The sun had already climbed high, bathing everything in light. Among the trees, a massive, tall figure could be seen — broad shoulders, an upright bearing, thick dark hair with a reddish tint swept back. A heavy gaze, eyes the color of dark honey.
"Hey! Zhou Shengyang, wait for me, we're headed the same way anyway!" came a plaintive, suffering voice from behind him. Zhou Shengyang didn't so much as raise an eyebrow and simply kept walking.
The youth who had called after him collapsed to the ground, breathing hard.
"Damn it! Why did the Headmaster have to send me to Corpus 2A! I'm the most loyal and honest student here, a model for everyone to follow!"
The youth's name was Xiao Yu. He looked rather unkempt — tousled golden-brown hair, rumpled clothes. Aside from his unremarkable features, what drew the most attention was his ears — slightly pointed.
Once he'd caught his breath, Xiao Yu got up and stretched, looking off in the direction Zhou Shengyang had disappeared.
"Zhou Shengyang... it's like he doesn't feel the pressure of life energy around him at all..."
He brushed the dust off his clothes and had just taken a step when, a meter away, a human figure shot past like a cannonball.
BAM! — The figure slammed into a tree and collapsed, spent. The unfortunate tree simply exploded and crashed to the ground with a crack.
"Huh?" Xiao Yu rubbed his eyes and stared at the fallen figure.
He narrowed his eyes.
<
Hao Ming was already getting to his feet, as though he'd felt nothing at all. His clothes were torn to shreds, his body covered in scrapes, bruises, and fresh red marks from fists — but his gaze remained just as level and calm.
"Ha-ha-ha! Didn't think you'd fly that far!" Hu Chen appeared at once, kicking up dust and wind behind him.
Hao Ming was already braced to launch a fresh attack, but Hu Chen stopped him with a wave of his hand.
"All right, training's done for today. We've finally got some students," Hu Chen said, turning to Xiao Yu with a broad smile.
"Hello!" Xiao Yu straightened up and saluted. "It's a great honor to meet the Federation's Hero!"
"Yeah, yeah," Hu Chen waved his hand lazily. "You'll be seeing plenty of me from now on. And trust me, soon enough you'll be cursing my name."
Without waiting for a reply, he grabbed Xiao Yu by the collar — and both vanished instantly.
Hao Ming exhaled slowly. The wounds on his body had already begun to close — after years in the Scaly Rocky Mountains, his body was used to handling far worse. He swept his gaze over the now-empty clearing and murmured quietly.
"Senior hits harder every day..."
With that, he headed toward Corpus 2A.
When he arrived, he found three people there: Zhou Shengyang, Xiao Yu, and Hu Chen.
"Hao Ming, come here, meet your future classmates."
Hao Ming walked over — a touch slower than he should have, as if mentally bracing himself to have to talk again — and gave a short nod.
"Hao Ming."
"Xiao Yu! Pleasure to meet you!" the youth broke into a wide grin.
Zhou Shengyang held his gaze on Hao Ming a couple of seconds longer than usual and said curtly:
"Zhou Shengyang."
"There are plenty of houses here, so pick whichever one you like," Hu Chen said. "Hao Ming, show them around. The school year starts tomorrow, and the rest of the students will be arriving today — we need to get things ready."
With those words, he vanished.
"Wow, not bad here," Xiao Yu said, turning his head this way and that, curiously taking in the courtyard. "A little rundown, but still nice."
"You can take any of the houses."
"Which one's yours?" Xiao Yu asked at once.
"The far one," Hao Ming said, pointing.
"Oh, then I'll be right next to you!" Without waiting for a reply, Xiao Yu was already dragging his battered bag toward the neighboring house. "There's no one else around anyway — it'll be more fun with someone familiar nearby."
Zhou Shengyang, without a word, headed for the house set furthest off on the other end of the courtyard — as far from both of them as possible — and disappeared inside.
Xiao Yu watched him go and let out a low whistle.
"Quite the personality. Well, what else would you expect from him. You've probably heard of him, right?"
"No," Hao Ming said shortly. "This is the first time I've seen him."
"Ah, right, you're new too..." Xiao Yu scratched the back of his head. "Hey, where are you even from? If the Hero himself brought you here, you must be from some famous family, right? Or a secret disciple? Or—"
"I don't know," Hao Ming said again.
Xiao Yu blinked.
"What do you mean, you don't know?"
Hao Ming looked at him — a long, calm look, with no irritation in it and no urge to joke, only a faint, barely noticeable uncertainty about whether it was worth saying more.
"Long story."
A pause hung in the air. Usually, after words like that, people either pressed harder or fell into an awkward silence. Xiao Yu did neither — he simply shrugged, as if he'd heard the most ordinary answer in the world.
"Well, fair enough! Everyone's got their long stories," he said, grinning broadly and slinging his bag over his shoulder. "I could tell you a few things myself, but let's save that for another time, yeah? I'm so hungry my ears are curling up."
"There's no dining hall here, but the houses have everything you need. If you've got food, you can cook."
"What?!" Xiao Yu's eyes practically welled up with tears. "No dining hall?! Has the Academy decided to starve us to death?!"
"No, I won't stand for this! I have bled and sweated for this Academy!" He puffed out his chest proudly, though not a single drop of blood featured anywhere in his actual record.
"Don't worry, Hao Ming, as your first friend here in the corpus, I'll get this problem solved!"
With that, he took off running, leaving nothing behind but a trail of dust.
Hao Ming watched him go, tilting his head slightly to one side, as if trying to work out what exactly had just happened — but couldn't come up with anything to say, and simply headed for his own house.
"Hey! You there, is this Corpus 2A?"
Hao Ming turned and saw a youth in a white academy uniform emerging from the trees. White-silver hair, purple eyes, pale skin, a sharp, almost prickly gaze. He stood a head shorter than Hao Ming, but something about him gave off a quiet, carefully restrained sense of danger.
Hao Ming nodded silently. Seeing the affirmative answer, the youth quickly closed the distance.
"Wait. You're a student who got exiled here too? I'm Hui Mi. I don't see any teachers around, so explain to me what's going on here" — he spoke sharply, almost irritably, as if the very need to ask was distasteful to him.
Hao Ming simply pointed at the three houses.
"Those are already taken. The rest are free, take your pick. There's no dining hall."
"Since you were heading for that house, I take it it's yours," Hui Mi said, sweeping his gaze over the courtyard. "And who's in the other two?"
"Next to me is Xiao Yu. In the far one, Zhou Shengyang."
Hui Mi raised an eyebrow in surprise.
"Hm? Those two are here too... Well, at least I'm not the only one who got thrown out of the main campus."
He looked Hao Ming over.
"You, though, I don't know. Different branch?"
Hao Ming didn't explain anything, just nodded.
"Then remember my name. And one more thing" — a clear note of contempt slipped into Hui Mi's voice — "if you ever see a girl named Sheng Min, don't even think about going near her."
"Um..." Hao Ming blinked, not quite understanding where such sharpness over a simple name had come from. He still wasn't used to talking this much, and today there were far too many people around — his thoughts could barely keep up with the words.
At that moment, new voices drifted over from the direction of the forest.
"Sister Qin Ye, we're finally here! The Life Energy here is so strong, I still can't get over it!"
Qin Ye smiled and nodded.
"The Headmaster himself studied here once, along with Uncle Hu Chen — it can't be an ordinary place. And... Sheng Min, no need to shout like that, we only just arrived."
"Hehe," Sheng Min smiled, a little embarrassed.
She was an astonishingly beautiful and delicate-looking girl — soft skin, long chestnut hair, bright green eyes burning with life. A warm aura seemed to drift around her, as if she herself were the embodiment of joy and lightness.
Hui Mi went rigid at the sound of the familiar voice.
<
Thoughts raced through his head one after another, and the closer the voices got, the more visibly tense he became. He turned sharply to Hao Ming and hissed through his teeth:
"I already told you — stay away from Sheng Min. But since she's here now too, avoiding it entirely will be almost impossible... So just don't approach her first."
Without waiting for a reply, he strode quickly toward the house next to Zhou Shengyang's — but glanced back once, furtively, toward where Sheng Min's voice was coming from.
Hao Ming watched him go, still no closer to understanding what had just happened.
Meanwhile, on the grounds of the main campus.
Xie Ruyang sat in his office, unhurriedly sipping tea.
"I wonder how things are going over at Corpus 2A. All the children should be there by now... Though with Jin Luo it's never that simple — knowing his laziness, he probably won't show up until well into the night."
At that moment, the door flew open without so much as a knock.
"Headmaster!" Xiao Yu burst in, his face a picture of pure, unfeigned despair, and practically slid across the office on his knees straight up to the desk.
"Dear Headmaster! I fully support your wise decision to send me and the others to Corpus 2A! But do you really have no pity for us at all? Just the journey there alone was exhausting — the poor, worn-out students are unbearably hungry right now!"
"Wh—" Xie Ruyang choked on his tea and started coughing, not even managing to raise his eyes from his cup in time. "How did you even get here, I personally walked you to the corpus gates myself this morning!"
"Headmaster, travel time is a relative concept when a student's hunger is at stake," Xiao Yu declared, with a perfectly straight face.
Xie Ruyang set his cup down and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
"Fine. What do you want?"
"Oh!" Xiao Yu, who knew the Headmaster's temperament well, had expected to have to wheedle for a whole hour to get even that much of a response, and was caught off guard by how quickly he'd agreed.
Xiao Yu's eyes dried up instantly, and his face bloomed into the widest of smiles, as though there had been no despair whatsoever a second earlier.
"So! There's no dining hall at Corpus 2A. None at all. Not a single grain of rice, not a scrap of meat — and as for spirit-beast meat or spirit herbs, I won't even bring that up."
"And you want me to personally cook for all of you?" the Headmaster raised an eyebrow.
"Oh, no, no!" Xiao Yu waved his hands. "I just thought — if the parents of the students living there find out their children are starving, what will become of the Academy's reputation? I can endure hunger somehow, but the reputation, the reputation!"
Xie Ruyang went still for a moment, studying him narrowly.
"And how exactly did you find out who's going to be living there? You couldn't possibly have crossed paths with either Qin Ye or Sheng Min."
Xiao Yu broke into a grin.
"Headmaster, there's nothing in this Academy that Xiao Yu doesn't know!... Though, if you could hand over a few Emerald Wind Fruits, I imagine I could talk the students into behaving."
Xie Ruyang exhaled in irritation.
"In that case you should also already know that I've already given the order for rations to be drawn up and food delivered to the corpus."
Xiao Yu broke out in an instant sweat.
<
Xie Ruyang rose from his chair and stretched slightly.
"Xiao Yu, as Headmaster, it's my duty to personally check your progress with the Free Wind Method — after all, you're the only student who's managed to cultivate it. I value every one of my students, and I need to know how far you've come."
Wind at once began swirling around Xiao Yu — he lunged for the door, but the ground beneath his feet suddenly clamped down like a vise.
"Headmaster..."
Xie Ruyang advanced on him slowly.
A moment later, pitiful cries could be clearly heard coming from the office.
Meanwhile, Qin Ye and Sheng Min entered the corpus grounds. Hao Ming was surprised to see Qin Ye — he hadn't expected to run into her so soon.
Qin Ye, noticing him, showed no surprise at all — as if she'd known in advance she would find him here.
Sheng Min waved cheerfully in greeting and ran over.
"Hi! I'm Sheng Min, and this is Qin Ye — we're students too, we'll be studying and living here. And you?"
Hao Ming nodded.
"Hao Ming." He pointed to the houses already occupied and briefly listed who lived where. "You can pick any of the free ones."
"Ooh! So there are six of us already! Nice to meet you," Sheng Min said, breaking into a wide smile. "Please look after me. If you ever need help, just ask, don't be shy!"
Hao Ming nodded again and shifted his gaze to Qin Ye.
"Um... Hi?"
"Hi. Looks like we'll be studying together for the next two years, so let me introduce myself properly — Qin Ye, student of the Federation's Central Academy. Welcome to the Academy."
Hao Ming paused a beat longer than an ordinary reply required.
"Thank you," he said, hesitating, as if weighing whether it was worth saying more, then added, a little more stiffly: "And... thank you for pulling me out."
Qin Ye raised an eyebrow for a moment, but said nothing in reply.
Sheng Min's gaze darted between Qin Ye and Hao Ming, her eyes lighting up with curiosity.
"Sister Qin Ye, don't tell me you've got yourself a boyfriend?! Am I imagining things?! Fish will learn to fly before you get a boy who's just a friend!"
Qin Ye gave her a light flick on the forehead.
"Slow down. I'm honestly amazed you can talk that fast."
Casting a brief glance at Sheng Min, she nodded to Hao Ming and headed toward the free houses.
Hao Ming watched her go, mentally replaying the conversation from the very beginning.
<
He gave himself an uncertain nod, as if closing out some internal checklist, and only then finally exhaled.
"Well, I guess I thanked her... I guess that's everything."