In Donglin School.
Lian Fei found Yao Susu and said angrily, "I heard that Yang Qun called a group of classmates to pick on Lin Xun. Did you instigate this?"
Yao Susu seemed not to take it seriously and nodded, "I didn't do it, but I did have something to do with it. I just told Yang Qun that Lin Xun is a young prodigy who despises students of Donglin School, which makes me unhappy.”
Lian Fei’s face fell, "Then Yang Qun and his fellows were goaded into challenging Lin Xun?"
"Yes," said Yao Susu with a smile, "Yang Qun is irritable and pompous, and can't stand being provoked. I didn't even say too much. He just called some guys to pick a fight with Lin Xun.”
“Stupid!”
Lian Fei felt troubled. He was really annoyed, but he could not get angry with Yao Susu, feeling tight in the chest. His face got gloomier. “How can Lin Xun be an ordinary people as he has the ability to kill Tiger Lyu? Yang Qun and his fellows cannot defeat him! Is this not a behavior of inviting humiliation?”
"I didn't expect them to give Lin Xun a lesson," Yao said, "and on the contrary, the worse they hurt, the better."
Lian Fei was in a trance, keenly realizing this matter might not be as simple as he thought.
Sure enough, the next moment Yao Susu said, "Pompous and domineering as Yang Qun and his fellows are, all of them are from big forces in Donglin Town. Offending them is equal to offending these forces. Is it better for you to be against Lin Xun alone?"
Lian Fei almost cooled down and said thoughtfully, "So, have you planned to bring trouble to Lin Xun?"
“If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have done such dirty work,” Yao said, curling her lip.
Lian Fei, feeling rather touched, hastened to comfort her and said, “I am only a little worried about you, Susu. As Lin Xun is a ruthless and atrocious guy, how can I bear you being held against by such a little beast?” Yao Susu smiled and said, “You don't have to worry about me. I'm not afraid of this Lin Xun. Without you, I won’t even know there is such a person.”
Lian Fei suddenly realized a question, “By the way, how did you know about my feud with Lin Xun?” Yao was smug and a smile spread from her lips, “No one can keep what I want to know from me. Well, ignore these. Let's just wait and see what’s going on. The County Test will begin tomorrow. If Yang Qun et al. were seriously injured and could not take part in the test, many forces would inevitably be furious. At that time, Lin will have no mood or energy to parade his ability for more than a few days.”
Hearing this, Lian Fei could not help but think to himself. Yao Susu, a young girl seemed innocent and artless, but who would have thought she was so scheming and calculating?
A thrill rose in his heart at the thought of the incident to probably make Lin get into a serious trouble, and he did not forget the frustration and grievance he had suffered in the past days.
A sudden tumult rose from the distance, and Lian Fei and Yao Susu subconsciously looked in the direction from which the sound came.
A group of students were hurrying out of the school gate, and someone was shouting on the road.
“Be quick! Fellows of our school have been beaten and escorted to the front of the school with bound hands!”
“Damn it! How dare such a bully try to tease our Donglin School. Now I want to take a look at this madcap guy!”
A buzz of conversation ran through the crowd, making Lian Fei and Yao Susu speechless, and they wondered how the situation had become out of control. Lin Xun was so arrogant and rude. He was now coming to tease Donglin School, not to mention he just bullied Yang Qun and his friends!
They looked at each other, and came together to the school gate to find out what happened there.
……
It was around noon time. In front of Donglin School had stood so many on-lookers.
On the open ground in front of the gate were lying a dozen guys, all with tied hands and feet, swollen face, disheveled hair, and rags in the mouth, which was so miserable.
Of course, they were the students who asked for trouble in Courtyard 49 today.
Besides them, there were a dozen very old men and women standing on their knees and crying with runny noses.
Fatty Diao and the Bones were among them.
At the moment, Fatty Diao was angrily shouting, “Neighbors! Friends! Today we are forced to come here for a justice. Even if we are beaten to death by Donglin School later, we still have to say something!”
“These dregs from Donglin School came to Civilian Area to bully people, pretending to improve their cultivation in martial arts for tomorrow’s County Test. However, they beat everyone they saw on the street, including our families and friends! They are extremely merciless and cruel with no laws to their eyes! I just want to ask whether there is any law governing this world?”
Fatty Diao was full of righteous indignation and spoke vehemently with a distinctly moral tone, which made the crowd hear him clearly and start gossiping about this farce.
“They did walk all over us!”
Fatty Diao looked very excited, with tears in his eyes, pointed to one old woman whose teeth had all fallen out. “This is the old mother of my neighbor- Gou Sheng. She almost got raped though she is so old.”
His words brought on an uproar. Rape?! Who the fuck had gone blind to rape such an old woman?
Fatty Diao looked very sad, gnashing his teeth in hatred and coming to a teenager with tied hands, and then shouted wrathfully, “You may not believe it, but I swear to God, it is this bloke who nearly raped Go Sheng’s old mother. Young as he is, his sexual preference is really…disgusting! If I failed to get to Gou Sheng’s house in time, he…”
The teenager on the ground, with his eyes bulging and reddening from wrath, was struggling to say something but his mouth was stuffed with a smelly rag, so he could only make a whimper.
The old woman kneeling on the ground began to kotow until her head was broken and bleeding, so that the nearby onlookers could not help starting to doubt this was true.
Before the onlookers pondered on it, Fatty Diao pounding his chest, leaned back and cried, “My fellow countrymen, we are all poor people living in the Civilian Area. If it wasn’t for these dressed-up beasts who had pushed us too far, how dare we come to Donglin School to cry out our grievances?”
Hearing this, everyone nodded. These people were apparently small potatoes living at the bottom of the society. Generally speaking, they dared not come to Donglin School to make trouble.
There must be a reason!
At this time, many students had gathered at the gate of the school. Witnessing their schoolmates being bound on the ground, they look irritated. But, after all, they were still young and had experienced such a situation. After the burst of Fatty Diao’s crying in a bitter and desperate tone, everybody unavoidably felt skeptical about the whole thing. Was that true?
Someone intended to come up and save Yang Qun and his fellows, but was stopped by a group of old men and women, who seemed to say, “If you want to save them, firstly step over our dead bodies.”
Without cultivation, these old men and women, just like candlelight before the wind, were all ordinary people. It was not proper to hurt them in public since it was not good to the school’s reputation.
For students of Donglin School, it would be a shame to be accused of bullying the old.
Fatty Diao shouted again, “I will spare no effort in getting an explanation from Donglin School today!”
“That's right! The school should uphold justice for us!”
The Bones also screamed, “I heard from these dregs that being instigated by a student named Lian Fei, they deliberately ran to the Civilian Area. He looks down on the people living in Civilian Area, and said that nobody will care about our lives and it’s nothing serious to kill us. They just treat human life as no more than grass. It's horrible. How can they do that?”
As the Bones even knew the name of the instigator, people around become more skeptical.
At this moment, Lian Fei and Yao Susu just got to the gate. After hearing this, Lian Fei was stunned. What the hell! When did he say such stupid words?
Lian Fei looked sullen, and got to understand that this must be a revenge designed by Lin Xun.
Lian Fei’s lungs nearly burst with rage, since he did nothing. But he was framed, and did not know how to explain it for a moment. Public clamor can melt metals. That was probably a typical case.
Yao Susu's face was gloomy. She never expected that Lin Xun was so cunning and responded so quickly. He not only beat Yang Qun et al. up, but also faked up an excuse to draw the attention of Donglin School.
Even if it turned out to be a lie later, who would believe it at that time?
Yao Susu even could imagine that once spread, this story would be more absurd after being exaggerated and distorted by many people!
This was the rumor, a groundless accusation. After being processed by the ill-intentioned, various jaw-dropping versions would be disseminated. The more you explained, the more they would suspect that the rumor was true.
Fatty Diao and the Bones were still crying angrily. They had gone ahead regardless as they knew that the bigger the farce, the safer they would be. So they employed all their skills to stage this farce.
As time went on, more and more onlookers had gathered.
Watching all this from a distance of about 1,000 feet away from Donglin School, Lin Xu finally laughed silently and turned away.
It had become a big farce. No matter what the final result was, at least the sensation caused by the incident was enough to make the forces behind these dudes bothered for a while. If they really dared to deal with Lin Xun at all costs, it would thoroughly prove that all these rumors were true, and such a result was certainly not what the big bugs behind these dudes wanted.
“Fatty Diao and the Bones did perform very well just now, and they even staged a farce with the help of a dozen old-aged people, which was really an excellent idea, making the practitioners in the Donglin School fear and hesitate to react recklessly. However, they must have been hated deeply, and can no longer stay in Donglin Town. I need to find a way out for them as soon as possible...”
Lin Xun thought about it in a calm state of mind while walking away.
It was he who caused this ridiculous farce today. Even though the present risk was temporarily solved, he would be definitely found out to be the manipulator sooner or later.
But Lin Xun didn’t care about it. After the County Test, the first thing he would do was to leave Donglin Town for Green-maple County, to prepare for the State Test in March of the following year.