Chapter 237: Fight (1)
20th of September.
Su Yu applied for another day of leave. On that day, Zheng Yunhui also applied for leave.
In fact, apart from the two, a few other people were missing from the class as well.
...
Visitor District. Normally, this place did not have too many people.
There was a training center here. It was opened by an old instructor. It was a quiet place as it normally didn't get a lot of visitors. Today, visitors were coming one after another.
The instructor running the place was already quite old. He personally ran it instead of hiring someone to do it, and just as he was in the middle of moving a chair outside to sit under the sun, visitors started coming.
"Old Chen, is the third floor empty?"
The old instructor blanked out slightly. After a while, he finally recognized the visitor, "Manager Zhou, why are you here?"
Zhou Pingsheng smiled and said, "I'm only here to take a look. There will be a match between students here later. Don't let anyone know we're here, do you understand?"
"Yes, yes." The old instructor hurriedly nodded.
"Alright. We'll be going up. You can just stay here."
"Alright!"
The old instructor did not dare to say anything. This was a big shot. An old student like him who wasn't even in the Skysoar Realm couldn't afford to offend someone like that.
That was a Cloudbreach expert. He should be honored by the presence of someone like that. How would he dare to ask anything? Fight between students? He didn't care. He was just somewhat curious. Were they Manager Zhou's students?
The old instructor had not been paying attention to the matters of the academy for a very long time. Thus, he was unsure. But he decided to not think about it too much. After staying in the academy for so many years, he had learned to not ask anything when he shouldn't.
Not long after Zhou Pingsheng and his companion went upstairs, new visitors arrived.
Xia Huyou came with a middle-aged man. When they arrived, Xia Huyou looked around before saying, "Uncle, it's here."
The middle-aged man nodded and said nothing.
Xia Huyou walked up to the old instructor with a friendly smile and said, "Grandpa, do you have any other rooms on the third floor?"
The old instructor wasn't even looking at Xia Huyou. He only looked at the middle-aged man. His expression changed and he hastily said, "Yes! But..."
The middle-aged man said, "It's fine. We'll go up. We’ll compete fairly."
Xia Huyou's eyes flickered. He smiled and said nothing else. It was obvious some other people had arrived before them. The two went upstairs. The old instructor heaved a breath of relief. Why did he feel like something major was about to happen today?
Even that person was here!
...
Third floor.
Inside a large training room, Zhou Pingsheng frowned. Liu Hong's eyes flickered as he said, "Senior Brother..."
"Ignore them." Zhou Pingsheng snorted coldly, "This is the academy, not the Xia Trade Company."
Liu Hong said nothing else. He lowered his head while his eyes continued flickering. This was getting more and more interesting. He wondered if Bai Feng and Chen Yong were involved as well.
"Are these kids being instructed to do this or is this...their own plan?"
He had concluded that this whole thing was probably a ploy. Of course, to know if it was really a ploy, he only needed to wait and see.
A single Skybreak Technique willpower text had caused the appearance of divine blood essence and research data from the Wentan Research Center. The entire thing was too surprising.
And the two kids were truly bold. The value of the divine blood essence and the data was probably worth more than 100,000 merit points. These kids weren't even in the Skysoar Realm yet but they were already so good at creating trouble.
Liu Hong stole a glance at Zhou Pingsheng and inhaled deeply. Regardless of whether this was a ploy or not, the only thing he needed to do later was to…prevent the transaction from happening.
He no longer wanted to get involved in the transaction anyway. At this point, he was only aiming to earn as much as he could. And if he couldn't, so be it.
No matter what, he had to “prevent” the transaction from going through. He had to try his very best to stop it.
From Liu Hong's understanding of Zhou Pingsheng, he was a very conceited individual. The moment he decided that this was real, he would stubbornly insist on completing the transaction. He would even berate Liu Hong for trying to stop him or even try to push him out.
It didn't matter. It would be better if this fellow would erase all his contribution when reporting this to the higher ups. In any case, contribution wouldn't be of great help to him anyway. In fact, Zhou Pingsheng needed to thank Liu Hong for receiving news about this transaction so fast.
If Liu Hong hadn't deliberately bought stuff for Zheng Yunhui from the black market in a high profile manner, the tiny rumors Zheng Yunhui had spread personally would be completely useless. Nobody would take a kid like him seriously.
"The Xia Family is here too..."
Liu Hong started thinking. Perhaps...he could really make a lot of money this time.
...
In a teahouse opposite the training center.
Inside a private room in the teahouse, Chen Yong was drinking tea while looking at the opposite building with a pensive look.
...
Beside the training center.
Inside a restaurant, Jia Mingzhen and company were eating while chatting merrily, "Let's watch the show. It will be a good show. So what do you guys think? Is Su Yu really taking out the real deal?"
"Who knows?"
"Guess how many people are hiding nearby?"
"The number wouldn't be small," said a female elder. "The rumors have been spreading through the black market. I suspect even some people outside the academy have heard of this. The other academies, the military, the cult, and even those old geezers at the Foreign Students Faculty might have heard of it by now."
Jia Mingzhen wiped his oily mouth from all the eating and said, "I don't care about those people. I'm only curious if a certain geezer is here."
"No idea."
They roared with laughter. One of them said, "Is he going to raid them and seize everything if he's here?"
Jia Mingzhen said, "That's very hard to say. If the product is real, he might really show up. If not, then he might not. Do you really think that you can hide anything from him in the academy? If even us managed to get wind about this, that geezer is definitely aware. He has countless eyes and ears in the academy."
Jia MIngzhen hesitated slightly before continuing, "I suspect there is still a mastermind behind this whole thing. From my observation, that Zheng kid has been focused on dealing with the single character faction. But in the end, Liu Hong caused the rumors to spread when he was buying things for the kid. I even wonder if Liu Hong really didn't have those things in stock or if he was merely intentionally purchasing them from the black market to spread the news."
"Who knows?"
The group continued chatting among themselves. Suddenly, one of them said, "He's here!"
They all looked downstairs and saw Zheng Yunhui walking over with firm and powerful steps. A long saber hung on his back, denoting his status as a child of an influential warrior family. For someone like him, it didn't matter if he had a cultural weapon or not. He would still need to carry a martial weapon on him.
"Eighth-stage Great Strength Realm!" Jia Mingzhen said, "What a fine kid. Looks like the peace of the Top 100 Ranking will break next month."
His eyes lit up as he continued, "Is he...carrying the product on him?"
That piqued the curiosity of the rest of the elders. One of them smiled and said, "I can sense a faint aura on him. He's probably carrying it on him. He's really not holding back for this match. I wonder if Old Man Zheng is aware of this. If the kid really ends up losing...he will probably receive a beating from the entire Zheng Family."
"10 drops of Cloudbreach divine blood essence..." Jia Mingzhen said, "It's a pity these aren't Mountainsea blood essence. Otherwise, even I would be tempted."
"How many drops have he taken out of his family?"
"No idea. But he has definitely brought a decent number of drops. Or maybe all of them."
"Even Cloudbreach blood essence is pretty good since the divine race is too hard to kill. As for those we manage to kill, we might not necessarily be able to extract any blood essence from them. It's a pity this is not the blood essence of the original divine race. Otherwise, I'll probably get involved even if it's only some Cloudbreach blood essence..."
While they chatted among themselves, Zheng Yunhui arrived at the training center.
And a short while later, Su Yu arrived as well.
"Fifth-stage Great Strength Realm. He's not at the sixth-stage yet."
Today, the group of elders came prepared. With nobody paying any attention to them, they were able to act freely. One of them used an unknown method to determine Su Yu's cultivation method and smiled, "He's not weak. This kid has been growing very fast. No wonder he's confident enough to face Zheng Yunhui..."
He paused slightly and continued, "If he comes with a fake product, we will all be disappointed. But if he comes with the real deal...Then I'll feel even more disappointed."
They were now certain that Su Yu was a genius or even a freak. And yes, talent was important. But at times, one's moral standing and disposition was even more important. If Su Yu had really stolen the core research data of Wentan Research Center, he wouldn't be worth nurturing no matter how talented he was.
Even if Hong Tan and the others decided to spare him, the academy would still let go of someone like this. After all, nobody knew just what kind of person someone like this would become after gaining strength in the future.
Jia Mingzhen nodded and sighed, "I hope it's fake...but I doubt a fake product can fool those fellows."
They stopped talking. Their feelings were very complicated. If it was fake, then Su Yu had successfully played everyone for a fool. After all, so many different parties had arrived for the sake of his data. But if he was really here with the real deal, then his future was basically ruined.
Regardless of the result of the match, his future would be ruined. After all, that data did not belong to him. The data was a product of countless years of effort and hard work of Hong Tan and the others. How would anyone be willing to nurture a traitorous person like him?
"Can this perhaps be a ploy by Bai Feng and Chen Yong?" Someone suddenly asked.
"Impossible. They don't have the brains for an elaborate ploy like this. Bai Feng only knows how to fight while Chen Yong only knows how to endure. Hong Tan isn't even around. How would those two dare to do something this big?"
"True."
Once again, they sank into silence. After a short while, they all looked at Jia Mingzhen, who smiled and released a Divine Character. The Divine Character turned into a screen.
"I need to avoid Zhou Pingsheng's detection..."
As Jia Mingzhen said that, he released another Divine Character that wrapped around the screen, preventing the leakage of any aura.
Next, a different elder released a different Divine Character, "Track!"
The character vanished.
And immediately after, a scene appeared on the screen formed by Jia Mingzhen's Divine Character.
The sole female elder in the group smiled and said, "Let me give you a hand."
Yet another Divine Character appeared before vanishing. Now, sound was coming out of the screen as well.
Tracking, listening, and spying...
The elders demonstrated their special abilities.
At that time, someone else sighed and said, "Our group is really not suited for this kind of job. We don't have too many characters related to infiltration. We even need a few people joining hands to accomplish a simple task like this."
Jia Mingzhen did not seem to mind, "That's normal since this is not what we specialize in. If you really love spying, then just form more related characters. As for me, I don't have the time to spare for that."
They were all ready to watch the show that was going to unfold soon.