“Fatty! You get out of the way!” A thin and slender boy frowned as he looked at Mi Xiaobao, eyes holding back anger. “Lan Qi.” Mi Xiaobao was a little flustered. “Fatty, move aside! If we don’t teach him a lesson, he’ll really think our class one has no one!?” Qing Yi stepped on the desk, glaring at the incomparably calm Lian Qiguang.
“Kumu, hurry and apologize.” Mi Xiaobao grabbed Lian Qiguang’s arm, somewhat anxious. “Why apologize.” Lian Qiguang looked at Mi Xiaobao without expression, a bit confused in his heart. That person just now wanted to hurt him—wasn’t it self-defense? Wasn’t that right? Did he have to just stand there and get hit? Lian Qiguang didn’t understand.
“You bastard!” Qing Yi gritted her teeth, just about to step forward and teach this ignorant brat a lesson, when a cold voice came from outside the door, interrupting the tense atmosphere. “What are you all doing? Trying to tear down the school?”
“It’s over.” Mi Xiaobao covered his face. Not only Mi Xiaobao, the other students in the class also turned pale, fear appearing in their eyes. Lian Qiguang turned his head expressionlessly, following the sound. Jin Anqi didn’t know when she had appeared at the doorway. Seeing Lian Qiguang looking over, Jin Anqi narrowed her eyes. Lian Qiguang’s eyes flashed with a trace of confusion—he didn’t understand. She wasn’t ugly, so why was everyone so afraid?
With a light sneer, Jin Anqi moved her gaze away from Lian Qiguang and slowly walked into the classroom. When she saw Feng Qingyang at the back of the class, her eyes flickered, but she quickly hid it again.
“So full of energy.” Jin Anqi swept a cold look across the room, and everyone who met her gaze couldn’t help but lower their heads. “Since it seems everyone already knows each other, I won’t waste words. Everyone in the class!!”
“Yes!” They stood properly, expressions tightening.
“Playground, fifty laps each. If you can’t finish, then die on the playground!”
“Teacher! It’s not our fault, it’s……” A small boy was unconvinced in his heart and couldn’t help but argue back.
“One hundred laps.” Jin Anqi interrupted him, coldly looking at the boy. “Any more objections?”
“No!” The boy’s face flushed red as he shouted unwillingly.
“All of you! To the playground!”
“Yes!!” A loud shout rang out, and the class rushed in chaos toward the playground.
“What are you still doing here? Didn’t you hear what I just said?” After everyone in the class had left, Jin Anqi frowned at Lian Qiguang, who still stood calmly in front of her. Lian Qiguang looked at Jin Anqi expressionlessly, thought for a moment, and felt that if he didn’t understand, he should ask. “You are not ugly.”
“Mm?” Jin Anqi was stunned, apparently not expecting this reason.
“Then why are they so afraid of you?”
“………………” Jin Anqi.
Scene transition line
“Look! That bunch of trash from the rescue department is being punished to run again!”
“Hmph! Serves them right. Keeping these wastes in the academy is just annoying. I really don’t know how they still have the face.”
“A bunch of trash. Not good at abilities, not good at physical skills, they can only train their legs to run faster. If they ever go to the battlefield, they’ll just be able to escape.”
“Hahaha…………”
The rescue department students ran with their heads down on the playground, while ridicule and insults kept coming from all around. Although they were already used to it, they were still angry. They wanted to rush up and fiercely teach those people a lesson, to tell them they were not trash. But they couldn’t, because they were. They were not those people’s opponents. Those people could casually move a finger, release an ability, and kill them.
So they could only endure humiliation, silently bearing this resentment and unwillingness.
Lian Qiguang ran expressionlessly on the playground, as if he couldn’t hear the surrounding mocking voices at all. How many laps had he run? Lian Qiguang didn’t remember, or rather, he didn’t even bother remembering. He tilted his head, thought for a long time but couldn’t figure it out, so he simply stopped thinking and followed the people in front of him. It was all one hundred laps—when they stopped, he would stop.
With the sun overhead, it was so hot it made people dizzy. Several rescue department students had already reached their limit, faces pale, staggering as they were supported by others, moving forward step by step.
“Huh? Look! Isn’t that the boy we saw in the academy this morning? Why is he running too?”
“Could it be that he’s also from the rescue department?”
“How is that possible? He clearly looks very strong.”
“Then why is he running? Hmph! I think he’s just a useless pretty face.”
………………
“Kumu.” Mi Xiaobao, face pale and gasping, caught up. “You, are you alright?”
Lian Qiguang lowered his head and looked expressionlessly at the clearly unwell Mi Xiaobao. “Kumu, if you can’t hold on, just stop for a while. You just arrived today, the teacher won’t make things too hard for you.” Mi Xiaobao said with a pale face, forcing a hard smile. “Run slower, don’t go too fast, steady your breathing, that way it won’t be so tiring.”
Lian Qiguang looked up at the sun overhead. To be honest, he wasn’t feeling well either. Although he had been training all along, this body was really too weak. After running not long—about twenty laps—he already felt tightness in his chest and his vision starting to go dark. If not for his pseudo-wood ability being different from others, able to adjust and repair his body on its own, he probably wouldn’t have been able to hold on. Even so, under the blazing sun, his body was already soaked in sweat, sticking uncomfortably to his skin.
Mi Xiaobao, who had been following him slowly, suddenly staggered and fell straight toward the ground. Lian Qiguang’s eyes sharpened and he quickly reached out, steadying him firmly. “Are you alright?” This chubby kid had given him food—he was a good person.
“I… I’m fine.” Mi Xiaobao forced a weak smile, but then began retching in pain. “Kumu, I… I’m afraid I can’t keep running for now.” Mi Xiaobao clutched his chest, voice trembling. Even though he was supported by Lian Qiguang, his legs were still shaking. “You go ahead and run first, don’t worry about me.”
“You go ahead and run, don’t worry about me?”
Lian Qiguang’s body trembled, a dark and unclear light flashing in his eyes. Some memories long sealed deep within time flickered through his mind in broken fragments, slowly connecting together.
That year, he had said the same thing to them, but they betrayed him. They wanted to live, and the price was for him to die.
“Kumu, what’s wrong?” Mi Xiaobao felt his arm being gripped painfully. Looking up, he saw Lian Qiguang’s dead, dark, and sinister eyes—like anyone he looked at would become a corpse. This version of Kumu made Mi Xiaobao feel fear.
Mi Xiaobao’s voice brought Lian Qiguang back to his senses. The darkness in his eyes faded, returning once again to his usual numbness. He looked expressionlessly at the pale Mi Xiaobao and said in a wooden voice, “How many laps left?”
“What?” Mi Xiaobao was a little blank.
“How many laps left to reach one hundred.”
Surprised that Lian Qiguang asked again, Mi Xiaobao replied woodenly, “This punishment is too harsh this time, there are still about half left.”
Without paying attention to Mi Xiaobao’s daze, Lian Qiguang stood up. Under Mi Xiaobao’s startled cry, he grabbed him and lifted him onto his thin shoulder, then calmly continued running forward.
“………………”
The surrounding onlookers
“………………” Class one