The homeroom teacher had brought an injured student to the infirmary for treatment. This excuse was so legitimate that the school doctor, who had been holding a hammer ready to reap a head, was left in a state of impotent rage.
He could only watch helplessly as Li Xin ignored the murderous glare from Yu Suheng and wrapped the entire roll of bandages around the fingers that would have healed on their own in a few hours, turning them into a literal ball of gauze.
Looking at his masterpiece, Li Xin clapped his hands with satisfaction: “Perfect.”
Yu Suheng: … The School Doctor: …
In the end, the two were chased out of the fourth floor by the school doctor.
The school doctor was so enraged that he was hardly thinking straight; he didn’t even bother to pursue the issue of the alarm. The words “Don’t ever see me again” were written plainly on his face, and he retreated back into his office the moment the two had cleared the fourth-floor boundary.
Shut out for the second time in a day, Li Xin remained in high spirits. He checked the time; it was already one o’clock.
“Alright, we had a good harvest tonight,” Li Xin said, sounding pleased. “Forget about the doctor’s office for now. That office-dwelling shut-in isn’t going to have a big block of free time for you to dig through files today—it’s just not realistic.”
Yu Suheng agreed entirely.
There was no drawn-out farewell. Li Xin stood in place, watching Yu Suheng walk down the stairs and push open the door to the dormitory area.
He had no intention of following, yet after waiting a few minutes, he turned around and headed back to the fourth floor.
He kept his footsteps suppressed. The hallway lights on the fourth floor remained off, as if guarding against something.
Finally, Li Xin stopped in front of the school doctor’s office and pushed the door open.
The moment he entered, Li Xin locked eyes with a pair of gloomy green eyes behind the desk, resembling two pools of somber ghost fire.
These eyes didn’t look like anything a human should possess, but after being forced to see so many strange monsters throughout the day, Li Xin honestly couldn’t muster any shock.
Seeing the doctor now, he simply smiled, his tone relaxed: “Don’t be so hostile, Doctor.”
With that, he closed the door behind him and sat down opposite the school doctor. He crossed his long, sharp-knuckled fingers over his upturned left leg, his posture relaxed. “I came to ask you for something.”
Unexpectedly, the doctor showed no anger at his request. He simply twitched his mouth stiffly, as if puzzled: “What else does Teacher Li want?”
Faced with the doctor’s poor attempt at playing dumb, Li Xin sighed. When he looked up again, his eyes were full of “you are beyond teaching.”
This look, which was no different from looking at an idiot, successfully made the doctor choke with rage. The doctor immediately picked up his iron hammer, only to swallow his breath in frustration as he glanced at something elsewhere.
This dramatic change in expression was breathtaking to watch for Li Xin, who loved stirring up trouble, but before his lips could curl into a grin, he forced them into a straight line under the doctor’s vicious glare.
After finally catching his breath, the doctor set the iron hammer back in its place and spoke, clearly against his will: “What do you want? Let’s get this straight first: I don’t necessarily have it, and even if I do, I don’t necessarily have to give it to you.”
“I understand, I understand.” To the doctor’s preemptive strike, Li Xin was exceptionally easygoing, with the word “sincere” practically written all over his face: “I will make an offer you’ll be satisfied with.”
The doctor was noncommittal: “What do you want? The physical examination records of the previous graduating class? Or the Teacher Management Manual?”
“You actually have things like that here?”
Hearing the words “Teacher Management Manual,” Li Xin was surprised for a moment. But as the doctor looked smug, Li Xin smilingly poured a bucket of cold water on him: “Sounds nice, but never mind that.”
This time, it was the doctor’s turn to be stunned.
His gaze shifted from sluggish to puzzled. Those malevolent green eyes scanned Li Xin up and down, growing more suspicious by the second.
Li Xin let him look, his smile not wavering in the slightest, yet he had no intention of explaining: “Don’t look, I don’t need that junk.”
The doctor pursed his lips. He suddenly realized something, his sinister green eyes fixed on the smile that seemed permanently attached to Li Xin’s face, yet he was forced to keep asking.
“Then… what do you want?”
This time, Li Xin didn’t bother with the cat-and-mouse game: “Simple. I need the complete procedure for a ‘successful case’.”
As he finished, Li Xin watched the doctor’s right hand tighten abruptly and the murderous intent that instantly suffused his expression. Li Xin straightened his relaxed spine and tapped his fingers on the table. When he spoke again, his tone remained nonchalant: “As for the offer you want…” The man reached into his pocket.
The doctor stared fixedly at his movements, like a wolf ready to pounce and tear him apart. But the next moment, he saw what the man was holding.
It was a very small box. The doctor knew exactly where it came from, and he should have known exactly where it was going.
But now, everything was upended.
Appreciating the doctor’s unfathomable expression, Li Xin placed the box gently on the edge of the desk in front of him, fingers resting casually upon it. His words still carried a smile, but they were pointed: “How is this for an offer?”
“What kind of ghost talk are you spouting? You…”
Before the conflicted doctor could continue, Li Xin stood up, feigning confusion in his tone: “Why that look, Doctor? Can’t see clearly? I suppose it is too dark in here.”
Saying this, Li Xin ignored the doctor’s furrowed brows. He walked past the doctor’s desk, straight to the closed curtains, and grabbed the cotton fabric.
The doctor finally realized what was happening and almost instinctively shouted: “Wait—”
“Wait for what?”
Accompanied by the violent act of ripping open the curtains, a small device blinking with a faint red light fell from the gap where the curtains met and smashed hard against the floor. Li Xin didn’t even look at it; as he turned, he crushed it into a pile of useless debris.
The doctor looked back, stunned and suspicious. The long-lost light streamed through the glass into the room that had been hidden from the sun for years.
The rare light in the night shone on the person by the window. Half of his face,染 (stained) with the night, looked uncanny yet beautiful.
Only then did the doctor suddenly notice that those dark, curved eyes never held any true mirth.
A chill ran down his spine. The doctor’s knuckles groaned as he gripped them, but he chose to remain silent, unsure of the man’s ultimate objective.
Withdrawing his gaze from the window, Li Xin looked down at the tense doctor, his lowered eyelids masking a flash of coldness.
Walking slowly back to the table, Li Xin picked up the iron box—which shouldn’t have been in his possession—and twirled it casually in his hand.
“Doctor, why bother? Leaking his information will only make you die faster.” After a long silence, Li Xin finally sighed. He took the USB drive out of the box and saw exactly the look of sheer terror he had hoped for on the doctor’s face.
“Don’t be afraid, Doctor. I haven’t said anything yet.” Li Xin lowered his voice and took another item from his pocket, slowly sliding it across the table toward the doctor.
“This is…” The doctor looked up in disbelief, as if looking at a monster. After a long time, he gritted his teeth and spat out two words in genuine sincerity: “Madman.”
Li Xin accepted the doctor’s evaluation well. He even let out a short laugh, like a phantom lurking in the night: “See, just as I said, my offer won’t disappoint you.”
“Instead of collaborating with those ‘children,’ perhaps you might find you have a better choice, don’t you think?”
…
Leaving the school doctor’s office, Li Xin played with the iron box in his hand as he headed toward the dormitories on the fifth floor.
The doctor hadn’t given a direct answer, but Li Xin knew what the doctor’s final choice would be.
He feared the Dean, but he also hated him. Perhaps the doctor would have hesitated about his choice of partner at first, but now, he only had one option.
Closing his dormitory door, Li Xin curled his lips as he gazed at the box in his hand. He had to admit that half of tonight’s success was thanks to that handsome, cool guy.
Getting something from him was harder than expected. Yu Suheng was sharp, and his reflexes and strength were both superior to Li Xin’s. He even possessed a high degree of vigilance toward Li Xin—a wariness that seemed to stem from a thorough, intuitive understanding of who he was.
This answered Li Xin’s earlier suspicions: this person really did know him, and not only that, but he understood him very well.
He had managed to secure the item only when he took advantage of Yu Suheng watching his own hand—which had been wrapped like a Zongzi (rice dumpling)—hovering on the verge of an explosion. Li Xin had to admit, he had a natural talent for making Yu Suheng angry.
If the school doctor hadn’t intervened after the alarm was triggered, giving Li Xin enough room to operate, he might not have found an opening tonight.
He wondered how that person would react when he discovered that the box he’d had was replaced with a paper shell filled with magnets.
Recalling the swift, ruthless way that man had pinned him down earlier, Li Xin instinctively touched his neck, feeling a fleeting worry about karma for the first time.
With his life potentially on the line, Li Xin sat at his desk, attempting to calculate the probability of escaping Yu Suheng unscathed.
A moment later, he shut his notebook with a blank expression and decided to think about something else.
For example, the possibility of coming down with a sudden, severe illness tomorrow and hiding out in the infirmary.