At ten to seven in the morning, the students who had finished their morning exercises returned to the classroom. The preparatory bell had already rung once, and the morning self-study was about to begin.
Having just run two laps around the playground, the students hadn't yet got into the mood for studying, and restless noises could be heard through the classroom door.
Bai Ruan, the homeroom teacher of Class 4, Grade 11, walked to the back door of the classroom and stopped.
Bai Ruan looked as if he was only twenty-one or twenty-two years old on the outside. He claimed to be twenty-five years old, but he had a youthful appearance. At this moment, the young homeroom teacher was showing half of his face from behind the small window, looking carefully into the classroom.
When a homeroom teacher lurks at the back door to peek, ninety-nine percent of the time they are trying to catch students in the act. But Bai Ruan didn't look quite right - his jaw was tense, his expression was alert, and his hands gripping the window sill were trembling slightly. He didn't seem to be here to catch anyone in the act; instead, he looked more like the one being caught.
Bai Ruan's eyes swept around the classroom and quickly locked on a boy in the last row.
The boy was quite tall, with broad shoulders and long legs. At the moment, he was hunched over his desk, looking a bit aggrieved as he dozed off. His hair, which was longer than the school regulations allowed, covered half of the back of his neck. Wisps of thin black smoke, as fine as spider silk, were constantly rising from all over his body, but no one else seemed to notice it. It seemed that only Bai Ruan could see it.
Bai Ruan looked at the boy with a gloomy face, silently building up his mental strength.
This is human society, not the deep mountains and old forests. No one can bite people randomly. Civilization, harmony, justice, and the rule of law...
Bai Ruan was reciting the Core Socialist Values to himself to pluck up his courage when the boy who had been sleeping on the desk suddenly looked up without any warning!
Bai Ruan shuddered and was about to hide when the boy, like a fierce beast that had caught the scent of its prey, quickly turned his head. His gaze was as steady as a pair of javelins, stabbing straight through the small window on the back door. His eyes were blazing, sharp, and full of wildness.
— A pair of wolf-like eyes.
"Ah!" Bai Ruan leaped back two meters in an instant. His adrenaline surged and his temples throbbed.
The boy slightly furrowed his brows and raised his chin with a puzzled look, peering towards the back door.
Bai Ruan's mind went blank all of a sudden. Driven by the instinct to avoid predators, he hopped and skipped all the way back to the homeroom teacher's office ten meters away, shutting the door and locking it in one smooth motion!
It was so terrifying! Bai Ruan was panting heavily against the door, reaching back to press on his buttocks — at this moment, a strange spherical bulge had appeared at the back of his dark trousers. When Bai Ruan pressed it, the round ball deflated. No one knew that it was actually a fluffy, soft, round tail.
Bai Ruan was a demon, a rabbit demon.
His original form was the most common Chinese white rabbit. In the pet market, they were sold for fifteen yuan each or twenty-five yuan for a pair. They had white fur, red eyes, and upright ears, and were very common in the wild. Nowadays, as fancy rabbit breeds like lop-eared rabbits, Begonia rabbits, and Angora rabbits have gradually replaced the status of Chinese white rabbits, Bai Ruan often jokes that he is a Chinese rural rabbit.
As a rabbit with poor self-preservation abilities and likely to become a meal on a predator's plate at any moment, Bai Ruan's becoming a demon was purely a stroke of luck. He originally lived in the mountains and forests. One day, when he went out of his nest to look for food, he was bitten by a wolf. After narrowly escaping, he was rescued by a Taoist priest who was cultivating in the mountains. After recovering from his injuries, he had been living in the Taoist temple, serving as a sort of "rabbit for the priest to absorb energy from".
The Taoist priest was young at that time, carefree and playful. He called Bai Ruan "Brother Rabbit" and, out of a playful mindset, bestowed spiritual energy on Bai Ruan and taught him to cultivate. It was originally just for fun, but unexpectedly, Bai Ruan really had some understanding and, through repeated efforts, actually became a demon.
Regarding demons, some Taoist priests hated them deeply, while some didn't care. Coincidentally, this Taoist priest belonged to the latter category. Not only did he not care, but he also thought that being able to cultivate a demon proved his own prowess and was extremely proud of it. So he changed his way of addressing Bai Ruan to "Little Apprentice" and said that Bai Ruan's original form was so white and soft that the name Bai Ruan was quite fitting.
After Bai Ruan became a demon, he cultivated in the Taoist temple for a few more years. Then this unreliable Taoist master went off to wander around on his own.
At that time, Bai Ruan had only been in human form for five years. His appearance and mental state were similar to that of a five-year-old human child. When he heard that his master was going to travel around without taking him along, he was extremely panicked. In the middle of the night, he carried his small grass nest and tiptoed into his master's bedroom. He placed his little white, ball-like face on the edge of his master's bed, looking at his master with a pitiful expression, but not daring to make a sound.
The Taoist priest woke up in the middle of the night and saw a bright white face right beside his dark bed.
The Taoist priest cried out in fright: "Damn it!"
The five-year-old Bai Ruan looked at him innocently: "Master, what's wrong?"
The Taoist priest was taken aback: "It's you?"
The five-year-old Bai Ruan asked in a sweet tone: "Master, what does 'Damn it' mean?"
The Taoist priest was silent for a moment, then stroked his smooth chin and said with a solemn air: "… At midnight, when yin and evil thrive, if you suddenly wake up at this time, turbid qi is likely to enter your body. What I just said is a mantra to expel the turbid qi from within the body."
Bai Ruan: "Damn it, hehe."
Taoist priest: "…"
Taoist priest: "This mantra is for adults. Children can't use it. If children use it, it will have the opposite effect and more turbid qi will enter."
Bai Ruan was startled and quickly shut his mouth.
Taoist priest: "What are you doing squatting by my bedside in the middle of the night?"
Bai Ruan grabbed one of his master's hands and hugged it tightly, pleading in a soft voice: "Master, can you take me with you on your travels? Don't throw me back into the mountains, and don't leave me alone in the temple. I'm afraid that wolves will come in and bite me. It really hurts when wolves bite me."
The Taoist priest laughed: "With your measly cultivation level, you can't even beat a chicken. Do you think I'd leave you alone? Don't worry. I've already arranged a place for you to live."
Bai Ruan let out a sigh of relief.
Taoist priest: "Go back to sleep."
Bai Ruan placed his small grass nest beside his master's pillow and said: "I want to sleep with master."
Taoist priest: "What for?"
Bai Ruan looked pitiful: "I had a nightmare. I dreamed of wolves."
Due to the experience of nearly losing his life to a wolf, Little Bai Ruan was most afraid of wolves in his life. He was also afraid of lions, tigers, and leopards, but that was just ordinary fear. However, wolves were on a whole different level of psychological trauma. Before the age of seven, Little Bai Ruan would get goosebumps just hearing the word "wolf". The Taoist priest was well aware of this and helplessly moved his pillow to make room for Bai Ruan.
Bai Ruan placed his small grass nest beside his master's pillow, transformed into his original form, and crawled into the nest, falling asleep peacefully.
A few days later, the Taoist priest began his travels around the country.
Before setting off, he entrusted Bai Ruan to a good friend of his who had left the mountain and returned to secular life many years ago. At first, Bai Ruan was reluctant to part with his master, but when he heard that there were no wolves in the city and that children didn't have to worry about being carried off by wolves when they went out, he happily settled down. From then on, under the care of his adoptive parents, Bai Ruan grew up like an ordinary human child, going through primary school, junior high school, high school, and university, taking all kinds of exams, including minor exams, major exams, mid-term exams, and college entrance exams.
...
"Alas." Bai Ruan hung his head low and sighed sorrowfully.
During the morning self-study period, all the homeroom teachers went to check on the self-study situation. There was no one else in the office except Bai Ruan. Bai Ruan went to his desk and sat down, then opened the locked small drawer at the bottom of the desk.
Many office workers who work in the office are used to keeping some snacks in the office to eat during their breaks, and Bai Ruan was no exception. This locked small drawer was filled with things he liked to eat, such as sweet bamboo for gnawing, apple wood for gnawing, grass cakes, and grain hay rings... which were more or less equivalent to various small biscuits and nuts for humans.
Bai Ruan took out a fragrant grass cake and nibbled on it with his two little mouths, still feeling waves of instinctive fear when he thought of the boy he had seen through the back door of the classroom just now.
The boy who was sleeping in the last row of the classroom just now was named Lang Jingfeng. He was a track and field athlete who had transferred to Bai Ruan's class yesterday. It was said that his family was wealthy and powerful, and he had an extremely unruly temperament. He had been held back in his previous private school and had recently beaten up a male teacher. Beating a teacher was a very serious matter. It was unknown how Lang Jingfeng's family had managed to smooth things over, but anyway, Lang Jingfeng not only didn't receive any punishment but also successfully transferred to the No. 2 Middle School, a provincial key school, and was even arranged to be in Bai Ruan's class.
At first, when Bai Ruan knew that a unruly transfer student was coming to his class, he didn't pay much attention. Although he had a gentle and unassuming personality, he wasn't inexperienced in dealing with difficult students. It wasn't until he saw the real person that the poor rabbit teacher understood what a bolt from the blue meant - this Lang Jingfeng was actually a wolf demon!
If it was just a wolf demon, Bai Ruan could have tolerated it. After all, wolf demons were different from wolves. They had reason and intelligence and wouldn't harm Bai Ruan without a reason. But the problem was that this little wolf demon didn't know how to conceal his demonic aura at all. Yesterday, when Bai Ruan was teaching Chinese in the classroom, the whole rabbit was soaked in the extremely concentrated demonic aura of the wolf demon. He was constantly intimidated by the terrifying aura of his natural enemy throughout the class. His nerves were on high alert during the whole class, and by the end of the class, his shirt was soaked with cold sweat.
Moreover, due to the emotional tension that caused an imbalance in the secretion of his demonic aura, Bai Ruan couldn't maintain his human form steadily. The round tail at the back of his buttocks would pop out from time to time, making him afraid to turn around to write on the blackboard.
"All students, read the third paragraph aloud together. Three, two, one, start." Teacher Bai commanded with authority.
The students all lowered their heads to read the text in unison. Taking advantage of the fact that no one was looking at him, Bai Ruan quietly reached back to press his tail back in, and then turned around to write on the blackboard.
... Not even concealing his demonic aura. He clearly looked like a second-generation demon! Remembering his狼狈 (humiliating and flustered) performance in the classroom yesterday, Bai Ruan gnashed his teeth on the grass cake in anger.
"Concealing the demonic aura" means to draw the demonic aura back into the dantian. In the state where the demonic aura is not concealed, demons can identify their kind by sniffing the demonic aura. And if the demonic aura is concealed cleanly, this demon cannot be recognized by its kind.
Concealing the demonic aura is not an inborn ability. It requires practice. For someone like Bai Ruan who has cultivated step by step on his own, concealing the demonic aura is a piece of cake. As a rabbit demon with low combat power, to avoid possible troubles, Bai Ruan has always been concealing his demonic aura 24 hours a day.
However, some demons are not very good at concealing their demonic aura.
The children of demons don't need to cultivate. They are demons from birth. These demons who rely on their bloodline to avoid cultivation are called second-generation demons by other demons. Second-generation demons, since they don't have the process of cultivating step by step, often have mediocre abilities. Not to mention using demon power to cast spells, they may not even be able to do something as simple as concealing their demonic aura properly. Lang Jingfeng was obviously this kind of demon.
This guy was not only a poor student in the human world but also a poor student in the demon world.
After finishing one grass cake, Bai Ruan took out two more grass cakes with a sad face and stacked them together to nibble on.
Lang Jingfeng's not concealing his demonic aura was a big problem, but if it was just that, Bai Ruan would also force himself to try to overcome his fear of his natural enemy as much as possible. However, the terrifying thing about Lang Jingfeng was not just that.
Bai Ruan had practiced cultivation with his Taoist master for several years. After the master left for his travels, he also left Bai Ruan many precious ancient Taoist books. Over the years, Bai Ruan had been exploring and learning some skills on his own. Two years ago, he learned to open the Celestial Eye with his demon power. After opening the Celestial Eye, Bai Ruan could see the merits and virtues on people and demons.
The merits and virtues appeared as a kind of smoke lingering around a person. For those with high merits, the smoke was golden or white, while for those with low merits, it was gray or black. For ordinary people who were neither good nor bad, their merits were so faint that they were almost invisible. And this Lang Jingfeng, at such a young age, had no idea how many bad things he had done. The negative merits on him were as thick as black ink. In the two years since Bai Ruan opened the Celestial Eye, he had rarely seen anyone with such low merits. As a result, his fear of Lang Jingfeng grew even deeper.
Snacks could relieve anxiety. After munching on a few grass cakes, Bai Ruan gradually calmed down and gave himself some psychological counseling.
As a homeroom teacher, he could never shirk his responsibilities as a teacher. He had to supervise the self-study classes as usual and teach Chinese classes well.
Moreover, although this Lang Jingfeng had a bad reputation and his merits were shockingly low, except for clearly not paying attention in class yesterday, he didn't do anything out of line throughout the day. It was something a teacher should absolutely avoid to deny a student's future possibilities because of his past mistakes. Bai Ruan adjusted his mindset and告诫 himself not to have preconceived biases.
After finishing the self-psychological counseling, Bai Ruan boosted his morale, brushed off the crumbs of the grass cakes from his body, walked to the dressing mirror, straightened his tie, smoothed his hair, and cleared his throat as he tried to put on a solemn expression.
However, what was reflected in the mirror was a face that naturally lacked solemnity.
Bai Ruan had a small face, fair skin, delicate and soft-featured facial features. He had a cute appearance. Coupled with his slender figure, he looked like a naive college student no matter how you looked at him. Even if he forced a solemn face, it would only make people find it amusing.
"Hu—" Bai Ruan was a bit helpless. He took a deep breath and walked into the classroom with renewed spirit.
Most of the students in Bai Ruan's class were self-disciplined. The few who weren't also quickly lowered their heads to read books the moment Bai Ruan entered the classroom. As a result, the "troublemaker" in the last row stood out even more—Lang Jingfeng had his hands in his pockets, his head against the back wall of the classroom, looking up with a handsome and arrogant face, staring blankly into the distance out of boredom. One of his long, straight legs was stretched out into the aisle with great swagger. The inky-black negative merits lingered around him, making him look even more terrifying.
Bai Ruan's heroic ambitions of "transforming the underachiever" dissipated to about the level of a fart the moment he stepped into the classroom. Under the physiological intimidation of the high-concentration demonic aura of his natural enemy, Bai Ruan was like an ice cream melting under the scorching sun, quickly collapsing and cowering into a puddle of sticky, sweet water. He glanced at Lang Jingfeng, intending to pretend not to see him at first. But at this moment, Lang Jingfeng's deskmate happened to look up at Bai Ruan.
Lang Jingfeng's deskmate was Zhang Tao, an honest, hardworking, and rigid boy. Currently, he was serving as Bai Ruan's Chinese class representative, usually responsible for delivering and collecting homework, handing out Chinese test papers, etc. He had quite a lot of contact with Bai Ruan.
Zhang Tao looked at Bai Ruan, then frowned and glanced at Lang Jingfeng. Obviously, he was quite dissatisfied with this carefree underachiever. His eyes were full of intense complaints!
Zhang Tao: "..."
Teacher Bai, please do something about my deskmate!
Bai Ruan was caught in a dilemma by Zhang Tao's look.
If he took action, his legs were already weak from the intimidation of the demonic aura. If he didn't, he couldn't explain it to a serious student like Zhang Tao. The rumor that Lang Jingfeng was a good-for-nothing rich second-generation who transferred to No. 2 Middle School through family connections had already spread in the class. Now, if Bai Ruan turned a blind eye to Lang Jingfeng's wrongdoings and applied double standards, wouldn't it make the students feel unfair?
I think you're just making it difficult for me, Little White Rabbit! Bai Ruan had no choice but to bite the bullet and slowly shuffle a few steps in Lang Jingfeng's direction. As soon as he moved, Lang Jingfeng, who was staring blankly at the sky, shifted his gaze and met his eyes.
When their eyes met, Bai Ruan's body froze instantly. He summoned up all his courage to stop himself from running away, but he couldn't control his facial expression and it slipped towards a breakdown.
So at this moment, what Lang Jingfeng saw of Bai Ruan was like this: A pair of bright black eyes were nervously wide open. Above the pointed chin were two slightly trembling, beautifully shaped lips. They moved as if wanting to say something, but cowardly closed again before making a sound.
He looked exactly like a novice teacher who was too scared to speak by a difficult student, a poor little thing that any bad student would bully if they caught the chance.
Lang Jingfeng felt a bit like laughing. He stared at Bai Ruan's face for a while, then his gaze swept down.
... The well-tailored shirt and belt made Bai Ruan's waist look very slender.
Bai Ruan's scalp tingled from Lang Jingfeng's look, feeling as if he was being sized up by a predator for the quality of his meat. Before his courage completely drained away, Bai Ruan nervously licked his lips, reviewed the casting process of the protective spell in his mind, and then said in a rather unnatural voice: "Lang Jingfeng, it's self-study time now."
Lang Jingfeng lifted his eyelids, and his gaze shifted from Bai Ruan's waist back to his face.
Bai Ruan was trying hard to think of what else to say to make Lang Jingfeng obediently lower his head to read books. But Lang Jingfeng slowly withdrew his long leg that was stretched out in the aisle.
"...I see, Teacher Bai." Lang Jingfeng spoke. His voice was low and magnetic, with a hint of lazy languor, as if he had just woken up. As he said that, he took his hands out of his trouser pockets, used two fingers to pick up a Chinese book from the desk drawer and threw it on the empty desktop, randomly opening a page.
Bai Ruan could hardly believe his eyes.
Lang Jingfeng curled the corner of his mouth and smiled at Bai Ruan, then rested his forehead on his hand and looked down at the text.
That smile was not a polite smile like a student's. On the contrary, on that handsome and arrogant face, there was an obvious air of "I'll give you some face since you look pitiful".
But no matter how he smiled, Bai Ruan was greatly relieved anyway.
Author's Note:
Lang Jingfeng: Saw a delinquent teenager and was so scared that he couldn't even speak.
Bai:... It's not like that.