The trio who was intimidating the cowering student composed of one slender and arguably handsome dude and two very large guys who resembled bodybuilders more than students. Hell, they could have passed off for bodyguards, except that they were missing sunglasses.
The guy in the center, who was stepping on the leg of the cowering student, was clearly the leader of the trio. He looked like the typical rich kid, with his spiky hair dyed blond and stylishly gelled, but he flaunted his wealth and status through a shiny branded watch on his wrist. His other hand gripped a state-of-the-art smartphone, which even though I didn't know the exact model, I could tell that it was the latest model. A super expensive one that probably cost upwards of a thousand USD.
Despite being slender and not looking strong, he had managed to intimidate his victim into falling onto his rump, but I suspected the bullied student was more afraid of the massive students behind the rich kid. They appeared to be more underlings than friends, their thickset frames bulging with muscles. They reminded me of the two cronies always following along that blond antagonist from that wizarding franchise with seven books and their respective movie adaptations.
"How dare you not kowtow when you saw me passing through?" The blond rich kid bellowed, stomping on the victim's leg. "Do you not know who I am?"
For a moment, I couldn't help but skid to a stop to gape disbelieving at the dude. It wasn't just me. Even the victim was staring at his bully, stupefied by his audacious words. What was this, a cultivation web novel or something?
The rich kid removed his foot from his victim's ankle and retreated. He grimaced and took out a handkerchief to wipe the sole of his shoe. "Damn it, I can't believe you dared to dirty my shoe with the taint of commoner filth."
You were the one who stepped on him, though!?
"Break his legs and cripple his cultivation," the rich kid commanded his underlings, who stepped forward. The two of them paused and stared blankly at their boss for a second.
"Uh…cripple his cultivation? What do you mean, young master?"
Did they just call him young master? Seriously?
"What am I even paying you morons for when you can't even do such a simple thing?" The rich kid gritted his teeth and smacked both of them across the faces. Neither flinched and instead lowered their heads humbly. Wow. This was insane. I never thought someone would behave like this in reality.
"Sorry, young master."
"Obviously I mean cripple his cultivation! Destroy his martial arts! Smash his dantian so that he will never be able to circulate his qi around his body ever again!" When he saw that not only his cronies were looking at him uncomprehendingly, but even his victim was watching the entire scene in utter bafflement, he let out a frustrated exhalation. "Just punch his abdomen really, really hard! Hard enough to make him vomit blood! And don't forget to break his legs too!"
Now that was a set of instructions they understood perfectly. The two cronies moved with renewed purpose, stepping forward while cracking their knuckles eagerly.
By now, a huge crowd had gathered, growing with each passing second as more curious students joined to watch the fun. Despite their schoolmate being in danger of getting beaten up in front of them, nobody intervened. Instead, they all remained on the sidelines as spectators. A few of them were munching on peanuts and popcorn, others were chatting to each other animatedly, and more than a couple had whipped out their smartphones to record the whole thing, presumably to upload them onto social media to accumulate clicks and views. None of them wanted to get involved in the affair, and to be fair, the two underlings cut an imposing figure, so logically speaking, it was unwise to get into a fight with them.
I caught sight of Huang Xiang Jun. As the vice president of the student council, she thought it was her duty to stop it, but the president of the student council, Hui Zhang, grabbed hold of her arm and shook his head.
"Don't. It's too dangerous."
"But we can't just let them do whatever they like!"
"I know, I've called the teachers. Let them take care of it. if you intervene, you will only get injured. And I don't want that."
"But…" Xiang Jun protested, only to relent when she saw Hui Zhang's pleading expression. Apparently, even the student council members didn't dare to act against this rich kid.
Even so, I couldn't stand by and do nothing. I wasn't some passive pacifist who waxed lyrical about looking for a brick or having a sense of justice, yet ended up being No Action Talk Only. I had no intention of just watching and not interfering when a schoolmate was getting beaten up in front of me, nor was I going to wait for a satellite to magically set his pants on fire.
"Hey, Li Tian Xing! What do you think you're doing!?"
I hadn't gotten more than a few steps when someone seized my arm. Turning around, I saw that he was my classmate, Liu Zhi Yong. A slightly handsome and charming guy, he was popular with the girls because of his charismatic smile and warm personality. Given that he was willing to befriend a nerd like me, he was actually a great guy. He was also one of the few friends I had in my high school.
"I'm going to help that poor guy out."
"Don't get involved! Otherwise, you'll get into trouble."
"What about that guy over there? You're just going to leave him?"
"That's…" Zhi Yong looked pained. He shook his head and sighed. "Don't you know who that guy is? He's Fu Er Dai. His father is the CEO of the Fu Corporation. Haven't you heard the rumors? Anyone who dares to go against Fu Er Dai mysteriously disappears a few days later. Or their parents are fired from their jobs and their families driven out of the city."
Surely that was quite the exaggeration? However, that explained a lot. Fu Er Dai was clearly a second-generation rich kid, an arrogant asshole who thought he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it as long as he yelled to everyone about how his father was Li Gang.
"We can't afford to offend someone like him!" Zhi Yong added. I couldn't help but bury my face in my palm.
"Are we even in the right genre? This is supposed to be science fiction, right? Not a trashy urban cultivation web novel?"
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
"Nothing. I'm just checking to see if I'm in the right story."
Zhi Yong stared at me blankly, but I shook him off. I could hear a cry of pain when one of the cronies hammered his meaty fist into the poor guy's gut, sending him skidding across the courtyard. They lumbered toward him as he held his midriff and curled into a fetal position.
"If you want to blame anyone, you can only blame yourself for being weak," Fu Er Dai crowed, missing the irony in his own words. It wasn't as if he was strong himself, he was relying on hired muscle. Then again, according to him, I guess wealth would be considered a kind of strength?
"The teacher will be here soon! Just be patient!" Zhi Yong yelled at me when he noticed that I was lunging forward.
"It'll be too late!" I snapped when I saw that the two cronies were about to stomp on the poor guy's legs. I had been practicing combat drills under the Voice long enough to realize that they had enough weight and force behind their blows to cause fractures and send the poor kid to hospital. Seriously? Even if they were under the employ of a second-generation rich kid, this was blatant physical assault in broad daylight and quite clearly a crime. No matter how much money Fu Er Dai's dad had, he wasn't going to cover this up.
If there was one thing wealthy people feared more than the law, it was a scandal. Not that it would be of any comfort to the poor kid lying in hospital.
Like a bullet, I hurtled across the clearing and slammed into the closest crony, bowling him over with my shoulder. Even though he was heavier and bigger than me, I had thrown my full body weight behind the blow, which was enough to knock him off his feet. Spinning about, I made use of my momentum to kick the second underling while he was still caught off guard. My foot caught his jaw and sent him sprawling on his back, half blacked out.
"How dare you intervene!?" Fu Er Dai bellowed. "Don't you know who I am?!"
"You are Fu Er Dai?"
"Hah! You know who I am, and yet you're still so bold as to spoil my fun? Yi Hao, Er Hao, get him!"
The guy I had kicked remained stationary, but the first underling had gotten back to his feet. With a snarl, he charged at me, but I ducked to the side and hooked my foot around his ankle at the last second. Disrupting his balance, I shoved him to fall on his face before I stomped on the back of his neck. He gurgled and fell unconscious.
The second guy finally rose, still half-dazed but no less dangerous. He threw his arms out to wrap me in a bear hug, but I ducked under his grasp and struck his solar plexus. He folded over and fell to the ground, unmoving. I sighed in relief, glad that I had listened to the Voice's instructions and trained diligently.
I didn't think that I could actually beat them.
"Im…impossible!" Fu Er Dai hollered. He kicked at one of his cronies, furious. "You useless lug! Both of you are trash! You can't even deal with a nerd half your size, despite outnumbering him?! What do I even pay you for?!"
What was he, a cultivation villain?
Fu Er Dai turned to glare at me, but he then smirked. "You fool! You can't afford to offend me!"
"I'm not offending you. I'm simply trying to help him." I jabbed a thumb at the victim behind me. Now that I had drawn the attention of his bullies to me, he was scrambling to his feet and fleeing. Not that I cared. He was only going to drag me down if he stuck around, so it was actually better for me that he left the scene as soon as possible.
"Hmph. You might have beaten up my subordinates, but so what? Before my mystic weapon, you can only die!" He whipped out a…paper fan.
Yeah, a paper fan.
"Is Fu Er Dai suffering from middle school second year syndrome?" One of the peanut gallery members asked.
"What is he trying to do?"
"I think he read too much cultivation manhua."
"Shut up! Just die!" Fu Er Dai swung his fan and a snake came out. I stared at the snake as it descended upon me, closing its jaws around my body.
Nothing happened, aside from the snake simply passing through my body and glowing like a badly animated CGI scene in a B-grade movie.
"…are you putting on a light show?"
"What?! No way! Impossible! My dad was the one who gave me this mystic weapon! How is it not working?!" Fu Er Dai was trembling uncontrollably. His eyes widened. "Don't tell me, you're in the Divine Realm?!"
"What Divine Realm?" I smacked his head, flooring him. He dropped his useless fan. "Have you read so much cultivation manhua that you can't tell apart fiction from reality?"
"Y…you can't kill me!" Fu Er Dai whined. I tried to assure him that I had no intention of killing him (though I had every intention of roughing him up), but he continued babbling near incoherently. "My father will never let you off!"
Then he suddenly turned triumphant.
"That's right! My father is Fu Gang! You're dead! We'll destroy your whole family and make you regret ever being born! You shouldn't have offended me!"
Was there something wrong with this dude's brain?!
I was about to retort, but I suddenly heard a voice in my head. The Voice.
"Commander, enact evasive maneuvers immediately! There's an attack homed in on your position!"
Instinctively, I tackled Fu Er Dai and dove to the side without thinking, my obedience to the Voice having been ingrained into my body after months of training. And just in time too.
"You commoner filth! What the hell do you think you're doing?!" Fu Er Dai spluttered when he hit the ground. I ignored him and rose to my feet, but the ingrate continued ranting. "How dare you make me touch the soil? Such dirt! Such audacity…"
Then he trailed off and his eyes widened as he gaped at the phenomenon unfolding above.
An energy lance erupted from above and struck his previous position. To be more accurate, it actually hit the location where I was standing a second ago, but the impact of the blast was so huge and powerful it incinerated Fu Er Dai's discarded paper fan, incinerating it into ashes. The second-generation rich kid shrieked from shock, his indignity all but forgotten.
"What!? What's going on?!"
"What just happened?!"
As my schoolmates began screaming and running around in panic, something – or someone – descended from the heavens and landed in the courtyard with enough force to create a burning crater. As he straightened his heavily armored form, I realized with cold dread that the newcomer wasn't human.