Chapter 4

“Well, hello,” Ning An looked at Derek with some uncertainty. “You’re the one that was fighting on the court… Can I help you?”

“I saw you just watching the battle just now, and I thought you seemed very interested. Would you like to try competing with me?” Derek wasn’t expecting for the other party to remember his name, thus Derek introduced himself again. “I’m Derek Liszt, and we’re going to be fellow schoolmate. Your name is?”

“Call me Ning An, if I compete with you… ”

“He is not feeling well today and will have to disappoint you today.” Before Chen Ning could answer, Chen Siyu cut off his words and joked; if it was Wang Yi, he might still have the ability to parry in the battle. But if Nig An were to join, would he only appear to be tortured?

He Xin understood what Chen Siyu was trying to do and joined him with the act, “Yeah, yeah, didn’t you just say that you wanted to go to the infirmary? I’ll go with you.” he tugged onto Ning An to pull him away.

“I see, Ning An is feeling unwell. Then he needs to go to the infirmary soon.” Derek kept a smile on his face, but his eyes coldly swept over Chen Siyu and He Xin. After giving them a glance, he regained his cool head and turned to Ning An. “So why don’t we put a rain check on this for later? How about adding each other on our terminals first?”

After thinking about it, Derek looked at the other three people standing by. “How about I add everyone on my terminal friend list?”

After they added each other on the terminal, Chen Siyu and He Xin left in a hurry, Wang Yi followed after them in a daze.

“Hey, look ahead of you!” Chen Siyu pulled Wang Yi back from running into the tree, “What’s the matter with you!”

“This feels so surreal.” Wang Yi looked at the newly added account in his friend list on his personal terminal, ‘Derek Liszt’. “Is it true that my idol added me as a friend?”

“It’s true, it’s true, he also added us. Does it hurt? If you feel pain then it is not a dream.” Chen Siyu looked at him and have Wang Yi a hard pinch.

“I’m so happy.” Wang Yi rubbed the place where he was pinched absentmindedly. “I’ve decided, I’m going to run a few laps around the school first!”

“Hey! You!” Chen Siyu yelled at the back of Wang Yi’s running figure, thought about it for a while and decided to catch up. Otherwise the whole school will know that Derek had added his friend on his personal terminal. Chen Siyu turned back to He Xinhe and Ning An and said, “You guys go first, I’m going to follow that idiot.”

“Derek Liszt. Isn’t he one of those guys you guys talked about yesterday…” Ning An waved to Chen Siyu’s retreating back and frowned slightly, “What does he want from me?” When Ning An thought about it again, he felt as if his conversation with Derek back then was a little awkward, but did he know him?

“I don’t know, but I think he looks a bit scary.” He Xin recalled the chills that ran down his spine when he met eyes with Derek back then. “Thank God we don’t have classes together with him.”

What the hell, I can’t seem to recall? Ning An cursed in his heart, staring intensely at the ‘Delete Friend’ button on his terminal screen for a while. But in the end, he decided to dismiss it. “Forget it, whatever. Let’s go back to nap in our room after we eat lunch.”

Wang Yi crazed around the school and was then dragged by Chen Siyu to their dormitory after finishing three laps, sitting on his bed and continuously checking his terminal friend list screen, and then exiting. Chen Siyu was too lazy to care about him. After setting the alarm clock, Chen Siyu fell onto his bed and covered his head to sleep. Three laps! He ran after Wang Yi for three laps! If Chen Siyu hadn’t dragged him back to their room, he would probably still be on the run! This guy’s physical strength is really not of the ordinary people.

“What are you looking at? You’re smiling widely.” After Fu Ke finished his training, he went straight to the cafeteria for lunch before heading back to his dormitory. Seeing Derek grinning by himself while looking at his terminal device, Fu Ke was spooked.

“It’s nothing, nothing.” upon seeing Fu Ke, Derek’s grin grew even wider and he hastily pushed down the corner of his lips before closing his personal terminal. “Have you had your lunch?”

“I ate.”

“I still haven’t had my meal, I’m going to the cafeteria first.” Derek rushed to leave the room to run away from Fu Ke’s curious eyes, and it wasn’t until he reached the stairwell that Derek opened his terminal again to reply to Ning An, “Alright, see you at the training ground tonight. ”

There were over three hundred people in this session for the Beta recruits, which were all divided into six classes. Wang Yi was placed in the first class, Chen Siyu was in the forth while He Xin and Ning An both seated in the sixth class. They later learned that the division of classes were based from their pre-entry test results. After the results came, Ning An once again exerted his road-dementia skills and rushed into the classroom with He Xin less than ten seconds before the school bell rang. When they arrived, the front row seats were already taken. The duos shuffled to the seats in the back row. From the podium, the teacher watched the two boys that stepped into the classroom before the bell rang and turned to introduce himself.

“Hello everyone, my name is Qin Zhao, and I will be your class teacher and theory class teacher from now on. The next time we see each other, I expect everyone to call me Professor Qin. Whatever welcoming nonsense you expect from me today won’t happen, we’ve already listened to it this morning. Please add my terminal class first; you can ask me if you have any questions. If you don’t have any questions, you can also talk to me about anything except for dirty jokes.”

The students chattered among themselves and added him on their terminals. Qin Zhao opened his own terminal and accepted everyone on his friend request list. He added then, “I’m being serious. You ought to know, this kind of behavior is considered as a sexual harassment, and the school can expel you from the academy for this reason.” Several students who just wanted to send him yellow jokes were all beaten by him and they quickly erased their typed messages. It wasn’t easy for everyone to pass through the exam. Who would want to be dropped out because of this kind of thing?

“It is your business to befriend each other later. I’m going to start class now.” Qin Zhao closed his terminal he finished accepting everyone on his friend request list. “The first question, what caused the war to happen? If you manage to answer the question, I will add extra points to your final grade as appropriate. Please raise your hand to answer.”

“This instructor is really interesting .” Ning An did not close the terminal, he bothered himself and sent a message to Chen Siyu asking him if the latter really did not know how Qin Zhao was such a teacher. Chen Siyu did not respond; and it was probably because they weren’t allowed to use their terminal during class. Ning An waited for a while before turning it of when he did not get a reply…

“What’s a dirty joke?” He Xin didn’t understand why the students laughed then the instructor said this. “Why is it considered as sexual harassment?”

“You…” Ning An turned to He Xin and stared at him as if he had made a new world discovery. He originally thought that He Xin was a relatively simple minded person, but now he looked like a clean sheet of white paper. He hooked his finger and beckoned He Xin closer to press their heads together, whispering to him.

Some people had already spoke up answers such as “ideological differences”, “gap between rich and poor”, “conflict of interest” and so on. Qin Zhao nodded and said nothing, yet he suddenly saw two joined heads in the back row whispering together. They were almost late for class, yet still had the audacity to chat at the back of the class while he was teaching.

“Two students at the back, please answer this question. First, from the left, what do you think caused the war?”

He Xin, who was called, suddenly stood up in a daze. He was still blushing from Ning An’s “science” explanation and looked a little embarrassed. “I think the war was caused by the nature of life?”

“Please explain your answer in detail.”

“It is like a battle for territory and food. Um… It’s just like two shepherd dogs in my family. They often start fighting for no reason, it just came from their instinct…” He Xin couldn’t help but to feel wronged and grieved when his classmates started laughing at his answer. “What’s the matter? I didn’t say anything wrong…”

“Well, this student can sit down, thank you for your answer and the vivid example.” Qin Zhao signaled other students to be quiet, while the front of the display screen appeared a ‘competition for resources’ text from He Xin’s previous answer. Qin Zhao then turned towards Ning An and spoke, “The student next to him, what is your answer?”

When it reached to Ning An’s turn, he stood up and gave it a thought before answering. “I think the capital is the cause of the war.”