Inside the half-finished building, Zhou Tianyi had waited for over two grueling hours, and finally judged that a sneak attack was the one opening he'd get against Zhang Yu.
But in the blink of an eye, the very blow meant to land caught him flat-footed instead — sent reeling by the aura surging from Zhang Yu's back.
Zhou Tianyi had meant to plant one kick, leaving only his other foot on the ground to pivot. That single strike bounced back with the full force of the Formless Cloud Qi, and his footing went to pieces. The whole man went flying backwards.
"What?!"
Zhang Yu's Eternal Cloud Hands had been learned for less than a month! How could the aura already be blasting out through his back?
The moment he felt that vast, surging power inside the mist, shock flooded out of Zhou Tianyi all on its own. But one wave barely settled before the next rose. Even as he tumbled to his landing and snapped his head up, a figure thick with killing intent had already closed in, appearing right before his eyes.
Those times he'd watched Zhang Yu train from afar, Zhou Tianyi had only thought the boy looked imposing. Now, face to face, he truly understood what that bearing was.
Wild, savage killing intent. Boundless battle-will. Staring at Zhang Yu, who under his Heavenly Martial Heart-Tempering Art had leveled on him like a vengeful ghost, Zhou Tianyi found a cowardly impulse rising in his chest: turn tail and run.
But the instant Zhou Tianyi took his instinctive step back, Zhang Yu had already struck with everything he had.
Staring at the masked man trying to ambush him, Zhang Yu — driven by his Heavenly Martial combat intent — was already in full battle mode.
Fight, fight, fight! Grind every enemy to dust!
Level-10 Eternal Cloud Hands, at full throttle.
Zhang Yu slapped his palm outward. Spirit power surged up from his dantian, and in the space of a single instant churned through seven successive tremors to pour out as wave after wave of Formless Cloud Qi.
At the cloud mist bearing down on him, Zhou Tianyi knew this was the moment of life and death. He braced his foot, roared, and gathered every scrap of his strength into one savage kick.
Boom!
The instant the two forces collided, Zhou Tianyi felt his own spirit power buckling, retreating step by step. The Formless Cloud Qi slammed into him like a fully-loaded truck, hurling his entire body away until he smashed hard into the cement wall not far behind him. The wall itself boomed open into a hole.
Finally, Zhou Tianyi came down amid a heap of broken mortar-swamped rubble and shattered bricks.
He tried to rise and fight on, but a single flex sent hideous pain rippling through every limb. He couldn't say how many bones and sinews had snapped. His body folded limply back to the floor.
Zhang Yu walked slowly up to him, still steeped in the murderous air of his Heavenly Martial Heart-Tempering Art, and stared coldly down at the masked Zhou Tianyi. "Who are you? Why did you come to attack me?"
Zhou Tianyi didn't answer. He took stock of his injuries, his heart sunk into ash.
Hurt this badly — who knew how much money he'd have to spend to mend himself. It would be a catastrophe for his immortal-cultivation path, perhaps the complete ruin of it.
While he was stunned, Zhang Yu ripped the mask off his face by the fabric. When he saw Zhou Tianyi underneath, even his own face flickered with surprise: "Zhou Tianyi?"
Zhou Tianyi's mind raced. He fixed on Zhang Yu. "Zhang Yu, do you know why you got into Songyang High to begin with?"
Seeing Zhang Yu lean in to listen, Zhou Tianyi went on: "Because your body's compatibility with certain rich men is fairly high. That's why they picked you into the school to be raised."
"Just like a lot of the other poor students at Songyang High. Besides grades, whether a body fits has always been a hidden criterion."
Zhang Yu frowned. He certainly wasn't going to swallow all of this at face value. "Then why recruit me into Songyang at all? Why not haul me off somewhere else to be raised?"
Zhou Tianyi's lips curled in a cold smile. "And what do you think Songyang High is? Underneath it runs a current of dark and complex ugliness beyond anything you can imagine."
"The poor inside these walls — they can be their dogs, but they can also be a spare-parts warehouse. Of course they cultivate them all together, train them in the same disciplines."
Zhang Yu suddenly recalled the Demonic Parasitic Art. Had one of Songyang's students really been practicing that forbidden method?
Zhang Yu fixed his eyes on Zhou Tianyi. "So you were sent by the student council?"
"I told you, Songyang is complicated..." Zhou Tianyi shook his head, then abruptly spat out a mouthful of blood.
In his state of Heavenly Martial Heart-Tempering Art, Zhang Yu had shown the masked attacker no mercy at all — he'd gone straight for the kill. Now Zhou Tianyi felt the severity of his wounds and knew that if he didn't get treatment fast, it wouldn't just be his cultivation that suffered; his life itself was at stake.
A flash of panic crossed his eyes. Zhou Tianyi rushed his words: "Zhang Yu! You were awakened by an evil god, given some kind of ability, weren't you?"
Zhang Yu's gaze narrowed, but he gave nothing back. There was no way he'd breathe a word to anyone about the evil god's ritual.
Zhou Tianyi went on: "No point denying it now. You... you..." A sickly flush rose across his face. The pain dragged up from his wounds choked off the words.
"Zhang Yu... we... we're on the same side..."
"Ta... take me to a nearby clinic."
When Zhang Yu still didn't move, and Zhou Tianyi felt his own life slipping away, panic mounted in his eyes until the words tore out of him: "I... there's an evil god behind me too... and that being... is intensely interested in you..."
At that moment his body temperature climbed, and specks of fire flickered across his cheeks.
Fear flashed through Zhou Tianyi's eyes. He roared: "I didn't mean to say it! I truly didn't mean to! Wait — I was only using him!"
When the fire showed no sign of stopping, Zhou Tianyi finally cursed at the top of his lungs: "You fool!!"
"Stupid trash!"
The next instant, crimson flames detonated across his body.
Watching Zhou Tianyi turn to drifting ash, Zhang Yu knitted his brow hard.
"So Zhou Tianyi was in an evil god's service?"
But then he thought of how the Eight Great Gods only ever haggled over money, while evil gods demanded your life — and he found himself realizing the evil kinds weren't... entirely without advantages.
After all, Kunxu was full of the poor, who had nothing but their lives, not a penny to their names.
"At this rate... perhaps the faithful of the evil gods aren't few at all in Kunxu."
Watching the ashes slowly dissipate on the ground, he murmured to himself: "So he got paid back by something like that ritual's power?"
"Definitely gives off that idiot-ritual vibe."
And thinking back on today, another thought rose: *Have I been making such a racket lately that an evil god has its eye on me? No — Zhou Tianyi had known Zhang Yu for a long time. Could it be it was watching long ago?*
His heart sank. And the worst part was that this wasn't something he could tell a single soul.
The three great elite schools, the student council, the evil gods... recounting the opponents stacked up in his future, Zhang Yu finally sighed to himself: *In the end, I still have to grow stronger.*
Especially remembering how the fight with Zhou Tianyi had just gone, he understood that if his strength had been any less, he would likely have fallen into the man's hands.
Turning over the whole day in his mind — drawing back or striking forward in the illusion assessment, gaining Zhang Pianpian's sheltering protection, taking down Zhou Tianyi with his own bare martial force...
At that moment a thought suddenly struck Zhang Yu, and then he laughed.
Earlier, when he'd been switching back and forth between the Wild Ox Soul-Suppressing Mind Art and the Heavenly Martial Heart-Tempering Art, he'd sensed a kind of clash in his thinking.
And now, all of a sudden, it hit him: *Fight when it's right to fight, retreat when it's right to retreat. Face different situations with different mindsets. Such a simple truth — what was I even struggling over before...*
At that instant, Zhang Yu felt the operation of his Heavenly Martial combat intent smooth out, more harmonious than ever, and its switching with the Wild Ox Soul-Suppressing Mind Art became buttery, without a single hitch.
"Keep training, then."
Whether it was enemies lurking in the dark, or the opponents at Songyang High and the three great elite schools, Zhang Yu needed to push his own power further.
A night passed in the blink of an eye, and Zhang Yu's Heavenly Martial Heart-Tempering Art levelled up to 6 (41/60).
Elsewhere.
In an office at Songyang High.
Su Haifeng, listening to the voice on the other end of the line, was startled: "He died of backlash? He betrayed us?"
At whatever the other side said, Su Haifeng nodded again and again. "I'll cooperate with you on your side and get Zhou Tianyi's dropout pushed through."
"Rest assured, no one at the school should catch on to anything amiss."
"But what do we do about Zhang Yu next?"
"Between the school board, the student council, and the patrol squad... to be honest, I think he's already drawn far too much attention. Since this dark pawn Zhou has failed, the rest of us would be taking too big a risk to make a move and get exposed. Maybe we should let Zhang Yu go for now and look at the other candidates."
"After all, that Zhang Pianpian can shelter him for six months at most..."
...
Songyang High.
The school was still as calm as ever, saturated with the atmosphere of study.
Taking in that serenity, watching the students bent over textbooks and cultivation, Zhang Yu felt as though yesterday's fierce clash on the training ground... had never happened at all.
Even Zhou Tianyi's disappearance today — nobody in the whole class really cared. Word was someone had just processed his withdrawal, same as the dropout Liang Qin before him, and it raised barely a ripple. After all, quitting school was never a rare event at Songyang High.
Not like someone jumping off a rooftop — that at least gave the students something to chew over over dinner.
Even so, Zhang Yu did pick up on a few fine differences.
For example... no student was willing to get near him anymore.
The classmates who used to wave hello, ask him questions, seek him out for cultivation advice... all gone, as if at a signal.
As though an invisible wall had risen around him, driving all his schoolmates away.
Of course he knew why.
"So they're all afraid of being dragged into the student council's trouble, and won't even dare talk to me now?"
Slap!
Bai Zhenzhen set her tray down carelessly and sat across from Zhang Yu.
Looking at A-Zhen, Zhang Yu was glad he at least had this brother.
While wolfing down her food, Bai Zhenzhen glanced at him: "Yu'er, lend me your talisman book for a couple days."
Zhang Yu retracted his passing thought just now. *No, I don't have a brother who opens his mouth by borrowing a hundred-thousand-yuan, priceless item.*
Another slap.
Qian Shen set his tray down too, and sat down right next to Zhang Yu.
Zhang Yu smiled. Old Qian scored lower than him, wore a thicker pair of colored glasses, and discriminated against low scorers — but he looked like a reliable friend after all.
Qian Shen shoveled a few mouthfuls down, then suddenly asked: "So... that 699-point Zhang Pianpian from yesterday — you're pretty close with her?"
"Could you put in a word? I want to add her as a friend..."
Zhang Yu glared at Qian Shen.
He retracted the thought he'd just had.
You little punk!
I take you for a brother, and you're scheming after my big sister's heart?
Do you even see a spot left for you up on that thigh?
But then Zhang Yu reconsidered. Suddenly it hit him that Qian Shen was also a man with no roots to cling to, and he looked at the pure worship blazing in the lad's eyes.
He understood now. This is a rabid fan angling for a friend slot, is it?
Zhang Yu said: "Adding her as a friend shouldn't be a problem."
"Friend slot costs three grand — just wire it my way."