By the time Lin Yi entered the classroom, more than half of the lesson had already passed. Soon, the bell rang for the end of class, and Teacher Liu left the room after assigning homework.
Kang Xiaobo turned around, looked at Lin Yi, and said with a hint of complaint, "I'm telling you, boss, you scared the life out of me! I thought you weren't coming today!"
"What? Afraid those three, Zhong Pinliang and his cronies, would come looking for trouble? They didn't show up either, did they?"
Lin Yi smiled. Indeed, if Kang Xiaobo were alone, he certainly wouldn't be able to deal with Zhong Pinliang's group, so it was normal for him to be worried.
"Why didn't they come? They showed up this morning, and Zhang Naipao even had a Band-Aid on his face!"
Kang Xiaobo continued, "But for some reason, they just circled around and left. Could it be that they left because they saw you weren't here?"
"Oh? They came?"
This was somewhat unexpected for Lin Yi, but whether they came or came and then left made no difference to him. "Let them do whatever they want."
"True, they aren't your match, but I'm just worried they might bring in backup!" Kang Xiaobo said with concern.
"Backup? What do you mean?" Lin Yi didn't quite understand.
"I mean, since they can't beat you themselves, they'll go find help from the streets!" Kang Xiaobo explained. "Boss, you have to be careful!"
"They have connections with people from the streets?" Lin Yi frowned. In his view, no matter how arrogant Zhong Pinliang was, he was still just a student, and his way of handling things was limited to the school environment.
He hadn't expected, based on Kang Xiaobo's words, that these people had ties to the underworld and would seek outside help if they couldn't win.
"Of course they do! I heard that one of the 'Four Great Villains,' Zou Ruoming, has a brother who is a real street thug!" Kang Xiaobo said. "Last time he got into a fight with the big boss from the snack street next door, he called his brother over! Damn, his brother showed up shirtless, looking incredibly fierce with tattoos all over, and several of his subordinates were carrying steel pipes and cleavers. That snack street boss was scared shitless before the fight even started; he just knelt on the ground begging for mercy!"
The more Lin Yi listened, the more he frowned. He hadn't expected these people to be so brazen; this was beyond his expectations. Had he been too light with the lesson he taught them yesterday?
"Let's go, it's time for mid-morning exercises. We can talk while we walk," Kang Xiaobo said, standing up as the classroom emptied out.
Since he and Lin Yi sat at the back of the class, he waited until most of the other students had left before standing up to walk out.
"What are the mid-morning exercises at our school?" Lin Yi asked. He hadn't participated yesterday because Zhong Pinliang had called him to the restroom.
"You didn't go yesterday? Oh, I don't think I saw you," Kang Xiaobo thought for a moment. "The exercises are just a set of school-designed radio calisthenics. They're very simple, easy to learn, and a PE teacher leads them at the front."
After leaving the classroom, Kang Xiaobo led Lin Yi quickly to their class's designated spot. Kang Xiaobo was quite tall, so he stood at the very back, and since Lin Yi wasn't short either, he stood right next to him.
***
Zhong Pinliang finally managed to wait for Brother Black Panther at the school gate!
A bald, burly man jumped out of a white Nissan van, followed by two henchmen of similar build.
"Young Master Zhong!"
This bald man was Brother Black Panther.
Zhong Pinliang nodded and said to his two subordinates, "Hurry up and greet Brother Black Panther!"
"Brother Black Panther!" Gao Xiaofu and Zhang Naipao hurriedly greeted him.
"Young Master Zhong, where is he? I'll settle this quickly so I can get back to the club. If the boss finds out I came here to help you fight, I'm finished," Brother Black Panther said.
The "boss" he referred to was, of course, Zhong Pinliang's father. Black Panther knew the boss disliked Zhong Pinliang causing trouble, which was why he had made excuses before finally showing up.
"He's inside, doing the mid-morning exercises right now!" Zhong Pinliang said.
Black Panther nodded, clenching a cigarette in his mouth, and began walking into the school.
As soon as he reached the gate, he was stopped by the elderly security guard. "Hey, what are you doing here? This is a school, you can't just walk in!"
Black Panther turned back with disdain, glanced at the old man, and blew a cloud of smoke directly into his face. "Old man, if you don't want to die, stay out of it!"
The old man looked at Black Panther and shrank back. These street thugs were not people an old man like him could afford to provoke. He could only pretend not to see them and let them pass. Regardless, the school was in the middle of exercises; surely a teacher would see them and chase them away.
As the entire student body performed their exercises, six highly discordant figures walked from the gate toward the playground.
Three of them were somewhat acceptable—Zhong Pinliang, Gao Xiaofu, and Zhang Naipao looked relatively normal—but the three following them, led by Black Panther, clearly did not look like good people.
Black Panther walked across the playground without any hesitation, completely indifferent to the bewildered stares from others.
"Where is he?" Black Panther asked.
"Over there, in our class line. Lin Yi definitely came out for the exercises!" Although he couldn't see clearly from a distance, Zhong Pinliang was certain Lin Yi would be there.
"Boss, it's Zhong Pinliang and his group. They brought backup!" Because their target was so obvious, Kang Xiaobo spotted them instantly.
Before Kang Xiaobo could even speak, Lin Yi had already seen them. After all, appearing on the school playground at this time meant almost every student could see them.
Soon, Zhong Pinliang and Black Panther arrived in front of the Grade 12 Class 5 formation. Zhong Pinliang immediately spotted Lin Yi standing at the very end of the line.
Zhong Pinliang pointed at Lin Yi and said to Black Panther, "It's him. At the end of this row, the one in the school uniform!"
Black Panther nodded and strode toward Lin Yi.
From a distance, Lin Yi looked very ordinary—tall and thin, not looking like a fighter at all. Black Panther was quite puzzled; was this one guy really worth him getting his hands dirty?
Aside from being somewhat handsome, Black Panther didn't see any other notable qualities in Lin Yi. He looked like a typical poor student, not someone capable of fighting.
However, since the Young Master had given the order, Black Panther intended to end the fight as quickly as possible so he could return to the nightclub.
"You're Lin Yi?" Black Panther walked up to him, cigarette dangling from his lips, and asked while looking at him sideways.
"Yes," Lin Yi replied indifferently.
"Do you know why I'm here?" Black Panther asked with an unfriendly expression, seeing that Lin Yi was indeed quite cocky.
"I don't." Lin Yi frowned and said with some impatience, "Don't block me. I'm trying to follow the person in front of me for the exercises. You're hovering in front of me, and I can't see!"