Yijin rose from the temporary bedding he had been resting upon for the past night. A voice resounded in a calm manner from behind him. "Finally awake, I see." Yijin turned his head and saw Juanbei sitting at a desk with a laptop computer open in front of him and a notebook with a pen placed on top of it next to the laptop. Juanbei sighed and began.
"Are you alright, Yijin? I don't know what might have happened in your life to give you such a dark inner qi, but this will most certainly not do. You cannot allow the temptation of the dark qi control you like that. Otherwise, you'll be no better than those thugs who walked in here yesterday demanding retribution from a righteous act."
Juanbei spoke, gesturing occasionally and conveying an air of deep concern for Yijin. Yijin knew that he could not tell Juanbei just what dwelled within him. It would make the man extremely uneasy to know that the Flooder of Szechuan's consciousness was hidden within the depths of Yijin's consciousness.
"You are right, Master Juanbei. I agree completely. But my question to you is, how can I stop the outbursts of the dark qi when I feel them about to occur." Juanbei looked at Yijin somberly. "If I had known that, I would have been able to do a lot more good in the world. But I promise you, Yijin, that I will do whatever it takes for you to be free of the vile sins that creep through your consciousness. A promise from Juanbei Ren is never broken... and that you can count on!"
Yijin bowed respectfully once and headed on his way, he told Juanbei that he would return after the school day was completed so that they could discuss the issue in more detail and so that Yijin could get more insight on cultivating his enlightened state. Yijin walked out the door. The bell above the frame dinged once above him as he exited with a wave to Juanbei on his way out. He checked his phone for messages.
"YIJIN!"
"YOOOO YiJiN!"
"Answer the goddamn phone, you little prick."
I'm assuming that you all can guess just who is sending Yijin messages in this sort of context. Xiao was completely confused as to what had happened the day before. He barely had any memory of after killing the third assailant. The second assailant that Yijin had killed had been Huafeng, the man with the Electro-Magnetic Pulse Qi Skill. As such, there was no record of what had occurred, except for some fuzzy images of a figure saving Xiao and defeating two unknown enemies.
Yijin paced down the street at a brisk pace. Some girls to one side of him marveled at his good looks, but horrible fashion sense. He flashed a sly grin and kept on walking towards the bus stop, where he usually caught a ride to school. Unfortunately for him, it was two hours past his regular departure time. The next bus would get there at eleven hours into the morning. For context, it was only eight hours into the morning. Yijin had to make a quick decision.
A decision that Yijin had always hated to make. The decision... to spend money on a cab. He held up his hand and whistled as though he were calling a trained horse. A white sedan with an illuminated sign above its roof pulled up to the curb, and Yijin quickly sat in.
"Hongsho High School, and please for the love of the gods, get me there as quickly as you can. Thank you, sir."
The man cleared his throat in a dramatic fashion and held out his hands. Of course... the payment.
Yijin quickly scrambled through his wallet and pulled out double the usual fee for a ride that far. The driver smiled, "Now you have my attention, kid." He placed his foot on the accelerator pedal and started a mad dash with his sedan. Yijin was being whirled around in the backseat. "Oh Gods."
Upon request, the God of Discipline broke into laughter upon shedding his vision on Yijin's terrified and nauseous face. "Ha! Meiying! You have to come see this! His face is priceless!" The God was cracking up, and Yijin directed his "attentive" thoughts at the God of Disciple. He quickly received a bolt of divine lightning to add insult to injury.
Eventually, after much retching and bumping his head on the ceiling of the car, Yijin arrived at his school. He practically jumped out of the car before it even came to a full stop and shut the door with his foot. The driver bowed and shouted, "Do shop with me again!" and drove off. Yijin quickly ran off.
The gates to the school were closed, but Yijin made quick work of it by scaling the brick walls surrounding it and willing himself over. He landed on his feet softly and started to run off to his classroom. The halls were empty and quiet. It was almost like a scene from a horror movie.
Lights flickered on and off, darkness enveloped a majority of the school. There had been a slight power outage recently due to the rain outside, and the noise from the downpour was not helping the creepy aesthetic that already existed. Suddenly, Yijin felt a tap on his shoulder, and Xiao's voice spoke. "Yijin?"
Yijin whirled around, became incredibly pale, and screamed louder than he had ever screamed in his life. He hadn't shrieked in this manner even when he was stabbed multiple times by Lu Gongfen in Huanzhi's body. He almost slammed a collection of Qi-imbued palms into Xiao's throat but stopped himself before hitting his friend.
"Damn you, Xiao!"
He shouted and prolonged the word "Xiao. " Xiao stared at Yijin's palm for a moment before pushing it down slowly with his index finger. His eyes widened, and he was barely keeping himself from fainting.
"Holy...Yijin. You scared the living shit out of me."
"So did you, you asshole! What the hell do you think you're doing walking up unannounced in this dimly lit hallway and just saying my name with no other context? Goddamn, bro!"
He shouted, and the two walked onwards. Once again, I say, thank the Gods for Sound. Proof. Walls. Yijin walked with Xiao, and the two arrived at their homeroom. After classes, people would not stop talking about Yijin's heroic acts facing the so-called "Terrorists." Yijin ignored most of the conversations, but Xiao listened attentively.
"Yijin, you're a hero. But just what the hell are you? How could you beat three full-grown veteran adults?"
"I should ask you the same thing. Mister Sang died in the teacher's lounge, and I found another one of these dead 'terrorists' in there with him. What happened to you to make you have a sainchamsageom lodged in your thigh?"
"That's a long story that I wouldn't like to get into right now. What I want to know is how are you so powerful? Those guys were no walk in the park. They seemed to be professionally organized. Are you some sort of government agent or something?"
Yijin broke into laughter. "If I were a governmental agent, I wouldn't be having money problems now, would I? Do you think I'd be starving to death like the beggar I am?" Yijin grinned, and Xiao nodded in understanding.
"I'm still confused, but talking with you in circles won't get me anywhere." Yijin bowed in a know-it-all type mannerism. Yijin sat down with Xiao to lunch in the school's cafeteria. Qianying and Kanzhou joined them soon enough. They began to talk about all manner of things that the youth nowadays tend to think about. In a few words, memes and celebrities.
However, far off, something was brewing in the mind of Lu Gongfen. After finding out that Huanzhi had managed to foil his scheme of sending Xifang to kill him, Lu Gongfen had gone on a rampage. In only two days, Lu Gongfen had managed to take over eighty-five percent of Nihei Province's underground crime organizations. The only two gangs that still held out against him were the two who also had cultivators at their head.
Yasaka Yakuza Syndicate and the Fangzi Clan. The frustration that had been provided to Lu Gongfen came courtesy of Huanzhi's signature when performing an assassination. A few drops of blood in the shape of a dagger. Lu Gongfen cursed the day that he met Huanzhi and soon met with his executive directors in an office building twenty miles away from Hongsho.
"Alright, as you all know, Kanling Gang has acquired multiple underground syndicates over a very short period of time. There is, however, a more pressing matter that concerns me at the moment. The matter of Huanzhi Ren, also known as Yijin Liu. I have already gone over the details and facts behind what occurred in the battle between Xifang and Huanzhi. It appears to me that Huanzhi has reached his original apex of power.
After absorbing the Qi Mastery Pill of the Kanling Sect a thousand years ago, Huanzhi can now gain Qi very quickly. This is especially worrying to me as he is hunting me at the moment. But the hunter can easily become the hunted at any point in time with a lack of information."
Lu Gongfen grinned at this point. "Is there any man present truly willing to volunteer to take out Huanzhi Ren for me? You would take the place of Captain Hukong as my right-hand man."
The first to react was Hukong himself, asking for the opportunity to put Huanzhi in the dirt, but Lu Gongfen quickly silenced him. "Anyone other than Hukong?" Eight of the eight present raised their arms. Lu Gongfen laughed maniacally, "Perfect. Kayegawa, I want you to be the first to make the attempt on Huanzhi's life."
Kayegawa Kagekuro reaffixed his glasses and spoke, "I won't disappoint you, Master Lu."
"I expect you not to, Kayegawa. Take it at your pace. I want Huanzhi out of my life once and for all."
"Yes, sir!" shouted Kayegawa. He rose and exited the office building.
"This meeting is adjourned." Lu Gongfen rose from his chair and walked out, his group of followers hanging closely behind. The doors of the building thrust open, and before him stood the mass of his disciples.
"We are ready to serve you, sir!"
"Good. We'll see if Huanzhi can get out of this one."
Yijin sneezed at the mention of his name from Lu Gongfen. "Ah, shit. Someone's wishing me ill." He stared forward at the man in front of him, bloodied and battered. "I have too many enemies." The high schooler in front of him charged forward, but Yijin dodged expertly and slammed his foot into the boy's nape, knocking him face first to the ground.
"Alright, that's the last fighter this school has to offer. I guess it's safe to say that the school is mine now." Yijin grinned and walked on. Behind him, lay twenty of the school's fighters unconscious. Among them, the top two ranked on the list.
"I need to go see Juanbei." He walked on and left the school. It was after hours anyway. Xiao and the others had gone on ahead, knowing what most definitely would occur when Yijin asked to stay behind. Granted, nobody knew that Yijin had been the one who had killed the assailants that day. He caught up to them without a hair out of place and quickly brought himself to the bus stop.
Qianying and Kanzhou bowed to Xiao and Yijin, and the other two did the same in return. Yijin sat down next to Xiao on the bus, and the two fell asleep. Yijin's head smacked on the window and covered the window with his bodily heat, while Xiao's head drooped back over the head of the seat as he scored. The rest of the people on the bus made fun of them for how they appeared as they slept, but neither of the two high-schoolers could give a damn.
Yijin got off at his regular stop after waking up early and headed for Juanbei straight off. He wanted to see what his kin could offer him in terms of cultivating his mental principles and such. Yijin opened the door, and suddenly, a loud shout of battle could be heard. "Hah!"
There were students there for the first time in forever. Yijin say down on a bench and watched as Juanbei carefully instructed each of the students on their form. Juanbei bowed to Yijin as he sat down, and the so-called student did the same in return. Though Yijin was a master of the physical arts, his mental side of cultivation was rather poor.
"I liked the fact that you showed no mercy earlier to those kids, Huanzhi. You truly are a master of the Dark Qi." Xiangliu's distorted voice croaked. Yijin silenced him quickly as Juanbei sat down next to him.
"Well then, Yijin, shall we begin?"