Soon the class bell rang. Lin Moyu yawned with a hint of boredom and prepared to rest his head on the desk to catch some more sleep.
Just as the first trace of sleepiness crept over him, Lin Moyu felt someone poking him, accompanied by a voice he had heard only a few times yet firmly remembered: "Um... have you seen anyone going through my desk drawer?"
Lin Moyu frowned, raised his head, and looked at the frail Yun Rumo. At the corner of her mouth was a trace of blood, marked distinctly by the imprint of her own teeth.
Connecting this with the crybaby's usual behavior, Lin Moyu figured that Yun Rumo must have found her things taken, but instead of demanding them back, she had simply swallowed her grievance and cried in secret, all while trying not to wake him up.
Lin Moyu took a deep breath and thought to himself, "I am a cultivator of the immortal path. My goal is to reach the pinnacle of immortality."
Trying to exhale his pity like stale breath, Lin Moyu gave a cold, shaking of the head and said, "No."
Perhaps because Lin Moyu was a cultivator, he possessed an innate, icy detachment that ordinary mortals had never encountered. Mistaking his expression for disgust, Yun Rumo said nothing more, turned her head back, and resumed rummaging through her desk drawer, hoping to find her lost item hidden among the textbooks.
Lin Moyu abandoned any thought of sleeping further. After watching Yun Rumo's exercise in self-deception for a moment, he closed his eyes to carefully explore the mysteries of the Blood Spirit Root.
He felt that ever since acquiring the "Blood Spirit Root", the vital energy of blood within his body had surged to at least double its previous strength. He began to suspect that so-called blood-path cultivation techniques might not be the depraved, evil arts he had previously imagined.
Sensing his blood qi and spiritual qi intertwining, Lin Moyu experienced a sensation entirely different from last night's meditation—though it came and went with startling speed.
He noticed that the spiritual qi, which should have been stored within his dantian, was now entirely housed within his blood. As the qi circulated throughout his body along with the blood, Lin Moyu discovered that even his internal organs were undergoing reinforcement.
"Is this the true power of the Blood Spirit Root? If I were to cultivate a blood-path technique, just how strong would I become?" With his originally lowly aptitude, Lin Moyu was profoundly shaken by the might of the Blood Spirit Root.
Just as he intended to delve deeper into its mysteries, a harsh, booming voice shattered the quiet beside his ear: "Hey, Yun, where's the pack of cigarettes I told you to bring me?"
Lin Moyu opened his eyes, a cold glare flashing within them as he stared at the frail, dyed-yellow-haired young man for a moment before suppressing the rising fury in his chest. "Calm down," he muttered inwardly. "I must stay calm."
Although cultivators in Shenzhou held a status far surpassing ordinary mortals, it was not so exalted that they could slaughter people at whim—at least, with Lin Moyu's current level of cultivation, disposing of a few mortals would still prove quite troublesome.
Since he could not cut weeds and root them out, he would have to endure in silence for now. Swallowing his anger, Lin Moyu forced himself to stay quiet.
Yet, even as Lin Moyu wished to avoid trouble, the other party had other ideas.
"Who the hell do you think you are? What gives you the right to stare at Brother Hao like that?" Seeing someone glaring straight at him, Chen Hao, accustomed to lording over the school year after year, instinctively pointed a finger at Lin Moyu.
In his mind, Lin Moyu—who looked clean-cut and ordinary—must have been nothing more than a pushover studying in a dump like this. He never expected Lin Moyu to reach out and snap his index finger straight back.
A crisp crack rang out!
By the time everyone reacted, Chen Hao was already clutching his bloody hand, while Lin Moyu with utter nonchalance flicked the broken piece of finger right onto Chen Hao's face.
Ignoring the panicked and bewildered faces of his classmates, Lin Moyu turned and walked straight out of the classroom without a word.
A moment later, the students heard Chen Hao roaring, "What are you idiots standing around for? Hurry up and call an ambulance!"
One of Chen Hao's lackeys fumbled a phone out from his pocket and hurriedly dialed emergency services, then turned to another crony and shouted, "Quick! Go find Boss Xiaolong! Tell him Brother Hao got beaten up and they're calling an ambulance!"
Watching the chaos unfold, Yun Rumo quietly slipped away from the crowd and out of the classroom. Noticing her departure, someone suddenly recovered their wits and exclaimed, "Look! Did Yun Rumo just go run and tell that guy?"
By this time, Chen Hao had stemmed the bleeding with his clothes. Staring at his mangled, forcibly snapped finger, he snarled, "Go after him. No holding back this time."
...
Arriving at the restroom, Lin Moyu turned on the faucet and channeled a cleansing spell. The stream of water transformed into a swirling column that wrapped around his body, instantly stripping away every trace of blood and filth without leaving a single droplet behind.
His clothes thoroughly cleaned, Lin Moyu prepared to return to the classroom to deal with the lingering mess. After all, he had merely snapped the finger of a mortal with zero backing—it was nothing more than a trifle.
Ordinarily, Lin Moyu would not have bothered to intervene. But as a transfer student with zero interest in reigning as some school tyrant, he had even less patience to watch those idiots dance around in front of him. Striking hard with a single display of force was simply the most efficient way to buy himself some peace and quiet for the days ahead.
As Lin Moyu stepped back into the corridor, he spotted a group of thugs at the far end brutally beating Yun Rumo. He had no intention of interfering; after all, it had nothing to do with him.
Just as Lin Moyu brushed past them, however, one of the thugs caught sight of him and violently shoved the blood-soaked figure of Yun Rumo directly into Lin Moyu's arms.
"Well, well, look at you, Yun Rumo! Brother Hao is nice enough to let you run errands for him, and this is how you repay him? You even had the nerve to go running and squealing!" sneered a yellow-haired punk whose body was covered in murky, unidentifiable black tattoos.
Hearing this, Lin Moyu frowned, looking down at the battered girl he had instinctively caught. Her bloodied lips moved weakly, whispering two words: "Run away!"
An inexplicable surge of emotion welled up in Lin Moyu's chest. Without a second thought, he channeled spiritual qi into Yun Rumo's body to stabilize her condition—only to be struck by a wave of horror as he discovered nearly a thousand injuries of varying sizes covering her frail frame.
This time, Lin Moyu was genuinely dumbfounded, utterly shocked by the raw brutality of the environment.
Even in the most violently troubled middle school of his past life, he had never witnessed anything remotely like this!
As for Huayang Immortal Cultivation High School, such atrocities were entirely eradicated; no one would ever dare to bully or oppress a fellow student there.
Yet here, inside an ordinary high school in the Jiuzhou realm, such severe and unchecked violence was allowed to fester. Lin Moyu had originally resolved to mind his own business, but looking at Yun Rumo beaten to such a miserable state in his arms, he finally decided to step in and put an end to the school's so-called "dark forces."
Just as Lin Moyu made up his mind to deal with the school's delinquents, a shout rang out from the end of the hall: "Quick, move aside! Big Brother Xiaolong is here!"