When Qing Ye followed the group to the alley entrance that Huang Zhiming had mentioned, by coincidence, Da Cao and his people were approaching from the opposite direction, coming face to face with them.
The last time Qing Ye had seen Da Cao was during the Du Qiyan incident. Today, Da Cao wasn’t wearing slippers but was wrapped in a thick black down jacket that looked quite warm, and surprisingly, he was wearing a pair of extremely warm snow boots – quite an unusual sight.
However, his expression remained that same slovenly look, making it impossible to tell whether he was smiling or angry. Qing Ye disliked dealing with people like him, whose faces were full of craftiness, making them impossible to read.
He walked up to Pang Hu, and though he was noticeably thinner, his presence wasn’t any weaker. He mockingly said, “Little fatty, you run pretty fast despite all that blubber. Why’d you stop running? The trophy’s waiting for you.”
Pang Hu’s hands at his sides clenched into fists as he glared at Da Cao, breathing heavily.
Xing Wu called out from inside the alley: “Pang Hu.”
Pang Hu was gritting his teeth, his chubby face quivering with anger. Xing Wu impatiently clicked his lighter with a “pat,” and only then did Pang Hu reluctantly unclench his fists. Da Cao’s mouth twisted into a sneer as he raised his hand and slapped Pang Hu’s quivering cheeks twice, contemptuously calling him a “dog lackey.”
The cold weather and intense running had already caused Pang Hu’s pores to dilate, making his face red. Now, being humiliated in front of so many people by Da Cao, his entire face swelled up like it had been boiled.
As Da Cao walked into the alley, Qing Ye finally noticed Xiao Ling Tong with blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, though he was at least still standing next to Xing Wu. The worst off was the person lying on the ground – he wasn’t wearing a school uniform but had a huge cross necklace that looked cheap, his killer punk style clearly marking him as one of the troublemakers from An Zhi Vocational School.
Xing Wu glanced expressionlessly at Pang Hu’s reddened face, then stepped on Cross’s wrist, twisting his shoe. Cross let out an agonized cry – apparently, he was the one who had hurt Xiao Ling Tong, and judging by Xing Wu’s rolled-up sleeves, he had already taught him a lesson.
Da Cao’s face immediately turned cold, and he cursed at Xing Wu: “I’ve been giving you face repeatedly, and you fucking dare touch my people? Get your foot off.”
Xing Wu kept his hands in his school uniform pockets, continuing to step on Cross’s wrist without moving. He grabbed Xiao Ling Tong and pulled him in front of Da Cao, his eyes devoid of warmth: “Giving me face means letting your people beat up my brother like this? It’s just a damn trophy – can’t handle losing?”
Da Cao spat and said coldly: “I’m telling you one last time, get your foot off.”
Qing Ye squeezed through to see Pang Hu’s teeth grinding audibly, his usually flabby cheeks now tense – like the Hulk about to explode.
She looked toward Xing Wu, who gave a cold laugh and lifted his head to look down at Da Cao, saying icily: “What are you going to do if I don’t?”
Just then, Qing Ye suddenly noticed an An Zhi student standing behind and to the side of Xing Wu giving Da Cao a signal. The next second, Da Cao suddenly swung his fist at Xing Wu. Almost simultaneously, Qing Ye saw the guy at the side pull something from his jeans pocket. She couldn’t even make out what it was, only seeing a flash of cold steel, and shouted: “Xing Wu!”
Xing Wu dodged Da Cao’s punch by turning sideways and hearing Qing Ye’s panicked cry, he immediately sensed something was wrong. Instinctively raising his arm to block, the knife that was meant for his body slashed his arm instead. Blood sprayed, and everyone froze. At that moment, Qing Ye felt her head explode with a “boom,” her vision turning crimson.
Xing Wu paid no attention to his exposed, bleeding arm and kicked Da Cao hard, sending him crashing backward onto the ground. In an instant, all the An Zhi students were stunned!
Xing Wu whirled around to glare fiercely at the knife-wielding student, who cowered and kept backing away. But just as Da Cao was getting up from the ground, Pang Hu, who had been standing next to Qing Ye, suddenly seemed to lose his mind. With a Tarzan-like roar, he bellowed: “I’ll fuck your ancestors back eighteen generations!” and charged at Da Cao, grabbing his neck with one hand and his leg with the other, somehow managing to lift Da Cao completely off the ground.
A 1.8-meter tall fat guy lifting up a 1.8-meter tall skinny guy – the scene was so shocking that the surrounding air seemed to freeze instantly.
Qing Ye suddenly believed what Xing Wu had said – Pang Hu didn’t stutter when he got excited, even cursing so fluently.
No one knew what he was going to do, even Xing Wu looked at Pang Hu in confusion. But the next second, Pang Hu slammed Da Cao onto the ground like a dumbbell. For a moment, the whole earth seemed to shake, and Qing Ye could visibly see Da Cao bounce once on the ground, raising a cloud of dust.
A row of crows flew overhead as everyone stared in disbelief. With a “clang,” the knife-wielding guy dropped his weapon and stared at Pang Hu in terror, as if looking at a monster, completely paralyzed with fear.
Qing Ye could hardly believe her eyes. In all the time she’d known Pang Hu, he’d always been that foolish-looking guy who never got angry no matter how much people teased him, so good-natured he seemed to have no temper at all. This was the first time Qing Ye had seen Pang Hu explode, and such a Tarzan-like explosion at that – his combat power was off the charts!
The air remained still for about two seconds before they suddenly heard a megaphone behind them. Many teachers wearing red armbands rushed over, with Teacher Zhu’s voice being the loudest, shouting: “Everyone separate! Is any student injured?”
Then he saw Da Cao lying on the ground and crouched down concernedly to ask: “Young man, can you still move?”
Da Cao pushed away Teacher Zhu’s hand and cursed with a black face: “Get lost, you dead baldy.” Then he staggered up, supporting himself against the wall.
In all his years of teaching, although Teacher Zhu had argued with students before, he’d never been cursed at like this by any student. He immediately raised his megaphone and shouted: “You ungrateful brat, you’re asking for it, just wait until your parents…” (in dialect)
This outburst not only the teachers and students in the alley but also the continuous stream of onlookers outside coming to watch the commotion. The entire street suddenly fell silent. Qing Ye never expected that when Teacher Zhu got excited, he’d burst into dialect. Although she couldn’t understand a word, judging by his manner, he was cursing.
Da Cao had always walked around An Zhi like he owned the place, not even respecting school leaders. Being suddenly cursed out by a bald teacher from An Zhong while being pointed at, he immediately got fired up and went to attack Teacher Zhu while holding his waist. Teacher Zhu didn’t hesitate, raised his megaphone, and brought it down on him, his voice cracking: “How dare you?”
The An Zhi teachers came up to break up the fight, hurriedly separating the two groups. Teacher Zhu turned around and shouted again: “Are any of our An Zhong students injured?”
Everyone looked at Xing Wu. Teacher Zhu walked a few steps to Xing Wu, saw the knife on the ground, and said anxiously: “You need to get that treated right away. Who will accompany Xing Wu?”
“I’ll go!”
Qing Ye forcefully squeezed through the crowd of boys. When Teacher Zhu saw it was Qing Ye, he solemnly instructed her: “Alright, you accompany Xing Wu to get his wound treated first, and ask the doctor if he needs a tetanus shot.”
“Okay, I understand.”
Qing Ye immediately supported Xing Wu’s injured arm like she was helping an elderly person, and concernedly said: “Let’s go now, take it slow.”
Xing Wu looked down at her exaggerated expression, a string of ellipses running through his mind.
Just as they left the alley, Pang Hu and the others called out from behind: “Teacher Zhu, can we go to the hospital with Xing Wu too?”
Teacher Zhu shouted through his megaphone: “He’s the one who’s injured, none of you are going anywhere. Whether you’re from An Zhong or An Zhi, you’re all coming back to school with me for investigation.”
…
To be fair, Qing Ye’s show of concern in front of Teacher Zhu wasn’t entirely fake. As soon as they left the alley, she immediately lifted his arm and asked: “Does it hurt?”
Xing Wu said helplessly: “If you lift it any higher, it’ll hurt more.”
“…” Qing Ye quickly and carefully lowered his arm, not daring to touch him again.
She moved to his other side and kept urging him: “Walk faster!”
His arm was still bleeding, but he remained composed, while Qing Ye was as anxious as an ant on a hot pot. Although she was supposed to be taking him to the hospital, she didn’t know the way, basically following behind Xing Wu as he took shortcuts through the alleys. The alley was very narrow, with Xing Wu walking in front and her following behind, watching his back. His tall figure almost completely blocked the light ahead, filling her vision.
Xing Wu suddenly felt Qing Ye, who had been following behind, pull at him. He turned around to see Qing Ye’s anxious, flickering eyes. She didn’t say anything, just looked up at him like that, but Xing Wu knew she was scared. It was the first time he had seen such fear in Qing Ye’s eyes. Thinking of how she had called out his name in panic when the knife appeared earlier, Xing Wu’s heart suddenly clenched completely. He turned around and pulled Qing Ye into his embrace, wrapping one arm around her, domineering yet gentle as he said: “I’ll be fine. I’ve been in fights like this since I was little – haven’t you heard that bad people live forever?”
Qing Ye buried her face in his chest. Xing Wu sensed her unease and released her to lift her chin: “Worried?”
Qing Ye looked at him with complex emotions and said: “Next time, can you try solving things differently? I just… feel so anxious.”
Xing Wu suddenly laughed: “Solve it how? Have a heart-to-heart talk? Do you think anyone would listen?”
Seeing Qing Ye’s serious expression, Xing Wu frowned and looked at her earnestly: “When everyone around you solves problems this way, if I don’t use the same method, I’ll end up like Xiao Ling Tong, getting beaten while standing there. Do you think I’d let others hurt me?”
Qing Ye understood the logic; she knew very well that Xing Wu’s influence in the Zha Zha Ting area meant he must have been in countless fights like today’s. But ever since she saw that person thrust the knife at Xing Wu, she felt her heart stop. She hadn’t felt such fear in a long time – not since she watched the doctor cover her mother with a white cloth.
Suddenly, Qing Ye clutched Xing Wu’s clothes with distress, like a drowning person desperately grabbing onto a life-saving piece of wood. She never knew she was so afraid of something happening to Xing Wu. Although he was still standing here perfectly fine, that lingering fear threatened to overwhelm her.
Xing Wu stroked her hair and said with forced lightness: “Big sis, can you let me stop the bleeding first? I’m about to die from blood loss.”
Actually, his wound had mostly stopped bleeding, but that one sentence still made Qing Ye extremely nervous. She immediately straightened up: “Then hurry!”
Xing Wu took her directly through an alley to Doctor Zhuang’s clinic – the same place where he had carried her when she fell down the stairs at his house when she first arrived here.
The old man looked at Xing Wu’s wound as if it were a common sight, had him sit down, and began disinfecting and stopping the bleeding. Meanwhile, Qing Ye anxiously asked from the side: “Does he need a tetanus shot?”
“Doctor, aren’t you going to give him a tetanus shot?”
“Isn’t a tetanus shot necessary?”
Finally, Doctor Zhuang looked at Xing Wu, who helplessly touched his forehead. The doctor sat down and wrote a prescription: “For a wound of this severity, after treatment, it’s not necessary, but if you insist…”
“We want it,” Qing Ye immediately interjected.
So Xing Wu was arranged to get the shot. He rolled up his entire sleeve and offered his arm to the doctor giving the injection. Then he looked up at Qing Ye, who had practically pressed her whole body against the needle, and said with a slight smirk: “Are you deliberately trying to make me suffer? If you…”
Before he could finish speaking, Qing Ye suddenly wrapped both hands around his head, pressed them against her chest, and said: “Don’t be afraid, be good.”
“…”
At that moment, the needle went in, but Xing Wu didn’t notice at all because his face was buried against her stomach, his nose filled with her sweet scent, making his blood rush – probably causing his wound to strain again.
After the injection was done and Qing Ye released Xing Wu, the young man who had given him the shot was staring at him like he was some kind of pervert. Xing Wu turned around with a dark face, pressing the cotton ball to his arm. Qing Ye stood in the corridor with her hands in her school uniform pockets, smiling harmlessly at him, her clear features and slightly swaying ponytail making her look like a mischievous little girl.
So Xing Wu stood up and walked toward her with a stern face. Qing Ye suddenly stopped smiling. His tall figure approaching carried an irresistible presence, and since he looked quite terrifying when not smiling, Qing Ye just stood there watching him. Xing Wu directly grabbed her hand and strode out of the hospital.
Qing Ye called out: “Hey, press the cotton ball longer!”
As they passed a trash can, Xing Wu threw away the cotton ball. Qing Ye knew he was going to seek revenge after discarding it, so she ran ahead first. Sunlight filtered through the narrow alley from above, its rays falling on her ponytail, making it sparkle brilliantly as it swayed. Xing Wu followed behind her casually, calling out: “I won’t do anything to you, stop running.”
Qing Ye turned around, walking backward at a distance from him, saying defensively: “Then promise you won’t take revenge on me.”
Her cheeks were tinged red in the sunlight, her school uniform zipper pulled up to her collar, her fair and beautiful features radiant and captivating.
Under his thick eyebrows, Xing Wu’s eyes softened as he smiled and said: “No revenge.”
Qing Ye looked at him skeptically and stopped running. Xing Wu strode toward her with his long legs, his lips curling up. Qing Ye suddenly sensed an aggressive aura, and just as she was about to run again, Xing Wu’s long arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her into his embrace as he bent down and directly sealed her lips with his. Qing Ye’s heart instantly jumped to her throat, and any thought of escape completely melted away under his domineering kiss.
The winter sun gently gilded their figures as Xing Wu’s gentle tongue explored every corner of her mouth, turning and lingering like handling a precious treasure he couldn’t bear to let go. He kept his eyes open, the tender light in them gradually melting Qing Ye. She softly yielded to him as his large hand caressed her waist, making her body tremble slightly.
Her response made Xing Wu’s breathing gradually become hot, moving from gentle to passionate. He suddenly pressed Qing Ye against the wall behind her, deepening the kiss continuously, capturing her breath. Just as they were caught up in the passionate moment, they suddenly heard hurried footsteps, followed by a “clang!” They abruptly separated and turned their heads to see… Huang Mao was completely paralyzed with shock.
…
Speaking of where Huang Mao had been at this time, we need to go back about an hour. When Qing Ye ran back to find Pang Hu and the others, Huang Mao had just gone to find a bathroom due to stomach trouble. When he returned after solving his stomach issues to find Pang Hu and the others, he learned that An Zhi students had hurt a male student from Class 2, and Pang Hu and the others had gone to confront them.
How could Huang Mao tolerate this? How could such a chance to demonstrate heroic spirit miss the battlefield of Hao Chenggong? So without another word, he ran all the way to find Xing Wu and Pang Hu.
However, the situation was quite chaotic at that time, and neither Xing Wu nor Pang Hu answered his calls. He asked someone on the way if they had seen Xing Wu and the others, but whoever gave him directions must have pointed wrong because Huang Mao just kept running frantically. He should have turned at two more intersections to meet Pang Hu and the others, but he ran so fast that he completely overshot it.
The crowd thinned out along the latter part of the route because everyone had gone to the alley to watch the conflict between the two school bosses. Huang Mao wondered why he hadn’t met anyone along the way when he saw a red line on the ground ahead. He charged right across it, causing the An Zhong school leaders to erupt in excitement. Somehow the trophy was inexplicably handed to him, with Principal Zhong enthusiastically grabbing his hand for a commemorative photo, asking him to smile.
Heaven knows how confused Huang Mao was when he held that first-place trophy, forcing himself to show eight teeth in a smile.
The student council had even arranged for some young reporter from the broadcast station to interview him and ask for his acceptance speech. But how could Huang Mao have any mind to give an acceptance speech? He just said four words to the camera: “Pure skill and ability.”
Then he ran back again. Pang Hu and the others, all disheveled, were being taken to school. From far away, they waved at Huang Mao, telling him not to come over – what would be the point of getting needlessly involved and possibly getting disciplined?
So Huang Mao could only go find Xing Wu, especially after hearing he was injured. He rushed anxiously to the clinic, where old Doctor Zhuang said they had just left, so Huang Mao, carrying the trophy, took his familiar route back to find them.
And so that “clang” was the sound of the trophy hitting the ground.