Ye Xinxia

In excellent spirits, humming "Little Apple" under his breath, Mo Fan made his way toward Mingwen Middle School.

Mingwen was a private girls' school — home to the freshest, most fashionable young women in all of Xia City.

It was different from other schools. There was no soul-crushing magical theory drummed into students' heads, no rooms packed with magic bookworms who lived and died by their test scores. These girls came from families with magical backgrounds; they understood things that students who had slogged through nine years of compulsory magic education simply didn't. Take the enchanted accessories hanging at many of their chests — magic artifacts designed to nurture spiritual power from an early age.

Compared to these second-generation mages born with spirit-nurturing trinkets already around their necks, a nobody like Mo Fan had to climb every rung with his bare hands.

The street outside the school was choked with luxury sedans — peak dismissal hour. Mo Fan knew Xinxia's habits well. She would steer clear of the girls competing over whose family car was more expensive and take her own quiet back alley instead, breathing in the cool, faint fragrance of the small green bamboos that residents kept on their windowsills...

He circled around the main gate and headed for that alley to intercept — that is, to wait patiently for his neighbor's little sister, Ye Xinxia.

The alley saw few passersby. Mo Fan cut through someone's courtyard and stepped into the familiar lane.

The world had changed, but this city hadn't. The slender green bamboos that had survived the winter still stood in their pots along the windows.

*Xinxia probably hasn't changed either.*

Mo Fan leaned against the alley wall, arms crossed, looking every bit like a shady kid lurking in wait to extort lunch money from a smaller student. He kept glancing toward the entrance, ready to give a certain young woman a surprise — but no graceful figure appeared for quite some time.

*Why is she taking so long?*

The pose was starting to cramp his back.

He half-closed his eyes. Almost out of habit, his mind began drifting toward the quiet blankness of Meditation—

Then something broke his focus. From the direction of the hill beyond the alley's far end came a faint tangle of voices. Under normal circumstances the high walls would have swallowed all sound from that direction, yet somehow it had reached him anyway.

*Could Meditation actually be sharpening my senses as a side effect?*

Curious, Mo Fan walked toward the hill.

He stepped out of the narrow lane into open space, and the view widened. The hill sat roughly a kilometer ahead; at its base stood the old house his father had recently sold. Between here and the slope was a small patch of grass laid out like a little park. Near the part where the wind ran through stood a wooden swing wrapped in winter ivy.

The swing hung perfectly still.

Sitting on it was a girl with a cascade of black hair falling like a waterfall down her back. The winter wind teased loose strands across her face, uncovering a pale, fine-boned profile — long lashes, a delicate nose, lips the color of rose-dusted jade.

She gazed ahead at nothing. She was so still she seemed to have dissolved into the scene itself — a lone winter lotus painted into the gray air, quiet and forlorn, yet radiating a grace entirely her own.

Mo Fan's steps stopped. He couldn't say when exactly he had developed this habit — standing somewhere and just watching her, watching her sit in some quiet corner of the world, while a wordless warmth spread through his chest and the corners of his mouth lifted on their own.

Then, an instant later, the warmth curdled.

His brow pulled tight. He strode toward her.

She heard his approach. When she looked up and recognized his face, not a trace of surprise crossed her expression — only a soft, unhurried smile, as though she had known he was coming all along, and had simply been waiting here for him.

"Mo Fan ge-ge." The girl's voice was sweet and quiet.

"It was those bastards again, wasn't it." It was barely a question. A low anger smoldered in Mo Fan's eyes.

Xinxia said nothing.

"I'm going to make every last one of those scum pay today!" The anger boiled over. His gaze snapped to the stone steps climbing the hill.

"There are too many of them. Just let it go." Xinxia shook her head, trying to talk him down.

"Not a chance. I'm not done with these people." He was already moving, taking the steps in long, furious strides.

Xinxia reached out from the swing to stop him, but he was already gone, anger in every footfall as he charged up the hill.

She knew his temper. It had been this way for years — he was always picking fights on her behalf with whatever local delinquents had decided to make her life difficult, always coming home alone, always outnumbered, always bleeding...

This was the last thing she ever wanted to see.

But the people who had come after her this time were no ordinary street punks. They had clearly been out of school for years — a gang that operated in this area, calling themselves the Blue Bear Gang, specialists in throwing their weight around at whatever rich girls in the neighborhood caught their eye.

Right now there were at least five of them up there. Two were built thick and solid, both noticeably bigger than Mo Fan. If he went up there alone, he was going to come back with a pulped face.

**Hilltop Pavilion**

"Hey, Xu Bing — don't you think this whole thing is a bit... lacking in class?" said one of the young men, a cigarette dangling from his lip, a hand of cards fanned out in his fingers.

"Lacking in class how? I confessed to her for the sixteenth time — sincerely, from the heart — asked her to be my girlfriend. Now I'm sitting here playing cards, giving her a little time to think it over. What exactly is the problem?" replied the one called Xu Bing.

Xu Bing had a vivid green tattoo coiling up his neck, left fully on display by his short jacket — the kind of look that told you at a glance he was not someone you wanted trouble with.

"I mean, if she's going to say no she could just walk away..."

"Double Joker! Ha! Pay up, pay up — bomb doubles the pot!" crowed the young man in the ripped denim jacket from across the table.

"What the — how are you this lucky."

"Few more rounds, few more rounds. We play till dark and I guarantee that little miss starts to panic." Xu Bing narrowed his eyes, savoring the fantasy of himself as a commanding, irresistible suitor. *With women, you have to be assertive. They're too shy to make a move themselves — go soft and nothing ever gets done.* That Xinxia girl was getting more beautiful every time he laid eyes on her, the kind of girl who made your mouth water. Someone had actually called him a toad drooling after a swan — well, he'd have her today, and then he'd see who dared open their mouth.

"Oh, right — I think the girl has a brother. Annoying little pest." The denim jacket kid glanced up from his cards.

"Combat power under five. Complete deadweight." Xu Bing waved a dismissive hand. "Has a little spine, I'll give him that, but he's basically a human punching bag. Hit him whenever, wherever."

"Ha, exactly. Back in the day I could take him on my own. Now that I've actually built up some muscle, I could flatten that guy in seconds."