Zong Jiu, “…”
You and your hi can both go to hell.
He and No. 2 talked for so long. Let alone Zong Jiu who hadn’t enhanced his body to such an effect, Van Zhuo was a fourth-generation half-vampire converted by vampire royalty—and even he hadn’t perceived the presence of this bastard. This only went to show that No. 1 was far more powerful than No. 2.
While there was that vague inkling of it, seeing this fact presented true to life before him was still alarming.
The young man folded his arms, a chilly look on his face.
His glossy white hair was tied behind his head. The chilly breeze on the rooftop lifted the loose strands framing his cheeks, accentuating the snowy complexion of his skin and the beauty of his countenance.
Interest brightened the man’s eyes but was quickly obscured. The puppet strings fluttering from the man’s gloves disappeared into a void in an instant.
He straightened from the wall, striding towards the white-haired young man, scattering shadows in the wake of every step.
Although he didn’t have any excess motion, a razor-sharp dark luminance still shrouded his whole aura.
In contrast to this was the invasive look, that when cast on Zong Jiu, seemed to cause tremors rolling up his spine.
Unwilling to fall short, the white-haired young man stood upright and unmoving, his tone derisive.
“Who would have expected No. 1 to have a penchant for eavesdropping?”
The Devil donned an innocent expression. “My class representative sent homework up to the rooftop. As the teacher, I should naturally come and check it out.”
He deliberately lowered his voice, letting the words ‘my class representative’ rumble in his throat, doused in several measures of huskiness.
Zong Jiu didn’t buy this cryptic act at all.
However, he did come out of the classroom with a stack of homework in his hands. His original plan was to look for Van Zhuo and exchange information before making a trip down to the office, yet, surprise, surprise, No. 1 came running over himself—would anyone believe him if he said it wasn’t on purpose?
“Oh,” Zong Jiu uttered coldly. He stuffed the papers into the other’s bosom. “Here’s the homework. You may leave now.”
The black-haired man froze, and began to chuckle quietly.
It started as a raspy, low laugh, but later became rumbles smothered in his chest. Eventually, his whole body shook like he had found something new and delightful, uncaring of any eyes on him, shaking like a sieve on the spot.
Zong Jiu: ???
He looked at No. 1 like the other was insane, genuinely feeling the system ought to administer electroshock therapy for its instructor. Random bouts of insanity that came and went like this really should be treated.
With No. 1 still laughing, Zong Jiu, still hung up over the new intel, didn’t intend to keep him company.
The white-haired young man straightened his cuffs and spun heel towards the stairwell on the roof.
It was a massive taboo to show one’s back to their enemy, but simply Zong Jiu refused to seem lacking in any way before No. 1. So as he walked, he clasped poker cards between his fingers, every muscle in his body pulled taut, constantly paying attention to any stirring of wind behind him.
Lamentably, the Devil seriously appeared to be immersed in his own world, rocking back and forth with laughter, completely unheeding of Zong Jiu’s little escape stunt.
It really rendered Zong Jiu speechless.
Ktf rajlgmjrf fgfmafv lc atf wlvvif bo atf fcalgf gbboabq kjr mbnfgfv klat j rlwqif mbcmgfaf rijy jcv vlgas sfiibk vbbg. Snfc atbeut la kjr jiwbra mbwqifafis gerafv bnfg, la kjr cba gfqijmfv.
Lf qeiifv atja lgbc vbbg bqfc jcv rafqqfv lcab atf vjgx rajlgkfii, nfgs atbeutaoeiis tfiqlcu Rb. 1 ab ibmx la yftlcv tlw.
With that done, Zong Jiu turned around in a rather cheerful mood, about to head downstairs—when a cold exhale fanned into the hollow of his shoulder, and a man’s mirthless laugh rang out in the darkness.
“Your teacher hasn’t finished with you, so why are you walking off?”
Zong Jiu’s reaction was swift. His arm bent at the elbow, pushing backwards.
The rooftop floor had a separate staircase with a door leading above and a door below. As luck would have it, the light bulb in this section of the staircase had just been smashed and the iron door unlocked. As such, the narrow space was so dark one wouldn’t be able to see their fingers even if they held out their hands. Even though Zong Jiu enhanced his vision to the limit, he could only see treacherous and blurred silhouettes in his surroundings.
The ability to travel through shadows was an extremely nifty trick, not only in terms of making his movement elusive but also as the ultimate defence.
For example, it came in quite handy now.
The Devil effortlessly dodged this attack, and absently lifted his slender fingers.
Countless puppet strings, difficult to catch with the naked eye, appeared from the void and sliced the cards whistling towards him in half.
This move was effective in diminishing their high-velocity power, impeding the cards that could have been buried into the wall had he not cut them off mid-air.
Zong Jiu didn’t turn his head.
He knew No. 1 was right behind him but he was unable to turn around, nor did he have the time to.
Though his two waves of attacks amounted to nothing, Zong Jiu wasn’t disheartened.
Judging by the icy chill, the other shouldn’t be far behind him.
The Magician seized the chance to whip a short dagger from the Strange Black Box and, without a single look, plunged it straight behind.
Simultaneously, he bent his knees in the darkness, kicking toward the source of the chill.
After getting his survival points in the Thriller Trainee competition, Zong Jiu only maxed out the enhancements on his hands and his eyes because he positioned himself as an agile magician and not a pure fighter.
Yet ever since getting trounced by No. 1 the last time in the trainee dormitories, his desire to enhance physical strength had been kindled.
No one knew what level of physical fighting skills the Devil had. After all, he didn’t even need to exhibit them often, able to easily constrict his ubiquitous puppet strings around his prey with just a crook of his fingers.
Yet a disputable point was Zong Jiu could rip off No. 1’s puppet strings with his bare hands. Following this logic, as long as he enhanced his physical strength, the next time this trick of No. 1 would be useless to him.
Next time, for sure.
Just as expected, flat and heavy fabric pressed against the Magician’s wrist, and the leg he kicked backwards was steadily blocked by black leather shoes.
An unyielding force pulled his shoulder blades, pinning the white-haired young man straight against the iron door of the stairwell.
“Clang—”
The coldly glinting dagger tumbled from the young man’s powerlessly open fingers, making a crisp clang in the stairwell and sliding down the gap between them into the deep, bottomless darkness below.
Zong Jiu, “…”
He looked at the door lock to the rooftop, right before his nose, and mentally lamented why he had done such a superfluous move.
If he hadn’t flipped the lock, then at this time, the iron door should have been pushed open, and he could even get in a few hits with the Devil.
For a time, the only sound in the darkness was pants from the youth’s violently heaving chest.
Whenever they met, whether the atmosphere was pretentiously friendly or completely at odds, No. 1 had become accustomed to having to subdue the other party before he could have a good conversation with this arch-enemy.
Of course, the Devil could also choose otherwise, thereafter it would end up like in the Famine Mountain Village instance, giving him a marvellous surprise.
If it were any other day, the Devil definitely wouldn’t mind playing along with Zong Jiu when in the mood.
Yet this time…
No. 1 calmly narrowed his eyes.
The young man’s long white ponytail brushed the glove on the gaps between his fingers. It was ticklish.
The man lifted the Magician’s wrists so slender they could be restricted by one hand, and pressed them firmly against the rusty iron door.
They were very close to each other; close enough they could smell the refreshing, cold scent of shampoo in the other’s hair.
Even if he couldn’t see Zong Jiu’s expression now, No. 1 could guess.
—The other’s face must contain a minute note of rage, his eyes hooded, thoughts inscrutable despite his perilous situation.
Just like that time in the narrow, cramped coffin, his eyes inflamed by bright starlight.
Remembering that scene, No. 1 again was unable to contain his delighted chuckles.
Zong Jiu could feel the vibrations from the chest pressed against his back.
This time, the Devil was also aware of the instantaneous spike in the other’s rage.
“Relax, I don’t mean to harm you. Even if it’s me, it’s hard having to hold my own every time I want to have a friendly chat with you.”
The man said with a wistful sigh as he wrapped his other hand around the young man’s slender neck, gently sliding it down his front, eventually resting where his shoulders and clavicle met.
“Have you considered the question I asked last time?”
“What question?” Zong Jiu’s voice was as glacial as an icebound river several dozen metres beneath the Arctic plains.
“You’ve actually forgotten. This makes me sad.”
The Devil spoke with feigned flattery, and not the least bit of sincerity.
He leaned down.
The man’s tied-up shoulder-length hair scattered evenly over the young man’s neck.
The fine fabric of the suit clung to the blue and white school uniform, wrinkling the latter whilst the former remained smooth and sleek.
“Gui Guzi prophesied we will fight to our last gasp. Indeed, he wasn’t wrong.”
Without omissions and deficiencies, this prophecy was very simple, created solely for the sake of determining if the trainees could leave the infinite loop. Since it was already clear who the two protagonists in the prophecy corresponded, the wheel of fate should naturally begin gyrating.
“Although it wasn’t mentioned, why aren’t you willing to consider another possibility?”
Zong Jiu, with his wrists seized, scoffed. “What possibility?”
“For example…”
The man dampened his voice, the thin lips closing in next to the white-haired young man’s ears, like a lover whispering sweet nothings.
“Cooperation?”
The next second, like hearing the funniest joke in the world, Zong Jiu snorted in laughter.
He had no intention of hiding it, much less considering the possibility of this action angering No. 1, because, honestly. Zong Jiu felt this offer… was simply too funny. Not only funny, but ridiculous to the extreme.
Faced with the white-haired young man’s unconcealed laughter, the Devil was not moved to anger but instead tilted his head, raising his eyebrows. “It isn’t a laughing matter.”
The coarse gloves were utterly incapable of warding off the chill that seeped from the body. They slowly roved along the line of his aorta, lovingly caressing the body teeming with vitality under his hands.
The man’s voice was almost a whisper, yet it froze the smile that had just earlier spread across Zong Jiu’s face.
“Isn’t an infinite-flow universe just that? A Devil’s playground, and maybe also a Magician’s grand stage. With such numerous and innumerable toys, a silly audience ready to applaud… that malice so difficult to reveal in the real world is so plainly exposed here. These expressions as humanity struggles in their despair, floundering in the quagmire—it’s all so interesting, don’t you think?”
Dead silence flooded the stairwell, yet seemingly oblivious to it, the Devil finished his words with an upward lilt of joy in his tone.
“Why do we have to fight to the finish as the prophecy foretold? How about joining me? Let’s play, together.”
“We should resonate quite well in this aspect.”
He intimately traced the tail of the Magician’s eye. “After all… deep in the essence of our beings, we’re two of a kind.”
Zong Jiu, “…”
You and your hi can both go to hell.
He and No. 2 talked for so long. Let alone Zong Jiu who hadn’t enhanced his body to such an effect, Van Zhuo was a fourth-generation half-vampire converted by vampire royalty—and even he hadn’t perceived the presence of this bastard. This only went to show that No. 1 was far more powerful than No. 2.
While there was that vague inkling of it, seeing this fact presented true to life before him was still alarming.
The young man folded his arms, a chilly look on his face.
His glossy white hair was tied behind his head. The chilly breeze on the rooftop lifted the loose strands framing his cheeks, accentuating the snowy complexion of his skin and the beauty of his countenance.
Interest brightened the man’s eyes but was quickly obscured. The puppet strings fluttering from the man’s gloves disappeared into a void in an instant.
He straightened from the wall, striding towards the white-haired young man, scattering shadows in the wake of every step.
Although he didn’t have any excess motion, a razor-sharp dark luminance still shrouded his whole aura.
In contrast to this was the invasive look, that when cast on Zong Jiu, seemed to cause tremors rolling up his spine.
Unwilling to fall short, the white-haired young man stood upright and unmoving, his tone derisive.
“Who would have expected No. 1 to have a penchant for eavesdropping?”
The Devil donned an innocent expression. “My class representative sent homework up to the rooftop. As the teacher, I should naturally come and check it out.”
He deliberately lowered his voice, letting the words ‘my class representative’ rumble in his throat, doused in several measures of huskiness.
Zong Jiu didn’t buy this cryptic act at all.
However, he did come out of the classroom with a stack of homework in his hands. His original plan was to look for Van Zhuo and exchange information before making a trip down to the office, yet, surprise, surprise, No. 1 came running over himself—would anyone believe him if he said it wasn’t on purpose?
“Oh,” Zong Jiu uttered coldly. He stuffed the papers into the other’s bosom. “Here’s the homework. You may leave now.”
The black-haired man froze, and began to chuckle quietly.
It started as a raspy, low laugh, but later became rumbles smothered in his chest. Eventually, his whole body shook like he had found something new and delightful, uncaring of any eyes on him, shaking like a sieve on the spot.
Zong Jiu: ???
He looked at No. 1 like the other was insane, genuinely feeling the system ought to administer electroshock therapy for its instructor. Random bouts of insanity that came and went like this really should be treated.
With No. 1 still laughing, Zong Jiu, still hung up over the new intel, didn’t intend to keep him company.
The white-haired young man straightened his cuffs and spun heel towards the stairwell on the roof.
It was a massive taboo to show one’s back to their enemy, but simply Zong Jiu refused to seem lacking in any way before No. 1. So as he walked, he clasped poker cards between his fingers, every muscle in his body pulled taut, constantly paying attention to any stirring of wind behind him.
Lamentably, the Devil seriously appeared to be immersed in his own world, rocking back and forth with laughter, completely unheeding of Zong Jiu’s little escape stunt.
It really rendered Zong Jiu speechless.
Ktf rajlgmjrf fgfmafv lc atf wlvvif bo atf fcalgf gbboabq kjr mbnfgfv klat j rlwqif mbcmgfaf rijy jcv vlgas sfiibk vbbg. Snfc atbeut la kjr jiwbra mbwqifafis gerafv bnfg, la kjr cba gfqijmfv.
Lf qeiifv atja lgbc vbbg bqfc jcv rafqqfv lcab atf vjgx rajlgkfii, nfgs atbeutaoeiis tfiqlcu Rb. 1 ab ibmx la yftlcv tlw.
With that done, Zong Jiu turned around in a rather cheerful mood, about to head downstairs—when a cold exhale fanned into the hollow of his shoulder, and a man’s mirthless laugh rang out in the darkness.
“Your teacher hasn’t finished with you, so why are you walking off?”
Zong Jiu’s reaction was swift. His arm bent at the elbow, pushing backwards.
The rooftop floor had a separate staircase with a door leading above and a door below. As luck would have it, the light bulb in this section of the staircase had just been smashed and the iron door unlocked. As such, the narrow space was so dark one wouldn’t be able to see their fingers even if they held out their hands. Even though Zong Jiu enhanced his vision to the limit, he could only see treacherous and blurred silhouettes in his surroundings.
The ability to travel through shadows was an extremely nifty trick, not only in terms of making his movement elusive but also as the ultimate defence.
For example, it came in quite handy now.
The Devil effortlessly dodged this attack, and absently lifted his slender fingers.
Countless puppet strings, difficult to catch with the naked eye, appeared from the void and sliced the cards whistling towards him in half.
This move was effective in diminishing their high-velocity power, impeding the cards that could have been buried into the wall had he not cut them off mid-air.
Zong Jiu didn’t turn his head.
He knew No. 1 was right behind him but he was unable to turn around, nor did he have the time to.
Though his two waves of attacks amounted to nothing, Zong Jiu wasn’t disheartened.
Judging by the icy chill, the other shouldn’t be far behind him.
The Magician seized the chance to whip a short dagger from the Strange Black Box and, without a single look, plunged it straight behind.
Simultaneously, he bent his knees in the darkness, kicking toward the source of the chill.
After getting his survival points in the Thriller Trainee competition, Zong Jiu only maxed out the enhancements on his hands and his eyes because he positioned himself as an agile magician and not a pure fighter.
Yet ever since getting trounced by No. 1 the last time in the trainee dormitories, his desire to enhance physical strength had been kindled.
No one knew what level of physical fighting skills the Devil had. After all, he didn’t even need to exhibit them often, able to easily constrict his ubiquitous puppet strings around his prey with just a crook of his fingers.
Yet a disputable point was Zong Jiu could rip off No. 1’s puppet strings with his bare hands. Following this logic, as long as he enhanced his physical strength, the next time this trick of No. 1 would be useless to him.
Next time, for sure.
Just as expected, flat and heavy fabric pressed against the Magician’s wrist, and the leg he kicked backwards was steadily blocked by black leather shoes.
An unyielding force pulled his shoulder blades, pinning the white-haired young man straight against the iron door of the stairwell.
“Clang—”
The coldly glinting dagger tumbled from the young man’s powerlessly open fingers, making a crisp clang in the stairwell and sliding down the gap between them into the deep, bottomless darkness below.
Zong Jiu, “…”
He looked at the door lock to the rooftop, right before his nose, and mentally lamented why he had done such a superfluous move.
If he hadn’t flipped the lock, then at this time, the iron door should have been pushed open, and he could even get in a few hits with the Devil.
For a time, the only sound in the darkness was pants from the youth’s violently heaving chest.
Whenever they met, whether the atmosphere was pretentiously friendly or completely at odds, No. 1 had become accustomed to having to subdue the other party before he could have a good conversation with this arch-enemy.
Of course, the Devil could also choose otherwise, thereafter it would end up like in the Famine Mountain Village instance, giving him a marvellous surprise.
If it were any other day, the Devil definitely wouldn’t mind playing along with Zong Jiu when in the mood.
Yet this time…
No. 1 calmly narrowed his eyes.
The young man’s long white ponytail brushed the glove on the gaps between his fingers. It was ticklish.
The man lifted the Magician’s wrists so slender they could be restricted by one hand, and pressed them firmly against the rusty iron door.
They were very close to each other; close enough they could smell the refreshing, cold scent of shampoo in the other’s hair.
Even if he couldn’t see Zong Jiu’s expression now, No. 1 could guess.
—The other’s face must contain a minute note of rage, his eyes hooded, thoughts inscrutable despite his perilous situation.
Just like that time in the narrow, cramped coffin, his eyes inflamed by bright starlight.
Remembering that scene, No. 1 again was unable to contain his delighted chuckles.
Zong Jiu could feel the vibrations from the chest pressed against his back.
This time, the Devil was also aware of the instantaneous spike in the other’s rage.
“Relax, I don’t mean to harm you. Even if it’s me, it’s hard having to hold my own every time I want to have a friendly chat with you.”
The man said with a wistful sigh as he wrapped his other hand around the young man’s slender neck, gently sliding it down his front, eventually resting where his shoulders and clavicle met.
“Have you considered the question I asked last time?”
“What question?” Zong Jiu’s voice was as glacial as an icebound river several dozen metres beneath the Arctic plains.
“You’ve actually forgotten. This makes me sad.”
The Devil spoke with feigned flattery, and not the least bit of sincerity.
He leaned down.
The man’s tied-up shoulder-length hair scattered evenly over the young man’s neck.
The fine fabric of the suit clung to the blue and white school uniform, wrinkling the latter whilst the former remained smooth and sleek.
“Gui Guzi prophesied we will fight to our last gasp. Indeed, he wasn’t wrong.”
Without omissions and deficiencies, this prophecy was very simple, created solely for the sake of determining if the trainees could leave the infinite loop. Since it was already clear who the two protagonists in the prophecy corresponded, the wheel of fate should naturally begin gyrating.
“Although it wasn’t mentioned, why aren’t you willing to consider another possibility?”
Zong Jiu, with his wrists seized, scoffed. “What possibility?”
“For example…”
The man dampened his voice, the thin lips closing in next to the white-haired young man’s ears, like a lover whispering sweet nothings.
“Cooperation?”
The next second, like hearing the funniest joke in the world, Zong Jiu snorted in laughter.
He had no intention of hiding it, much less considering the possibility of this action angering No. 1, because, honestly. Zong Jiu felt this offer… was simply too funny. Not only funny, but ridiculous to the extreme.
Faced with the white-haired young man’s unconcealed laughter, the Devil was not moved to anger but instead tilted his head, raising his eyebrows. “It isn’t a laughing matter.”
The coarse gloves were utterly incapable of warding off the chill that seeped from the body. They slowly roved along the line of his aorta, lovingly caressing the body teeming with vitality under his hands.
The man’s voice was almost a whisper, yet it froze the smile that had just earlier spread across Zong Jiu’s face.
“Isn’t an infinite-flow universe just that? A Devil’s playground, and maybe also a Magician’s grand stage. With such numerous and innumerable toys, a silly audience ready to applaud… that malice so difficult to reveal in the real world is so plainly exposed here. These expressions as humanity struggles in their despair, floundering in the quagmire—it’s all so interesting, don’t you think?”
Dead silence flooded the stairwell, yet seemingly oblivious to it, the Devil finished his words with an upward lilt of joy in his tone.
“Why do we have to fight to the finish as the prophecy foretold? How about joining me? Let’s play, together.”
“We should resonate quite well in this aspect.”
He intimately traced the tail of the Magician’s eye. “After all… deep in the essence of our beings, we’re two of a kind.”
