Yeah, Dumbass

Seeing that Su Mu had said nothing, at that moment.

Wang Hao laughed inwardly.

He had come today precisely to show off in front of Ye Qingxue.

He had seen the moment on the sports field when Ye Qingxue invited Su Mu to join her team, clear as day. Countless people were fighting tooth and nail to get into the SSS-grade Ice and Snow World, yet she had taken the initiative to invite him.

What made it even more infuriating was that Su Mu had refused.

Why?

He, Wang Hao, had an S-grade core card, and his family had poured over a million into resources to train him, yet he had barely squeezed into the top ten of his year.

Su Mu was an ordinary person whose parents had both died and who lived with his aunt. He had no backing and no resources, yet his grades had kept him above Wang Hao all along.

Every time their homeroom teacher held a class meeting, he held Su Mu up as an example.

"Su Mu has 210 soul power. What about you?" and "Su Mu's dungeon design is the best in the entire city."

After three years of it, Wang Hao's ears had practically grown calluses.

But back then, he couldn't lash out.

Su Mu's grades really were good, and his soul power really was high. No matter how much Wang Hao resented it, he could only swallow it.

Now things were different.

An F-grade stone core card.

So what if it was a special dungeon?

With a lousy stone for a core card, he would never turn his life around. If someone had fallen from the clouds into the mud, and you didn't step on him now, were you supposed to wait until he got back up?

Wang Hao glanced at Teacher Chen's expression and knew where he stood.

Between an S-grade and an F-grade, the choice was obvious.

Just as Wang Hao was confident of victory.

"Dumbass."

Su Mu stood where he was, looking at Wang Hao. Seeing him like that, he really couldn't hold it in.

His voice wasn't loud, but it rang especially clear in the quiet office.

The office fell abruptly silent.

Teacher Chen nearly dropped the tablet in his hand.

Ye Qingxue's finger stopped scrolling across the screen. She raised her head, a faint trace of surprise in her cool eyes.

Wang Hao's smile froze on his face. As if someone had thrown a basin of ice water in his face, he went rigid.

He had never dreamed that Su Mu would insult him outright in front of the teacher and Ye Qingxue.

"You... what did you say?" Wang Hao's face reddened at a visible rate, and the veins on his temples throbbed.

Su Mu's expression remained calm as he repeated himself. "Dumbass."

The office grew even quieter.

Ye Qingxue had returned to normal by now, but there seemed to be a hint of a smile she was holding back at the corners of her mouth.

Wang Hao's fists clenched sharply, his knuckles turning white.

He instinctively wanted to step forward, but his gaze swept past Teacher Chen standing behind the desk, and his feet rooted themselves to the spot.

He couldn't hit him.

The teacher was here.

Ye Qingxue was here too.

He was an S-grade awakener, a prominent figure in Class Seven, and one of the top ten in his year. He couldn't lose his composure over an insult, especially in front of Ye Qingxue.

Wang Hao took a deep breath, slowly unclenched his fists, and even forced a smile.

But the smile was as stiff as if it had been glued on, and the fury in his eyes was nearly bursting out.

"Su Mu." His voice was very low, carrying a deliberately maintained air of composure. "Insulting a classmate. Is that the kind of person you are?"

Su Mu raised an eyebrow and didn't answer.

Seeing his indifferent attitude, Wang Hao grew even angrier, but he still couldn't lash out.

His mind raced. How could he make Su Mu suffer a major loss without resorting to violence?

Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

"Since you're so confident when you insult people, fine."

Wang Hao stepped forward and stared fixedly into Su Mu's eyes. "We're both awakeners now. Matters between awakeners are settled by awakeners' rules. I'm formally issuing you a dungeon challenge. Do you dare accept?"

"If you don't dare, you're not a man."

He enunciated the last few words one by one, each landing with force.

For the third time, the office fell silent.

Teacher Chen frowned and wanted to step in, but what Wang Hao had proposed was a formal challenge between awakeners.

Once such a challenge was issued, teachers could only mediate; they had no power to veto it.

However, the right to refuse lay with Su Mu.

As long as Su Mu refused, that would be the end of it.

Su Mu was stunned.

He really was stunned for a moment, and then he nearly laughed out loud.

Here it comes.

Here it comes, here it comes, here it comes.

The classic villain-delivers-resources segment.

He had read so many novels in his previous life that he could recite this routine with his eyes closed.

The protagonist fell on hard times, and the villain, relying on his higher-grade core card, jumped in his face with a challenge. In the end, the protagonist slapped the villain's face and made him lose a pile of resources along the way.

Back when he was reading, he had even complained about how villains these days all rushed to deliver warmth to the protagonist.

Now it was his turn to be the protagonist.

This feeling is kind of interesting.

After his brief moment of surprise, a trace of excitement rose in Su Mu's heart.

He's come to deliver resources to me. He mulled it over briefly, preparing to provoke Wang Hao a little more. He had to get some stakes on the line.

But just as he was about to speak.

The words were on the tip of his tongue.

"Yeah, dumbass."

A clear female voice, tinged with coldness, rang out beside him.

Su Mu's words caught in his throat.

Then he looked at Ye Qingxue in disbelief.

Ye Qingxue was still looking down at her tablet, her expression indifferent, as if the words just now had nothing to do with her. Only the edges of her ears were tinged with the faintest red.

The smile froze on Wang Hao's face.

He opened his mouth, looked at Ye Qingxue, then at Su Mu, seemingly trying to confirm who had just insulted him.

"What?" he asked instinctively.

Ye Qingxue paid him no further attention, as if those words hadn't come from him at all.

But everyone knew she had just said them.

But who was she talking about?

Nobody present was a fool.

Did it even need saying? She had put "yeah" before "dumbass." She was clearly replying to Su Mu, confirming the insult he had just hurled.

The corner of Teacher Chen's mouth twitched. He had only just reacted to Su Mu's insult when Wang Hao issued the dungeon challenge.

This time he reacted immediately, but the one doing the insulting was Ye Qingxue.

She was their school's prospect for a Tsinghua or Peking University admission this year. What could he do? He could only pretend he hadn't heard.

Wang Hao's face turned red, and after a long moment, he forced out:

"Y-Ye Qingxue, you..." Wang Hao stammered, looking as though he had been struck by lightning.

Ye Qingxue didn't answer him. Instead, she looked at Teacher Chen and said calmly, "Teacher Chen, sorry for the trouble, but please register my card."

Teacher Chen came to his senses and hurriedly took her tablet and began working on it.