"Mm."
"Mm, my ass!" Crazy Old Man kicked the bench.
"Although I don't know why that girl Lan Shengxue came to a place like Fortress No. 31, she's Lan Xiong's precious granddaughter. Would that old bastard Lan Xiong hand Lan Shengxue over to your squad? Unless a donkey kicked her in the head and she had a moment of madness and joined your squad, you can forget it!"
Crazy Old Man kicked the bench out from under Wei Cangyue's backside, but that didn't stop him from remaining seated in midair.
"Trying is better than not trying. What if it works? Right? I'm her instructor now, and I'll be spending every day with her for three months. Maybe I'll move her!"
Crazy Old Man shot Wei Cangyue a look and left him to work out its meaning.
So it was Wei Cangyue. But wasn't he a second-rank martial artist? How had he become fifth-rank?
Come to think of it, there wasn't a single fifth-rank martial artist in all of Ancheng.
Forget Ancheng-even Donglang City's governor had only just reached the fifth rank.
But what stage of the fifth rank was this Wei Cangyue, who had been hiding his strength?
"Besides, I refuse to believe I can't dig up a single decent seedling in all of Fortress No. 31."
Wei Cangyue had barely finished speaking when he saw Jiang Fan, who had been busy in the kitchen all this time, come out carrying dishes.
"Huh? You look a little familiar, kid. Have we met somewhere?"
Hearing this, Jiang Fan couldn't help grumbling inwardly. A nobody like him simply couldn't catch Wei Cangyue's eye, to the point that he had already forgotten him after meeting him earlier that very day.
"Instructor Wei, I'm a student in Ancheng No. 9 Middle School's special training class."
"Oh, I see."
Wei Cangyue nodded casually, then asked just as casually, "What's your name?"
"Jiang Fan."
Jiang Fan put the dishes on the table.
Wei Cangyue made himself completely at home, picked up a pair of chopsticks, and started eating.
"Not bad, not bad. Say-what was your name again?"
"Jiang-"
"Forget it. No point asking when I won't remember anyway. Right, why are you here? Did my teacher hire you to cook?"
"More or less," Jiang Fan replied.
With that, Jiang Fan turned and started tidying the room, then gave Crazy Old Man a massage.
This surprised Wei Cangyue a little.
From his perspective, the way Crazy Old Man and Jiang Fan interacted didn't seem like a simple relationship between an employer and his hire.
[Ding! Congratulations, host. You massaged an elderly man and put him in a pleasant mood. For doing a good deed, points +1,000]
The instant Jiang Fan heard the system notification, he stopped massaging.
"Hey! You brat, three minutes every time. Can't you see I was enjoying that?" Crazy Old Man said unhappily.
Jiang Fan waved a hand. "I have things to do. No time."
Watching Jiang Fan leave without looking back or giving Crazy Old Man the time of day, Wei Cangyue grew even more astonished.
In all his years, he had seen very few people who dared treat Crazy Old Man like that.
"Teacher, what's your relationship with him?"
"No relationship," Crazy Old Man said.
"It doesn't look that way."
"Stop prying and eat."
Over an hour later, Wei Cangyue came out of the management office, then followed Crazy Old Man's gaze toward the dim outline of Plow Mountain.
The moon had stayed hidden behind dark clouds all evening, refusing to emerge, making Plow Mountain look like a landscape painting, hazy and indistinct.
Wei Cangyue peered closely. With his fifth-rank eyesight, he could faintly make out what seemed to be something darting up and down the mountain.
Only after watching for quite a while did he determine that the figure was a person.
"Who's that, running around on the mountain in pitch darkness instead of sleeping in the middle of the night? Can he see on a night this dark? Isn't he afraid of losing his footing and tumbling down?"
Crazy Old Man lifted his drooping eyelids. "Even if you tumbled down, he might not."
The first time Crazy Old Man had seen this, he had thought the same thing. Could he see the path in pitch darkness?
Only after guessing that Jiang Fan was the genius Yan Tianyang had sent did he understand. For a spirit master with extraordinary perception, never mind pitch darkness-even blindness wouldn't stop him from roaming freely at night.
Wei Cangyue was surprised. "So who exactly is this person? No, I have to go up and take a look."
"You're not going. Don't disturb him," Crazy Old Man ordered.
Seeing Crazy Old Man being so protective of the person on the mountain made Wei Cangyue even more curious, as though a cat's paw were scratching away incessantly inside him.
"I just don't understand. Why won't you let me take a look?"
Crazy Old Man replied, "I'm afraid you'll poach him for your squad."
Wei Cangyue's eyes lit up. "So this kid is really talented."
"Yes. Sending him to your squad would be a waste!" Crazy Old Man said bluntly.
Wei Cangyue was speechless.
How had his squad ended up being looked down on?
In the middle of the night.
Wei Cangyue slipped quietly out of bed.
He was determined to see just what the person on the mountain looked like.
But as soon as he opened the door, he saw Crazy Old Man lying on a bench set across the doorway.
At the sight, the corners of his mouth twitched violently despite himself.
"Seriously, Teacher, is this really necessary?"
Crazy Old Man gave him a sidelong look. "Why wouldn't it be? I told you, don't get any ideas about him. That lousy little squad of yours? Sending him there would be a waste."
"How can you say that? Although we're a fifth-class squad now, we were a second-class squad once, after all. We only dropped to fifth class because we haven't achieved much in recent years. But I believe that one day, we'll regain our former glory," Wei Cangyue said resolutely.
Faced with Wei Cangyue's burning passion, Crazy Old Man simply waved him off. "Shoo, shoo. Go back to sleep. Once you're asleep, you can have anything in your dreams."
Wei Cangyue was speechless.
The next day.
Almost all the students from Ancheng No. 9 Middle School went to the gymnasium.
Wei Cangyue stroked his chin, mulling over yesterday's events and muttering inwardly, when he suddenly heard someone passing beside him mention a PK.
He grabbed a male student. "What happened? Why are you all rushing off like you're hurrying to reincarnate?"
Although the boy wasn't in the special training class, he had seen Wei Cangyue before. Facing a second-rank martial artist, he didn't dare waste a single word.
"Jiang Fan and Jiang Youtian are having a PK in the gymnasium. If Jiang Fan loses, he'll give Jiang Youtian the Qi and Blood Raw Stone he received yesterday."
Jiang Fan?
That name sounded familiar.
Wei Cangyue couldn't place it at the moment, but his impression of this Jiang Fan was very poor right now.
For ordinary students, a Qi and Blood Raw Stone was a precious cultivation resource. Yet he had used it as a stake in a bet. He wasn't taking cultivation seriously at all.
"What are their strengths?" Wei Cangyue asked again.
The student replied, "Jiang Youtian is our school's martial arts genius. He's only seventeen, but he's already a middle-stage martial apprentice. As for Jiang Fan, he's only just reached the threshold of an early-stage martial apprentice."
"What nonsense!" Wei Cangyue shook his head, his impression of this boy named Jiang Fan worsening further.