Hero Saves the Beauty

That child who still struggled to radiate a glimmer of light in the swamp-like environment—something happened to him!

What Yunbai, what mistaken identity, what identity crisis—all were instantly forgotten.

He hadn't forgotten the abnormal death of Lin Xun that the system had introduced when he first entered the academy.

He originally thought it would only happen within the college, but who would have thought that something would happen during the holiday!

"What kind of danger exactly? Bullying? Or something else?" Yu Fuli asked anxiously in her mind as she rushed towards the door, grabbing the keys and coat from the shoe cabinet.

[Too far away to investigate.]

"grass!"

A harsh curse erupted, followed by a dull thud.

Lin Xun was slammed hard to the ground, the rough cement scrubbing against his skin, causing a burning pain.

Before he could struggle, a stained shoe sole stomped down hard, crushing his face and burying it in the filthy muddy water that had accumulated on the ground, a mixture of garbage, rotting liquid, and rainwater.

The cold, foul-smelling muddy water instantly filled my nose and mouth.

Forced to look up, through the murky water, he could only see the perpetually gray sky of the lower city, as if it had never been clean.

The low-rise houses, crammed together like pigeon coops, had windows as narrow as prison cells, and countless tangled wires, like black spider webs, further fragmented the already oppressive sky.

Behind some windows, shadowy figures could be seen moving about. Someone heard the noise and carefully closed the window.

Occasionally, a couple of eyes would briefly meet his, and those eyes might contain numbness or a hint of pity, but they would quickly look away, pretending not to have seen anything.

Everything here is suffocating—filthy, chaotic, and hopeless, like maggots clinging to the bone.

He was like a speck of dust in the mud, struggling desperately, yet seemingly never able to wash away the stench that belonged to this place.

He tried so hard, using all his strength to break free, to escape, to touch even a sliver of a clean, bright future...

"Boss! This kid's refusing to say a word, what do we do?"

The tattooed man, addressed as "Boss," spat and moved his foot away. He stretched out his thick arm, grabbed Lin Xun's soaking wet hair, and abruptly pulled his head out of the mud.

Muddy water dripped down the boy's pale cheeks and trembling eyelashes, leaving streaks on his face that made his eyes appear unusually dark and calm.

"Kid, I'm asking you one last time—" The tattooed man leaned closer, his breath reeking of cigarette smoke and cheap alcohol, smearing Lin Xun's face with it.

His fingers tightened, a tearing pain shooting through his scalp. "Are you going to pay me back that money or not?!"

Lin Xun was forced to tilt his head back, his neck forming a fragile arc, and a faint hoarse sound came from his throat as he choked on the muddy water.

But he remained silent, only looking at the hideous face before him with his bottomless black eyes, calmly and even with a hint of empty indifference.

There was no fear, no pleading in those eyes, only a bottomless, almost deathly desolate wasteland. It was as if the body enduring pain and the soul being interrogated had been completely separated.

"Damn it! You're asking for it!" The tattooed man was completely enraged by his silent resistance and raised his hand to deliver a vicious slap!

"Snapped!"

The crisp sound was particularly jarring in the narrow, dirty alleyway. Lin Xun's head was knocked to one side, his cheek quickly swelled up, and a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, mixing with the mud and water as it flowed down.

"Boss, why waste words with this tough nut!" A blond-haired thug kicked a piece of broken brick on the ground impatiently. "I bet he won't admit his mistake until he's faced with a death sentence! Anyway, we have the IOU, let's cripple it and throw it here, see if he still pays it back!"

The tattooed man's eyes were sinister. He released his grip on Lin Xun's hair, letting her fall back into the mud, exhausted.

He flexed his wrists and pulled out a rusty but thick and hard iron pipe from his lower back, weighing it in his palm.

"Fine, you've got guts." He grinned, revealing his smoke-stained teeth, his smile cruel. "I'll see today whether your bones are harder or my tubes are harder."

The iron pipe dragged on the ground, making a teeth-grinding scraping sound, as it approached step by step.

Lin Xun huddled in the cold mud, his body trembling slightly from the pain and cold.

He listened to the approaching footsteps, the excited panting and chatter of the thugs beside him, and his gaze swept over the tightly closed windows once more.

His eyes remained calm and unwavering, as if he were not the one whose bones were about to be broken and who was tossed into the mud like trash.

What's there to be afraid of?

Anyway...

Someone will come to save him.

Just like the family he was born into, where his father was an alcoholic and gambler and his mother was frail and sickly, and neither of them ever had a proper job, he never starved to death and always managed to grow up, albeit stumbling and struggling.

Growing up in such an environment, he was able to successfully gain admission to the Saint Laurent Royal Academy, a place that ordinary people would fight tooth and nail to get into.

It's astonishing that a family so poor even rats would turn their backs on them would have loan sharks actively seeking them out to lend them money.

These absurd and illogical coincidences, like invisible threads, have long since seeped into every corner of his life.

He was like a puppet controlled by an invisible hand, gliding along a predetermined yet bizarre track.

Rebellion? Fear? Expectation?

We've all become numb.

He was just waiting, waiting for the rescue that might appear at any time, waiting for this seemingly pre-ordained drama to reach its predetermined climax.

The sound of the wind generated by the iron pipes was already overhead.

He closed his eyes.

"Bang!!!"

A loud bang, not the dull thud of an iron pipe hitting flesh, but the thunderous roar of the huge, greasy green trash can at the alley entrance being kicked away by a tremendous force and crashing into the opposite wall!

Debris flew everywhere, and dust billowed.

Everyone was stunned by this sudden turn of events and turned to look at the alley entrance.

Against the backdrop of the dim lights in the distance, a tall and slender figure stood there, seemingly out of nowhere.

The person who arrived was wearing a simple dark hoodie, with the hood casually pulled up on their head. Their exposed eyebrows and eyes, in the dim light of the alley entrance, were exquisitely beautiful and out of place in this dirty environment. At this moment, they were slightly curved with a nonchalant smile, but their eyes were surprisingly bright, like a cold star suddenly flashing across the dark night.

In his hand, he casually held half of a rusty but sharp-tipped iron bar, which he had taken from some scrapped bicycle. The bar dragged on the ground, making a sickening scraping sound.

"Hey," he said, "shooting a sequel to Young and Dangerous so late at night? The plot is pretty cliché. Want me in? I'll play the guy who takes down the tough guys."

The thugs, who were about to commit violence, were taken aback by this sudden disruptor and turned their heads in unison.

The tattooed man narrowed his eyes, sizing up the seemingly thin, plainly dressed uninvited guest. A disdainful sneer spread across his face: "Where did this pretty boy come from, trying to play the hero and save the damsel in distress? Get lost if you don't want to die!"

Lin Xun, who was being trampled in the mud, suddenly narrowed his eyes and stiffened almost imperceptibly the moment he saw the person's face clearly.

How could it be him?!

Yu Fuli?!