Master of Nine Stars

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK. Back at the Martial Arts Hall, Rong Taotao stood before the girls’ dormitory door and knocked gently.

CLICK.

The door opened a crack, revealing one of Sun Xingyu’s large, beautiful eyes. "Huh? Taotao, you’re awake?"

"Yep, I’m up." Rong Taotao nodded repeatedly. "Coach Si sent me to get Shi Lou and Shi Lan. He said for them to go down to the Martial Arts Arena; he’s waiting for them."

"Oh." Sun Xingyu turned to look inside the room. "Poor Pomegranate~"

Shi Lan sat pouting in her chair, unwilling to move.

"Let’s go, stop dragging your feet. We didn’t get first place, did you think we could escape this beating?" Her older sister, Shi Lou, was more clear-sighted about it. She wrapped an arm around Shi Lan’s neck, hauled her to her feet, and headed for the door.

Sun Xingyu quickly stepped aside, a look of pity on her face as she watched the Shi Family Sisters walk toward the stairwell.

Si Huan Nian was Shilou and Shilan’s practical skills teacher. The beatings this pair of twin sisters endured were far more frequent than those of any other student in the Junior Class...

Rong Taotao watched the Shi Family Sisters leave before turning back to Sun Xingyu. "By the way, congratulations on getting second place. That’s a great result."

"Get out of here. What’s so great about second place? Lou Lou and Lanlan are just a duo, while our team had a numbers advantage. And as for those from the Martial Arts Class, they weren’t even real competition." Sun Xingyu pouted, seeming dissatisfied with her result. "Oh, right!"

Sun Xingyu’s eyes suddenly lit up. She stepped forward into the hallway, pulled a chewy fruit candy from her pocket, and offered it to Rong Taotao. "How are you doing? I haven’t had a chance to ask since you got back. Was training in the Snowfield really tough? How did you get so badly injured?"

’Her mouth is like a machine gun...’

Rong Taotao’s scalp tingled from the barrage of questions; he didn’t even know where to begin answering.

Sun Xingyu’s mind worked too fast, the questions coming one after another. She pulled the door closed behind her, looking all sneaky as she whispered, "How’s Gao Lingwei? How are you two getting along?"

Sun Xingyu clenched her little hands into fists in front of her, her big eyes twinkling with a peculiar light. It seemed... *this* was what she really wanted to ask.

CLICK. The door cracked open again, and Fan Lihua peeked out at Rong Taotao, apparently just as interested in the answer.

’Great. Sun Xingyu’s gotten to her too.’

With a strange look on his face, Rong Taotao answered, "We’re doing fine."

"Oh." Sun Xingyu looked troubled and scratched her hair. "I just always feel like she’s so distant from us. She has too much of an aura about her, and she’s just too dazzling.

"And she’s not like Zhao Tang, who was demoted to the Junior Class after a setback, so..." 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

"Don’t worry!" Rong Taotao reassured her. "She has a great personality, and she’s not as cold and aloof as you’d think. Actually, she’s very caring. Once Da Wei gets back, we can all train together. It’ll be fine once you get to know her."

Sun Xingyu asked, "You can train with us now?"

Peeking through the crack in the door, Fan Lihua also looked at Rong Taotao with anticipation. After seeing his heroic display that morning, even the usually calm girl was eager to spar with him.

After all, they were Soul Martial Students. Fighting was something that ran through their entire lives.

"I should be able to," Rong Taotao nodded. "I heard from Coach Si that you guys aren’t going home this year?"

"With the Martial Arts Hall here to accelerate our training, how could we go home?" Although Sun Xingyu said this, she looked reluctant. The girl was probably homesick but didn’t want to hold Li Ziyi back, so she couldn’t go home either.

"Okay, then. We’ll just see what the teachers arrange. I’m heading back to my room." Rong Taotao nodded, then waved with a smile at Fan Lihua in the door crack.

Realizing she’d been caught peeking, Fan Lihua’s face flushed red. With a SLAM, she shut the door.

Sun Xingyu quickly called out, "Oh, right! Share Gao Lingwei’s WeChat with me. She’s the only one not in our class group chat."

Rong Taotao opened the door to Si Huan Nian’s room with one hand and said casually, "It’s no use adding her now, she’s not back yet. I’ll just add her to the group directly."

The student and teacher dorms were only separated by a hallway. Rong Taotao quickly went to his desk, looked at the pile of personal belongings, and dug out his phone and charger.

All this stuff had been brought back by Xia Fangran from a locker room at Hundred Corps Pass. Rong Taotao hadn’t even turned his phone on since he got back.

’Hmm... The reason I didn’t look for my phone right away is because I knew no one would be looking for me, so it didn’t really matter.’

After plugging it in, Rong Taotao turned on his phone. The moment he opened WeChat, he saw a ton of messages!

Rong Taotao jumped. ’What’s going on?’

And it turned out...

...all the messages were from Gan Lin?

’Oh man,’ he thought. ’This girl must hate my guts by now, right?’

’She originally wanted to take the chance to get close to her, but now, not only did she fail, I ended up taking her precious Da Wei away instead?’

Staring at the red "99+" notification, Rong Taotao felt his scalp tingle again. He didn’t dare to tap open the chat window.

Then, his eyes were drawn to the group chat’s name.

Huaguo Mountain?

’Wasn’t the class group chat called Fruit Salad?’

’Did it suddenly switch from a modern foodie style to a historical fantasy style?’

With a very strange expression, Rong Taotao added Gao Lingwei to the group chat.

Banana: "Yo, the Great God is back?"

Far away in the school cafeteria, Jiao Tengda was shoveling spicy chicken into his mouth while staring at his phone.