Su Wanwan looked at Ma Kun, a mix of panic and anxiety in her eyes.
"Give it back to you? How can you prove this money is yours? Go ahead, call out to it and see if it answers you."
Ma Kun leered at Su Wanwan.
"I..."
Su Wanwan cast a pleading look at Ning Chen sitting at the nearby table, but the young man just kept turning the pages of his novel, showing not the slightest intention of helping her.
Clenching her teeth against her cherry lips, she glared at Ma Kun. "This money is mine!"
"Little sister, you're so cute."
Ma Kun reached out with a teasing gesture.
Su Wanwan slapped his hand away. "Give the money back, or I'm calling the police!"
"Oh ho, calling the police? Here, let me lend you a phone. Go ahead, try calling them."
Ma Kun casually reached out to grab Ning Chen's phone.
Assuming the young punk wouldn't dare refuse, he was met instead with a displeased glare. "What do you think you're doing?"
Just as Ma Kun was about to blow his top, Li Mei heard the commotion and hurried out from the back.
Seeing her daughter Su Wanwan exposed to the leering gazes of a gang of thugs, she rushed forward. "Brother Xiao... Brother Kun, everything's just about ready, we can eat—"
"Eat my ass!"
Ma Kun raised a hand and struck Li Mei across the face, snarling viciously, "Let me tell you something, from now on every single shop on Water Moon Street has to pay an extra four thousand yuan in management fees every month. That's Brother Xiao's order!"
"Mom!"
Su Wanwan cried out and rushed to hug Li Mei.
Ignoring the pain in her face, Li Mei looked up in terror. "Brother Kun... you're driving us into a dead end! Four thousand yuan, how are we supposed to afford that?"
"Can't afford it? How about this: have your daughter acknowledge me as her sworn older brother, and you can be my sworn mother. I guarantee nobody on this street will ever dare bully you again. What do you say, Sister Mei?"
As Ma Kun spoke, his eyes remained glued to Su Wanwan. Her slender figure and innocent face were enough to make a man commit crimes.
"Brother Kun, please, spare the two of us. I'm begging you on my knees. Wanwan is only eighteen, she just got accepted into Qing University."
Knowing full well what Ma Kun was after, Li Mei dropped to her knees to plead for mercy.
"Mom, Mom, don't kneel!"
Tears streamed down Su Wanwan's face as well.
Seeing this, Ning Chen remained completely expressionless.
Having lived for over two millennia, he had witnessed countless such scenes in the cultivation world.
On Earth, there were at least laws to speak of; in the cultivation world, there was literally nothing. If you fancied something, you snatched it; if anyone tried to stop you, you killed them; if you wanted to slaughter a village, you did it without a single blink.
Save them?
*Sigh*, how many people could you possibly save?
"Boss lady, how much for all this?"
Ning Chen intended to pay and be on his way.
He wanted to go back and finish reading his novel.
"Young man, you..."
Li Mei looked at Ning Chen in utter bewilderment.
Thinking the man strange, Su Wanwan still managed to reply, "Five hundred and thirty yuan in total."
Just as Ning Chen was about to scan the QR code to pay, Ma Kun swung a heavy hand toward his face. "Did I tell you to scan? You're scanning anyway!"
The next second, Ning Chen caught Ma Kun's wrist and gave it a gentle squeeze.
*Crack!* A crisp snap echoed through the air. Ma Kun's wrist bone shattered, and he collapsed to the floor, rolling around and howling in agonizing pain.
"Payment of five hundred and thirty yuan received," announced the automated voice from the cash register.
Su Wanwan was completely stunned.
What on earth was happening?
This guy had just knocked Ma Kun flat on his back while calmly finishing his payment?
"Paid."
Ning Chen slipped his phone back into his pocket and prepared to head home.
"Beat him to death, someone kill him!"
Lying on the ground, Ma Kun let out a shriek like a slaughtered pig.
With ferocious expressions, the five hoodlums raised their fists and charged at Ning Chen.
"Are you annoying or what?"
Frowning, Ning Chen swung the back of his hand across.
The slap was fast as lightning, striking each of the five hoodlums across the face in turn. *Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap*—a five-hit combo! *Pentakill!*
More than a dozen blood-stained teeth flew through the air.
The five thugs collapsed beside Brother Kun, clutching their bleeding jaws and howling in misery. Some were even crying from the pain of their dislodged jawbones—it hurt that much.
By the time Su Wanwan and Li Mei recovered their senses, Ning Chen was already gone.
He wanted to hurry home and read his novel.
"Wait, wait up!"
As he reached the intersection, Su Wanwan chased after him, panting heavily.
*Why does he walk so fast?!*
Resting her hands on her knees, sweat dripping from her face, she stood before Ning Chen.
In just this short span of time, he had actually made it all the way to the crossroads.
"You... are you an athlete? You walk so fast," Su Wanwan puffed, trying to catch her breath.
"If you're here to thank me for what happened back there, don't bother," Ning Chen said bluntly.
"Uh..." Su Wanwan froze, momentarily at a loss for words.
"Goodbye." Ning Chen turned and walked away.
Once upon a time, he had been a warm-hearted young man who leaped into action at the sight of injustice, drawing his blade to help the weak.
But any task grows wearisome if you do it long enough.
Some of the people he saved grew dependent on him, eventually taking his help entirely for granted.
Upon returning to the shop, Su Wanwan found that Ma Kun and his thugs had all piled into an ambulance with crooked mouths, twisted faces, and limping legs.
"Doctor, Doctor, look at my mouth! Why is it stuck crooked?!"
"Me too, I can't turn my neck!"
"Brother Kun, are we going to have crooked mouths for the rest of our lives?"
The thugs huddled together in tears.
It was the first time the emergency room doctors had ever seen such a case.
The mouths and necks of all six men were severely mislocated, and their bones seemed to have completely set in that position. For a condition like this, unless you broke them and reset them...
And all of this, of course, was Ning Chen's doing.
A little bit of dark humor on his part to punish the wicked.
"It's gotta be that bastard's handiwork! Damn it all, this isn't over!"
With a twisted mouth and face, complete with a fresh case of cross-eyes, Ma Kun glared malevolently.
...
A little past ten o'clock, Ning Chen strolled back into Rose Garden carrying several large bags of groceries.
He pulled out his keys and poked them into the lock twice.
The door was double-bolted from the inside?
Unfazed, Ning Chen hooked the index finger of his right hand, sending a wisp of true qi straight into the keyhole.
"Shuyan, aren't we going a bit too far with this?"
In the living room, Jiang Tang asked Xu Shuyan.
"What's so far about it? The guy might have killed people! How can I possibly live under the same roof as a murderer?"
Xu Shuyan sat on the sofa, nursing a cup of milk tea.
"Oh please, the guy was obviously just joking." Jiang Tang rolled her eyes.
"Ah!"
Drinking milk tea while playing a video game, Xu Shuyan accidentally spilled some onto her pajamas.
"Damn it, I just bought these new pajamas! Xiao Tang, help me throw them in the washing machine. This match is about to start."
"Then take them off."
"Hehe, Xiao Tang, you're the best."
With the match about to begin and no desire to throw the game for her teammates, Xu Shuyan hurriedly peeled off her pajamas.
At that exact moment, Ning Chen unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The moment she collided with Ning Chen's gaze, her brain experienced an instantaneous shortage of oxygen.
How was this possible?!
The front door was clearly double-bolted from the inside—how did this guy get in?!
"Aah—don't look!"
Clutching her body, Xu Shuyan shrieked and spun around.
To make matters worse, she flung her pajamas right onto Jiang Tang's head. Having failed to notice Ning Chen's arrival, Jiang Tang assumed Xu Shuyan was still talking to her.
"I wasn't looking!"
She cried out in astonishment, "Ning Chen! You, you, you... how did you get in here?!"
"I didn't see anything."
Ning Chen gave two light coughs, turned around, and walked straight into the kitchen.
Young people nowadays really were full of energy.
A moment later.
Upstairs in the bedroom, Jiang Tang knelt by the bedside to apologize.
"Shuyan, I really didn't mean to, please forgive me..."
"Besides, weren't the doors double-bolted? How on earth did he get in?"
Burying her head in the blankets, Xu Shuyan felt her pretty face burn with embarrassment.
Just thinking about what had happened made her want to die of shame!
"A locksmith, he definitely called a locksmith!"
Biting her cherry lips in humiliated frustration, Xu Shuyan said, "Xiao Tang, I don't care, you have to think of a way to kick him out, otherwise neither of us will be safe here anymore!"
"Alright, alright, I'll think of something, right now."
Jiang Tang racked her brain. "I've got it! Rent! We'll make him pay ten thousand yuan a month in rent. He's just a student, he definitely won't have that kind of money."
"Good idea, you go ask him! Though ten thousand a month is too little. Two thousand... no, thirty thousand!"
Jiang Tang had no choice but to go earn her redemption.
As soon as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was drawn by a wondrous fragrance drifting out from the kitchen.
"Wow, smells so good. Who's cooking...?"
Having eaten dinner a little past seven, she was already starving.
"Oh my god, Ning Chen, you even know how to make soup?" Jiang Tang poked her cute little head in from the doorway.
"Yeah, want some?" Ning Chen actually had a rather favorable impression of Jiang Tang.
"Yes please!" Jiang Tang instantly forgot the original purpose of her trip downstairs.
She swore to herself that she had never tasted chicken soup this delicious in her entire life; she nearly swallowed her tongue along with it.
This wasn't just any ordinary chicken soup—Ning Chen had brewed it using seventeen different traditional Chinese medicinal herbs!
The only flaw was the chicken itself; if they had used the snow-feathered chickens from his cultivation world, that truly would have been a flavor fit for the immortals.
After finishing her bowl of soup, Jiang Tang returned to her room with a look of utter satisfaction.
Xu Shuyan stood waiting at the doorway, hands on her hips, glaring at her with furious indignation.
"Jiang! Tang!"
...
All the way through the next day, Xu Shuyan refused to speak to Jiang Tang.
They had agreed to demand rent, yet Jiang Tang actually ended up drinking chicken soup made by that violent brute?!
Have some backbone!
Fuming, Xu Shuyan glared at Ning Chen through the rearview mirror of the Rolls-Royce.
She kept glaring for over ten minutes.
All the way from home right up to the gates of Qing University.
"I wasn't myself yesterday."
"Ah, shut up! You're not allowed to speak!"
Xu Shuyan covered her ears, dying of shame and anger.
The driver broke out in a heavy sweat, finding the implications of that conversation a bit too much to handle...
"Don't worry, we won't be living together forever. I promise."
Ning Chen already had a plan in mind.
"Well, that's a relief!"
Xu Shuyan crossed her arms and turned her head away, her cheeks flushed with anger.
Ten minutes later, the Rolls-Royce Cullinan pulled up at the gates of Qing University, drawing sideways glances from the crowd.
Especially Xu Shuyan as she stepped out of the car.
She was dressed gorgeously today, with champagne-colored hair styled into delicate curls, facial features enhanced by subtle Korean-style makeup, and a preppy pleated mini-skirt. Her head-turn rate was a solid one hundred percent.
Jiang Tang, with her angelic face and devilish figure, also captured a fair share of the attention.
With his phone in hand, Ning Chen walked along while reading his novel, occasionally letting out a yawn.
Someone had sneaked downstairs in the middle of the night to steal his chicken soup, keeping him awake and ruining his sleep.
Scarcely had they entered the campus gates than five or six handsome young men approached them to strike up a conversation. Without exception, they were all rebuffed by Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang.
"Whoa, goddesses! Brother Liu, look over there!"
Along the tree-lined path, numerous campus clubs were busy recruiting new members.
A boy with a DSLR camera hanging around his neck stared at Xu Shuyan's legs—veritable works of art—his drool practically threatening to drip down.
Liu Di was staring dumbfounded as well.
As the vice president of the photography club, he had photographed plenty of beauties, but none of them could compare to the one right before his eyes.
Without a second thought, he strode right up to them.
"Hi there, beauties. Are you... freshmen?"
A trace of greasy unctuousness leaked through Liu Di's smile.
"Is there something you need?"
Seeing right through his intentions, Xu Shuyan didn't even break her stride.
"Don't misunderstand, junior. We're from the Qing University Photography Club, and we specialize in taking photos of handsome guys and pretty girls. I was wondering if we might have the honor of taking a few pictures of you."
Liu Di and several club members trailed along beside them.
"Let me show you our Douyin account. It's a major page with over a million followers."
Xu Shuyan's pretty eyes flickered, and she came to a halt.
"As expected, pretty girls love taking pictures. Good thing I studied photography."
Chuckling inwardly, Liu Di smoothly pulled out his phone. "Here, junior sisters, this is our Douyin account, 'QingDa Photography Chronicles'. You're so pretty, you'll go viral with just a couple of casual shots."
"Shuyan, their technique actually looks pretty decent. Their videos have over a hundred thousand likes," Jiang Tang said after glancing at a couple of posts. "Should we do it?"
Xu Shuyan gave a slight nod of her chin. "Then I suppose we can take a couple of casual photos."
We got them!
A triumphant smile bloomed on Liu Di's face.
As long as he could start a conversation, everything after that would be easy to handle.
Soon, Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang followed the photography club members to a lakeside gazebo and began posing for pretty pictures.
At first, everything seemed normal.
With every single photo, Liu Di showered them with compliments—born beauties, celestial maidens descending to earth—laying it on thick with the flattery.
But as the shoot went on, Liu Di's requests grew increasingly out of line!
"Are you sick in the head?"
Having long since had enough of this oily creep, Xu Shuyan tossed her head and turned to leave.
"What's wrong, junior? I'm not done shooting yet."
Liu Di hurried over to appease her. "If you're feeling too tense, that's fine. Let's try some other styles, I've got plenty of ideas."
"I'm not taking any more pictures." Glaring, Xu Shuyan stood tall and elegant. "Step aside!"
"Fine, fine, if you don't want to shoot anymore, then just pay up." Liu Di blocked the gazebo's entrance.
"Pay up? Pay for what?" Xu Shuyan frowned.
"Come on, junior. All of us spent half the day accompanying you here—does that labor not cost anything?"
Liu Di flashed a sly, cunning smile. "And it's not even expensive. Five hundred yuan per photo, and we took around a hundred of them."
"Five hundred a picture? You might as well just rob someone!"
Xu Shuyan was furious. "You're the ones who practically begged me to let you take them!"
"Shuyan, let's go, don't pay attention to them."
Jiang Tang felt completely disgusted.
Running into creeps like this on her very first day at school was bad luck.
"If you won't pay, then finish the photoshoot. Otherwise, our losses are too heavy."
Liu Di's lecherous gaze drifted down toward Xu Shuyan's legs.
"Tsk tsk, such gorgeous legs. If we shoot a whole series, it'll definitely net us a ton of new followers. Cooperate a little, junior."
"You!"
Stamping her little foot, Xu Shuyan readied a scold.
Suddenly, Liu Di's feet left the ground as someone hoisted him up from behind.
"Who... who the hell is that?! Are you courting death? Put me down right now!"
At one meter sixty-eight, Liu Di flailed about in midair.
With a loud *thud*, he was hurled forward, crashing heavily into a pillar on the left side of the gazebo and sending stars dancing across his vision.
"Ning Chen?"
Seeing the sudden appearance of the young man, Xu Shuyan felt a faint blush creep unbidden across her cheeks.
"Ning Chen, you're here!"
Jiang Tang let out a joyful squeal, her bright eyes shining as though looking at a hero.
"Damn it, where'd this guy drop from?! Get him, beat him up!"
Grimacing in pain, Liu Di scrambled up from the floor.
Yet these photography club members, who spent their days taking pictures and chatting up girls rather than exercising, had witnessed firsthand Ning Chen's ability to lift a man with one hand. None of them dared to step forward.
"You're the one who wants to beat me up?"
Walking right up to Liu Di, Ning Chen raised a foot and delivered a kick.
*Bang!*
The blow instantly sent two streams of bloody nose-bleed gushing from Liu Di's face as he clutched his nose and wailed on the ground.
The remaining photography club members collectively took a step back, their faces turning pale with fright.
This guy was vicious—without another word, he just started kicking people in the face.
"If we were in the Lesser Southern Heaven Realm, your head would already be separated from your shoulders."
Dropping this nonsensical remark, Ning Chen delivered a few more kicks before turning to leave.
Wracked with pain and supported by a couple of his lackeys, Liu Di limped away toward the campus clinic.
"He definitely isn't an ordinary student. He's probably involved with the underground world, Xiao Tang, don't you think?"
Following at a distance behind Ning Chen, Xu Shuyan murmured her suspicions.
"I don't know, but he looked so cool just now..."
Jiang Tang crossed her hands together, her face filled with adoration.
"Cool? He's not cool at all, not even a little bit!"
Xu Shuyan would rather die than admit that this bumpkin was cool.
...
A dozen or so minutes later, bruised and purple all over, smelling strongly of iodine, Liu Di emerged from the campus clinic and dialed his sworn brother from the Sambo club.
"Hello, Brother Peng?"
"Your brother got beaten up! Brother Peng, you have to avenge me, or I won't be able to rest in peace even in death!"
Upon hearing this, the nearby photography club members' expressions shifted dramatically.
A core member of the Sambo club, Zhao Lipong!
That guy was a genuinely ruthless figure on the Qing University campus!
Word had it he had practiced martial arts since childhood and had once won a municipal Sambo championship; ten ordinary people couldn't take him together.
Moreover, his uncle was a member of the school administration—as long as he didn't commit a catastrophic offense, his uncle could always cover for him.
"That guy is in for it now..."
...
"We're here."
Dropping Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang off at the entrance of the Art Department classroom, Ning Chen wore an expression of undisguised impatience.
"Keep a low profile and stay out of trouble. I am not your bodyguard."
Jiang Tang gave a crooked, sloppy salute. "Got it, Mighty Brother!"
Three black lines instantly appeared across Ning Chen's forehead. "Uh, what on earth is 'Mighty Brother'?"
Jiang Tang smiled cutely. "Hehe, you're so strong, I'm calling you Mighty Brother from now on!"
Ning Chen didn't particularly care for the nickname.
Yet he couldn't be bothered to argue with Jiang Tang over such trivialities.
Before leaving, he offered one final injunction. "Remember, don't stir up trouble. I hate trouble the most."
"Hmph, this young lady will do whatever she pleases! Why should I listen to you?!"
Annoyed by his tone, Xu Shuyan crossed her slender arms.
"If it weren't for Aunt Qiao, I wouldn't bother dealing with you at all." Ning Chen turned and walked away.
"Who asked you to deal with me, jerk!"
Xu Shuyan yelled at Ning Chen's retreating back and stamped her small foot hard.
"Does she think doing that makes her look cute?"
Ning Chen shook his head.
Strolling along, he made his way to the Medical Department classroom to check in.
Unremarkable and plain, Ning Chen attracted no attention whatsoever.
He picked a random seat near the back and took out his phone to play.
"Hey buddy, what are you so engrossed in?"
Scarcely ten minutes into his reading, a bespectacled little chubby guy in the seat ahead of him turned around.
"Reading a novel." Ning Chen didn't even raise his head.
"What kind of novel could possibly be more interesting than the campus belles?" The chubby guy introduced himself, "Let's be friends, I'm Fang Tao, you can call me Chubby Fang."
"Ning Chen."
"Did you vote yet, Ning Chen?" Fang Xiaopang asked.
"What vote? Not interested." Ning Chen shook his head.
"You'll definitely be interested!" A hint of mischievous sleaziness colored Fang Xiaopang's smile. "The campus forum is holding a vote for the campus belle. Don't you want to see what the campus belles look like? One of them is actually right here in our class!"
He pointed toward the front of the room.
A pretty girl with an innocent appearance was surrounded by a group of male and female classmates, blushing and looking somewhat shy as they peppered her with questions.
"Really not interested."
Ning Chen felt his novel was much more entertaining.