A Bet with the Silly Roe Deer

"I concede."

On the arena stage, an examinee at the sixtieth level of Qi and Blood shouted those words.

Standing opposite him was Lin Luyin.

The proctor stepped forward to announce the result, and applause rang out from below the stage.

Lin Luyin returned to her seat in the stands and turned to Ye Weiyu beside her:

"How did I do?"

"Wonderful! Little Deer is the best!"

Ye Weiyu was lavish with her praise.

"Oh, Yezi, you're making me blush." Lin Luyin sounded modest, but her grin nearly reached her ears. "He was just a guy at the sixtieth level. Nothing to be proud of about beating him."

"But honestly, I must be Lady Luck's own daughter."

"I deliberately let him hit me ten times first, and all ten attacks triggered Evasion."

Her luck defied the heavens.

She felt even more confident about the matches ahead.

As long as her luck held,

Lin Luyin figured she could whip that bastard of an ex-fiancé around like a spinning top.

When the time came, she had to kick his butt until it swelled up and he couldn't get out of bed for three days.

On the other side of the stands.

Chu Ge had watched the match from start to finish.

He had to admit, his ex-fiancée's luck really was ridiculous.

Evasion had a fifty percent chance of success against someone at the same realm, yet she had somehow made it work every single time.

Unfortunately for her,

she had run into him, her natural nemesis.

[Iron Cavalry] was guaranteed to hit anything within its attack range. No matter how lucky Lin Luyin was, she couldn't dodge it.

But at that thought, a question occurred to Chu Ge.

If Evasion's success rate really reached one hundred percent and it ran up against his guaranteed-hit [Iron Cavalry], how would it be decided?

Which took priority?

He had no answer.

It was like the omnipotence paradox.

Could an omnipotent God create a stone so heavy that even he couldn't lift it?

"I'm back!"

The silly roe deer's voice reached his ears. Chu Ge turned his head and saw a girl in a Lolita dress trotting toward him with an enormous pile of things in her arms.

Quite a few gazes around them were immediately drawn to her.

Someone exclaimed under his breath, "What a cute girl. Does anyone have her contact info?"

"Forget it, bro," the person beside him said, pouring cold water on him. "She's the Xiao Family's eldest young lady. She's filthy rich, and her talent and looks are both top-notch. She's one of the three great beauties of East Sea. You think she'd give you a second glance?"

"Nothing wrong with having a dream. What if it comes true?" The man smiled, smoothed down his somewhat messy hair, and got up to head over to Xiao Yan.

But before he could take a step, Xiao Yan suddenly turned her head and glared at him.

The next second, he felt a chill crawl up the back of his neck, and all his hairs stood on end.

He obediently sat back down.

Feet together, hands folded on his lap, back ramrod straight, and eyes fixed firmly on the arena, he sat with perfect decorum.

Anyone who looked closely would have noticed his calves trembling slightly.

That was terrifying.

He had no doubt that if he had gone over to talk to her just now, she would have beaten him to death without hesitation.

Boo-hoo, Mom was right after all.

The prettier a woman is, the more dangerous she is.

Meanwhile, Xiao Yan had reached Chu Ge's side.

She set the pile of things in her arms securely on her seat, her face full of anticipation for praise.

"Well? Your older cousin was quick with the shopping, wasn't she? I didn't waste a single second. I ran there and back the whole way because I was worried you'd go hungry."

"Yeah, that was pretty quick," Chu Ge remarked mildly, taking the paper bag containing the cola and hamburger.

His gaze stayed on the huge pile of things on the seat beside him.

"Didn't you get a plastic bag to carry it all?"

"They'd just run out."

"What about the change?"

"I spent it all."

"...You're pretty honest." Chu Ge asked no more. The money had been the silly roe deer's errand fee in the first place, and she could spend it however she liked.

"Your older cousin has always been an honest and beautiful girl." Xiao Yan giggled and shifted the things on her chair over, piling them on the exposed patch of concrete between their seats.

Then she waved her hand with great generosity:

"Although I bought all this with my own money, I'm treating you. Take whatever you want."

"How generous of you."

"When have I ever been stingy with you?"

Xiao Yan pursed her lips.

What an otouto, with the emotional intelligence of a full-grown banana.

She sat down, opened a bag of cucumber-flavored potato chips, and started eating.

On the arena stage, a fierce match was underway.

Some matches saw higher-realm fighters crush lower-realm ones.

Those were basically foregone conclusions. The moment the fighter with higher Qi and Blood unleashed his power, the one with lower Qi and Blood had already lost.

There were also fierce battles between evenly matched opponents.

If neither had awakened a trait, it came down to physical combat techniques.

But for sheer spectacle, nothing beat trait against trait.

In the match currently underway, both fighters had awakened two-star traits.

One had a fire-type trait. With a raise of his hand, flames swirled around him, sending the surrounding temperature climbing higher and higher.

The other had an earth-type trait, forming stone projectiles and earthen walls for both attack and defense.

It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to call the fight a visual feast.

The spectators around them slapped their seats and cheered:

"Well fought! That's it! Nice job!"

"Smear mud in his eyes!"

"Burn his butt! I know him-he's got hemorrhoids!"

Amid the roar of voices, the match soon drew to a close.

The fire-type fighter proved very obedient and really did use his flames to burn his opponent's butt.

His opponent's hemorrhoids burst from the heat, blood ran all over the crotch of his pants, and he howled in pain.

The sight drew an especially strong reaction from the spectators.

"Hahaha, I'm dying!" Someone slapped his thigh, grinning from ear to ear. "They told him to burn it, and he actually did! That's so wicked!"

"Hiss-" Someone sucked in a sharp breath. "Don't say any more. I've got hemorrhoids too, and just watching is giving me phantom pains."

Someone else sighed in exasperation. "I told him to smear mud in his eyes. Once he'd blinded him, couldn't he have beaten him however he wanted?"

Hearing the laughter all around him, the earth-type examinee on the stage finally lost his composure.

He pointed at the fire-type fighter and shouted in shame and anger:

"You have no martial virtue!"

"You knew I had hemorrhoids on my butt, and you burned it on purpose!"

"Heh." The fire-type fighter sneered. "A loss is a loss. What's with all the excuses?"

"If you fight someone to the death in the future, are you going to make a rule beforehand that they can't target your weaknesses?"

"Don't be stupid." He shook his head, his voice cold as ice. "Conflicts on the martial path have always been like this: either you die or I live."

"Mercy to your enemy is cruelty to yourself."

"If you die someday because you cared too much about martial virtue, that would be truly stupid."

"Besides," he added lightly, "how do I lack martial virtue? Do the rules say I can't burn my opponent's butt?"

"I disinfected your butt with my flames. You're lucky I didn't make you split the gas bill."

"Count your blessings."

As soon as he said that, the surrounding crowd erupted in earth-shaking cheers once more.

"Well said! Conflicts on the martial path have always been like this!"

"Disinfecting someone's butt with flames and making them split the gas bill, hahaha! My stomach hurts."

"Boo-hoo, I can't hold it in anymore."

In the stands, Chu Ge finished his hamburger and cola and reached into the pile of snacks beside him.

He picked up a chicken drumstick and commented as he tore open the wrapper:

"This guy with the fire-type trait is a real talent. As long as he keeps this mindset, he'll definitely have a bright future."

Hearing him praise the man so highly, Xiao Yan disagreed.

"Just because you say he'll have a bright future doesn't mean he will."

"What if that earth-type guy can't swallow his anger and finds someone to put a sack over his head and beat him to death tonight?"

"I think it's better to keep a low profile."

She looked at Chu Ge with an expression that said she saw through everything:

"At the rate people are advancing, little brother, you might actually end up facing Lin Luyin."

"Word of how you called off the engagement last time and kicked her butt while you were at it has long since spread through East Sea City's upper circles."

"Knowing her, she'll definitely get you back."

"Who knows, she might be planning to kick your butt until it swells up."

At that, she couldn't help bursting into laughter:

"Honestly, your older cousin would quite like to see that."

"You're so sure I'll lose?" Chu Ge turned his head and looked at the silly roe deer with the hint of a smile.

"Want to make a bet?"

"What kind of bet?"

"If I win, you agree to one condition of mine," Chu Ge said. "And if Lin Luyin wins, I'll agree to one condition of yours."

"Do you dare?"

"You're on. You think I'm afraid of you?" Xiao Yan lifted her fair little face, her canine teeth gleaming.

She was full of confidence:

"Even though you now have a hundred levels of Qi and Blood and the Blue Silver Grass trait, and you're much stronger than you were when you called off the engagement, you still might not be able to beat Lin Luyin."

"Her luck is just too good. After all those matches, her Evasion success rate has been one hundred percent every time."

"If you fight her, I'm afraid neither your Blue Silver Grass nor your fists will even touch her."

Of course, despite making a well-reasoned case, she couldn't resist adding:

"But let's get this straight first. I can agree to your condition, but it absolutely can't be anything weird."

"Like wearing strange clothes, sleeping with you, or being tied up or something..."

"None of those."

"What's going on in that roe deer brain of yours?" Chu Ge was speechless. "Could you stop assuming everyone else's mind is as filthy as yours?"

"That stuff you just mentioned-isn't it what the male lead does to the female lead in your comics?"

Chu Ge only knew that this silly roe deer had a habit of drawing comics, and that she was very good at it.

But he had never read them.

He didn't even know their titles.

Still, when it came down to it, comics like those were all about the same titillating plots. There wasn't much variety to them.

Time passed bit by bit.

Before anyone realized it, the class placement exam was drawing to a close, and only four people remained.

Chu Ge's opponent was a genius at the ninetieth level of Qi and Blood who hadn't awakened a trait.

The physical combat technique this man practiced was somewhat strange. His movements were light, and the patterns of his attacks were hard to discern. Even Chu Ge couldn't help but remark that there were some real experts among this year's new students.

To avoid capsizing in a gutter, he used one charge of [Iron Cavalry] in this match.

Under his opponent's incredulous gaze, he blasted him straight off the stage with a single punch.

Great force sent him flying. The added strength of the Qi and Blood Realm might not have amounted to much among martial arts experts, but among a group of eighteen-year-old rookies, even an extra hundred jin of strength was enough to crush the competition.

And he now had a full thousand jin more.

So, as long as Chu Ge could land a hit, it was only reasonable for him to end the match with one punch.

The skill was limited to ten uses a day, and every use meant one fewer remaining.

He kept count silently:

Nine left. Saving them for beating up Lin Luyin in the final match... that's more than enough.

After defeating his opponent, he advanced smoothly to the final two.

The other matchup was Xiao Yan against Lin Luyin.

For the sake of the bet, Xiao Yan had no intention of fighting Lin Luyin at all.

She conceded as soon as she stepped onto the stage.

She had already made it into the top forty of the class placement exam anyway, securing her a place in the elite class. It didn't matter whether she took first place.

Just like that, Lin Luyin had landed a spot in the final two for free.

She stood on the stage, staring in confusion at Xiao Yan's back as she swaggered down from it.

What was she thinking? Why had she surrendered before they even fought?

Xiao Yan's qi and blood were a little stronger than hers, but her traits were better than Xiao Yan's.

By rights, it should have been an evenly matched battle.

What was the meaning of her opponent surrendering outright?

Could she have been frightened by my kingly aura?

It's not impossible.

The corners of Lin Luyin's mouth curled up despite herself.

This young lady really is someone blessed with great fortune.

Bastard ex-fiancé! Prepare to die!

Perhaps because it was the final match, the announcement was much louder than before.

"For this match, Lin Luyin will face Chu Ge."

"Both examinees, please come up to the stage and prepare."