"Oh, not bad. His Qi is pretty strong," Du Qinggang said, his eyes lighting up. "I heard this kid started cultivating Qi under his family's Divine Power Master when he was fifteen. It's been four years now. Although he only has two Divine Marks, judging by his Qi, his strength would put him among the best even in the third year."
"Yeah, I can tell. Against the people in his own year, he could take on ten at once without a problem."
Duan Ming could barely stand the stench coming from Du Qinggang's feet anymore.
That smell... damn it, even half a month without washing his feet shouldn't make them this pungent, right?
He definitely stepped in dog shit on his way out!
"If you were that rich second-generation kid in your class, would you agree to fight him?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because I couldn't beat him."
Du Qinggang: "..." Black lines covered his forehead.
But to everyone's surprise, Fang Cheng actually agreed.
He could tell that Zhao Qinghai's Qi was several times stronger than his own, but he accepted anyway.
"Heh, you don't know your own limits."
A smile of utter contempt appeared on Zhao Qinghai's face.
The people around them also urged Fang Cheng not to agree to Zhao Qinghai's challenge.
"Oh, he actually agreed." Du Qinggang saw him in a somewhat different light.
"Just as I expected."
From the moment Zhao Qinghai challenged Fang Cheng to a one-on-one, Duan Ming had known Fang Cheng would agree.
Although he hadn't spent much time with the guy, he had gotten a measure of his character.
He was someone who intended to join the Demon Suppression Army!
He wouldn't back down just because his opponent was strong.
After joining the Demon Suppression Army, the demons he faced in the future might be many times stronger than him.
If he backed down because his opponent was stronger, then he wasn't worthy of joining the Demon Suppression Army!
Basically, every soldier in the Demon Suppression Army had a spirit: when facing a formidable enemy, they charged straight at them!
Because they couldn't retreat. Behind them stood hundreds of millions of families!
Although Fang Cheng hadn't joined the Demon Suppression Army yet, he already possessed its spirit!
"Barring any surprises, you're the only one in the whole year who can deal with the kid who hit him. Your friend's in trouble now. Aren't you going to step in and help?"
"No. Knowing him, if I stepped in now, he'd get angry instead."
As soon as she heard they were going to fight, Zhou Yao hurried over to Fang Cheng. "Fang Cheng, the injury on your hand hasn't healed yet. You'll be at a disadvantage if you fight him. It's better to leave this to the teachers."
"The teachers? Are they any use?" Fang Cheng glanced at the grade director, who was standing by and doing nothing.
"What, your hand's injured? Fine, I'll only use one hand too, so no one can say I'm bullying you." Zhao Qinghai rolled his neck, looking ready to fight at any moment.
"Zhao Qinghai, tone it down," Director Zhang said quietly. Then he looked at everyone else. "With me here, no one is allowed to fight! You think I can't control you anymore, is that it?"
Students fighting in the cafeteria could be a minor matter or a major one.
The key was that neither of the two students about to fight was an ordinary person.
This Fang Cheng's family ran the largest business in the area.
If he let Zhao Qinghai injure him, there would be no shortage of trouble.
But he couldn't refuse to help Zhao Qinghai either. After all, his future prospects depended on the people behind Zhao Qinghai.
"Director Zhang, it's not that I won't tone it down. It's just that I've never apologized to anyone."
"Director Zhang, you don't need to concern yourself with this. You can't handle it." Fang Cheng seemed to be implying something.
If Director Zhang were really any use, a student like him wouldn't have had to step forward to speak up for justice.
"Come on. If you can land a single punch on me, I'll apologize."
Zhao Qinghai could tell that Fang Cheng's Qi wasn't even in the same league as his own.
Against someone who had cultivated Qi for less than two months, he was confident he could toy with him like a monkey.
"Fine. Since you insist, I won't bother getting involved. You decided on this solution yourselves. If anything happens, don't say I didn't do anything." Director Zhang sounded as though he wanted to wash his hands of the matter.
Fang Cheng stared coldly at Zhao Qinghai, who stood before him. He took a deep breath, gathered all the Qi in his body into his right hand, and threw a fierce punch.
"Too slow." Zhao Qinghai easily dodged Fang Cheng's punch, circled behind him, and kicked him.
Fang Cheng felt as if a truck had slammed into his back, nearly knocking the breath out of him.
One had cultivated Qi for less than two months; the other had cultivated it for four years.
Their strength really wasn't in the same league.
Even without using his Divine Marks, Zhao Qinghai's Qi, accumulated over four years, was beyond what the current Fang Cheng could match.
"With your paltry three-legged cat skills, you can't even touch me." A smug smile appeared on Zhao Qinghai's face.
As they watched Fang Cheng get hit, the people around them exchanged glances.
"Get him!"
Some boy suddenly shouted.
The boys around them swarmed forward.
"What are you doing? What are you trying to do?"
Director Zhang's pupils contracted sharply as he shouted at the top of his lungs.
But who was listening to him now?
In an instant, Zhao Qinghai was swallowed up by a sea of people.
Although he had cultivated Qi for four years and had been a Divine Power Master for four years, he couldn't possibly fend off so many people by himself.
Fists rained down on him in an instant.
At first, he still had a chance to fight back, knocking several people down with a few punches and kicks.
But before long, he was pinned to the ground and rubbed into the dirt.
"Those in front, move aside when you're done! Let us in the back get a kick in too!"
"Damn it, this kid's too arrogant! We ought to beat him to death!"
"Fuck your mother! Your family's food is pig feed!"
"You trash from the bottom of society actually dare to hit me!"
Zhao Qinghai's roars were drowned out by the shouting and cursing.
We agreed to a one-on-one! This trash actually has no martial virtue!
"Move! All of you, move!"
Terrified that something would happen if the beating continued, Director Zhang grabbed a boy and pulled him aside with one hand, squeezing into the crowd.
But no matter how he shouted, nobody listened. It was as though he, the grade director, were nothing more than a decoration.
In a corner, the people from Class Two looked at one another.
They watched the new classmate who had joined their class get beaten without lifting a finger.
For one thing, Zhao Qinghai really was too arrogant, so arrogant that even they couldn't stand it.
For another, wouldn't anyone who went up to help Zhao Qinghai now be courting death?
The guy had already provoked everyone's anger. Even if the principal came, it would probably be hard to deal with.
"If they keep beating him, won't someone die?" Duan Ming raised his head and glanced at Du Qinggang.
"Don't worry. That guy Zhang still needs Zhao Qinghai's grandfather to help arrange his transfer to the Divine Mark Association's headquarters. There's no way he'll let anything happen to Zhao Qinghai." Du Qinggang watched the commotion as though the bigger it got, the better. "Nice punch! Reminds me of myself back in the day!"
By the time Director Zhang pulled Zhao Qinghai out of the crowd.
This spoiled rich kid was black and blue, his black clothes covered in layer upon layer of densely overlapping footprints.
"We agreed to a one-on-one."
Zhao Qinghai struggled to force the words out of his mouth, and a tooth fell out at the same time.
"You little bastards! Are you trying to rebel?!" Furious, Director Zhang carried Zhao Qinghai with one hand as he rushed to the infirmary. "Just you wait! I'll check the surveillance footage later, and not one of you who hit him will get away!"
At first, he had thought it was just going to be a simple one-on-one.
With Zhao Qinghai's strength, he definitely wouldn't have gotten hurt.
Even if Fang Cheng got beaten, he could have said that the students had decided on a one-on-one duel themselves.
They had been determined, and nobody listened when he intervened!
But who could have known that these students would act like they'd been pumped full of chicken blood, unable to sit still the moment they saw one of their own getting beaten?
He hurried away with Zhao Qinghai, frantic as he looked at the Divine Mark Association bigwig's grandson, whose face was covered in blood from the beating.
If anything happened to this kid, his chance to transfer to the Divine Mark Association's headquarters would go completely down the drain.