Chapter 238 - Chapter 238: 192. Compensate for Qing Chen's shortcomings
Chapter 238: 192. Compensate for Qing Chen’s shortcomings
“Huang Zixian cried because of your Knight Vital Energy, right?” Uncle Li Dong asked.
“Yes,” Qing Chen nodded.
Uncle Li Dong remarked, “Then your True Qi is quite a sight.”
Qing Chen said, “It’s good that you reminded me before I started fighting. Only then did I remember I had this advantage. Teacher, I want to know what effects other Knights’ True Qi have. Are there any like mine?”
Uncle Li Dong replied, “Knight Vital Energy comes in all varieties, but there are no two alike. Your senior brother’s causes nausea, your grandmaster’s gives an electric shock sensation, and your second grandmaster… makes people mistakenly like him.”
“Wait a minute!” Qing Chen looked at his master in sudden shock, “Why is my second grandmaster’s Knight Vital Energy so domineering?”
“I don’t know about that,” Uncle Li Dong sighed, “but his Knight Vital Energy is quite effective in actual combat; it can lower an opponent’s morale. You might be in a life-and-death struggle, and suddenly, you can’t bring yourself to strike anymore.”
“From this perspective, your True Qi is relatively proper,” Qing Chen reflected.
“Not all Knight Vital Energies are conducive to combat,” Uncle Li Dong said, “There was a Senior Knight whose True Qi gave others a false sense of excitement, so when he first channeled his Knight Vital Energy into an enemy, he took a particularly severe beating.”
Qing Chen was left speechless.
It was then that Uncle Li Dong continued, “In the Knight Organization, no one has ever had True Qi effects that replicated another’s. Yours, however, is an exception.”
Qing Chen puzzled, “Me? Was there someone in the Knight Organization with True Qi that could make people cry?”
“Yes,” Uncle Li Dong nodded.
“Which senior was that?”
“The founder of the Knight Organization, the one who carved ‘eternally youthful’ on the face of Green Mountain,” Uncle Li Dong stood up after speaking, “Get some rest early. I have some errands to run and you might not see me for the next day. I’ll take you back to the No. 18 Prison on Sunday morning.”
“Okay,” Qing Chen asked, “Teacher, can I go to the boxing gym alone?”
“Of course, you can, and it’s also the place you should be right now,” Uncle Li Dong said, “When you can defeat a Tiger Grade opponent without using Knight Vital Energy, you can then consider the next life-and-death challenge.”
…
…
Countdown 40:00:00.
At eight in the morning, there was a knock on the door.
Groggy, Qing Chen struggled to get up from the bed. As he rose, every injury in his body began to pull and tear as if he were about to split apart.
Yet he didn’t make a sound, just slowly moved toward the door, “Who is it?”
The voice of young wheat sounded, “It’s me, time for school!”
“About that…” Qing Chen hesitated, “I have some things to take care of and won’t be able to attend school today. You go ahead.”
Outside the door, young wheat and Zheng Yi looked at each other, feeling something was off.
Young wheat asked, “What’s wrong with your voice? It sounds a bit off.”
At the moment, half of Qing Chen’s face was swollen like a loaf of bread, which made his speech slightly leaky and naturally sounded off.
The reason he wasn’t going to school was he was worried about his classmates seeing his ghastly appearance.
And indeed, he really was hardly able to move today, in pain at the slightest motion.
Qing Chen was a tough person, not uttering a sound even in pain.
But toughness didn’t mean he had to go to school with injuries, that wasn’t being strong, that was being foolish.
After thinking it over, Qing Chen said, “I’m fine, you should hurry to school or you’ll be late.”
“All right,” young wheat pulled Zheng Yi’s hand towards the elevator.
As the two girls reached the 66th floor and boarded the light rail train, Zheng Yi whispered, “Aren’t you worried about Qing Chen? I feel like something might be wrong with him.”
“It’s nothing,” young wheat covered up for Qing Chen, “He’s probably just not fully awake yet. He’s always liked to skip classes.”
Young wheat had deduced that Qing Chen had been injured, but she couldn’t figure out how he’d gotten hurt.
Standing in the crowded train, young wheat kept a force field around them both, ensuring that anyone who tried to get close was invisibly repelled, like two magnets of the same polarity that could never touch.
The silver-haired girl Zheng Yi held onto the handrail with one hand and tugged at her small handbag with the other, looking at the train gliding through the air, weaving through building after building, feeling inexplicably joyful.
Perhaps it was because she felt her burdens in life had lessened, or maybe because she, once a bit of a loner, had gained a friend.
Then, young wheat asked, “Zheng Yi, I saw a civilian taser in your bag yesterday. Do you always carry that with you?”
“Yes,” Zheng Yi nodded, “My home is in the Ninth District, and every time I go back on weekends, I have to be extra careful. If something happens there, even if you call the cops, it will take them two hours to show up at the scene.”
“That slow?” young wheat frowned.
“Yes,” Zheng Yi nodded, “Mom says those Federation police are afraid there might be guns at the crime scene. If they go immediately, they could get shot themselves. If they go later, when the crime has ended, they can just clean up. Lives in the Ninth District aren’t worth much.”
Young wheat looked out the window at a city that seemed beautiful, its buildings as if rising from a realm of fairy tales, yet the life at its foundations was so challenging.
She had inadvertently opened Zheng Yi’s fridge the night before and found only the cheapest protein bars inside. On the table were the most affordable multivitamins.