After eight years as a hostage in Jin Garden, Wu Youren had developed quite an aversion to uniforms.
Whether it was the guards' uniforms with their "hostage" armbands or the hostages' own uniforms, they all evoked memories too painful to revisit.
Since the other party could bring up "uniforms," presumably he could not only get one, but also understood very well how the hostages felt.
That left no need to discuss where he came from.
At this thought, Wu Youren genuinely felt fed up. "Are you people ever going to stop?"
Seeing his reaction, the burly man actually laughed. "Haha, have you forgotten your own status?"
"Does entering the martial academy change who you are? What right do you have to criticize us?"
They clung to him like a haunting ghost. Wu Youren was genuinely speechless, but what the man said was indeed true.
He was still a hostage after entering the martial academy. What right did he have to demand they stop watching him?
Whatever else, being at the martial academy felt far better than being in Jin Garden. Sometimes, a person really couldn't take a mile when given an inch.
After mentally preparing himself, his mood settled a little, and he took a deep breath.
"But keeping an eye on me is one thing. This protection money is a bit too out of nowhere."
In theory, when the Jin Garden guards took a cut of the allowance, they were indeed protecting the hostage residence.
Without them, who could say whether angry citizens of Liang might storm Jin Garden one day?
But he was hiding his identity at the martial academy, and they still wanted protection money. That approach... genuinely made him uncomfortable.
"With too much money, you might stir up wind and waves," the burly man replied with complete self-assurance. "It's for your own good!"
"Well, thank you so very much!" Wu Youren replied, caught between laughter and tears. Was it really that simple and brutal?
Yet the enforcement authorities were even more unreasonable than he had imagined. Or rather... more blunt.
"If you do something wrong, cleaning up after you leaves loose ends for us too. Better to collect a regular fee. Good for everyone, wouldn't you say?"
Wu Youren also knew he had no standing to reason with them. All he could do was sigh.
"I was planning to use that money to advance a tier. Cutting off someone's future isn't a good thing... I can't give you too much!"
"Motherfucker!" The burly man was about to lose his temper, but the last sentence left him unsure whether to laugh or cry. "What fucking future do you have?"
He didn't know that hostages had made comebacks in other worlds, but there was no question that Jin's seventeenth prince couldn't!
"I'd like to ask something," Wu Youren said in a low voice. "If I join the Mirage Sea Alliance, can I stop paying protection money?"
He hadn't intended to make much use of Cynthia, but there was no helping it. Even a hero could be brought low by a single penny.
The burly man gave a strange smile. "Mm, you can give it a try. Maybe you can."
"Forget it, then." Wu Youren made his decision. "If I pay the protection money, there won't be any other trouble at the martial academy, right?"
"Of course," the burly man answered readily. "From now on, you'll be under the Life and Death Knot's protection."
This Life and Death Knot claimed to be a martial academy faction. It was probably the relevant authorities' operator!
Wu Youren sighed. "I really do want to advance a tier, but from the looks of it... I can't refuse?"
"You don't have to pay protection money." The burly man's smile grew stranger. "We can even give you money!"
"A walking five hundred thousand..." Wu Youren shook his head and sighed again. "How much?"
"You want five hundred thousand?" The burly man was stunned. Don't you have any fucking clue how much you're worth?
He decided to ignore this nonsense. "Four silver dollars a month!"
"Fuck..." Wu Youren had already been exercising considerable restraint, but hearing that familiar figure made him bare his teeth again.
Was this shit never going to end? "You can't have the money for my advancement!"
The burly man hadn't intended to push him too hard. After all, there was still a long road ahead. "You have to hand some over. Ten silver dollars, then."
They really were doing proper business, not just street thugs. They knew to cast a long line to catch a big fish.
Wu Youren nodded silently. "Anything else?"
"Let us beat you up." The burly man smiled again. "If we're putting on a show, we should see it through, right...?"
Before long, Wu Youren emerged from the grove, limping, his face bruised and swollen.
He looked miserable, but his emotions hadn't fluctuated much, because this sort of thing... didn't strike him as strange.
Being a hostage couldn't mean merely serving as a punching bag. It could also involve all kinds of coercion and enticement.
Nor would this torment end anytime soon. They were taming a hawk through exhaustion!
Even so, he would rather stay at the martial academy. At least he had more freedom here, and more opportunities.
He couldn't stand Jin Garden's stagnant gloom for even a moment, much less spend every day entangled with his countrymen, scheming against one another.
He had only taken a few steps when a figure flashed into view ahead. It was Cynthia.
Her face was full of concern. "Are you... all right?"
"What do you think?" Wu Youren retorted irritably, but said nothing more and kept walking.
"Those people, the Life and Death Knot... I didn't bring them," Cynthia hurriedly explained. She knew why he was angry.
"Does that matter now?" Wu Youren replied calmly. "You said we'd talk things out. I didn't expect us to talk with fists."
"This really has nothing to do with me." Cynthia was genuinely anxious now. "I didn't even know anyone had followed me here."
"Fine, let's say that's how it was." Wu Youren didn't want to tax his brain. He might as well let the matter end here.
Affection between teenage boys and girls probably worked like this too, arriving quickly and leaving just as quickly... the ancient god-tier veteran wasn't quite sure.
Cynthia's reaction, however, was different. "You agreed to pay protection money?"
"What else could I do?" Wu Youren asked. He needed her to spread that news, so there was no need to hide it.
More to the point, he still harbored resentment. "Did you want me to have my arms and legs broken?"
The female warrior's eyes shifted, and she asked with a grave expression, "How much?"
"Something this embarrassing... let's not talk about it." Wu Youren gave a bitter laugh. "Still, I suppose I belong to an organization now."
Cynthia fell silent. She followed him for a few steps before speaking again. "How about I cover half for you?"
Wu Youren abruptly stopped and turned his head to look at her. Several breaths passed before he said, word by word, "No need!"
A mere two silver dollars-could he bring himself to ask for that?
There was no explaining this. At heart, he was also rather opposed to living off a woman-even if he did, he would do it on his own terms!
More importantly, he wasn't sure whether she truly knew nothing or was only pretending.
There was no need to trouble himself over something so brain-racking when there was clearly a simple solution!
"I, I, I..." Cynthia hesitated before mustering the courage to speak. "I'll treat you to sand pupae as an apology!"
Sand pupae were not only highly nourishing but also extraordinarily delicious, nothing like the meal a certain hostage had treated them to last time.
"No thanks," Wu Youren replied without hesitation. "I could afford them myself to begin with!"
Four silver dollars a month, saved for a year... what blood food couldn't he afford?
Cynthia wasn't good-tempered either, and finally couldn't hold back. "You don't believe me?"
"What are you dragging into this?" Wu Youren replied casually, without answering the question directly.
He kept being so lukewarm and barbed that the female warrior really couldn't take it.
After another few dozen silent steps, she finally erupted. "If you don't trust me, then forget it!"
What warrior didn't have a bit of a temper? She quickened her pace and walked ahead.
Wu Youren watched the distance between them grow little by little, his gaze indifferent.
Only when she couldn't resist looking back at him did he cough lightly. "The Mirage Sea Alliance can't beat the Life and Death Knot. Don't stir up trouble!"
Whether those two factions were two sides of the same coin or not, was there anything wrong with that friendly reminder?
If a conflict arose between them because of it, the Life and Death Knot couldn't blame him-he was only telling the truth.
In fact, he felt a little hopeful. If the two really weren't one and the same, it would be best if they started fighting.
All this time, Liang's factions had been stirring up wind and rain among the hostages. Surely it wasn't excessive for him to return the favor a little?
Cynthia froze briefly at his words, then turned away, quickened her pace, and disappeared in a flash.
When Wu Youren returned to the dormitory, Salinen happened to be there. He froze at the sight of him.
"What happened to you... did Cynthia hit you that hard?"
"We're finished," Wu Youren said flatly. "You can make your move. I never even touched her hand."
"Well... wouldn't that be wrong?" Salinen was visibly tempted, but said, "If you don't want her, neither do I."
The three roommates were visibly growing closer, but the natural gulf between them objectively existed.
Wu Youren knew very well that these two had helped him far less than Cynthia had. Still... it was better than nothing.
After Subar returned and heard the two had broken up, however, he immediately demanded that Wu Youren buy them dinner, to "hold a ceremony."
Wu Youren actually agreed, though this meal wasn't as lavish as the previous one. The three of them spent less than two silver dollars altogether.
But that was still quite good. At the apprentice knight stage, the vast majority of warriors had to rely on nourishment from food.
Having meat at every meal was no ordinary expense, let alone eating to their hearts' content. That was even more of a dream.
Free meals weren't so easy to enjoy, however. That very night, Wu Youren seized Subar by the throat.
Salinen had drunk a little and was sleeping especially soundly. By the time he reacted, someone from next door was already knocking.
Subar's injuries weren't particularly serious. The serious part was that the incident had spread beyond their circle... no, beyond their dormitory!
Fortunately, his two roommates had already experienced this once, and this time Wu Youren seemed to have suffered a romantic setback.
Another crucial point was that they had just eaten on his tab that evening. After all, a mouth that had eaten another man's food couldn't speak harshly of him.
So the next day, the two forced Wu Youren to buy them another meal, and the matter was considered settled.
However, both roommates solemnly warned him: if it happened again, they would definitely report it to the academy!
A day later, after waiting for them to cool down, Wu Youren treated them to another meal and said he truly couldn't control himself effectively.
Then he brought up the old subject again, hoping his two roommates would help ask around about where he could find missions to kill anomalies at the martial academy.
Most mandatory academy missions would come through their wristwatches, but ordinary missions had to be learned about through various channels.
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