Chapter 485: I Do Not Wish To Harm Them, But They wish To Harm Me (2)
During the past few days, some of the smurf accounts he used to act as new members had been secretly contacted by some other people. These people seemed to be trying to rope his fake identities into something. He wondered if these people were from different clubs or some other organizations. He even suspected that some of them were members of the Myriad Race Cult.
He had been using those smurf accounts to pretend as hot-blooded newbies who would occasionally give some extreme opinions, such as calling for the slaughter of the single character faction or the assassination of a bunch of people.
In short, those smurf accounts were pretending to be agents of chaos. As a result, those smurf accounts had all been contacted by these individuals. Perhaps these were the perfect recruitment targets for the Myriad Race Cult.
Naturally, Su Yu knew every single owner of those talismans despite the fake names they were all using for the communication. And these were precisely the people he had asked Hu Zongji to gather information about.
He only needed Hu Zongji to gather the easily available information about these people instead of deliberately asking about them. After a short chat, Su Yu left the teahouse.
...
With the arrival of November, the weather was starting to turn cold.
Walking amid the cold wind in his thin robe, Su Yu looked even more frail than before. With a pale face, he walked silently, looking completely inconspicuous.
He had been spending his time attending classes and cultivating in seclusion for a few days in a row.
While he was walking, he suddenly heard a furious voice. "Hey, get to the challenge ring! The foreign students are finally baring their fangs! They are challenging the top 100!"
"I thought they were trying to stay low key? Why are they suddenly doing this?"
"..."
All the students started to get agitated.
The same furious voice said, "Why else? It's because of Su Yu!"
"..."
Su Yu was dumbfounded. What? What had he done? He raised his collar to cover his face before following the crowd over. He was curious. How was this related to him? It had been a while since he last stepped foot near the challenge ring.
One of the students ahead of him asked curiously, "What did Su Yu do?"
"The fellow challenging the ranking claimed that Su Yu is her friend. She can't bear to see her friend being bullied. She said that the single character faction is clearly weaker yet refuses to let Wu Jia enter the ranking. Thus, she is challenging the ranking to teach them a lesson."
"Friend?" Someone asked in astonishment, "When did Su Yu become a friend of the foreign students?"
That was weird.
"How am I supposed to know that?"
"..."
When Su Yu heard the conversation, he cursed under his breath. What the hell was that? Who was scheming against him? What was the single character faction doing this time? Instead of wasting his time thinking, he raised his collar even higher and rushed toward the challenge ring.
Just why had someone suddenly pretended to be his friend? Was that person deliberately creating trouble for him?
The people of Great Xia disliked it when a human became a friend of the myriad races. In the eyes of many people, that was an act of consorting with the enemy.
What would happen if Su Yu was also a friend of the myriad races? Even those who had a good opinion of him before would probably start disliking him. They would think of him as a traitor.
"Damn it! Someone is plotting against me!"
Su Yu cursed to himself. He had been maintaining such a low profile. Why was someone still plotting against him? Was it the single character faction or were the foreign students the ones who had decided to do this?
Dragging him down?
Creating chaos to create an opening they could take advantage of?
Numerous thoughts appeared in Su Yu's mind as he rushed over.
...
Before long, he arrived.
A cloaked individual had just defeated another opponent in the ring. This defeated student was a familiar face to Su Yu. It was Zhu Hong, someone from the single character faction.
After defeating Zhu Hong, the cloaked individual said, "Su Yu is my friend. You guys have constantly insulted and slandered him while both him and his senior sister are injured. You humans have a saying. Those who insult others will end up insulted."
While coughing blood, the pale Zhu Hong said furiously, "Why are you fighting for Su Yu? Who is he to you? Is Su Yu making friends with the myriad races?"
The cloaked individual continued speaking with her crisp voice, "We are the allies of humanity. Since we are here in the academy, it means that we have won the approval of the human race. Why can't he be our friend? Su Yu is a kind and friendly man. He is not a bully like the single character faction!"
Zhu Hong said, "Friendly? Bully? That is the internal affair of humanity. How impudent of Su Yu! He has actually befriended the myriad races?"
"Like I said, we are the allies of humanity."
The cloaked individual coldly said, "If you continue saying these words, I will assume that you are insulting the cloud tiger race. Is this how the human race treats its ally? How disappointing."
As usual, Zhao Ming was the referee for the match.
He couldn't be bothered to get involved in their argument. Thus, he announced, "Xia Qing has defeated Zhu Hong to reach the 96th place in the ranking. Are you going to continue the challenge matches?"
Xia Qing! Exactly. This was the cloud tiger princess Su Yu had met at the Grotto District not long ago. Today, she was here to fight for him. Without even talking to him in advance, she had decided to fight for him and beat up some single character faction students.
Near the ring, Su Yu narrowed his eyes. Pure intentions? Fighting for a friend? Nonsense! Would someone capable of being sent here as a student be such an idiot? Would the myriad races send such a fool to get themselves killed in the Human Realm?
These people were all incredibly cunning. They had been staying silent and patient for several months after entering the Human Realm. Was they finally making a move? And he had been chosen as the opening?
But why?
Su Yu sank into thought.
In the ring, Xia Qing said, "I'll stop here today. I overheard this person talking bad about Su Yu previously. That was why I had decided to challenge him. I wouldn't have bothered with him otherwise."
Xia Qing's voice rang out clearly, "The cloud tiger race is willing to become friends of humanity. We are willing to ally ourselves with the human race. But we can't allow anyone to insult the friend of the cloud tiger race."
At this time, someone from the crowd yelled furiously, "I challenge you!"
Xia Qing said, "You are not Su Yu's enemy and I'm currently entitled to my three days immunity. I no longer need to accept any challenges before then. Thus, I refuse your challenge. If you insist, just consider it my defeat. We do not intend to climb the ranking."
"..."
The crowd was getting more and more agitated.
For them, the conflict between the single and multiple character factions was unrelated to them. They could enjoy the show without taking part in the conflict. But they couldn't stand it when the myriad races involved themselves in an internal conflict of the human race.
Xia Qing kept mentioning Su Yu's name. Amid the crowd, Su Yu's eyes flickered.
Suddenly, someone appeared beside him and asked, "Are you not explaining yourself?"
Su Yu looked over. It was Liu Hong. That fellow had appeared out of nowhere.
"What is there to explain?"
Su Yu replied with a gloomy voice.
While snacking on some sunflower seeds, Liu Hong smiled, "By befriending the myriad races, you are touching upon a taboo of Great Xia. Great Xia has spent many years fighting the myriad races. Although the human race has a lot of myriad race allies, to speak the truth, Great Xia does not have a lot of allies compared to the other prefectures. Most of the time, we fight alone. Of course, we still have some partners. The best example would be the sky horse race. But the people of Great Xia are very arrogant. They all view the sky horses as mere mounts instead of allies.
"When Principal Wan had suggested accepting the myriad races as students, even someone like him was called a traitor by the masses. A mere student like you won't be able to avoid the fate of being called a traitor as well."
Not to mention Su Yu, not even someone with the prestige of Wan Tiansheng could avoid being called a traitor when the myriad races were involved.
Su Yu asked, "So I should get in the ring and claim that she's not my friend? Would that even work? If I'm Xia Qing, I would immediately agree to that, claim that the whole thing was a misunderstanding, and try to look as pitiful as I can. At that time, my reputation will drop even further. Would anyone trust me?"
"And if I fight her, people will only say that I am heartless, attacking someone who had fought for me. The masses will start pitying the underdog."
Liu Hong smiled, "Looks like you understand everything."
"Is this the single character faction's work?" Su Yu looked at Liu Hong with suspicion.
Liu Hong smiled, "It is unrelated to me. But I don't know if it's someone else. This tigress is not a simple person. Have you interacted with her in front of some other people before?"
"Yeah."
Su Yu nodded. Some other people were indeed there during his previous interaction with her. Wan Mingze, Hu Qiusheng, Xia Chan, and Zheng Yunhui were all there. That day, he was waiting outside the grotto with the tigress right by his side.
He had not put much thought into it when interacting with her. He had only been friendly toward her just in case they needed to work together in the future.
Had someone contacted Xia Qing to plot against him after seeing that or was this Xia Qing's own idea? Or perhaps this Xia Qing was really such a simple person who was doing this to help him?
"In that case, you're in trouble." Liu Hong seemed to enjoy seeing Su Yu in trouble. He said, "Since there are witnesses, you will never be able to explain yourself. Of course, I know you must have been harboring evil intentions when interacting with her, but not everyone knows you like me. Thus, you will be in trouble regardless of whether you explain yourself or not. Hehehe. This is so interesting."