Chapter 53: Academy Recruitment

"Please present your identification for verification." When Ding Huan heard these words, two men were checking the ID of a girl across from him.

Ding Huan sighed; he had no intention of leaving.

The high-speed train departs in ten minutes; he only needs five minutes to board, and he must take this train, as it is the fastest way to reach Yiling City.

Yet it's precisely these few minutes that matter.

The girl's ID was in order; the two men turned toward Ding Huan.

Ding Huan saw clearly: the two men checking IDs were actually just one person—a young man in his twenties.

The other was a station security officer, merely accompanying the young man to verify documents.

Ding Huan immediately understood: although the Gene Alliance was a global organization, it could not directly interfere with ID checks.

So it required station staff to accompany them.

"Hello, please present your identification." The young man stepped up to Ding Huan.

Ding Huan did not hesitate; he immediately pulled out his ID.

With minutes to spare, he planned to let these two men sit with him until the train arrived, then board immediately.

The only advantage was that Dean Andong Ao had not come himself; if Dean Andong Ao had shown up, he likely wouldn't have been able to board this train.

Luohe resident, Ding Xiaotu?

The young man saw Ding Huan's name and hometown on the ID and froze, then his eyes lit up.

Ding Xiaotu was Ding Huan—nearly everyone in the world knew this. Ding Huan's student name was Ding Xiaotu; he changed it to Ding Huan after leaving school.

And the name Ding Huan had echoed throughout Puhai during the Ten Great Academies' enrollment trials.

Ding Huan showed no expression.

Just as he thought the young man would act, he heard him say to the accompanying officer, "Captain Qi, you handle checking the people behind me—I have something to attend to."

Then, excitedly, he looked at Ding Huan and said, "You don't recognize me, do you? I'm Kong Dan."

Ding Huan blinked—what did this guy mean?

Captain Qi paid no attention; he had already walked away. Meeting an old friend at the station was normal.

Once Captain Qi left, the young man named Kong Dan blurted out excitedly, "Teacher Ding, I've admired you for a long time."

"You're not going to arrest me?" Ding Huan stared at the excited Kong Dan.

Kong Dan snorted, "I'd be insane to arrest you—that's the Gene Alliance's dogs after you."

"You're not with the Gene Alliance?" Ding Huan was even more confused—he'd assumed the ID-checking young man was Gene Alliance, and Captain Qi was just station security.

Kong Dan shook his head, "Even if I'd fused alien genes, I'd still look down on such a selfish, self-serving organization."

The Gene Alliance's leadership has been wiped out by some great hero, and their leader, Shi Shi Changqian, isn't even in Puhai.

Dean Andong Ao is checking every station, but he can't find anyone to coordinate with in such a short time—no one's helping, so he had to turn to the Security Bureau first. I'm just here to fill a quota—don't take it seriously."

Still, Kong Dan had already guessed that every last one of the Gene Alliance's leaders in their lair had been killed by this Ding Huan.

He had restrained his excitement as much as he could.

An idol—he'd done what Kong Dan dared not and could never do.

Ding Huan understood: he had killed nearly every Gene Alliance leader still in Puhai.

Dean Andong Ao and Qin Qiang were Gene Alliance members, but they were more like figureheads.

They hadn't yet figured out internal personnel assignments, so in desperation, they had to seek help from the Security Bureau to track him down.

"Passengers for Train 701 to Jingchuan, please prepare to board—the train departs in five minutes…"

The announcement echoed through the waiting hall.

Ding Huan pulled out a piece of paper, wrote a few words on it, and handed it to Kong Dan: "I'm leaving. If I ever return to Luohe, you can find me at Yujiang University."

"Teacher Ding, can I study at Yujiang University?" Kong Dan felt like a giant cake had fallen on him—he was stunned.

Who wouldn't want to study under Ding Huan? His dream had come true.

Ding Huan laughed, "Of course you can—but I don't know when I'll return, maybe not for one or two years."

"Good, good, I can wait…" Kong Dan stammered.

Ding Huan, who had once planned to fight, now boarded the high-speed train to Yiling City without a single obstacle.

…

The anti-aging, longevity gene serum developed and produced by Luohe's Bai Yu Group—the Selene Gene Serum—collapsed.

Within just a few days, tens of thousands died.

This was only the beginning; from the day the Selene Gene Serum failed, tens of thousands died daily, and this continued for months.

Fortunately, Bai Yu Group's production capacity was insufficient; if it had been higher, daily deaths would have skyrocketed.

Because every dose of Bai Yu's Selene Gene Serum was snatched up immediately upon release—none ever sat in inventory for a single day.

On the third day after Bai Yu Group's collapse, all its executives died.

Some said they committed suicide out of fear; others claimed they were murdered.

The incident shattered Bai Yu Group internally; a renowned Luohe conglomerate vanished in a single day.

Bai Yu Group's chairman, Ding Ding Jie, went missing—but no one cared now; the entire world was in panic.

Everyone who had taken Bai Yu's Selene Gene Serum waited for death—when the time came, they would surely die with blood gushing from all seven orifices.

Far more terrifying than Bai Yu Group's executives dying was the Gene Alliance's collapse.

The members of the Gene Alliance who died from the Selene Gene Serum in the East Xun Gene Center building in Puhai need not be mentioned.

What terrified everyone was that nearly all Gene Alliance leaders in the top-floor conference room of the East Xun Gene Center building were also dead.

The mystery deepened: these dead had multiple causes of death. The first, naturally, was death from the Selene Gene Serum.

Besides that, several had died from gunshot wounds, two from knife wounds.

The rest appeared to have died from another gene serum—their death scenes were even more horrifying.

On the surface everyone looked perfectly normal, but the moment the corpses were moved, they melted into foul water like rotten mud.

The moment Shi Changyi, the Alliance Leader of the Gene Alliance, learned that the Gene Alliance had been wiped out in one swoop, he was furious enough to kill.

He rushed back to Puhai at the first opportunity, only to find that he couldn't even locate a single Gene Alliance member to ask about the situation, let alone catch the perpetrator.

……

Now, needless to say Puhai, even other places were equally overwhelmed by the fallout from the Seliu genetic agent.

From the time the Bai Yu Group developed the Seliu genetic agent until the problems emerged, they had sold a total of one million doses. Even if only half of those doses had actually been consumed, it was an utterly terrifying matter.

These upheavals did not significantly affect the entrance examinations of the Blue Star Ten Great Academies.

Apart from the entrance examination being suspended for half a day on the first day, the fourth-round entrance examination continued for the rest of the time and was even completed ahead of schedule.

Although the Blue Star Ten Great Academies had finished their entrance examinations in Puhai, the incidents in Puhai this time were simply too numerous, and the death toll was staggering.

This was the first time such a thing had happened — a city losing so many people without any assault from gene beasts.

Therefore, as soon as the entrance examinations were completed, the Blue Star Ten Great Academies immediately launched their admissions work.

Today was the big day for students participating in the Blue Star Ten Great Academies' recruitment — the time for students to choose their academy.

On the first-floor hall of Puhai Pearl Tower, the Blue Star Ten Great Academies each hung their plaques at the very top, and every academy had several admissions teachers present.

For most academies, even the Principal had come to sit here in person.

Even if a Principal had urgent matters and couldn't come, at the very least a Vice Principal would be present.

The admissions teachers — mostly cultivation tutors from the various academies — were here primarily to pick out students they liked.

The future height a academy could reach depended, among other things, heavily on the quality of its student intake.

The students who had placed in the top five hundred across the four rounds of examinations had also arrived here; they too had to choose the academy they wanted.

The selection process of the Blue Star Ten Great Academies could rightly be described as one-in-ten-thousand, so the elimination rate was shockingly high.

Every student who made it into the top five hundred was no ordinary person.

However, once a student entered the top five hundred, the treatment they received was worlds apart from what they'd had before the exams.

Because here it wasn't only the Ten Great Academies who could actively choose examinees — the examinees could also choose an academy. Only after both sides reached an agreement was the examinee's academy finally decided.

Any examinee who made it here need not worry about being left without an academy, because even the last-place student would be taken in by some academy.

This was mandatory: if at the end an examinee hadn't been chosen by their preferred academy, and an academy hadn't filled its quota, the two sides had to be matched with each other.

The moment Fang Chong, Li Wanran, and Lü Zi walked in, they drew the attention of nearly every academy's admissions tutor.

In this examination, Lü Zi's overall score ranked first, Li Wanran ranked third, and Fang Chong's overall score ranked fourth.

Students like these were naturally wanted by every academy.

"Fang Chong, which academy do you want to go to?" Li Wanran whispered beside Fang Chong.

Fang Chong swept his gaze around once, then said, "Let's first see what conditions they offer. Sometimes a higher-ranked academy isn't necessarily the best fit for you."

Fang Chong remembered what Ding Huan had told him — don't blindly chase an academy's ranking, but look at what the academy can actually give you.

Of course, in the end he was definitely going to choose the Dahan Yi Academy.

"Fang Chong, Li Wanran, Lü Zi — long time no see. Congratulations on making it here." A crisp voice rang out.

Following that voice was a woman with a voluptuous figure and a stunningly beautiful face.

Li Wanran hurriedly bowed and saluted, "Greetings, Principal Qin."

Although Teacher Geng Qianxing had said that Principal Qin Qiang had been scheming against Teacher Ding Huan behind the scenes, in person she still had to be shown proper respect.

Fang Chong did not bow; he merely followed Li Wanran's lead and said a single "Greetings, Principal Qin." Although he had cursed Qin Qiang as a Wang Ba, he didn't dare show a bad attitude here.

Lü Zi, who was following behind Fang Chong, saw that Fang Chong hadn't bowed, and so followed suit, simply calling out "Principal Qin" once.