"This club is under your name anyway, so being the boss isn't a big deal," Ning Chen said.
"This..."
Wang Yinhua hesitated for a moment.
She had forged Bai Xiao's will to get her hands on the Diamond Club in the first place, but she had never actually considered becoming a boss.
Her eyes darted around, and an idea came to her.
"Brother Chen, how about this: I'll manage the Diamond Club and split the profits fifty-fifty with you. But if anything like today happens again, you have to help me out. Otherwise, a girl like me is all alone..." Wang Yinhua said with a pitiful, delicate expression.
*'You're getting on in years, and you still call yourself a girl...' *
Ning Chen thought it was amusing, but out loud he said, "Whatever you want. Just don't come bothering me with every little trivial matter—I don't have the time."
"Really, Brother Chen? Thank you, Brother Chen!" Wang Yinhua bowed repeatedly, convinced that following an extraordinary being like Ning Chen would definitely secure her a bright future.
Shortly after, she obtained Ning Chen's contact information and proactively transferred a sum of money to him—a full three million.
And that was only half of the cash on the Diamond Club's books, which gave some idea of just how much tainted money Bai Xiao had raked in over the years by acting as a tyrant around the West City university town and squeezing local merchants.
On top of that, Ning Chen handed Wang Yinhua a strange task—
Help him source and purchase fresh ghost-hand greens from Lingnan!
He was going to eat them!
And eat them every day, at that!
...
A few days after military training, Qingzhou University held its annual sports meeting.
Class 2 of Clinical Medicine became exceptionally lively.
As usual, Ning Chen came to the classroom every day and either slept face-down on his desk or buried his head in reading web novels.
When the teacher called him in for a chat and told him he wouldn't graduate acting like this, he just brushed it off with perfunctory answers and never took it seriously at all.
"Classmate Ning Chen, which event are you signing up for?"
A pretty girl with a neatly pressed white shirt and a high bun walked up to Ning Chen holding a sign-up sheet.
Ning Chen looked up.
Her name was Zhang Xinran, the monitor of Class 2 of Clinical Medicine. According to Fang the Fatty and Zhang Dachun, she was also a local from Qingzhou with a very wealthy family background.
"Sign up? I have no plans to sign up for anything."
Ning Chen had zero interest in sports meetings.
Chapter 28: Ten Heroes, Tu Tao!
"No way!"
Zhang Xinran was very forceful as she said, "The counselor made a rule that every male student in the class must sign up for at least one event. Even Fang Tao signed up for the high jump, so you can't be an exception."
Fang Tao was Fang the Fatty. A guy standing at one meter sixty-five entering the high jump—well, that took some courage.
"But I really have no interest..."
A trace of bitterness appeared at the corners of Ning Chen's mouth.
If he, a mighty Nascent Soul Stage cultivator, entered a school sports meeting and accidentally broke a world record, wouldn't that cause a lot of trouble?
Zhang Xinran refused to give up and kept pressing him, "You were so amazing during military training—you even beat the instructor. Why is it so hard to get you to join a sports meeting?"
"There's no push-up event in the sports meeting. If there were, I'd join," Ning Chen said.
"You..." Zhang Xinran gnashed her teeth in anger.
"Forget it, Xinran. A guy like this is just a typical example of someone with zero collective honor, a total selfish brat!"
At that moment, a voice carrying obvious sarcasm came over—it was the vice monitor, Li Xuanming.
He was tall, had fair skin, and possessed a sunny personality, making him very popular among the girls in the class.
"We'll be fine with or without him."
Li Xuanming walked over with a few other male students and smiled, saying, "Don't worry, Xinran. I've already coordinated with my roommates and a few buddies from the next dorm over. Class 2 of Clinical Medicine's standing in the sports meeting is ours to defend!"
"Such a show-off."
Nearby, Fang the Fatty muttered under his breath to Zhang Dachun.
Zhang Dachun, on the other hand, was curious. Since Ning Chen was so good at push-ups, his physical stamina certainly couldn't be bad; why was he so unwilling to participate in the sports meeting? It was clearly a golden opportunity to stand out.
"Thanks for supporting my work, Xuanming."
Zhang Xinran cast a grateful look at Li Xuanming, then turned back to look at Ning Chen, her gaze clearly carrying a hint of disgust. "This is the counselor's order—everyone has to sign up. If you don't sign up, I'll go tell the counselor."
"...Why are you so annoying?"
Ning Chen got a massive headache. "Fine, then just pick whatever random event you want and put me down for it. Anything is fine."
"Good. Just make sure you don't pull a disappearing act when the time comes."
With that, Zhang Xinran turned and walked away.
Back at her desk, she hesitated over which strength-based event to sign Ning Chen up for.
Li Xuanming walked over, picked up a pen, and directly wrote Ning Chen's name down in the 100-meter dash column.
"Xuanming, what are you..."
Zhang Xinran was very surprised. Why did Li Xuanming sign Ning Chen up for the 100-meter dash?
Since Ning Chen was so good at push-ups, he was clearly a strength and endurance athlete.
"Didn't he say any random event is fine?" Li Xuanming shrugged.
Reluctant to offend him, Zhang Xinran thought for a moment and then wrote Ning Chen's name down in the shot put column, too.
Of course, Ning Chen didn't care about any of this; he only cared about how the plot of the novel he was reading would develop next.
"Ning Chen."
Another graceful figure approached, bringing a breath of fragrance.
Ning Chen looked up and saw it was Su Wanwan.
Su Wanwan looked haggard, her eyes somewhat red, clearly having stayed up all night. "Ning Chen, last night..."
"Nothing happened last night," Ning Chen said firmly.
"I don't believe it!" Su Wanwan sat down beside Ning Chen, her pretty eyes turning red and filled with grievance, looking truly pitiful.
"Oh my god!"
Hearing this, Fang the Fatty's imagination ran wild, and all sorts of unspeakable scenes flashed through his mind as he looked at Ning Chen with a mix of envy, jealousy, and hatred.
"Pass it on! Ning Chen slept with campus belle Su last night!" He turned his head and whispered to Zhang Dachun.
"What?!" Zhang Dachun's jaw dropped straight to the floor.
"Ning Chen... you damned scumbag..."
Hearing the news from his roommate, Li Xuanming was so furious he tore his textbook in half.
Su Wanwan was the universally acknowledged prettiest girl in the medical department, and he had been plotting how to pursue her lately. He never expected Ning Chen to beat him to the punch!
What a beast!
Fortunately, Su Wanwan didn't know about Bai Xiao's death; otherwise, Ning Chen really wouldn't have been able to explain himself.
She had come to express her gratitude and happened to talk about her family's situation along the way.
Even though Ning Chen wasn't interested at all.
"The Youth League committee recently launched a college student entrepreneurship support initiative, and I want to open a milk tea stall."
Near the end of the class, Su Wanwan spoke up out of the blue. "Mom works too hard. I want to earn next year's tuition myself!"
"Not bad, very sensible." Ning Chen perfunctorily flipped a page in his novel.
"Then I'll bring you milk tea to drink every day from now on." Su Wanwan lowered her head, her pretty face flushing.
"It's all sweet and gooey, I don't like drinking it." Ning Chen flipped another page in his novel.
"I can make it slightly sweet, too," Su Wanwan said softly.
"..." Ning Chen couldn't take it anymore.
He closed his phone, preparing to give Su Wanwan a proper lecture and tell her not to harbor any inappropriate thoughts about him—the two of them were completely impossible.
But right as the words reached his lips, seeing the pitiful expectation in Su Wanwan's eyes, he suddenly couldn't bear to say them. All he could manage was, "Bring it if you want to."
"Yeah!"
Su Wanwan finally smiled happily, her pair of clever eyes curving like crescent moons.
After classes ended for the day, the students were all discussing the sports meeting coming up the day after tomorrow. With his hands shoved into his pockets, Ning Chen walked straight out of campus to have dinner at Su Wanwan's house.
By the way, Li Mei's barbecue joint had now officially turned into Li Mei Restaurant.
Ever since Bai Xiao died, no one had dared to come here to cause trouble again.
However, during dinner, Su Haichao dropped by to ask Li Mei for money, and the two of them ended up shouting at each other in the back kitchen.
Su Wanwan kept her head down, sobbing softly.
Ning Chen gave a light sigh and didn't meddle in other people's family affairs, offering just a few casual words of comfort.
When he returned to the Rose Garden villa, neither Xu Shuyan nor Jiang Tang was around, and the house was pitch black.
Ning Chen flicked on the light and found a strange man with a scar on his face sitting on the sofa, looking at him with an amused expression.
"Would you like some tea?" Ning Chen asked very calmly.
"Uh..." The scar-faced man froze.
What is wrong with this kid?
Normally, wouldn't a stranger suddenly showing up in someone's house give them a huge scare?
"Not bad psychological fortitude," the scar-faced man narrowed his eyes.
"I advise you to go back from wherever you came, and don't bring trouble upon yourself." Ning Chen walked into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of tea.
"Heh, I, Tu Tao, have roamed the pugilistic world for over ten years; I'm not someone who scares easily!" The scar-faced man proudly announced his background.
Ning Chen remained utterly indifferent.
"You haven't heard of me?" The scar-faced man asked curiously.
"Are you famous?" Ning Chen leaned against the edge of the counter, calmly sipping his tea.
"I am the head of the Ten Heroes, Tu Tao of Jiangbei!" The scar-faced man rebuked angrily.
"Oh," Ning Chen replied dully. "Your grandma is getting up there in years, yet she's still the head of the Ten Heroes. Impressive, impressive."
"Courting death!" A cold glint flashed in Tu Tao's eyes as he threw a punch straight at Ning Chen!
That punch whistled through the air, fast as lightning.
Covering the ten-meter distance from the living room to the kitchen entrance in the blink of an eye.
Tu Tao possessed External Force Peak strength, making him five or six times stronger than Iron Foot Qi.
Yet, with a blur before his eyes, Ning Chen suddenly vanished into thin air. Tu Tao's punch hit nothing, shocking him into spinning around immediately.
Ning Chen was now sitting on the sofa, blowing gently on the steam rising from his teacup.
"I don't care if your name is Tu Tao, or if your grandma's name is Tu Tao—scram right now, or I'll beat you to death."
He issued a bland threat.
Chapter 29: The Sports Meeting
"Such terrifying speed..."
Tu Tao clearly didn't take the threat to heart, but he was shocked that someone so young had cultivated lightness skills to such an extent, making him feel a bit uneasy inside.
Yet if he failed the mission, he wouldn't be able to report back to the head of the family.
At that exact moment, Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang happened to return from shopping hand in hand.
Peering through the living room's floor-to-ceiling window, Tu Tao suddenly grinned. "Are those your girlfriends? Kid, you've got quite a knack for romance, but if you don't come with me tonight, I'll kill them both!"
"You know martial arts, but they don't. And you can't possibly protect them twenty-four hours a day, hehe."
Holding his teacup, Ning Chen let out a silent sigh.
He, of all people, hated being threatened the most.
Half a minute later.
"Big Brother Dali, how come you got back so early today!"
Jiang Tang opened the front door, slipped into her slippers, and noticed that Ning Chen wasn't in the living room, but was instead out in the yard shoveling dirt.
"Big Brother Dali, what are you burying out here?" Jiang Tang ran over curiously.
"Nothing much, just planted some vegetables." Ning Chen covered the dirt completely and stepped on it a few times for good measure.
"Who said you could plant vegetables?" Xu Shuyan's voice rang out.
She was dressed very exquisitely today, wearing a French-style chic mini skirt paired with an off-the-shoulder top that revealed her sexy, delicate collarbones, while a pair of ginkgo leaf earrings added an extra touch of charm.
On her lower half, she wore denim shorts, drawing countless lingering gazes from men all the way home.
"What are you looking at?"
Xu Shuyan noticed Ning Chen staring at her and proudly lifted her chin.
So this guy liked looking at legs, huh...
Well, that made things easy.
"You look pretty today," Ning Chen said sincerely.
"Hmph, did I need you to tell me?"
Xu Shuyan turned away, flicked her hair, and walked back into the living room.
As she walked, she stood slightly on her tiptoes to make her legs look even longer, even though she already possessed an enviable height of one meter seventy.
"Big Brother Dali, Shuyan bought a lot of fruit. Let's eat together," Jiang Tang said with a bright smile.
"Alright, you guys go ahead," Ning Chen called out.
"Okay, hurry up and come over~!"
After Jiang Tang ran off as well, Ning Chen finally breathed a sigh of relief.
If Xu Shuyan found out he had buried a person in the yard, she would probably be scared into having a heart attack on the spot.
The only witness to the entire process was Heilong, who was quietly lying in its doghouse.
"Shh..."
Ning Chen made a silencing gesture toward it, put the shovel back into the utility room, and went back inside to eat fruit and watch TV with the two girls.
Xu Shuyan couldn't help wondering why this guy was behaving so well-behaved today.
In the dead of night, Ning Chen originally planned to relocate the person, but upon second thought, since he had buried him over a dozen meters deep, it shouldn't get exposed, right?
Thus, the next day, he went to the farmers' market to buy some small green vegetable seeds and sowed them in the corner of the yard.
As long as he didn't say anything, Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang would never find out about this.
...
On the day of the sports meeting.
The Qingda sports stadium was bathed in bright sunlight and swarming with people.
Su Wanwan really did bring milk tea for Ning Chen. It was homemade—the packaging didn't look like much, but the taste was decent and no different from what you'd buy at a shop.
"Ning Chen, how does it taste?"
Sitting among the seating area for Class 2 of Clinical Medicine, Su Wanwan sat beside Ning Chen, looking at him expectantly.
"Mediocre, doesn't taste like much."
Ning Chen sucked it all down in one go and set the empty cup aside.
Su Wanwan flashed a bright, sweet smile and said, "Your lung capacity is so big!"
Just as she was speaking, the crowd erupted into a wave of cheers for some unknown reason, drowning out the words "lung capacity." To make sure Ning Chen could hear her clearly, Su Wanwan added extra emphasis to the last three syllables.
Consequently, Fang the Fatty and Zhang Dachun, who happened to be walking past, froze in their tracks.
"Holy crap, Ning Chen, Campus Belle Su—you two are way too bold, aren't you? Discussing topics like this in broad daylight."
Fang the Fatty swallowed hard.
"Huh?" Su Wanwan had no clue what they were talking about.
"Get lost!" Ning Chen glared at them.
The two of them sat down, and Fang the Fatty looked at him with an expression of envy before continuing, "Ning Chen, I just took a look at our class's entry list. How come you're competing in two events?"
"Two events?"
Ning Chen frowned, though he didn't really care.
Seeing Su Wanwan sitting obediently beside him, he asked offhandedly, "Wanwan, did you sign up for anything?"
"No." Su Wanwan shook her head. "My physical stamina isn't good, ever since I was a kid..."
"Then go help me borrow a power bank. My phone is running low on battery." Ning Chen cut her off.
"Okay..." Su Wanwan stood up immediately.
Everyone else in the class who saw this scene felt infuriated!
This Ning Chen actually treated the campus belle of the medical department like a servant, bossing her around left and right. It was simply too outrageous!
"Su Wanwan, don't go!"
A male student couldn't watch any longer and stood up indignantly, his eyes filled with heartache. "Does he not have legs? Can't he go borrow one himself?"
Without even looking, Ning Chen knew it was vice monitor Li Xuanming.
Ever since Ning Chen stole his thunder during military training, he had held a grudge.
"It's fine, I can run to the dorm and back quickly." Su Wanwan smiled apologetically, then walked past Li Xuanming and trotted all the way out of the stadium seating.
"Damn it..."
Li Xuanming clenched his fists tightly.
Watching Su Wanwan's youthful, moving, and slightly hurried figure, a raging fire of jealousy welled up inside him.
"Ning Chen, did you save Campus Belle Su's life or something?"
Fang the Fatty asked very seriously. "Otherwise, why would she keep bringing you milk tea and running errands for you?"
"How'd you know?"
Ning Chen gave Fang the Fatty a surprised look. "I actually did save her life."
The surrounding students rolled their eyes with contempt, completely refusing to believe it.
Only Fang the Fatty secretly made an R-rated hand gesture and waggled his eyebrows at Ning Chen. "So, you two really have already..."
Ning Chen was just about to clear things up.
Li Xuanming suddenly chimed in with a sour, sarcastic tone, "Sigh, Campus Belle Su is as pure as a blank sheet of paper. Someone probably used endless pestering just to win her over—how despicable and shameless!"
Mimicking his tone, Ning Chen sighed and said, "Sigh, some people can't even win over the goddess in their hearts no matter how much they pester her—how pathetic..."
"Fuck! Ning Chen, you scumbag, who are you calling pathetic?!" Li Xuanming blew his top, pointing and cursing at him.
"Whoever the shoe fits can wear it." Ning Chen didn't even turn his head back.
"Pfft!" Fang the Fatty and Zhang Dachun both burst out laughing. Li Xuanming's current state definitely looked like someone who had lost his composure.
"Damn you!" Li Xuanming turned green in the face.
He hurriedly clarified, "Campus Belle Su is not my goddess! My goddess is Xu Shuyan from the art department!"
"Oh, Xu Shuyan, huh..."
A look of sudden realization dawned on Ning Chen's face. He wondered if this kid Li Xuanming would vomit blood from anger if he ever found out that Ning Chen lived under the same roof as Xu Shuyan.
When Li Xuanming dropped Xu Shuyan's name, most of the male students in the class nodded in complete agreement.
Chapter 30: Can't a guy and a girl just have a pure friendship?
Xu Shuyan was indeed stunning.
Just one week into the semester, she was crowned the Qingda campus belle, crushing second place by over ten thousand votes.
Even though Su Wanwan was pure and moving, her looks still fell a bit short compared to Xu Shuyan's.
Little did they know, Su Wanwan simply came from a poor background and didn't care for dressing up; if she changed her clothes, did her hair, and put on a little makeup, she wouldn't necessarily lose to Xu Shuyan.
Before long, Su Wanwan returned from the dorm with the power bank.
Fine beads of sweat dotted her fair forehead, her delicate mouth was slightly panting, and even a few strands of her dark, glossy hair were damp—clearly, she had run all the way back under the blazing sun.
"Thanks a lot."
Ning Chen took it off her hands casually and plugged in his phone, without even asking if Su Wanwan was hot or tired.
"Total scumbag!" The male students cursed furiously in their hearts.
Yet Su Wanwan didn't mind at all. She continued sitting beside Ning Chen, striking up a conversation with him from time to time.
Most of the time, however, she just watched him quietly, as if that alone was already enough.
Once the opening ceremony concluded, the sports meeting officially got underway...
Ning Chen's shot put event was scheduled for half-past ten in the morning.
There were over forty participants in the shot put, mostly rather husky students. Several of them even stood over one meter ninety tall, broad-shouldered, and fiercely built.
Ning Chen belonged to that lean-muscled type who looked slender in clothes; standing among a group of muscle-bound guys, he looked somewhat delicate by comparison.
"Old Zhang, look at that girl over there—is that Su Wanwan, ranked sixth on the campus belle list?"
"Su Wanwan? The impoverished campus belle from a poor family?"
Soon, people began to notice Su Wanwan.
Even though she wore a plain, old high school gym uniform and kept her hair long, it did nothing to diminish her presence.
Zhang Yun strode right over without a moment's hesitation.
"Junior, hello! I'm Zhang Yun, president of the junior shot put club!"