To Ning Chen's surprise, Xu Shuyan's father had arrived.
Xu Jingshan.
A well-known entrepreneur in Qingzhou.
Xu Shuyan was wriggling her delicate shoulders on the sofa, acting spoiled and calling him "Daddy" with a sweetness that made her sound like a three-year-old.
Seeing Ning Chen return, Xu Shuyan straightened her pretty face, crossed her snow-white legs, and resumed her aloof posture.
"You must be Ning Chen?"
Xu Jingshan walked over from the living room, his hawk-like eyes sizing up Ning Chen.
The housekeeper Fan Yi followed closely behind, step for step.
"Hello, Uncle Xu."
Ning Chen gave a polite greeting.
"I heard about what happened today. Xiaochen, thank you for getting Shuyan out of that mess."
Xu Jingshan smiled warmly and said, "Your mother and Shuyan's mother are best friends, so naturally I hope you and Shuyan can become good friends, too."
"Daddy~ I don't want to be good friends with him at all!" Before Ning Chen could speak, Xu Shuyan's spoiled voice chimed in.
"I don't want to either," Ning Chen agreed.
"You—"
Furious, Xu Shuyan threw a throw pillow at him. "Who do you think you are? The number of people lining up to be this young lady's friend is endless!"
"Don't worry, in three months at most, we'll be going our separate ways." Ning Chen tilted his head to dodge it.
"What's all this about going our separate ways? You're making it sound like we're in a relationship." Xu Shuyan angrily waved her small fists.
"Alright."
Xu Jingshan gave a bitter smile and called Ning Chen out to the courtyard.
Stepping from the bright light into the shade, the man's expression gradually grew cold.
Noticing this, Ning Chen asked, "Uncle Xu, if you have something to say, just spit it out."
"Alright."
Xu Jingshan put on a very serious expression. "Ning Chen, to be honest, I was against you moving in from the very beginning."
"Shuyan is the apple of the Xu family's eye. Cohabiting with a young man full of hot blood—if word of this gets out, it will cause quite a stir in Qingzhou."
"So the first thing I must warn you about is that you are strictly forbidden from spreading the news that you live here."
"Why not just kick me out?" Ning Chen asked.
"Two reasons. First, my wife is very fond of you and even wants to play matchmaker between you and Shuyan."
"That is obviously sheer fantasy, you can put that out of your head."
Xu Jingshan said in an unyielding tone, "Secondly, Shuyan told me that you are very strong. Have you practiced martial arts?"
"Mm, I have." Ning Chen nodded.
"Old Fan has practiced as well, the Li style Bajiquan. Do you dare spar with him for a couple of moves?" Xu Jingshan asked.
"You'll have to ask him about that," Ning Chen said.
"Haha!" Xu Jingshan and Fan Yi exchanged a glance and both burst out laughing.
"Kid, you're not very old, but you sure talk big."
Fan Yi put his hands behind his back and smiled amicably. "Have you ever heard of Internal Force?"
"Internal Force? Never heard of it." Ning Chen shook his head.
*He hasn't even heard of Internal Force? Looks like he's just an ordinary martial arts enthusiast.*
Fan Yi inwardly shook his head, then freed his left hand, curled his fingers slightly, and made a clawing motion in mid-air!
"Crack!"
Five finger-marks were blasted into a ginkgo tree in the courtyard, sinking half an inch deep.
If that blow landed on a person, they would either be dead or severely injured.
"This is Internal Force!"
"Only martial artists who have immersed themselves in the martial arts for decades can forge it. Someone at this level is known as a martial general. In ancient times, they could charge into battle and take on a hundred opponents single-handedly."
As he spoke, Fan Yi put his hand back behind his back, figuring this kid named Ning must have pissed his pants from fright.
*Isn't this just internal energy?* Ning Chen was unimpressed.
However, he suddenly developed a keen interest in modern ancient martial arts, so he asked:
"Housekeeper Fan, may I ask what realms lie above Internal Force?"
Seeing that Ning Chen had not been scared out of his wits, Fan Yi secretly nodded in praise.
*His temperament is quite steady, not bad!*
Then he said:
"Young man, don't aim too high. An Internal Force martial general is already one in a million. Back in ancient times, passing the military imperial examination would have been a walk in the park."
"To achieve Internal Force like mine, one must first master External Force, and even with superior innate bones, it takes ten years of hard work."
*This old man talks way too much,* Ning Chen thought to himself.
"Old Fan, what's the verdict?" Xu Jingshan lowered his voice and asked.
"Chairman, he can serve as the young miss's bodyguard and handle ordinary thugs without any problem," Fan Yi concluded.
Xu Jingshan nodded.
"I'll give you a task: protect Shuyan at school, just like you did today. Can you do it?" he said to Ning Chen.
"So this is the second reason you kept me here?" Ning Chen found it quite amusing.
Asking a Nascent Soul Stage grand cultivator to protect a female student.
Wonderful, very creative.
"That's right. This way, I won't have to argue with my wife, and you get to stay. It's a win-win."
Xu Jingshan calculated his win-win scenario well. "On top of that, I'll pay you a monthly salary of ten thousand yuan. A boy your age should be pretty short on cash."
"I'm just an ordinary student, so Uncle Xu should find someone else more capable."
Ning Chen dropped those words and walked away.
Protect Xu Shuyan? Just living under the same roof as her was enough to suffocate him.
"This brat... really thinks he's hot stuff!"
The muscles on Xu Jingshan's face twitched slightly.
Fan Yi shook his head as well.
The Xu Group was a top-ten major enterprise in Qingzhou, and the Xu family was a renowned wealthy clan in Jiangnan.
Such a great opportunity to cross social strata was right in front of him, and he actually missed it?
He truly felt it was a pity for this young man.
…
"To actually reduce my two capable men to this state."
"Zhao Lipeng, no matter what your background is, I, Bai Xiao... will make you pay with your life!"
The First Affiliated Hospital of Qing University.
Bai Xiao looked at Chen Zilang and Chen Zhabao lying on hospital beds receiving oxygen, his expression turning gloomy.
The two brothers had lost consciousness and it was unknown when they would wake up.
"Brother Xiao, I've checked into it. This Zhao Lipeng is indeed in the sanda club at Qing University, and he's even a core member."
"His parents are ordinary people with no background. He only has an uncle who is a director of student affairs."
A woman with wine-red dyed hair walked up to his side.
Her name was Wang Yinhua. She was Bai Xiao's mistress and secretary, a very sexy woman.
Guys who made their living like Bai Xiao would usually open a company to whitewash themselves as businessmen, but in essence, they were still thugs, with protection money making up the bulk of their income.
"Damn it, a college student who practices sanda is this formidable? What the hell!"
Bai Xiao gritted his teeth and said, "Forget it, Yinhua, round up our men!"
"If one won't do, use ten; if ten won't do, use twenty; if twenty won't do, use fifty; if fifty won't do, use a hundred! I refuse to believe this punk named Zhao is some kind of fucking Superman!"
"If I don't kill him, I, Bai Xiao, won't be able to show my face in the West District anymore!"
Wang Yinhua inwardly frowned, seemingly holding reservations about this decision.
Even so, she nodded.
"Alright, Brother Xiao, I'll make the calls right now and get the boys ready."
"We'll definitely beat him to death!"
"Got it!"
Chapter 11: If you put it that way, now you've piqued my interest!
Opening day.
Xu Shuyan woke up at the crack of dawn, and on her way downstairs she deliberately stomped heavily, trying to wake Ning Chen up.
Only to find out that this guy wasn't in his room at all; he had already gone out for a stroll long ago.
Upon arriving at school, Xu Shuyan had Ning Chen get out at the school gates while she and Jiang Tang headed for the underground parking garage. Ning Chen was quite happy to oblige.
During the first week of school, the freshman orientation assembly was followed by military training.
Ning Chen had countless ways to avoid military training, but there was no need.
"Time's up, twenty minutes break!"
At the young drill instructor's command, many of the fifty students in Clinical Medicine Class 2 collapsed onto the ground, wiping sweat with their sleeves.
"Standing at attention is way too tiring."
"Yeah, I feel like my legs are about to break."
"Not moving an inch, it's really agonizing."
"We still have to endure seven days of this, sob, sob..."
Complaints filled the air.
Seeing this, the young instructor shook his head. "You college students nowadays are far too pampered. You can't even stand at attention for forty minutes—you're completely useless!"
Faced with such disdain, a few male students in the class were clearly unconvinced.
"Instructor, you can't paint us all with the same brush!"
A short-haired male student raised his hand, then stood up. "Standing at attention is no big deal to me. I work out every day and play basketball; my physical fitness should be on par with yours."
The young instructor smiled. "Is that so? What's your name?"
The short-haired youth lifted his chin. "Li Xuanming!"
"So handsome, actually daring to talk to the instructor like that."
Quite a few girls in the class cast surprised glances at Li Xuanming.
Ning Chen watched the show as well.
"Dare to have a contest?" The instructor felt it necessary to teach these college students a lesson.
"Sure, what are we competing in?" Li Xuanming's interest was piqued.
If he somehow managed to defeat the instructor, wouldn't he be able to show off in a big way?
Even if he lost, it wouldn't be all that disgraceful.
"Push-ups, let's keep it simple," the young instructor said offhandedly.
"No problem!" Li Xuanming patted his thick chest muscles.
The two of them quickly got ready.
Hands on the ground, standing side by side.
The rules of the competition were simple: whoever gave up first lost.
Hearing that a student was competing against the instructor, nearby classes eagerly crowded around to watch.
At first, Li Xuanming was able to keep up with the instructor's pace, and his form was standard enough, but after eighty, his form began to break down.
One hundred, drenched in sweat.
One hundred twenty, whole body trembling.
"Damn, this instructor is really tough..."
Li Xuanming looked up and almost scared himself to death!
Because that young instructor was actually doing *one-armed* push-ups!
His jaw dropped, and he immediately got up and asked, "Instructor, you..."
"Why aren't you continuing?"
The young instructor also stood up, smiling, his face slightly flushed.
"Buddy, you lost miserably. You did standard push-ups, while the instructor did single-armed ones the whole time..." a nearby male student reminded him.
"Holy crap..." Li Xuanming's cheeks burned red as he finally realized the gap between an ordinary fitness enthusiast and a soldier.
"Just a college student trying to challenge us, too naive."
Several instructors from nearby classes who were watching exchanged amused glances and couldn't help laughing.
After Li Xuanming returned to formation, the young instructor asked again, "Anyone else not convinced? Step out and give it a try."
No one in the class answered.
Even Li Xuanming, who was tall and strong, had lost; who would dare overestimate themselves?
The young instructor added one more condition: "If anyone beats me, military training is waived."
"Oh?"
Ning Chen raised an eyebrow.
If you put it that way, now you've piqued my interest!
"Dachun, you're so buff, why don't you go out and try?"
Fang Xiaopang urged Zhang Dachun from the side.
Zhang Dachun shook his head. "I can only do seventy push-ups in one go at most, and maybe twenty single-armed ones at best. The instructor would wipe the floor with me in minutes."
"Being a drill instructor, their physical fitness is just fierce. We can't compare," Fang Xiaopang sighed.
"Alright, resume training—"
Just as the young instructor shouted the command, a student suddenly raised his hand. "Um, instructor, I'd like to try."
It was Ning Chen.
He didn't want to do military training; it felt a bit boring.
"Swish!"
All fifty students in the class snapped their astonished gazes toward him.
"You?" Li Xuanming wore a comical expression.
In his view, Ning Chen was skinny and frail without an ounce of muscle—he wasn't even as fit as Li Xuanming himself—so how could he dare challenge the instructor?
"He's that guy who picked a fight with Zhao Lipeng from the sanda club yesterday."
"I heard he actually dared to hit an upperclassman."
"Holy crap, beating up an upperclassman? He's that brave?"
Whispering broke out in the classroom.
No one knew what background this Ning Chen had, but to dare challenge the instructor meant he must have some real skills.
"You want to challenge me?"
The young instructor looked Ning Chen up and down skeptically. "Are you sure?"
"Instructor, what you said just now—does it still count?"
Ning Chen confirmed, "If I win against you, I don't have to do military training?"
"It counts! Of course it counts!"
The young instructor looked confident. "Only if you beat me first, though!"
"That's fine, then."
Ning Chen's mind was at ease.
After stepping out of formation, he began the push-up competition with the instructor. Both started with standard double-arm push-ups, doing them one after another.
"If he beats the instructor, I'll livestream myself eating shit!"
Li Xuanming declared to his dorm mates.
"Wanwan, do you think this Ning Chen can win?"
A round-faced girl wearing glasses asked Su Wanwan curiously.
Su Wanwan gently nodded her pretty head. "I believe he can!"
"Wanwan, you're overthinking it."
A rather pretty girl with a high ponytail expressed utter disdain. "He's just a college student; there's no way he can beat the instructor. The guy practices this every single day."
"Exactly, stick to what you're good at. Don't use your little hobby to challenge someone else's livelihood."
Another pockmarked girl chimed in.
Even though all her dorm mates thought Ning Chen was bound to lose, Su Wanwan still held a glimmer of hope.
She had seen Ning Chen utterly thrash Ma Kun and his gang as if it were child's play; even trained soldiers might not be able to pull that off so casually.
Soon, the number of push-ups exceeded fifty, and the young instructor started showing off.
Switching from both arms to one.
"Kid, you're still a bit too green to compete with me in this!"
"I happen to be the push-up record holder for our platoon!"
The young instructor sneered inwardly.
Then, he saw Ning Chen also switch to a single arm, his five fingers folding in one by one.
In the end, only his pinky finger remained planted on the ground as he rapidly executed the movement.
"How is that possible?"
The young instructor was dumbfounded on the spot.
Inside Clinical Medicine Class 2, a wave of shrieks erupted, especially from the girls who had just been convinced he was doomed to lose.
"Good heavens, a single finger? Did I see that right?"
"Could this be the legendary One-Finger Zen push-up?"
"And it's even his pinky, holy crap, that's too savage..."
Not just Clinical Medicine Class 2, but students from neighboring classes came running over to watch.
Many instructors who saw this scene dropped their jaws in shock!
What on earth was this?
Li Xuanming, who prided himself on having the best physical fitness in the class, had his face turn beet red, feeling as though he had been slapped hard across the face several times...
Chapter 12: None of this has anything to do with us!
There were fitness influencers on Douyin who could do all sorts of fancy push-ups.
One-Finger Zen push-ups weren't completely unheard of.
Fundamentally, though, people used their index fingers.
Ning Chen performed a pinky push-up for them, and did dozens of them in one breath, instantly blowing the minds of these mortals!
If he hadn't been afraid of scaring them out of their wits, forget One-Finger Zen—he could have even done armless push-ups.
"Just what kind of person are you?"
After Ning Chen stood up, the young instructor looked at him in utter bewilderment, as if gazing at a monster.
Ning Chen couldn't think of a good excuse on the spur of the moment, so he simply recycled Li Xuanming's excuse: "I work out every day and play basketball, so my physical fitness gradually trained itself into this."
"..." The young instructor turned his head and glared at Li Xuanming.
"This punk is deliberately slapping me in the face!" Li Xuanming gritted his teeth in fury.
Especially when he noticed Su Wanwan, the medical department's campus belle, gazing at Ning Chen with an expression of worship, he felt even more displeased.
"I never expected Ning Chen to be this savage! No wonder he dared to beat up an upperclassman!"
Fang Xiaopang and Zhang Dachun exchanged shocked glances.
"Instructor, if there are no other issues, I'll be heading off."
After getting up from the ground, Ning Chen turned and walked away.
"Hold on!"
The young instructor hurried after him, sweating profusely as he tried to explain to Ning Chen that he was only joking earlier and couldn't actually let him skip military training for real.
Ning Chen instantly grew displeased.
What was the meaning of this?
If the guy hadn't laid down that bet, he wouldn't even have bothered showing off!
The matter eventually went all the way up to the head instructor.
Considering their reputation, the head instructor actually made an exception and allowed Ning Chen to be exempt from military training.
"This kid is no pushover... he didn't show an ounce of stage fright in front of me..."
After Ning Chen walked away in satisfaction, the forty-something head instructor gazed at his retreating figure and muttered to himself.
"Chief Instructor, isn't this a bit inappropriate? I'm worried that if the other students find out, they'll have issues with it," the young instructor said with a troubled look.
"Complaints? What complaints!"
The head instructor put his hands behind his back, exuding natural authority. "If any of them can knock out ten one-finger push-ups in a row, they don't have to do military training either. My word is final!"
"Yes, sir!"
…
Ning Chen strolled around outside, changed his clothes, and finally headed to the campus supermarket to buy a box of ice cream, eating it as he walked.
"Aren't those Xu Shuyan and Jiang Tang?"
Passing by the basketball court, he spotted two familiar figures and chose a shady spot to sit down.
This was the designated military training area for Performance Arts Class 1, and as expected, there were plenty of beauties.
However, he wasn't here specifically to look at beauties; he just wanted a place to sit and finish his ice cream.
"Strange, logically speaking, if Xu Jingshan casually used a bit of influence, Xu Shuyan wouldn't have to suffer under the sun like this."
"Is he trying to temper her on purpose?"
Ning Chen ate his ice cream while pulling out his phone to play with it.
"Shuyan, look, isn't that Mighty Brother? How come he doesn't have to do military training?"
Soon, Jiang Tang spotted Ning Chen.
Xu Shuyan followed the sound and saw a boy eating ice cream under the tree shade not far away—sure enough, it was that violent perpetrator of perversion!
Damn it!
She was getting baked under the blazing sun while this guy was eating ice cream!
Is he deliberately taking revenge on me, this jerk?!
The day passed in a flash. Ning Chen fell asleep under the tree without realizing it. Because he wasn't wearing a military uniform, the instructors assumed he was a sophomore and left him alone.
"Brother Peng, that punk Ning Chen is weird. Next time, let's call in more people and teach him a solid lesson!" Liu Di's voice drifted over.
"Last time my cultivation went awry. If I run into him again next time, I'll beat him half to death!" This was Zhao Lipeng's voice.
The two walked side by side past Ning Chen without noticing him.