Zero, out of breath, pushed Jing Yuan all the way toward the little condiment station.
Jing Yuan grinned roguishly, "Hey, I just thought you might not be able to handle it alone…"
Zero, "…Thanks, but actually, I know your master."
Jing Yuan froze, immediately leaning closer to ask.
"Eh? How do you know each other? Tell me more."
No wonder Jing Yuan was curious about this.
On the battlefield, Jingliu, with sword in hand, could charge alone into enemy ranks, cutting in and out seven times over.
Her sword strikes were unstoppable, even the sword-aura itself struck fear into enemies, forcing them to avoid her edge.
In the Cloud Cavalry, full of talent, no one could match her pace.
Off the battlefield, once she took off her shoulder guards and returned to daily life, Jingliu still didn't waste words.
When it came to socializing, she copied her battlefield style, utterly solitary.
Friends who could chat comfortably with the Swordmaster could be counted on one hand.
As Jingliu's disciple, Jing Yuan naturally knew his master's personality, and he'd already met every one of the friends she acknowledged.
So when this Zero suddenly popped up, and coincidentally happened to be a friend Jing Yuan had known back at the academy, he couldn't help but feel curious.
"We were drinking, I just happened to run into Baiheng and Jingliu, we sat together, and that's how I met her."
Zero, multitasking, stirred up his sesame paste dipping sauce while casually recalling Baiheng's likes, and brushed Jing Yuan off with a half-hearted reply.
Jing Yuan had already mixed his sauce, and was now holding a plate of meat to cook. Hearing that, he immediately saw through the perfunctory attitude, and without thinking said, "Something's off."
Jing Yuan thought, both Zero and his master, something's off about them.
"…What's off about it? Even a shut-in occasionally socializes."
Zero just felt baffled.
Jing Yuan clicked his tongue.
He considered himself the person who understood the other's temperament best.
In outsiders' eyes, Zero was a Diviner slacking off, living on a dead-end wage, determined to just coast through life.
He called himself an anti-social shut-in, and as far as Jing Yuan had seen, there weren't many friends he could really talk with.
If Zero wanted, he could make friends with countless people, but he simply refused to form close bonds.
To be friends with Zero, Jing Yuan could say he'd gone through no small effort.
After spending time with him, Jing Yuan realized just how many layers Zero had, like an onion. You had to peel away the disguises layer by layer before you could glimpse a few bits of truth.
At his core, he was someone of extreme indifference to everything.
And people like that, when they cared about nothing, once you provoked them… their counterattacks came in endless patterns.
For example, back when they were still students, as one of those "noticed by the Arbiter General," Zero's behavior made the Xianzhou people sigh.
Compared to the other prodigies of the same year, Zero became the target for some peers to vent their dissatisfaction, or rather, to show off their fists.
They started tampering with his homework, setting up clumsy traps anyone could see through.
But Zero, the thorn in their eyes, stayed oblivious, which only made their resentment grow worse.
Even Jing Yuan, not in the same grade as him, had heard about this.
One time, when Jing Yuan tried to take a shortcut home, he stumbled right into Zero being confronted by them, cornered in a rarely-trodden alley.
At that moment, Jing Yuan secretly cursed those people's malice. If he hadn't just happened to come across it, who knew how badly Zero would've been bullied.
He was filled with righteous anger, but didn't let it cloud his head.
He couldn't alert them.
If they noticed an outsider, their cruelty would only worsen.
Jing Yuan found a blind spot outside their line of sight and made hand signals at Zero, trying to get him to stall the group while he ran to get help.
But Zero, standing in the eye of the storm, saw the white-haired boy frantically waving and signaling. He chuckled softly.
Then he said flatly, his face calm, "So this is campus bullying."
His tone was so even, he didn't sound like a victim at all, more like a scholar observing some new phenomenon, curious to study it further.
Jing Yuan's heart sank.
Sure enough, with just that one sentence, Zero provoked the so-called tough bullies.
Some couldn't stand the way Zero looked at them like monkeys in a circus, and immediately wanted to throw punches.
Others seemed intimidated by his confident bearing, thinking he might have something up his sleeve.
Seeing this, Jing Yuan couldn't hold back anymore, and yelled out loud, "Cloud Cavalry officer! Over here! There's a fight!"
The bullies who'd been spooked thought they saw through the trick. They instantly grabbed the one about to swing and snarled, "You just wait for us!"
With that, they all bolted.
Zero strolled over slowly to Jing Yuan, looking at this white-haired boy barely reaching his chest, forehead drenched with cold sweat.
"Little brother, short on height, but your courage's not small…"
Noticing he hadn't yet shaken off the nerves, Zero glanced down at the boy's schoolbag with his name stitched on it. After learning his name, he gestured at his height and teased lightly,
"I'm Zero. Thank you, Jing Yuan. But, you helped me this time. What if they target you instead?"
Jing Yuan grinned with full confidence and shook his head, "I'm not afraid."
Zero stared at him, then smiled and thanked him again. After asking where Jing Yuan lived, he said in surprise, "Well, how about that, it's on my way. Let's go together."
Jing Yuan had always been curious why Zero let those people bully him.
Walking the whole way and chatting nonstop with him, Jing Yuan had even switched how he addressed him, from the formal "senior" to the friendlier "Brother Zero."
Once he thought he'd figured out his character, he couldn't resist asking.
Zero answered without hesitation, "Because at first, I really didn't notice. For an ordinary student, isn't it normal to get scolded by teachers?"
"Of course you'd make some mistakes, like forgetting to hand in homework, or not writing your name on the test paper… After a while though, I realized something wasn't right, "
Jing Yuan, "…How could you overlook something like that! That's not an ordinary student at all!"
Zero asked humbly, "Then what kind of student counts as ordinary?"
Jing Yuan thought for a moment, then remembered a classmate who followed all the rules, and said, "Listening seriously in class, obeying the teacher's every word without resistance…"
"Ah, so you even have to obey teachers too, what a pain…"
Jing Yuan muttered, "For someone who can spout rebellious nonsense like that, Brother Zero, you're no ordinary student at all… I just don't get it, how could you be bullied by them!"
"Because I really never thought people could be so stupid to such a degree…"
Zero sighed. Seeing they'd arrived, he stopped, rummaged through his bag, and pulled out a yellow paper talisman, drawn with unknown symbols in red ink.
He handed it to Jing Yuan.
Jing Yuan, totally confused, accepted it, but all his questions were brushed off by Zero's few casual words, his attention diverted.
Zero said, "Thank you, Jing Yuan. As for those people, don't worry."
Hearing that, Jing Yuan immediately forgot to press about the yellow paper, and instead asked, "Then what do you plan to do?"
"Relax, it'll be settled soon."
Zero hadn't planned to explain more, but seeing Jing Yuan unwilling to let it go, he had to continue,
"Guess why I just happened to be in such a remote spot?"
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