Chapter 42: Arrangement

A dozen mentors sat in Gao Ping’s office in the admission department. One of them shook his head and said frankly, “Honestly, Mr. Gao, I don’t want to teach him.”

The other lecturers looked over. They were impressed by his courage.

Gao Ping sat behind his desk with a stony expression. “Why?”

The lecturer threw the papers regarding Chen Chuan on the table. “According to the records, he began practicing a breathing technique far too early, and based on Zhong Wu’s injuries, he might have practiced the Limit Breaking Strike. There’s a limit to how much a student like him can grow. He doesn’t know how to take care of his own body, but he’s very good at draining his potential.

“But if you let me perform a comprehensive check on him that proves that he’s fine and fulfills my requirements, I will take him in.”

Gao Ping ignored him and looked toward another lecturer. “What about you? Is that what you think too?”

“Mr. Gao, um, I…” the lecturer stammered.

“Alright. You don’t have to say anything else.” Gao Ping turned to the others. “All of you think the same way, don’t you?”

The lecturers sat still and said nothing.

In reality, they did not play a big part in whether a student was healthy and how much they improved. The youths were only in the university for around three years. They were also not their children, so there was no need to be so fussy about their health.

The main problem lay in them wanting to quietly teach their classes rather than being involved in the conflict simmering underneath the surface within the university. They all remembered what had happened two years ago and did not want to take someone who was bound to be a trouble magnet as their mentee.

Gao Ping turned to a young lecturer. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

“Master, I can teach him, but you know that I’m going on an exchange program in a month. I don’t even know when I’ll be back, so if I become his mentor, I won’t be able to teach him for long,” the young lecturer said with a troubled expression.

“I wasn’t putting my hopes on you anyway. Forget it. Since none of you are willing to teach him, leave,” Gao Ping dismissed them.

The lecturers sighed in relief. They stood up, bowed, and left.

When all the lecturers left the office, Gao Ping picked up his phone. Once the call went through, he said, “None of them are willing to. I told you, it’s a waste of time to ask them. It would have been better to just assign him to someone.”

“Considering what you said, you have a candidate in mind, don’t you?”

“I’m thinking about giving him to Cheng Zitong,” Gao Ping replied.

“Xiao Cheng? Can he do it?”

“I’m still working on getting He Xiaoxing to take the kid as his mentee,” Gao Ping shot back in a no nonsense manner. “Until I convince him to come back, I’ll get Cheng Zitong to teach him. It’s not as if you have a better candidate.”

The other person stayed quiet for a while. “Make sure that diamond doesn’t crack.”

“I’ve already dug that diamond out of a pile of shit so that those shitheads can’t put their shitty hands on him. What else do you want me to do? Set up security measures around him so that he doesn’t even get a scratch? That kid’s not some delicate flower, but whether he can grow will depend on if he can keep his temper under control.”

“You’ve planned it all out long ago, haven’t you? Since it’s your plan, make sure things go according to it. Don’t let anything go awry.” The person hung up without giving Gao Ping a chance to say anything else.

Gao Ping was stunned as he stared at the phone receiver. “That old coot left the whole mess to me again.”

He then called another number. It took a while for it to go through. “Xiao Cheng, it’s me, Gao Ping. Yes. I’d like you to mentor someone. What do you mean, is he trouble? Just say whether you can or not! Calling me Senior Brother Gao and acting all cute isn’t going to work! Alright, that’s settled!”

After Chen Chuan sent in his applications, he did not wait around. He went straight to the martial arts combat hall Wei Changan had mentioned to him.

He had seen it from a distance before. It was like a gorgeous white seashell from the outside, while inside it was huge. It made him feel at ease.

The martial arts combat hall was where the second-class students trained. At that moment, quite a number of them, male and female alike, were sparring against each other. The ones focused on training were mostly upperclassmen, while the lively ones were often freshmen.

Once Chen Chuan walked in, some of them inevitably scrutinized him. While first-class and second-class students wore the same uniform, the former had the university emblem on their chest.

Even though the students were curious as to why he would come despite being a first-class student, no one said anything and just went on with their business.

Chen Chuan said nothing either, so no one came to talk to him. Wherever he went, the second-class students avoided him or let him walk ahead.

They were polite, but Chen Chuan could sense alienation and clearly drawn boundaries. This made him recall what Wei Changan had said. It did seem like everyone respected their roles and only did things that they or others expected of them. It was also not limited to just within the campus, but outside too.

After observing everyone for a while, Chen Chuan found that only a few of the students had learned a breathing technique. Without a fight, he would not be able to tell whether any of them had learned refined force, but based on what he knew, without a breathing technique, they could not learn refined force.

As for technique, their foundations were all solid. Everyone worked hard, and he gained some insights while watching them train. But he did not notice that whenever he looked, the people who caught his attention tensed up in nervousness.

After watching the students until he could not learn anything else from them, Chen Chuan left.

Once he was gone, some of the students instantly sighed in relief.

“He was an elite student, wasn’t he? Why was he here?”

“Is he an upperclassman? He gave me such an overwhelming sense of pressure via his gaze alone…”

“But he’s good-looking.”

A few second-class upperclassmen exchanged serious looks and said nothing. When Chen Chuan stood near them, they felt a strong threat.

That feeling was not fleeting and elusive, but formed from his instinctive minor adjustments of movements, posture, and gaze. It also always happened when they showed openings after executing a technique too, so it made them feel even more upset and defeated.

They had never seen Chen Chuan before, so it was highly likely that he was just a freshman.

They had thought that if they worked hard, they could catch up to the elites of their batch, but suddenly, a freshman was making them feel like they had knives trained on their backs. It was a blow to their pride.

But they could say nothing about that, only train even harder.

Once Chen Chuan left the martial arts combat hall, he went to the Spring-Autumn Lake and ran a few laps around it before going to his training room. He trained until the sun set, then went to the cafeteria for dinner. Since it was quite late, he returned to the dormitory afterward.

When he arrived at his room and wanted to take his key out, someone called out to him.

“One second!”

He turned around and saw a short student running toward him with a piece of paper in hand. Chen Chuan stopped opening his door and asked, “May I help you?”

The boy extended his hand to Chen Chuan. “Are you the tenant of Dorm Four? I’m Feng Xiaoqi of Dorm Three.”

Chen Chuan shook his hand. “Hello, Feng Xiaoqi. I’m Chen Chuan.”

Feng Xiaoqi raised the paper in his other hand excitedly. “Chen Chuan, I have a proposal. We have to pick a leader from Area One in order to prevent any communication breakdown when it comes to the internal mailbox system. The leader will be in charge of communications and the distribution of mail. If the students need any help, they will need to tell the leader first. I’m recommending myself for the position. Are you okay with it?”

Chen Chuan immediately understood that this was just the position of an errand boy. It might give some form of power, but he was not interested in it. “Sure. I don’t mind.”

“Nice! Thanks, Chen Chuan.” Feng Xiaoqi grinned happily and went to knock on the door of Dorm Two. The tenant was inside as well, and he appeared to be quite a handsome boy.

Chen Chuan went over as well to get acquainted, but the boy was not the talkative type. He just said that his name was Luo Kaiyuan and “okay” to whether he was willing to accept Feng Xiaoqi as the leader of Area One.

The tenant of Dorm One seemed to not be in. Feng Xiaoqi had actually moved in five days ago, but even to this date, he did not see anyone move into Dorm One, though the dorm room plan showed that it was already occupied.

While they were talking, the elevator door opened, and languid footsteps came toward them. A bespectacled, gentle-looking upperclassman dressed in a foreign suit walked over. He smiled at Chen Chuan and said, “We meet again.”

Chen Chuan immediately recognized him as the upperclassman who had introduced the Mutual Aid Group to him when he received the information about the potential upperclassmen he was supposed to fight during the follow-up test. “Do you have any business here?”

“It’s nothing. Someone asked me to talk to you in private.” The upperclassman put one hand into a pocket and nudged his glasses up his nose with the other. His smile got a little brighter.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep