Chapter 12: Shameless Lin Xiaohé!

“Jiang Lao.”

Shi Lei lowered his head slightly, his voice so faint it nearly scattered in the wind.

He felt ashamed, unwilling to let anyone—especially this silent old man who seemed to see through all things—witness his swollen, bruised, and pitiful state.

But the ingrained manners and respect for elders still made him halt his stumbling steps and bow slightly toward Jiang Ye by the gate.

On his face, swollen and discolored with purple and blue bruises, he forced out an expression uglier than crying.

Seeing this, even Jiang Ye, who had witnessed all the coldness of the world, let out a rare soft sigh: “Shi Xiaozi, with injuries this severe, still come to practice fist forms?”

Jiang Ye’s voice remained hoarse, yet somehow heavier and slower than usual.

He did not ask why the boy was hurt.

Shi Lei’s body tensed almost imperceptibly, then forced itself to relax.

He tugged at his split lip, trying to feign indifference, but the wound flared, making him gasp sharply; he lowered his gaze to his muddy shoe tips, his voice thin yet stubborn:

“Just surface wounds—they won’t interfere with fist training...”

He dared not meet Jiang Ye’s eyes, as if afraid of seeing pity or doubt in that aged gaze that saw everything.

Jiang Ye said nothing, only watched him silently for a few seconds.

That gaze was not sharp, yet it weighed heavily, as if measuring how much of the boy’s words were bravado and how much were defiance.

Finally,

Jiang Ye gave the faintest shake of his head, lowered his eyelids again, waved his hand, and his voice returned to its usual flatness:

“Go on. Don’t force yourself.”

Shi Lei gave a low reply, then bowed his head and stepped one by one through the gate into the inner courtyard.

Jiang Ye’s gaze followed that stumbling, stubborn back until it vanished behind the screen wall.

The moment Shi Lei stepped into the outer courtyard, it was as if a boulder had plunged into a lake, stirring up massive ripples.

“My god! Shi Lei’s here!”

“How did he get hurt so badly?!”

“Was it really a clash with the Wild Wolf Gang?!”

“Those people really are cruel and ruthless...”

The outer courtyard disciples erupted in a storm of gasps—shock, sympathy, horror rising in hushed cries.

Dozens of eyes, blunt or flickering, fixed on Shi Lei; some, with knowing glances, turned simultaneously to the other side—

There, Lin Xiaohé stood shoulder to shoulder with Hu Tian, their arms nearly touching, intimately discussing the details of a fist posture.

Shi Lei’s gaze, following the unspoken direction of all those stares, slowly shifted over.

When he saw Lin Xiaohé and Hu Tian nearly clinging together, his body—still unbent despite agony and humiliation—jolted violently, as if struck by an invisible sledgehammer; his wounds seemed to burst open at once, sending sharp pain through him.

Meanwhile, Lin Xiaohé, seeing Shi Lei’s bruised face enter, furrowed her brows as if confronted by a plague-bringer.

Her expression shifted rapidly; she whispered urgently into Hu Tian’s ear, then strode quickly to Shi Lei’s side.

“Lin...”

Shi Lei tugged at his split lip; his hoarse voice barely uttered one syllable.

“Shi Lei Shixiong!”

Lin Xiaohé’s shrill voice cut him off without mercy, rising sharply with haste and accusation:

“Shi Lei Shixiong, you have no idea how much you ruined our family just a couple days ago!”

Shi Lei’s pupils shrank sharply; he froze in place.

“You went around fighting with those Wild Wolf Gang thugs and injured several of them!”

Lin Xiaohé spoke rapidly, her finger nearly jabbing Shi Lei’s chest, then recoiling as if disgusted by the dirt.

“You had your fun, beat them up, then ran off! Left us to clean up the mess!”

“They came straight to our house, blocked the gate, demanding medical fees and herbal decoction money—nearly emptied our entire savings!”

“Do you have any idea how my parents have suffered these past two days?!”

Each word a knife, every sentence a stab to the heart.

Shi Lei’s body trembled violently—not from pain.

But from a coldness colder than fists and kicks, spreading from his heart to every limb and bone.

He stared fixedly at the face that, just two days ago, had smiled sweetly at him, full of trust—now filled with blame, accusation, and cruelty.

“Damn... Lin Xiaohé is really too...”

“Wasn’t it her who cried and begged Shi Lei for help?”

“Shi Lei stood up for her, fought the Wild Wolf Gang, came back broken—and now he’s the villain?”

“This... this ability to turn on someone overnight is incredible!”

“The world is like this—good people really can’t survive...”

The surrounding disciples stared, dumbfounded, hardly believing their ears.

Many had heard with their own ears, seen with their own eyes how Lin Xiaohé had clung to Shi Lei, how pitifully she’d begged for help.

Now, this blatant distortion of truth, this betrayal after using him—was enough to freeze the blood.

In an instant, looks of contempt, anger, disbelief settled on Lin Xiaohé like physical weight.

Yet these murmurs were kept low.

All eyes flickered to Hu Tian behind her—proud-faced, coldly observing—and remembered his “superior root quality” and the shadow of Zhang Xu looming behind him; the anger on their tongues was swallowed back.

Self-preservation is human instinct.

They feared that one careless word might bring retaliation from this woman.

“You...”

Shi Lei’s throat gurgled, as if choked with clotted blood; his eyes turned bloodshot, fixed on Lin Xiaohé—thousands of words, yet not one could escape.

Lin Xiaohé shuddered at his desperate, terrifying gaze, but then a fiercer rage and resolve surged within her.

She sneered, her voice clearer and sharper:

“Shi Lei Shidi, please don’t come near me or speak to me again—I’m afraid Hu Tian Shidi will misunderstand!”

Saying this,

She spun away as if discarding something filthy; instantly, her face softened into a gentle smile, like a bird returning to its nest, swift and light, slipping back beside Hu Tian, even unconsciously leaning behind him for protection.

“Ha... ha ha...”

Shi Lei watched her back, suddenly let out a low, broken laugh.

There was no anger in that laugh—only boundless desolation and self-mockery.

“Shi Lei, right?”

Hu Tian spoke at the perfect moment, his voice deliberately adopting a condescending, cold tone.

He lightly took the small hand Lin Xiaohé offered, as if claiming ownership, and glanced sideways at the broken Shi Lei.

“Did you hear what Lin Shijie said? Stay away from her from now on! Otherwise...”

He paused, chin lifting slightly, “I won’t be gentle with you.”

After last night’s “baptism” from Zhang Xu, Hu Tian had already drawn a clear line between himself and these lowly “ordinary” outer courtyard disciples.

Especially after hearing Lin Xiaohé say Shi Lei had only middling-to-poor root quality, the last vestiges of respect for a senior brother vanished.

He called him by name, his tone brazen.

Completely forgetting he, too, was a poor country boy.

Just yesterday, he had been a timid, awkward country lad.

The world turns, cold and warm, known only to the heart.

Shi Lei said nothing, not even glancing again at the intimate pair.

He simply turned slowly, step by step, toward the farthest corner of the outer courtyard.

His back stood alone, like a wounded beast abandoned by wolves, walking alone toward its doom.

Outside the gate,

Jiang Ye, having heard it all, shook his head slightly.

“Ah...”

Another soft sigh.

The wind before the gate seemed colder still.