Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
The bunch of people was obviously split into two groups; they left a rather big gap between them that I used to see what was going on.
The first thing that caught my eye was a rather fed-up young person. From his clothes, he looked like a rich boy who could easily use cash to buy an apartment within the top three districts of the city. Behind the young person stood two other students that seemed to be roughly his age.
Based on the laws of natural selection and—more importantly—the expressions on these two students’ faces, I guessed that this was a nouveau riche youngster leading his two underlings. Facing these three people was a boy who was looking rather nervous and evasive. From memory, this boy was a second-year high school student from my school.
I couldn’t take it: this was textbook bullying, and I couldn’t believe that I was actually witnessing something like this in person.
Although Cang Lan Private High School and District K Second Middle School were so close to each other, bullying cases were rather rare. As much as this private school was for the rich, it was a school that was known for being very strict with discipline. Furthermore, the rich boys and girls in this school were also not as hopeless as people imagined. To these rich boys and girls from Cang Lan Private High School, good quality education was essential for them.
This meant that true-blue rich students in this school would not be as unruly and take advantage of their power and status to bully others; they might actually be kinder and more polite than one might imagine. However, there was one subgroup that had to be mentioned separately: the nouveau riche and the morons.
Although I couldn’t tell exactly whether the students in front of me were the former or latter, it was my first time seeing this kind of bullying taking place. Regardless of whether these rich boys would receive any disciplinary action from their school afterward—from the looks of it, the boy in front of me was going to get it bad today. After all, from a numerical point of view, he was outnumbered.
Although many others were gathered and talking among themselves, not one person stepped up to intervene.
Most students from my school didn’t dare to get involved in this. Although many from Cang Lan Private High School felt that this rich boy’s actions were rather despicable—from the looks of it, they did not want to find any unnecessary trouble.
How unexpected, that such an unpleasant matter would happen first thing in the morning.
“Ah Jun,” Qianqian lightly tugged on my clothing and said softly. “Let’s go; don’t cause trouble.”
I gritted my teeth as I lowered my head and started looking for a brick. Qianqian gave me a harder tug this time; I knew that there wasn’t much I could do with a brick as I finally sighed and turned to leave.
It was evident what was going to happen even without guessing. Any random reason could be a cause for a one-sided attack or humiliation by the trio towards the lone student. Following that, that irritated and fed-up youngster would be perversely entertained by his actions. As for the unlucky person from my school: he could only count himself unlucky. I did not know how this conflict had arisen; however, I was certain that the end result would not be in question.
Honestly speaking, it wasn’t that I wasn’t sympathetic or didn’t have a sense of righteousness. However, as an ordinary student facing such a situation, there was nothing I could do. Perhaps if I held onto a brick, I might unexpectedly be able to cause some damage. However, big trouble would follow; and I might even implicate my big sister. For poorer folks like us, life was never easy.
Just that… I could not let go of this feeling of being aggrieved; would I feel better if I threw a brick somewhere where no one was present?
After leaving the crowd, I turned and looked at that rich boy one more.
“Sigh,” I said in a low voice, “I really want to beat him up.”
I was just speaking casually; however, once my words were spoken, there seemed to be a ‘click’ in the depths of my brain. I shook my head, slightly dazed—thinking that I was hearing things. However, that ‘click’ sound was very crisp and seemed to really be coming from the depths of my mind.
I suddenly felt a pang of dizziness as that gray and metallic world that I dreamed about daily suddenly surfaced in my mind, and a voice rang out in my consciousness.
“Receiving external instructions… authorization confirmed… analyzing unclear instructions… execute… target confirmed, deploying overhead long-range attacking system. Preparing for a probing attack, launch!”
As that voice in my mind ceased—from the corner of my eye, I noticed a translucent pillar that was as thick as my arm suddenly descending from the skies like a stream of water. It then soundlessly disappeared among the crowd and under that nouveau riche boy’s feet.
No one seemed to have noticed that light pillar; everyone’s attention was concentrated on the few boys in the middle of the circle. That translucent ‘pillar’ seemed to have been completely ignored. Normally, I would not have realized such an intricate detail myself. However, for some reason, I could clearly map out the trajectory of this ‘stream of water’.
Subsequently, I discovered that the spot that ‘stream of water’ had disappeared; and a dark-red small hole was in its place. Around this hole, the melted ground started to flow into this hole that had been made in the ground.
What on earth was this? A supernatural phenomenon? A spiritual encounter? Contact with aliens? Had extraterrestrial beings’ fuel canisters leaked? Did the Celestial Emperor in the sky just take a leak?
All sorts of ludicrous explanations surfaced in my mind instantly. My bad habit since young was letting my imagination run wild; I couldn’t be kept free for too long. However, not even I could believe all these explanations I had thought of; and I concluded that what I had seen was probably a figment of my imagination. As I reassured myself, what happened next made me confirm that what I had witnessed had indeed occurred.
That rich boy took a step forward and looked as if he was about to personally beat my schoolmate up. However, his foot stepped right on that small tiny hole in the ground.
A few seconds later, a bitter screech rang out, “Ohhhhhhhh!”
Clothing material was easily flammable, and the patch of ground that had been melted by the mysterious energy had been heated up far hotter than cloth’s burning point. In a second, that rich boy’s trouser had caught fire; and it instantly spread to his entire leg. In an instant, an uproar broke out as many spectators hurriedly rushed forward to help. Some students, who were slightly further away, immediately took out their phones to take pictures. The captions they wrote were like this: ‘I am at the school gates, and someone had self-immolated!’
However, I could not bother to pay attention to the chaos.
The voice that kept on ringing out in my mind was making me very flustered.
“Probing attack completed… recalculating… recalculation complete. Switching to normal attack mode… charging up primary weapon attack array… charging up secondary weapon attack array… all preparations completed. In ten seconds, all combat units to automatically fire. Ten, nine, eight, seven…”
Regardless of what was happening, one thing was certain: something bad was about to take place!
One probing attack to test accuracy could burn a hole in the ground; if an actual attack was fired, my school would probably finally be able to go on the Central Broadcast TV Channel… as a fire incident or an explosion case.
No, hurry up and stop!
I cried out in my heart. However, regardless of how earnestly I tried, nothing worked. The countdown clock continued to beep as I started to break out in cold sweat from anxiety.
How do I control this?
“Ah Jun, what is up? Why do you look so pale? Qianqian realized that something was amiss with me as she hurriedly asked. However, I did not have the energy to reply.
Damn! Damn! What on earth is that thing! Why is it not listening to me now!
“Six, five…”
Cold sweat continued to trickle down my cheeks.
“Four, three…”
“Qianqian!” I hurriedly yelled as I pulled her and ran away… despite guessing that at our speeds, it would be very hard to escape the so-called primary and secondary weapon attacks.
Be that as it was, I couldn’t let anything happen to Qianqian because of me!
“Ah Jun, what’s up…?” Qianqian was frightened by my actions as she couldn’t help it but ask.
“Two, one…”
A dizzy spell struck me as everything became pitch-black.
Qianqian’s flustered cries vaguely traveled towards me.
“Critical systems error, external instructions error received… authorization lost… overhead long-range attacking system halted…”
Damn it, what on earth is this?! It hurts so bad!
This was the last thought that I had before I passed out.