Chapter 34: The First Kill

He was stunned—he had run down a whole string of floors, yet his face wasn’t flushed, his heart wasn’t pounding, and he wasn’t even out of breath.

“After the mental energy boost, my physical constitution increased by this much?” He straightened up, inspected himself from top to bottom, and couldn’t help the smile tugging at his lips. “The Fire Dragon Flower tea really is good stuff. Dongfang wasn’t lying to me after all.”

Thinking of Dongfang, the smile on his face instantly froze.

The scene in the starlight room came flooding back, and there was simply no way to explain that away.

“Sigh, one step at a time, I guess.”

He ruffled his hair in frustration, crossed the lobby, and headed toward the iron gates. Through the iron bars, he peeked at the dorm manager’s desk—the muscular giant with the massive machete from earlier was gone, replaced by a tall, thin figure.

This person had a pale complexion, sunken eye sockets, and wore a dorm manager’s uniform that hung loosely off his frame, as if it had been borrowed for the shift.

Must be the shift change.

Jiang Xiaoyu didn’t think much of it, raising a hand to knock on the iron door. “Excuse me, could you open the door?”

Chen Xiaojie was curled up behind the desk, yawning, when he heard the knock. He lazily lifted his eyelids for a look. At that single glance, his eyes went wide.

A living human?

The building was filled exclusively with aberrations; how on earth had a living human wandered in?

His brain spun in half a circle before he figured it out—it must be some pampered young master’s kept human, kept around for breaking through bottlenecks, who had sneaked out while the dorm was empty during the day.

Wasn’t this a fat sheep walking right into his mouth?

His old man had punished him with a day of dorm duty, and he had been stewing in anger. Barely had he sat down when the heavens dropped a living human right onto his doorstep. Eating this living soul would definitely boost his supernatural power to the next level, and taking care of Chu Chu after that would be a breeze.

He immediately plastered on an eager smile, trotted over to open the door, and adopted a polite tone: “Student, is there anything I can help you with?”

“May I ask how to get to the Class Seven Geometry Squad?”

“Where are you headed, student? Maybe I know the place.”

“Xiaoqi.”

Chen Xiaojie’s heart skipped a beat.

One of Xiaoqi’s people? That could be troublesome. If he openly devoured him and Xiaoqi came looking for trouble, even his old man might not be able to smooth things over. But letting such a fat piece of prey slip away was something he simply couldn’t stomach.

His eyes darted as an idea struck—he would lure the boy to the secluded porter’s lodge, devour him quietly, and leave no trace behind.

Seeing him stroke his chin in silence, Jiang Xiaoyu waved a hand in front of his face. “Hello? Hello?”

Chen Xiaojie snapped back to reality and hurriedly responded: “Xiaoqi? I’ve heard the name, but we aren’t close. As for how to get to the Geometry Squad, my memory fails me at the moment. But there are records in the porter’s lodge; come with me, and we’ll check it out.”

Jiang Xiaoyu nodded, stepping forward to follow him, casually asking along the way, “What about the dorm manager from earlier?”

Chen Xiaojie’s eyes flickered. “Oh, you mean Blood Explosion? He had an emergency and took leave.”

The moment they stepped into the porter’s lodge, Chen Xiaojie glanced around—nobody, not even a ghost in sight. The corners of his mouth twitched upward as he turned around, his enthusiastic smile twisting into a ferocious grin.

The corners of Jiang Xiaoyu’s mouth curved up, and he smiled as well.

Chen Xiaojie was unnerved by that smile and asked sinisterly, “Kid, what are you smiling at?”

“I’ve already figured out you don’t harbor good intentions.”

“Then you still dared to come?”

“I wanted to test just how strong I’ve become.”

Chen Xiaojie almost thought he’d misheard, then burst into laughter. “Even living humans are talking big these days? You know, that look on your face really pisses me off. I’ve changed my mind—I’m not going to finish you off in one bite. I’m going to torture you slowly, so you know—”

Before he could finish, everything went pitch black.

A fist landed squarely on his left eye socket.

“Ouch!” Chen Xiaojie let out a miserable shriek, covering his eye as he staggered back three paces. “You ambushed me—”

Jiang Xiaoyu didn’t reply. Taking advantage of his blocked vision, he delivered another punch to the right eye socket, followed swiftly by a hard stomp to his thigh.

Chen Xiaojie stumbled back several more steps before steadying himself, wincing in pain. He shook his head, glaring at the living human with a mix of shock and anger—the kid’s punches were fast and heavy, possessing a strength no ordinary human should have.

Jiang Xiaoyu sneered.

Back at the building entrance, he had already sensed via his mental energy that this new dorm manager was radiating a faint red aura. Probing further with his mind, he realized that red aura was murderous intent. Pushing his sensing a bit deeper, he discovered the man’s energy fluctuations weren’t particularly strong and posed no real threat to him.

Since there was no threat, he might as well use him as a sparring partner to test how much stronger he had gotten after drinking the Fire Dragon Flower tea.

After exchanging blows for a while, Chen Xiaojie’s face was bruised black and blue, and his lip was split. He staggered back to the corner of the wall, raised his hands in surrender, and pleaded, “Stop hitting me, stop hitting me! I was wrong!”

Jiang Xiaoyu withdrew his fists, dusted off his hands, and looked down at him from above. “Why did you attack me?”

Chen Xiaojie wore a woeful expression. “I… I thought you were an ordinary person, that’s why I made a move. If I’d known you were this good at fighting, beating me to death wouldn’t have made me dare touch you.”

“Then why did you want to kill me?”

Chen Xiaojie lowered his head and muttered, “The strong prey on the weak; that’s the most normal thing in the world at Huangquan Vocational Institute.”

Jiang Xiaoyu stared at him for a moment, sighed, and turned toward the door.

The moment he turned his back, the pleading look in Chen Xiaojie’s eyes vanished completely. He snapped his hands up, his ten fingers forming a bizarre mudra against his chest, and a low murmur escaped deep from his throat.

The sound wasn’t human speech; it sounded more like the resonance of some stringed instrument, sending invisible ripples ringing through the narrow space.

Just as Jiang Xiaoyu took two steps, he suddenly felt his head grow heavy, as if someone had struck the back of his skull with a blunt club. The entire world began to spin.

Realizing something was wrong, he tried to step forward, but his legs felt like they were filled with lead, refusing to obey.

“Hahaha—”

Chen Xiaojie climbed up from the ground, dusting off his pants, not a trace of his earlier miserable state remaining.

“Remember in your next life: never turn your back on your enemy.”

He drew a dagger from his waist and aimed it straight at Jiang Xiaoyu’s heart.

“Stop!”

A furious roar exploded from outside the porter’s lodge. Following it, a massive figure barreled inside—it was Blood Explosion. He was gripping his blood-stained machete, his muscles trembling all over, his yellow eyes filled with frantic rage: “Chen Xiaojie! Are you out of your mind?!”

Chen Xiaojie glanced over his shoulder and sneered, “Who’d I think it was? Turns out it’s just you, waste. A watchdog exiled to guard the dorms, and you dare meddle in my business?”

He twitched the dagger in his hand, his tone dripping with utter contempt: “I’ve set my mind on eating this living human today. If you don’t know what’s good for you, I don’t mind taking care of you along with—”

Before he could finish.

A golden light emerged from the bridge of Jiang Xiaoyu’s nose.

That pair of golden glasses materialized out of thin air, the light flowing across the lenses condensing in an instant into a figure—a home-attired girl with flowing long hair.

Dongfang wielded her lightsaber, traces of un-wiped tears still lingering on her face, but her eyes held no superfluous emotion—only coldness.

A single sword stroke fell.

No techniques, no chants, just the raw power of Light exploding along the edge of the blade.

Chen Xiaojie didn’t even have time to shriek before the power of Light vaporized him entirely, leaving only a wisp of blue smoke curling up from the floor tiles.

Dongfang withdrew her sword, turned around, and glanced at Jiang Xiaoyu.

Jiang Xiaoyu was just recovering from the dizziness, opening his mouth to speak, when she turned into a streak of light and flew back into the glasses. From start to finish, she didn’t utter a single word.

“It’s over.” Jiang Xiaoyu smacked his forehead and slumped back into the chair. “She’s definitely still mad. No—wait, I really didn’t mean to do that!”

Blood Explosion stood at the entrance, his massive machete clattering to the floor. He stared at the wisp of smoke that had yet to dissipate, opened his mouth, and took a long time to squeeze out a voice: “Young Master Jiang, you’ve caused a catastrophe!”

Jiang Xiaoyu: “What happened?”

“That was the only son of Music Department Head Chen Hao, a genius of the Music Department.”

“Care who he is, he threw the first punch with intent to kill.”

“Young Master Jiang, Chen Hao possesses S-rank supernatural power. At that level, he can sense the death of his only son, and he even has bloodline-tracking methods. We won’t be able to keep this hidden for long.”

“I killed him, so what? What can he do?”