"This club isn't under your name anyway, so there's nothing wrong with stepping up as the boss," Ning Chen said.
"This..."
Wang Yinhua was still a bit hesitant.
She had forged Bai Xiao's will to get her hands on the Diamond Club in the first place, but the thought of actually acting as the boss had never crossed her mind.
With a quick roll of her eyes, she came up with an idea.
"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 young woman like me is left entirely defenseless..." Wang Yinhua said, putting on a pitiful, helpless act.
*You're getting on in years, yet you still call yourself a young woman...*
Ning Chen found it amusing inwardly, but aloud he said, "As you like. 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 a divine being like Ning Chen guaranteed 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 merely half of the cash on the Diamond Club's books. One could only imagine just how much ill-gotten wealth Bai Xiao had accumulated over the years by riding roughshod near the Xicheng University Town and squeezing local merchants.
On top of that, Ning Chen handed Wang Yinhua a rather peculiar task:
Help him acquire fresh Ghost Hand Grass from Lingnan!
He was going to eat it!
And he wanted to eat it every day!
***
A few days after military training, Qing University held its sports meeting.
The Clinical Medicine Class 2 became exceptionally lively.
As usual, whenever Ning Chen came to the classroom, he either slumped over his desk to sleep or buried his head in reading web novels.
When the teacher called him in for a talk, telling him that he wouldn't be able to graduate behaving this way, he brushed it off with perfunctory replies and never took it seriously.
"Classmate Ning Chen, which event are you signing up for?"
A pretty girl wearing a neat 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 class monitor of Clinical Medicine Class 2. According to Fang Xiaopang and Zhang Dachun, she was a local from Qingzhou with a very affluent family background.
"Sign up? I've got no plans to sign up for anything."
Ning Chen had zero interest in the sports meeting.
*Chapter 28: Ten Heroes, Tu Tao!*
"No way!"
Zhang Xinran insisted forcefully, "The counselor made it a rule that every single male student in the class has to sign up for at least one event. Even Fang Tao signed up for the high jump, so you're no exception."
Fang Tao was Fang Xiaopang; a guy standing at one meter sixty-five doing the high jump—well, talk about brave.
"But I really have no interest..."
A bitter smile crossed the corner of Ning Chen's mouth.
If he, a Nascent Soul Stage grand cultivator, participated in a school sports meeting and accidentally broke a world record, wouldn't that cause a massive headache?
Zhang Xinran refused to give up and kept pushing him, "You were so formidable during military training, even beating the instructor. Why is it so hard to get you to join a sports meeting?"
"The sports meeting doesn't have a push-up event. If it did, I'd participate," Ning Chen said.
"You..." Zhang Xinran bit her lip in frustration.
"Forget it, Xinran. A guy like this is a typical example of someone with zero collective honor—just a selfish prick!"
At that moment, a voice laced with obvious sarcasm drifted over. It was the vice monitor, Li Xuanming.
Tall, fair-skinned, and with a sunny personality, he was extremely popular among the girls in the class.
"Whether he joins or not makes no difference."
Li Xuanming walked over with a few other male students and smiled.
"Don't worry, Xinran. I've already coordinated with my roommates and a few guys from the next dorm over. The sports meeting rankings for Clinical Medicine Class 2—we'll defend them!"
"Talk about a total show-off."
Nearby, Fang Xiaopang 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 must be decent; why was he so unwilling to participate in the sports meeting? It was clearly a prime opportunity to stand out.
"Thanks for supporting my work, Xuanming."
Zhang Xinran cast a grateful look at Li Xuanming, then turned back to 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, I'll go tell the counselor."
"...Why are you so annoying?"
Ning Chen felt his head throbbing. "Fine, just sign me up for whatever you want. Anything's fine."
"Good. Don't go pulling a disappearing act when the time comes, then."
With that, Zhang Xinran 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 sprint column.
"Xuanming, what are you..."
Zhang Xinran was startled. Why would Li Xuanming sign Ning Chen up for the 100-meter sprint?
Given how many push-ups Ning Chen could do, he was clearly a strength and endurance athlete.
"Didn't he say any event was fine?" Li Xuanming shrugged.
Not wanting to offend him, Zhang Xinran thought for a moment and added Ning Chen's name to the shot put column as well.
Naturally, Ning Chen didn't care about any of this. His only concern was how the plot of the novel he was reading would develop next.
"Ning Chen."
Another graceful figure approached, carrying a faint fragrance.
Ning Chen looked up and saw Su Wanwan.
Su Wanwan looked exhausted, her eyes slightly red, clearly having stayed up all night. "Ning Chen, last night..."
"Nothing at all happened last night," Ning Chen said firmly.
"I don't believe you!" Su Wanwan sat down beside Ning Chen, her pretty eyes turning red, brimming with grievance—a truly pitiful sight.
"Oh my god!"
Hearing this, Fang Xiaopang's imagination ran wild. All sorts of unspeakable images flashed through his mind, filling him with envy, jealousy, and hatred toward Ning Chen.
"Pass it on: Ning Chen slept with Campus Belle Su last night!" He turned around and told Zhang Dachun.
"What?!" Zhang Dachun's jaw practically hit the floor.
"Ning Chen... you son of a bitch, you scum..."
Hearing the news from his roommate, Li Xuanming was so angry he tore his textbook in half.
Su Wanwan was widely recognized as the prettiest girl in the medical department, and he had been trying to figure out how to pursue her lately. He never expected Ning Chen to make his move first!
What a beast!
Fortunately, Su Wanwan didn't know about Bai Xiao's death, or Ning Chen really would have had a hard time explaining things.
She had come to express her gratitude and, along the way, talk a bit about her family's situation.
Even though Ning Chen had zero interest in it.
"The Youth League committee has a college student entrepreneurship support program recently. I want to open a milk tea stall."
As class neared its end, Su Wanwan suddenly brought it up. "Mom works too hard. I want to earn next year's tuition myself!"
"Not bad. Sensible." Ning Chen perfunctorily turned the page of his novel.
"Then I'll bring you milk tea to drink every day from now on, okay?" Su Wanwan lowered her head, her pretty face flushing.
"Too sweet. I don't like drinking that stuff." Ning Chen turned another page.
"I can make it slightly less sweet," Su Wanwan whispered.
"..." Ning Chen couldn't take it anymore.
He put away his phone, preparing to give Su Wanwan a serious lecture about not harboring any unrealistic illusions toward him—the two of them were simply impossible.
Yet, with the words on the tip of his tongue, seeing the pitiful expectation in Su Wanwan's eyes, he suddenly softened a bit and could only say, "Bring it if you want."
"Yeah!"
Su Wanwan finally broke into a happy smile, her pair of bright eyes curving into crescent moons.
After a full day of classes, 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 the campus to have dinner at Su Wanwan's place.
Right, Li Mei's Barbecue stall had now become Li Mei's Restaurant.
Ever since Bai Xiao died, no one had dared to come make trouble here anymore.
However, while they were eating dinner, Su Haichao dropped by to ask Li Mei for money, and the two ended up quarreling in the back kitchen.
Su Wanwan kept her head down, quietly sobbing.
Ning Chen sighed softly. Not wanting to meddle in someone else's family affairs, he offered a few casual words of comfort.
Returning to the Rose Garden villa, neither Xu Shuyan nor Jiang Tang was around; the house was pitch black.
Ning Chen turned on the light and found an unfamiliar man with a scar on his face sitting on the sofa, looking at him with an amused expression.
"Want some tea?" Ning Chen asked calmly.
"Uh..." The scarred man froze.
What's wrong with this kid?
Normally, wouldn't someone be startled out of their wits if a stranger suddenly popped up inside their house?
"Not bad psychological fortitude." The scarred man narrowed his eyes.
"I advise you to go back the way you came and not ask for trouble." Ning Chen went to the kitchen to brew himself a cup of tea.
"Hehe, I, Tu Tao, have roamed the jianghu for over a decade—I'm not easily scared!" The scarred man declared his background.
Ning Chen remained completely indifferent.
"You've never heard of me?" The scarred 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 scarred man rebuked sternly.
"Oh," Ning Chen replied dully. "Your nanny must be quite up there in years to still be serving as 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 came with a rushing sound, fast as lightning.
Crossing the ten-meter distance from the living room to the kitchen doorway in the blink of an eye.
Tu Tao possessed the strength of the External Force Peak, 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 empty air, and in shock, he hastily spun around.
Ning Chen was 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 nanny is named Tu Tao, get lost right now, or I'll beat you to death."
He threatened flatly.
*Chapter 29: The Sports Meeting*
"Such terrifying speed..."
Clearly brushing off the threat, Tu Tao was instead shocked that someone so young had cultivated lightness kung fu to such a degree, which made him feel a bit uneasy inside.
However, 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, walking arm-in-arm.
Peering through the floor-to-ceiling window of the living room, Tu Tao suddenly grinned. "Are those your girlfriends? Kid, you're quite lucky with the ladies! But if you don't come with me tonight, I'll kill them both!"
"You know martial arts, but they certainly don't. And you can't possibly protect them twenty-four hours a day, hehe."
Holding his teacup, Ning Chen sighed silently.
He really, really hated being threatened by others.
Half a minute later.
"Big Brother Dali, how come you got back so early today!"
Opening the front door and slipping into her slippers, Jiang Tang noticed that Ning Chen wasn't in the living room; instead, he was out in the courtyard shoveling dirt.
"Big Brother Dali, what are you burying?" Jiang Tang ran over curiously.
"Nothing much. Planted some vegetables." Ning Chen patted the dirt down completely flat and stamped on it a couple of times for good measure.
"Who gave you permission to plant vegetables?" Xu Shuyan's voice rang out.
She was dressed exquisitely today, wearing a Chanel-style short skirt paired with an off-the-shoulder top that revealed her sexy and delicate collarbones. A pair of ginkgo-leaf earrings added an extra touch of charm.
On her lower half, she wore denim shorts, drawing countless turning heads and admiring glances from men all the way home.
"What are you looking at?"
Noticing Ning Chen staring at her, Xu Shuyan proudly lifted her chin.
So this guy liked looking at legs, huh...
That made things easy.
"You look pretty today," Ning Chen said sincerely.
"Hmph, did I need you to tell me?"
Xu Shuyan turned away, flicking her hair, and headed into the living room.
As she walked, she rose slightly onto her tiptoes to make her legs look even longer, even though she already possessed a proud height of 1.7 meters.
"Big Brother Dali, Shuyan bought lots of fruit. Come eat with us," Jiang Tang said with a bright smile.
"Alright, you guys go ahead," Ning Chen called out.
"Yeah, hurry up and come～!"
After Jiang Tang skipped away as well, Ning Chen finally let out a sigh of relief.
If Xu Shuyan found out that he had buried a person in the courtyard, she would probably be scared into having an immediate heart attack.
The only witness to the entire process was Heilong, quietly resting inside its doghouse.
"Shh..."
Ning Chen made a shushing gesture at it, put the shovel back in 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 initially considered relocating the body, but upon second thought, since it was buried over ten meters deep, it shouldn't get exposed, right?
Therefore, the next day, he went to the farmers' market, bought some bok choy seeds, and sowed them in the corner of the courtyard.
As long as he didn't say anything, Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang would never find out about this matter.
***
On the day of the sports meeting.
The Qing University stadium was bathed in bright sunlight and packed with a surging crowd.
Su Wanwan really did bring milk tea for Ning Chen. It was homemade—the packaging wasn't particularly pretty, 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 seats of Clinical Medicine Class 2, Su Wanwan looked at Ning Chen expectantly.
"So-so. Nothing special."
Ning Chen sucked it dry in one go and set the empty cup aside.
Su Wanwan broke into a radiant and sweet smile, saying, "Your lung capacity is so huge!"
Just as she was speaking, the spectators suddenly erupted into cheers for some reason, drowning out the words "lung capacity." To make sure Ning Chen could hear her clearly, Su Wanwan emphasized the last three syllables.
As a result, Fang Xiaopang and Zhang Dachun, who happened to be walking past, froze in their tracks.
"Damn, Ning Chen, Campus Belle Su—you guys are way too wild, aren't you? Discussing things like this in broad daylight."
Fang Xiaopang swallowed hard.
"Huh?" Su Wanwan had no idea what they were talking about.
"Get lost!" Ning Chen glared at the two of them.
The pair sat down. Fang Xiaopang looked at him with envy, then continued, "Ning Chen, I just checked our class's entry list. How come you're signed up for two events?"
"Two events?"
Ning Chen frowned, though he didn't really care.
Seeing Su Wanwan sitting quietly and obediently beside him, he asked casually, "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's 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 furious!
This Ning Chen actually treated the medical department's campus belle like a maid, bossing her around left and right. It was simply too much!
"Su Wanwan, don't go!"
A male student couldn't watch any longer and stood up indignantly, pain flashing in his eyes. "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, Li Xuanming had held a grudge against him.
"It's fine. I'll run to the dorms and be back in a flash." Su Wanwan offered an apologetic smile, bypassed Li Xuanming, and jogged away from the stadium seating.
"Damn it..."
Li Xuanming clenched his fists tightly.
Watching Su Wanwan's youthful, moving, yet slightly hurried figure, an inferno of jealousy surged within him.
"Ning Chen, did you save Campus Belle Su's life or something?"
Fang Xiaopang asked seriously. "Otherwise, why would she keep bringing you milk tea and running errands for you?"
"How'd you know?"
Ning Chen glanced at Fang Xiaopang in genuine surprise. "I actually did save her life."
The surrounding students rolled their eyes with disdain, refusing to believe a single word.
Only Fang Xiaopang covertly made a PG-13 hand gesture and winked at Ning Chen. "So, you guys really have already..."
Ning Chen opened his mouth to clear things up.
Li Xuanming suddenly chimed in with a sarcastic tone, "Sigh, Campus Belle Su is as pure as a blank sheet of paper. Some people probably had to resort to endless pestering just to win her over. How utterly despicable!"
Mimicking his tone, Ning Chen sighed, "Sigh, some people can resort to endless pestering and still fail to win over the goddess in their hearts. How utterly pathetic..."
"Damn! Ning Chen, you scum, who are you calling pathetic?!" Li Xuanming blew his top, pointing and cursing at him.
"Whoever fits the shoe can wear it." Ning Chen didn't even turn his head back.
"Pfft!" Fang Xiaopang and Zhang Dachun burst out laughing. Li Xuanming's current appearance was definitely that of a triggered man.
"Son of a bitch!" Li Xuanming turned green in the face.
He quickly defended himself, "Su Wanwan is not my goddess! My goddess is Xu Shuyan from the arts department!"
"Oh, Xu Shuyan..."
A look of realization dawned on Ning Chen's face, thinking to himself that if Li Xuanming ever found out he was living under the same roof as Xu Shuyan, the kid might actually vomit blood from anger.
And once Li Xuanming named Xu Shuyan, most of the male students in the class nodded in enthusiastic agreement.
***
*Chapter 30: Can't a Man and a Woman Have a Pure Friendship?*
Xu Shuyan was indeed gorgeous.
Within just a week of enrollment, she was crowned the Qing University campus belle, crushing the runner-up by over ten thousand votes.
While Su Wanwan was pure and moving, her appearance still fell slightly short compared to Xu Shuyan's.
Little did they know, Su Wanwan simply came from an impoverished background and disliked dressing up. If she changed clothes, did her hair, and applied even a tiny bit of makeup, she might not necessarily lose to Xu Shuyan.
Before long, Su Wanwan returned from the dorms carrying a power bank.
Fine beads of sweat dotted her fair forehead, her delicate mouth was panting softly, and even a few strands of her dark, glossy hair were damp—clearly having jogged all the way under the blazing sun.
"Thanks a lot."
Ning Chen took it off her hand casually and plugged his phone in to charge, without bothering to ask if Su Wanwan was hot or tired.
"Such a jerk!" the male students cursed internally.
Su Wanwan, however, didn't mind in the least. She sat right back down beside Ning Chen and struck up a conversation with him from time to time.
Most of the time, though, she just watched him quietly, as if that alone was 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 burly students. Several of them stood over 1.9 meters tall, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted with fierce expressions.
Ning Chen belonged to the type who had muscle when stripped down but looked lean in clothes. Standing among a bunch of muscle-bound men, he appeared somewhat thin by comparison.
"Old Zhang, look at that girl over there—is that Su Wanwan, number six on the campus belle ranking?"
"Su Wanwan? That impoverished campus belle whose family has no money?"
Soon enough, people began to notice Su Wanwan.
Despite wearing a plain, out-of-date high school uniform and keeping her hair long, it did nothing to detract from people noticing her.
Without a second thought, Zhang Yun strode over.
"Junior, hello. I'm Zhang Yun, president of the junior year shot put club!"