Chapter 16: Xiangli Tree

Near the treetop of the Xiangli Tree, thick branches coiled together to form a wooden platform, and at this moment, several gazes were looking down from above toward where Li Luo was.

"This Li Luo went missing for a week, and he finally came to the academy."

Ti Ti Faqing crossed her arms over her chest, her close-fitting school uniform wrapping her well-developed figure, and combined with a slightly charming, pretty face and fair, delicate skin, she drew many glances from the young men nearby.

She stared at Li Luo's figure, pouted slightly, and said, "Is he afraid Bei Kun will cause trouble for him? So he's using this method to hide?"

"What a waste of such a handsome face." Beside her, a group of young ladies also commented with sighs.

"Hehe, little girl, I remember when Li Luo was still in First Courtyard, you were his little fangirl." A companion teased.

The teased girl's face instantly flushed red, and she stamped her foot and fired back, "As if you weren't the same!"

The girls giggled, a hint of regret flashing through their eyes. The Li Luo of back then, when he first arrived at First Courtyard, was simply an unrivaled figure of the moment — not only handsome, but his displayed comprehension was also outstanding, and most importantly, the Luo Lan Mansion of that time was at the height of its power, one mansion with two marquis, illustrious beyond compare.

Handsome, talented, with deep background — which girl wouldn't like a boy like that?

But unfortunately, as time went on, the halo around Li Luo began to be stripped away. First, the disappearance of his parents directly caused the Luo Lan Mansion's status and strength to plummet, and afterward Li Luo was exposed as having a natural Hollow Phase, which plunged him even further into the valley.

Thus, the once-dazzling figure of First Courtyard was "exiled" to Second Courtyard.

At this point, continuing to admire him was clearly somewhat out of season.

Ti Ti Faqing listened to the chattering of her little sisters beside her, shook her head in some exasperation, and said, "A bunch of shallow fangirls."

Li Luo had just sat down cross-legged on a silver leaf when he heard some commotion around him. He raised his gaze and saw Bei Kun, surrounded by a group of cronies, leaping down from the leaves above.

Bei Kun was somewhat tall and sturdy, with a fair face, but the sinister glint in his eyes gave his entire person a somewhat gloomy look.

"Li Luo, I thought you weren't coming to the academy." Bei Kun stared at Li Luo and said with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Li Luo glanced at him, too lazy to bother responding.

And Li Luo's attitude instantly made Bei Kun's fury blaze. Back when the Luo Lan Mansion was powerful, he had tried every way to curry favor with Li Luo, yet the latter had always maintained this aloof, indifferent manner. At that time he didn't dare say anything, but now — do you, Li Luo, still think it's like before?

"Li Luo, you made me wait for you for a whole day at Li Qingfeng Tower. How do you want to settle this?" Bei Kun said through gritted teeth.

Li Luo said irritably, "Can you stop blaming your own stupidity on me?"

"What kind of IQ do you have to think I'd invite you to Li Qingfeng Tower?"

Bei Kun's gaze darkened, and he said, "Li Luo, apologize to me right now and I won't pursue this matter, otherwise—"

Li Luo smiled and said, "Otherwise you'll go wait at Li Qingfeng Tower for another day?"

Some suppressed laughter rang out around them. This Bei Kun was quite a tyrant at South Wind Academy, and he bullied people plenty on ordinary days, but clearly Li Luo didn't take his threats at all.

Bei Kun stared darkly at Li Luo, then said, "Such a tough mouth — dare to come down and play with me for a bit?"

Li Luo shook his head: "Not interested."

This Bei Kun was truly too low-class. In the past he didn't want to bother with him, and now he wanted to bother even less. If the other party wanted to play and he had to oblige, wouldn't that just make him seem as low-class as the other party?

Bei Kun let out a cold laugh, said no more, then waved his hand, and immediately his group of cronies began to jeer: "Are all the people from Second Courtyard cowards?"

More and more nasty remarks kept bubbling up.

The nearby Second Courtyard students immediately showed anger on their faces, but intimidated by Bei Kun's notorious reputation, for a moment they could only be angry without daring to speak.

"Li Luo, why must you drag the entire Second Courtyard into this because of your own problems?" Bei Kun said maliciously.

This Bei Kun was actually somewhat cunning, deliberately escalating things to provoke the Second Courtyard students, and since these students didn't dare do anything to him, they would naturally turn their resentment toward Li Luo, thereby forcing Li Luo to step forward.

"Shut your mouths."

But very quickly an angry shout rang out, as Zhao Kuo stepped forward, glaring at Bei Kun, and said, "If you want to fight, I'll keep you company."

"You again."

Bei Kun frowned and said, "Looks like last time I didn't beat you hard enough."

Zhao Kuo was about to speak when he saw Li Luo wave his hand to stop him. The latter said somewhat helplessly, "Why bother with this crap?"

Then he turned his gaze toward Bei Kun's cronies and sighed, "Help me note down all these people. Later I'll send someone to teach them how to get along peacefully with their classmates."

Although the Luo Lan Mansion had no small number of problems now, it was still one of the Five Great Mansions of the Great Xia Kingdom, and the forces left behind in the old residence weren't too weak either — at the very least, they could produce some Phase Master-level guards.

The surrounding students hearing this were somewhat dumbfounded, and Bei Kun's cronies also wore looks of stunned bewilderment.

Big bro, is this really necessary? We're just kids messing around at the academy — and you're going home to get people to beat us up?

This doesn't make any sense.

They exchanged glances, then couldn't help but step back a few paces, their blustering mouths falling silent, because they knew Li Luo really did have this capability.

Although he was Hollow Phase, he was still the young mansion master of the Luo Lan Mansion. Sending some Phase Master experts to beat them up in a sack was still very easy.

Bei Kun was also stunned for a moment, then cursed, "Li Luo, aren't you ashamed, playing such tricks?"

Li Luo frowned and said, "If you're not convinced, then invite your Bei family's experts to come beat me."

Bei Kun opened his mouth, then realized he couldn't find a retort. After all, although the Luo Lan Mansion was now beset by internal and external troubles, a starved camel was still bigger than a horse. Before its true collapse, the Bei family only dared to take sneaky little bites. As for him going to bring Bei family experts — not to mention whether he could even bring them, even if he did, would they dare actually do anything to Li Luo? The consequences that would trigger were clearly more than he could bear.

Thus, for a moment he stood frozen in place, somewhat flustered.

At the very top of the Xiangli Tree, there was a treehouse. At this moment, several figures in front of the treehouse were also watching the argument among the students below.

"Hehe, this little fellow from the Luo Lan Mansion is quite interesting." An old man draped in a black-and-white coat with graying hair said with a smile.

The old man was the headmaster of South Wind Academy, named Wei Sha, and he was also quite renowned in this Tian Shu Commandery.

"Disputes among students, yet he still wants to bring in family power to resolve them — that's hardly interesting. How did those two outstanding figures of the Luo Lan Mansion produce such a rascally son?" A voice spoke from the side.

That was a thin man who gave off a refined, scholarly air, yet between his brows there was a hint of aloof arrogance.

This person was precisely the current instructor of First Courtyard at South Wind Academy, Lin Feng.

Previously, it was also he who had insisted on kicking Li Luo out of First Courtyard and demoting him to Second Courtyard.

"Instructor Lin Feng's words are too harsh. That Bei Kun clearly knew Li Luo was Hollow Phase and still went looking for trouble — isn't that even worse?" Xu Xu Shanyue, hearing this, immediately retorted.

Lin Feng said indifferently, "Disputes among classmates are beneficial for their mutual competition and improvement."

But he clearly couldn't be bothered to argue with Xu Xu Shanyue on this topic. He turned his gaze toward the old man beside him and said, "Headmaster, the proposal I mentioned some time ago — I wonder what you think of it?"

Headmaster Wei blinked and said, "Which proposal?"

Lin Feng saw this and could only say helplessly, "The academy's grand examination is approaching, and our First Courtyard's golden leaves are somewhat insufficient. I want to ask the headmaster to allocate five more golden leaves to our First Courtyard."

"I disagree!"

The voice belonged to Xu Xu Shanyue, who glared at Lin Feng, for the golden leaves on the Power Tree were now only ten in the Second Courtyard besides those held by the First Courtyard; if Lin Feng wanted to split off five more, where else could they come from but the Second Courtyard?!

This fellow was truly pushing his luck too far.

(End of this chapter)