Chapter 3: That Was Embarrassing

"Challenge?" Wang Canghai repeated blankly. Liu Fengmian tilted his head in confusion, making eye contact with Zhou Rong, who simply stared at him back.

"Oh, alright then," Zhang Yiling said, rolling up her uniform sleeves as she advanced forward, forging a path straight through the students like a shark through a swarm of fish. "Show me what you're made of."

Wang Canghai suddenly ducked just in time as a fist flew over his head, snapping quickly as he felt the wind brush past his face from the force.

`She's fast...!` He thought, gritting his teeth. "I didn't—"

He was interrupted by another sharp snap of a fist, which skimmed his cheek just the slightest. Wang Canghai had a second to think, `I just need to remember what I learned over the summer`, placing both hands up, before he saw a grin flit over her face.

Then, a smash into his chin caused him to black out.

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"Wait! Stop!" Liu Fengmian yelled out, stepping in between Zhang Yiling and Wang Canghai's unconscious figure. "There must be a miscommunication! He didn't challenge anybody!"

Zhang Yiling flexed her hands, placing both inside her jacket pockets. "Really? Ah, sorry about that."

Liu Fengmian then kneeled besides Wang Canghai as he groaned, coming back to consciousness. He looked cautiously back at Zhang Yiling as he patted the other on the back.

"Relax," she said, grinning. "I'm not going to hit somebody I already knocked out."

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Wang Canghai hadn't remembered when he'd ended up on the ground, although he knew that he'd been thoroughly thrashed.

`What an overwhelming power.`

He had only felt this sensation from one person in his entire life.

That one person was Liang Shen—Liang Shen, who was a puppeteer, the burn of freezing ice and the lull of the wave before a tsunami, a devil with white wings and all hell to pay.

That girl, Zhang Yiling, was the other side of this uneasy dichotomy—a fierce, uncontrollable force of nature, a wildfire amongst a drought, eating up words and contact like dry weeds in a savanna.

`Thinking about him in this situation,` Wang Canghai thought as his eyes opened to the sight of clouds, ears ringing. `What a fool.`

"Sorry about that!" Zhang Yiling's cheerful face crossed his view, ponytail hanging over her shoulder. "Turns out you're not the one who challenged me. Guess I'll have to look a little harder, I suppose!"

Liu Fengmian's face also popped up suddenly, looking worried and holding up three fingers. "How many fingers do I have up? Wait actually, blink if you're awake. No, tap me if you are conscious."

"So do you want me to count, blink, or tap?" Wang Canghai replied dryly as he slowly got up, rubbing his chin. Liu Fengmian put out one hand, and he took it, standing up.

"Looks like your letter sender isn't coming," Liu Fengmian commented as Zhang Yiling walked over to the crowd surrounding the other two. "What was even the point of sending it then?"

"Maybe something happened to her. Or him. Either way, I'm not concerned about tha'."

The entire fight between Zhang Yiling and Wang Canghai had only lasted a few seconds, so Yang Guang and Song Wenbin hadn't yet moved—if that could have been called a fight.

`"The worst thing that can happen is winning your first fight,"` Wang Canghai thought, recalling those words from his internet friend. `I got ahead of myself.`

For a split second before he'd been knocked out, he'd thought that he could beat her, just like those boys from the alleyway. However, he hadn't realized the skill gap between them would be that wide. Letting his ego get the better of him, if even for a second, could only spell disaster.

"You guys can come out now," Song Wenbin called out, turning his head. Yang Guang looked confused for a second, before two familiar figures placed themselves behind Song Wenbin—Bowlcut and Monkey Face.

"You won't even face me yourself?" Yang Guang sneered, cracking his knuckles. "You coward."

"I never said it was going to be fair!" Song Wenbin replied cheerfully. "But enough talking, let's get on with it, Chen Zhu, Aiguo!"

"Hey, what are you kids doing?!" A teacher's voice rang, disrupting the tension—yet again. Wang Canghai found Yang Guang's steadily reddening face and Song Wenbin's surprise slightly amusing. Chen Zhu and Yin Aiguo, on the other hand, looked relieved.

"RUN!" Liu Fengmian yelled in Wang Canghai's ear, grabbing his uniform sleeve and pulling him towards the back fence that surrounded the school, including the track. Behind them, Wang Canghai could hear the noisy commotion that followed, a few students also dispersing via running, contrasted by the other students that stayed behind.

Wang Canghai removed Liu Fengmian's hand gently, although he nodded at the other boy to keep moving. "Why did we run?"

"I'm not getting caught today," Liu Fengmian replied, grinning over his shoulder as he grasped the fence, jumping over with ease. Wang Canghai did the same, dropping down besides the other boy as they continued. A few pedestrians glanced strangely at them, but didn't say anything.

"And I'm sure those thirty students were blind the entire time," Wang Canghai replied dryly, feeling the cold wind brush through his jacket. "We're not getting out of this one. In fact, you've definitely just made our inevitable punishment worse."

"Armies can conquer a general, but they can not rob him of his ambition*," Liu Fengmian dramatically recalled. Wang Canghai blinked slowly. `Did he just deflect my comment with a Confucius proverb?`

They skidded into an alleyway—the same one they'd met in, hanging red lanterns and all, before Wang Canghai replied with, "I don't see how tha' is related to our topic."

"A closed mind is like a closed book—it is but a piece of wood*," Liu Fengmian also recalled, grabbing onto the metal bars barring the apartment window and flinging himself up.

Wang Canghai paused at the foot of the window. "If you fall, I'm not catching you."

"Don't worry, I do this all the time! Come on, follow me!" Liu Fengmian's voice echoed back from above. "Since you've never done this before, step onto a bike, that rusty box thing, and then grab the protruding ledges and blocks to go up!"

"And why should I follow you?"

"...I'll stop saying proverbs?"

"I'm coming up," Wang Canghai swiftly replied, stepping on a bike. He apologized to the owner of said bike in his mind, before doing as Liu Fengmian said. His muscles strained from the effort of pushing past his soreness, though it didn't keep him from continuing forwards.

It was good that there were many pipes and air conditioning boxes, along with barred windows lining the sides of the brick walls—perhaps this was why Liu Fengmian had gone to the roof so many times before. Towards the end, he paused, catching his breath, as he readied himself to make the final leap to the top.

Liu Fengmian reached out with a hand, and he took it.

"Do you do this often?" Wang Canghai asked as soon as he'd made it onto the roof, glancing over to see the pedestrians walking on the sidewalks nearby and the motorcycles zipping through the streets.

"Yeah," Liu Fengmian replied, a gentle smile gracing his features, looking over the horizon as the sun melted from flaming reds and golds to cool purple. "I just really like the view."

Somewhere inside, Wang Canghai was a bit flattered he'd decided to show it to him, despite being almost complete strangers.

"...I see," he responded, letting himself relax. "It's quite beautiful."

And it was.

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Zhou Rong was standing in front of a figure on a park bench, who was twirling a pencil in between his fingers with a deft skill only seen by hours of practice. The entire park was bathed in a warm light, only contrasted by the deepening shadows as it spread over the flitting flashes of colored glitter in the pond.

"Yang Guang has connections to the school authorities," she stated, arms crossed. "He'll be immensely useful to you, but don't antagonize him too much."

"I don't need him to like me," Liang Shen laughed, legs in a figure four crossed position. "He'll be listening to my every word and command by the end of this week, Xiao Rong."

"Don't call me that," Zhou Rong snapped back, rolling her eyes. "But you realize it'll be better not to overdo it again? Like with that other guy?"

"Garbage patch? I never needed him for anything—he was simply a nuisance. Speaking of which, how's he doing?"

Zhou Rong paused, thinking.

"...He just sleeps a lot. He acts more like how he did when you first met him...but there's something different about him at the same time. Anyway, I sent the falsified letters to Zhang Yiling and Wang Canghai, and he was knocked out quickly. That's what you wanted, didn't you?"

"Indeed, but...I just had a great idea," Liang Shen sneered, red eyes flashing with anticipation. "I think it's about time I paid him a little visit."

Zhou Rong scoffed in reply.

"Do what you want."

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The next day brought the western winds, blowing fiercely through the front gates of the school and whirling around like a gale, flipping hats and hair around. The sun was out and about, shining just as readily as the day before, although the air itself shivered with the cold.

To Yang Guang's chagrin, it was also the day he repeatedly got interrupted whenever he had the chance to finish that fight against the coward, Song Wenbin. A teacher would always either come across them whenever Yang Guang had confronted the other, or they'd somehow weasel out of it—especially that monkey-faced kid. Yin Aiguo, wasn't it?

"Aren't you class four's ling xiu?" Yang Guang said as he stopped Yin Aiguo just outside of the tennis courts when he was shifting through his backpack.

"That's me!" Yin Aiguo chirped, pointing at himself. "Are you looking for Song Wenbin?"

Yang Guang suddenly kicked him, red hair flaring like flames against the sun. "No. I've already found who I'm looking for. Give me control over class four."

Yin Aiguo coughed on the ground, clutching his stomach, although he kept his ever persistent smile. "Sorry, no can do!"

"That wasn't a question," Yang Guang said, just as Chen Zhu walked across the scene. There was a moment where he looked at the battered sight of Yin Aiguo, and then to the pristine state of Yang Guang.

"Aiguo!" Chen Zhu called out, rushing to Yin Aiguo's aid. Then, slightly hesitant, he walked directly in front of Yang Guang. "That's enough!"

Yang Guang took out a flick knife suddenly, a sneer on his lips as he sliced diagonally. Yin Aiguo grasped Chen Zhu's shoulder in that split second and shielded him, the knife splitting past delicate skin and narrowly avoiding his nose.

"Aiguo!" Chen Zhu yelled again as he hit the ground, eyes wide.

Yin Aiguo stumbled back, eyes wide in disbelief as one hand swiped around his chin to reveal crimson staining his fingers. He was breathing harshly, though his infamous smile was gone.

Yang Guang twirled the knife around. He was familiar with the weapon, and knew that his fingers had no chance of getting sliced on accident. "We can keep playing around, if you two want. Or, we can do this the easy way."

"Don't do it, Aiguo, this guy's crazy! We can't let the class go under him," Chen Zhu said, tugging at Yin Aiguo's jacket. "We—we can..." He trailed off, not knowing what to say next.

Yin Aiguo pressed his jacket to his bleeding wound, hands shaking and a fearful look in his eyes. Still, he stayed standing.

"You know you're trapped," Yang Guang continued, taking a step forward. "Comply, and I'll let you two go—although your friend, Song Wenbin, won't be given that courtesy—or don't, and find out yourselves."

"I—" Yin Aiguo started, before looking back at Chen Zhu's face. Then, his familiar smile slid back on, albeit weak. "Class four is yours."

"That's more like it."

Yang Guang grinned, turning back on his heels towards the path around the side of the school, leaving Chen Zhu and Yin Aiguo behind.

"That's one out of nine classes down," a tall boy with tinted glasses commented from the side of the school, carrying a blue book titled, `100 ways to Clean Your House Effectively`. "Song Wenbin may be the ling xiu of class five, but that class hides dragons and crouching tigers*, so I'd advise you to watch out."

"Who are you?" Yang Guang asked, irritated, albeit a little cautious—the newcomer exuded a dangerous aura, seemingly hidden under a meek appearance.

Glasses, as Yang Guang dubbed, stepped on over slowly as the book clapped shut, a grin slowly appearing on his face.

"I'm class one's ling xiu."