Chapter 1.8

The chilly autumn wind blew past the school, and the biting cold was in stark contrast to the hot blood that Li Ming bled the day he died.

Ling Xia stood in the cold, taking the low temperature as a good omen. He would more than likely survive.

But that didn't mean he could slack off. He had plans, plans that would fail if not executed perfectly.

Ling Xia slung his backpack over his shoulder and rode over to the shortcut. He dropped his bicycle once he arrived, he couldn't very well bring it to the fight after all.

Ling Xia placed his back against the cold brick wall and leaned over to get a peek at the action.

The scene looked exactly like in Li Ming's memories.

A group of numbered people fought at a fast pace, kicking and punching each other. Ling Xia saw one brutally smash a pipe into another's head. It seemed very dangerous for any outsider to simply walk in without any preparation.

At the same time, Ling Xia also understood why Li Ming thought this part of the fight was safe.

The gang members intensely focused on fighting each other as if their gang's victory was a matter of their own life and death. The scene made it seem like a squawking duck could waddle right in, and somebody might trip on it stupidly in an effort to win the fight.

Just then, a gang member, from which gang Ling Xia didn't know, shifted his gaze over to the sharp turn in the alleyway, and his opponent, matching him, turned toward the opening of the alley, where the barely visible traffic lights illuminated Ling Xia's face.

Ling Xia whipped his head around and away from the sight of the person who might have seen him.

He knew that if that person really did see him, and they came over to interrogate him, it was over for him.

He tightened his grip on his backpack, bracing himself for what was going to happen and also readying himself, and turned the corner in one motion. He immediately noticed one man stalking toward him, and he sprinted at him, catching the man off-guard.

Fully taking advantage of his usage of the element of surprise, he continued running straight at the man, shoving him aside when he finally reached him.

A woman drew back her pipe for a swing at an opposing gang's member, almost accidentally hitting Ling Xia's side, but he dodged at the last second, making the tip of her weapon just barely graze Ling Xia's body.

His shirt, however, was dragged along as the woman continued to bring her pipe behind her.

The woman finally noticed the increasing amount of effort she needed to put in to pull her weapon back and glanced back to see Ling Xia's figure zooming by. Startled by the unfamiliar figure heading into the center of the fight, she shouted, "Hey! What are you doing here?"

Ling Xia kept silent and focused on running until he reached the corner. He came to a sudden stop, making his front foot bear his entire weight. He winced, thinking that he probably wouldn't be able to do any figure skating today. Though, if his plan worked, he would have no time to do any in the first place.

Ling Xia stopped looking at his foot and moved his gaze up. His pupils constricted and he felt his breath catch.

Who could have guessed the great disparity between the area behind him and the one in front? Compared to what Ling Xia was seeing, the place Ling Xia just ran through could be considered child's play.

Bullets were flying everywhere. Some people were engaging in hand-to-hand combat with knives in hand, but everybody had a gun in reserve that they could pull out at any given moment.

Bloodied bodies littered the floor. Ling Xia suspected that some of them had already left this world. Surprisingly enough, the scene was silent other than the sound of people bashing others' heads in and grunts from people getting their heads bashed in.

Ling Xia just stared at the chaos before him while formulating a plan in his head. His thinking was interrupted when a hand landed heavily on his shoulder.

Ling Xia whirled around. It was the woman who had yelled after him earlier. The woman's mouth was open, but Ling Xia couldn't hear anything he was saying.

His brain seemed to be working at twice the usual speed, his thoughts whizzing past, but it also seemed to be working twice as slow as his usual pace because he couldn't catch any of those thoughts.

Slowly, Ling Xia's brain caught on to what was happening, he did the only thing he could think of; he bolted.

He sprinted through the alleyway, dodging knives thrown his way and trying to stay as close to the wall as possible to attract the least attention, his one goal to get to the wall at the end of the alleyway.

A quarter way through, though, a strong gust of wind blew by, signifying that somebody tried to hit him. He froze, just for a moment, before trying to find the source. He searched through the mass of people, scanning anybody and everybody to know who he would have to watch out for.

There was only one person looking at him, staring even. He had bloodlust written all over his face, and his eyes shone with the maniacal glint of a beast hunting prey he knew he would catch.

Chu Yan was playing with him, Ling Xia realized. He missed that shot deliberately, just to toy with him.

Ling Xia grimaced.

Even when Ling Xia was the master of this body, Chu Yan still hated and targeted him. He had a hope, even if the chances were minuscule, that Chu Yan would ignore him this time around, so his job would be a bit easier.

Ling Xia figured Chu Yan somehow deduced that something about Li Ming changed, making him the Li Ming Chu Yan knew today, or Ling Xia as the readers better know him.

Or maybe it was just intuition from that wild beast locked deep within Chu Yan. Although it seemed to have been released…

But what Chu Yan could never imagine, his intuition wouldn't alert him to.

And what he could never imagine was that Li Ming's soul had been completely replaced by Ling Xia's, a person with completely different abilities, knowledge… and also values.

Acting on these values, Ling Xia continued running, making sure to duck behind as many other people as he could to prevent getting shot.

Truth be told, he didn't care about any of those people's lives because, in the end, they weren't real. If he cared, it would be like mourning in real life every time an NPC died in-game. It would just be ridiculous.

But back to the scene at hand, Ling Xia raced through the shortcut, 'accidentally' dropping his backpack somewhere in the middle. When he finally reached the other side, still using other people as shields, mind you, he seemed to have realized that he dropped his backpack.

The backpack, which had all of his tutee's learning materials for the day, was on the ground near some Crimson Moon members. If he lost his backpack, then that would make him fail to accomplish his goal of continuing to earn money from tutoring, a fake goal of course, to make his running back to get the bag more believable.

Before he even reached five feet of the bag, Ling Xia felt all the air leaving his body as he got punched in the stomach.

For once, he was glad that Li Ming's body was weak enough to be knocked out with one punch.

He clutched his stomach, and his body quickly crumpled to the ground. Even though his consciousness was fading, an unnoticeable smirk laid on his face.

'Hook, line, and sinker.'

...

An unresponsive body laid on its side on a cold cement floor, its neck drooping to the floor because there was no pillow to lay on.

The room had tall stone walls and a wooden door, looking a lot like a medieval cell with the exception of the bright white lights on the ceiling that could be switched on at any time.

Another discrepancy of the medieval cell look was that the walls were unbelievably thin, thin enough to let the quiet voices from outside in, almost as if the room was just a set to intimidate the prisoner.

"We're sure this is the right guy?" a gruff voice passed through the walls.

"Most likely. He matched the picture," a voice with an American accent responded, sounding completely exhausted.

The person with the deep voice, unsatisfied with the unclear answer, asked again, "So is this or is this not the right person?"

The person with the American accent seemed to have finally had enough and jumped up from her chair, bursting out, "I don't know, okay?! I've told you like a million times."

She took a deep breath to end her spurt of unnecessary anger, continuing with, "Look, the boss is gonna be here soon anyways, he'll be able to confirm it."

Oh, they most definitely got the right person. Ji Shengge definitely thought that Ling Xia had some dirt on the Azure Wolves from what happened in the morning. Some game-changing dirt, considering that they chased after him, but didn't try to kill him.

The talking from the two people outside was the sound that Ling Xia woke up to.

He opened his eyes slowly, trying to observe the room he had been kept captive in.

When he found that there wasn't enough light to see much, he shifted from his uncomfortable position to lying on his back, and the two conversing people outside immediately fell silent when they heard him.

"He woke up!" he heard the person with the deep voice urgently whisper.

Ling Xia paid no attention to their words and groaned. While he was out cold, the gang members had thrown him into the cell, and his right shoulder was the body part that first made contact with the floor. It was kept locked up underneath the rest of his body for the rest of the time he was unconscious.

Now, when he tried to move it, a dull pain ran through his arm, the same for when he tried to move his neck because he slept in the wrong position.

He blindly climbed up to a sitting position and rubbed the base of his still hurting neck.

Before he even got comfortable, he heard the door creak open, and his head snapped up to check the situation out.

Five figures entered the room, one of them moving to turn the lights on.

Ling Xia shrunk back when the bright light hit his eyes, moving his hand to cover his eyes in an attempt to stop the pain in his forehead. When his eyes finally adjusted to the light, he removed his hand and examined the people who came into the room.

It was Ji Shengge and his lot.

The person nearest to Ji Shengge seemed to have an assistant relationship with Ji Shengge. The way he stood behind Ji Shengge so dutifully resembled the marshal's assistant standing behind the marshal from the real world.

There were three more people, one that looked quite burly and strong with a tall frame, one that looked very similar to Rapunzel with long, blond hair that barely touched the ground, and one short boy that appeared to be the youngest of the entire group.

"Good evening," Ji Shengge's maybe-assistant greeted. So it was evening. That meant that Ling Xia was probably already fired.

"Hello." Ling Xia calmly acknowledged the man with a nod even though he was trying to compose himself and collect his thoughts.

Luckily, before the conversation could even get past that point, Ling Xia received an opportunity to think.

A phone rang, interrupting their talking. Ji Shengge, realizing that it was his own, pulled out his phone, read the name displayed on the screen.

Ling Xia watched as Ji Shengge's grip on the phone tightened when he saw the name of the person calling him. Ji Shengge's face showed unwillingness, but he slipped out of the room to take the call anyway, quietly closing the door behind him.

The sound of his footsteps fading away passed through the walls, and Ling Xia took this time to quickly organize his thoughts and make a mental plan of what he was going to say and when.

Ji Shengge's maybe-assistant saw Ji Shengge leave and looked back as if nothing happened and resumed the conversation. "You're Li Ming, correct?" The person didn't wait for Ling Xia to respond before following up with, "We have some questions for you. More like a question, actually. What do you know about the Azure Wolves?"

"I can tell you that their leader is not who you think it is." Ling Xia tilted his head to the side as if thinking about something, then revised his sentence. "Well, only technically. The current leader is basically a puppet leader."

"And who is this supposed true leader?" the same person asked.

Ling Xia's lips quirked up. "I can't just tell you that, now can I? That would mean I would lose my advantage in this negotiation."

"Negotiation? You think you have room to negotiate in this conversation? Listen up, you either tell us or face the consequences!" the short boy impatiently butted into the conversation, shouting rudely at Ling Xia.

Ling Xia quickly gave a better idea to both of them, "I'm sure it will be much more beneficial for you to keep me as a spy. I promise you, my information will be valuable."

The same short boy opened his mouth to talk but was stopped before any words could fall out. "Pan Qiu," Ji Shengge's maybe-assistant warned, simply calling out the boy's name in a dangerous tone, seeming more like an assistant every passing minute.

The boy, or Pan Qiu, obediently closed his mouth. The assistant returned his gaze to Ling Xia and intimidatingly yet curiously inquired, "How do we know that your information is trustworthy?"

Ling Xia shrugged. "I guess I could tell you why I want to help you?"

The four people stared at Ling Xia, and Ling Xia stared back. Ling Xia realized they were waiting for him to speak and casually told them to take a seat. "It's gonna be a long story, make yourselves comfortable."

Nobody moved.

Ling Xia opened his mouth and started his 'long' story.

"Well, it all started when I made my first friend. I go to a pretty famous high school, and I got in with a scholarship. Somebody else did too, so I quickly became friends with her(1) because of the things we had in common. We attracted a lot of attention because we weren't as rich as everybody else.

"My friend, in particular, became a very known person in the school. She made friends with some boys in the school, and the boys quickly fell in love with her. They were all obsessed with her. She started hanging out with them more and more, at which point I noticed something wrong. She seemed to be disinclined towards me.

"Thinking back on it, I don't think she ever saw me as a friend. Then, one day, I got a peek at her diary, and it had some… disturbing things in it. Remember those boys that all fell for her? Well, she was manipulating them, and me as well. She decided that my worth was all used up, so…"

Ling Xia paused and looked everybody dead in the eye. He took a deep breath. "She wanted to kill me. She influenced the Azure Wolves' gang leader into an attempt at my life."

Everybody looked stunned. Ling Xia almost scoffed at the sight. Were these people really the ones that were mercilessly killing others just a while ago?

Ling Xia knew that everybody had their own circumstances, that he had to look past the surface. Despite that, he couldn't bury his distaste for gangs and his reluctance to look to them for help.

Sure, there were many reasons for gang involvement and many reasons for gang creation, but that didn't change the fact that gangs were violent groups of people that manipulated others.

Being manipulated was something he despised… and feared.

Fortunately, this particular gang was willing to negotiate instead of forcing or coaxing the information out of him, which lessened his dislike for it.

He supposed he was a bit of a hypocrite when thinking this, considering that he was getting himself involved with the gang fully knowing all of this.

He almost chuckled at his actions before realizing that he was still in the middle of a negotiation. He snapped out of his inner dialogue mode and continued, "After I saw that…"

"You want revenge? You want us to help you kill her?" Pan Qiu filled in, thinking Ling Xia was just like all the others that tried to strike a deal with them.

Ling Xia shook his head. "No. I just want you to protect me from her." It wasn't Ling Xia's place to get revenge on Mu Ninghua for killing Li Ming.

"Why do we have to believe that this story is true? It could be false for all we know," a new person to the conversation, the woman with long, blond hair asked.

Ling Xia put his hands up in a defensive manner. "Don't look at me. That's entirely up to you to decide."

The four people frowned and went to a corner of the room to discuss, thinking Ling Xia wouldn't catch what they were saying. Little did they know, Ling Xia could hear a paperclip falling to the ground a mile away.

…Alright, that might have been an exaggeration, but still!

Ling Xia listened to the discussion, staring at the group of people, before the door opened once again, and the gang leader entered the room.

Ji Shengge had finished his call and came back to the room to hear what information his maybe-assistant had gotten.

"He told us why he wanted our help. He said one of his friends manipulated one of her friends into trying to kill him. That friend was their gang leader."

And that right there was why Ling Xia willingly gave so much information. He had never seen any of Ji Shengge's lackeys in school, so they had no idea that Li Ming really only had one friend, also Ling Xia's source of information. By giving Ji Shengge second-hand information, he only got the key points, which had less of a chance to give away who the behind-the-scenes gang leader was and make him lose his only advantage.

"I see," Ji Shengge replied. He turned to Ling Xia and said, "This might work. But… are you fine not having protection inside the school?"

Ji Shengge's friends looked at him incredulously. The story was so unbelievable, why would their boss take the deal? But Ji Shengge ignored their silent protests.

Ling Xia responded, "Ah, yeah, sure. I don't think anybody would dare play any tricks with the school authorities watching everybody like hawks." The school that Li Ming went to was very strict and had high expectations of everybody in both the academic and honor aspects.

They tried to make sure nobody made trouble at that school, though they always seemed to fail when it came to Mu Ninghua. It was like she had plot armor.

"Good, but the stream of information should be constant." Ji Shengge told Ling Xia his one requirement.

"Don't worry about that, I've got a reliable source of information that will supply me with everything I need to keep your protection." Ling Xia playfully added a wink at the end.

Ji Shengge nodded, and the five people showed Ling Xia out.

Notes:

1: In Chinese, although the written form looks different, the spoken form of he/she sound extremely similar(to the point of sometimes being indistinguishable), so when any character refers to another person using a pronoun that denotes gender, other characters aren't exactly sure of the gender of that person. Just to clarify, I'm pretty sure there's no difference between he, him, and his or she, her, or hers, so this is true no matter what type of pronoun(in English) a character uses.