shuyao cleared her throat, pretending to be shy. "Well, Wei Qi, what are you saying? We're both students. Our most important task right now is studying. The college entrance exam is almost here, and I'm not in the mood to think about all that. And you-you're planning to apply for the martial track. There are only three months until the martial exam. You should work hard and try to get into a good martial school."
Tong Shuyao's words were purely meant to keep Wei Qi as a backup, but to Wei Qi's ears, they meant that Tong Shuyao believed he had a promising future and was encouraging him to work hard, get into a good martial university, and add bricks and tiles to their future together.