The Gu Family's Fury, the Whole School Erupts

Early the next morning.

A strange, oppressive atmosphere hung over the campus of Linhai No. 3 Middle School.

What had happened the previous afternoon had long since spread throughout the school. Everyone was talking about how the Gu Family had used official power to force Su Bai, the owner of the wasteland divine kingdom who had worked a miracle in the mock battle, to sign a life-and-death waiver and carry out an assessment mission at Benevolent Heart Hospital in the western suburbs, where death was certain.

The classroom of Senior Year Three, Class Seven was more lifeless still.

Lin Que, the fatty, lay slumped over his desk, his eyes bloodshot. He clearly hadn't slept a wink all night.

"Brother Bai... please don't die... If you die, whose homework am I going to copy from now on...?" Lin Que muttered, his voice choked with tears.

Class monitor Shen Yueli sat in the front row, clutching her staff tightly. Her cool, aloof face was expressionless, but her beautiful eyes held deep self-reproach and anger.

If she had been a little braver yesterday and used the Shen Family's connections to forcefully protect Su Bai, perhaps his fate wouldn't be unknown now.

Meanwhile.

In the principal's office.

A fierce argument was underway.

Wang Hai, a safety assessment commissioner from the municipal education bureau, sat arrogantly on the sofa with the Gu Family's chief lawyer.

Across from them, homeroom teacher Qin Wan trembled with rage, pointing a finger in Wang Hai's face as she cursed him out.

"Wang Hai! You despicable wretch! You knew perfectly well a third-tier Anomaly was holed up in Benevolent Heart Hospital, yet you still forced a newly awakened student to go there for an assessment! That was outright murder!"

Wang Hai snorted, picked up his teacup and took a sip before saying unhurriedly, "Teacher Qin, you can eat whatever you like, but you can't just say whatever you like. Su Bai signed that life-and-death waiver of his own free will. I didn't force him."

"Besides, we were thinking of the safety of everyone at the school. If he can't even handle an abandoned hospital, how can he prove his highly polluted divine kingdom won't go out of control?"

"You!" Qin Wan was so angry she wanted to strike him, but Principal Chen Tianxing, who had been sitting silently behind his desk all along, stopped her.

Chen Tianxing looked much older today.

He fixed Wang Hai and the Gu Family lawyer with a profound gaze. His voice was calm, but it carried an oppressive pressure that made their hearts tremble.

"That old fellow Gu Canghai certainly has a calculating steward. Killing with a borrowed knife, winning without shedding a drop of blood."

Chen Tianxing sighed.

"But aren't you celebrating a little too early? The forty-eight-hour deadline hasn't passed yet. Su Bai isn't necessarily dead."

The Gu Family lawyer adjusted his gold-rimmed glasses and gave a disdainful scoff.

"Principal Chen, you're a true god. Surely even you don't believe in miracles? An F-rank wasteland divine kingdom, soloing Benevolent Heart Hospital? Never mind him-even if my Gu Family's elite squad of death warriors went in, none of them would come back."

The lawyer stood up and straightened his suit.

"We came today to give the school advance notice to prepare to cancel Su Bai's enrollment. Once the time is up, we'll immediately apply to the City Appearance Bureau to take possession of Su Bai's body and his divine kingdom core for their complete 'destruction.'"

Destruction was a lie. The truth was that the Gu Family wanted to study the strange power of rules in Su Bai's divine kingdom!

Just then.

The office door was suddenly kicked open from outside with a bang.

A clear voice, tinged with laziness and mockery, rang out from beyond the door.

"Well, well, who's got their eye on my corpse so early in the morning?"

Dead silence fell over the room.

Wang Hai and the Gu Family lawyer whipped their heads around as if they had seen a ghost, staring fixedly at the doorway.

Su Bai walked in wearing a clean school uniform and carrying a schoolbag on his back. He had two steamed buns in his hand and swaggered inside as he ate.

Not only were all his limbs intact, but even his complexion was considerably rosier. He looked nothing like someone who had spent the night in a terrifying forbidden zone.

"Su... Su Bai?!"

Wang Hai shuddered in fright. The teacup fell straight from his hand and shattered on the floor.

"A g... ghost!" The Gu Family lawyer was so frightened that he staggered back two steps, nearly landing on his backside.

"Su Bai!" Qin Wan's eyes reddened with emotion. She rushed over, grabbed Su Bai by the arm, and looked him up and down. "Are you all right? You really came back alive?!"

Su Bai swallowed the bun in his mouth and gave Qin Wan a broad smile.

"Teacher Qin, I'm one of your prized students, after all. Could one little rundown hospital really get the better of me?"

Su Bai turned to look at the deathly pale Wang Hai and the lawyer, a cold, mocking smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"Commissioner Wang, I'm terribly sorry to disappoint you. Not only am I not dead, I'm alive and well. As for the second-tier Anomaly sample you wanted..."

Su Bai pulled an assessment report bearing the City Appearance Bureau's bright red official seal from his schoolbag and slapped it straight into Wang Hai's face.

"Open your dog eyes and take a good look! This is a highest-level safety certificate personally issued by Captain Bai Lan of the City Appearance Bureau's Abnormality Division!"

"It says right here, clear as day: the pollution from Su Bai's divine kingdom is controllable and poses no threat to public safety. Furthermore, during the combat assessment, he killed the third-tier Anomaly 'Benevolent Heart Director,' rendering a great service!"

Boom!!!

Killed a third-tier Anomaly?!

Those words went off like a nuclear bomb in the principal's office.

Not only Wang Hai and the lawyer, but even Principal Chen Tianxing, who had been as steady as Mount Tai all this time, sprang to his feet, his eyes flashing with shock.

He had thought it would already be a miracle if Su Bai could hold out on the outskirts for a night and escape by sheer luck.

Yet this kid had actually killed that third-tier rule monster on his own—the very one even Chen Tianxing would have found troublesome?!

"That's impossible! It has to be a forgery!" The Gu Family lawyer lunged for the report like a madman.

But when he saw Bai Lan's bold, sweeping signature and the City Appearance Bureau's top-secret embossed seal, he fell into utter despair.

Who in the Great Xia Nation didn't know that Bai Lan was famous for her iron-faced impartiality? She could never have forged an official document of this level to shield a student.

Su Bai had really done it!

"Commissioner Wang, Counselor Gu." Su Bai walked up to the two of them and looked down at them, his eyes filled with undisguised killing intent.

"Go back and tell Gu Canghai I've accepted every one of the 'grand gifts' he sent me."

"But one good turn deserves another. Tell him to wash his neck clean and wait at the Gu Family estate. Sooner or later, I, Su Bai, will come knocking in person and settle this debt with him."

Su Bai's terrifying gaze frightened Wang Hai and the lawyer so badly that they trembled all over. Not daring to say a word, they scrambled and stumbled out of the principal's office.

They had to report this earth-shattering news to the Gu Family immediately!

After they left, a long silence settled over the principal's office.

Chen Tianxing looked at Su Bai for a long time before letting out a deep sigh.

"Su Bai, oh, Su Bai, you really have given me an enormous surprise." Chen Tianxing walked over with his cane and patted Su Bai on the shoulder.

"It seems your father really did leave behind something extraordinary from his dark matter research back then."

Su Bai offered no explanation. He merely smiled faintly.

"Principal, Teacher Qin, sorry for making you worry."

Qin Wan wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and gave Su Bai a cross tap on the head.

"You little brat! If you ever dare to be this reckless again, I'll break your legs! Now get back to class! Your classmates have all been worried sick about you!"

"Right away!"

Su Bai rubbed his head, turned around, and walked out of the office.

The moment Su Bai pushed open the door to Senior Year Three, Class Seven's classroom.

The whole classroom fell deathly silent at first, then erupted in cheers loud enough to blow the roof off!

"Brother Bai!!! You're not dead! You came back alive!!!" Lin Que charged over like a wild boar in heat and wrapped Su Bai in a hug, wiping snot and tears all over him.

The whole class stood up excitedly and applauded with all their might.

In their eyes, Su Bai was no longer the good-for-nothing people had mocked, but a commoner hero who dared to stand up to the tyranny of a powerful family and work miracles!

Shen Yueli sat at her desk, watching Su Bai surrounded by the crowd. Her tense shoulders finally relaxed.

A faint, breathtakingly beautiful smile, a rare sight, curved the corners of her usually cool lips.

"This kid... really is hard to kill."

Meanwhile.

Deep within the Gu Family estate, the most luxurious in Linhai City.

"Trash! All of you are trash!"

Gu Qingshan, the Gu Family's grand elder, furiously smashed a priceless antique vase to pieces.

In the hall, Steward Gu Dehai and the lawyer who had just rushed back knelt amid the shards scattered across the floor, trembling.

"Venomous Bee is dead, more than thirty elites have been lost, and he even thwarted the municipal education bureau's assessment plan with a certificate from the City Appearance Bureau!"

Gu Qingshan trembled with rage, his eyes flashing with venom and apprehension.

"An eighteen-year-old high school student actually managed to kill a third-tier Anomaly on his own! The secrets he carries must not fall into anyone else's hands!"

Gu Qingshan took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.

He walked to the window and looked at the overcast sky outside, a cruel, cold smile curling at the corner of his mouth.

"A spear in the open is easy to dodge; an arrow in the dark is hard to guard against."

"Go. Notify the agents planted in Linhai No. 3 Middle School's elite class. Next week's 'schoolwide placement test' will be held in a moderately polluted mystic realm outside the city. There'll be no surveillance and no City Appearance Bureau there."

"I want Su Bai to die in that mystic realm without an intact corpse!"