Chapter 77: Mediation

In his previous life, Su Chunfeng never attended high school.

So he did not know that in this era, high school students were even more wild than middle school students—while he and Wang Haifei were outside enjoying their private time, happily and sweetly having a meal, Li Zhichao was leading a group of guys, frantically going through the freshman boys’ dormitory one by one, looking for the boys from Heyi Town who had been in the fight to “finish the job”!

“Finishing the job” meant following up on their victory, finding them one by one, and beating them up again!

The reason for doing this, in Li Zhichao’s words, was: “To make them submit completely in one go, so there won’t be endless back-and-forth revenge in the future…”

After dinner, Su Chunfeng and Wang Haifei strolled leisurely and romantically for over half an hour on the quiet campus as a light snow fell. They actually didn’t talk much; they simply enjoyed the peaceful intimacy of the moment—Wang Haifei was the type of girl who didn’t like to talk much, and Su Chunfeng, having lived two lives, had an even calmer disposition. Thus, their temperaments were a perfect match; they admired and loved each other, and they wouldn’t have unnecessary conflicts like ordinary couples who run out of topics after the initial passion.

After seeing Wang Haifei back, Su Chunfeng alone, unhurriedly, took a walk around the football field. Unbeknownst to ordinary people, he silently recited Spell Incantation mantras, circulating the true essence energy within his body, sensing and guiding the abundant, light, and agile Qi of Five Elements in the air, allowing it to slowly seep through his skin into his body, cleansing the impure energies.

“Yang energy begins in the east and moves south; yin energy begins in the southwest and moves north.”

“Thus, the Five Elements are distinctions of Qi, generating each other and overcoming each other in motion. The Five Elements correspond to the five sense organs and should match the five internal organs…”

One must understand that the human body, nourished by grains and living in the ever-changing mortal world, is inevitably slowly accumulating the filth and impure energies of the mundane realm over time.

Therefore, breaking through the Body Purification stage took an extremely long time and required great perseverance and patience.

Being able to sense and guide Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy into the body marked the Early Stage of Purified Body. At this stage, only a small amount of spiritual energy was guided in, washing and cleansing the fine energy threads densely spread like spiderwebs within the epidermal and muscle layer tissues. These energy threads were capillary structures that extended from what Traditional Chinese Medicine called the Eight Extraordinary Meridians throughout the body.

If the energy threads were not cleansed, spiritual energy could not penetrate deeper into the body, let alone rely on it to cleanse the internal impurities.

Once the energy threads were cleansed, one entered the Middle Stage of Purified Body. Because the energy threads within the epidermal and muscle layer tissues were cleansed, more and more abundant spiritual energy could enter the body. Thus, one could use a large amount of spiritual energy to cleanse the impure energies between the five internal organs. But this was not as simple as it sounded, because this stage required decomposing the Qi of Five Elements within the spiritual energy inside the body, matching metal, wood, water, fire, and earth to their corresponding internal organs. Moreover, the path of cultivation was like rowing against the current; if one did not advance, they would retreat. If at this point one’s will wavered and they wanted to rest for a while, it would inevitably lead to the rapidly generated impure energies within the body and the influence of the external environment quickly refilling the energy threads in the epidermal and muscle layer tissues in an extremely short time, destroying all the cultivation achievements from the Early Stage of Purified Body and forcing one to start over, making it even more difficult.

The Late Stage of Body Purification was the most difficult and time-consuming period. On one hand, one needed to continuously consolidate and cleanse the already purified five internal organs and surface tissues. On the other hand, one had to rely on strong willpower to draw in more and more spiritual energy to gradually unblock the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, thereby creating thirty-six major and minor cycles within the body that could revolve continuously.

However, the current Su Chunfeng absolutely could not focus on cultivation as he did in his previous life, because he still needed to squeeze out more time every day to study, rest, eat, interact with classmates, and… date.

Fortunately, in this life, he possessed far more Spell Cultivation experience and a stronger mental state than ordinary Occultists. In performing any Esoteric Technique or during cultivation, he was extremely familiar and would not take any wrong turns. Moreover, with his rich cultivation experience and strong mental cultivation, during the cultivation process he could draw in several times more Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy than other cultivators at the same Pure Body Realm, and he could cultivate anytime, anywhere without many restrictions, thus achieving twice the result with half the effort.

Furthermore, in this life, his life no longer revolved around cultivation.

What he cared more about was enjoying the peace and happiness of an ordinary life—for example, he was very satisfied with his current life situation.

However, practicing Esoteric Technique was something he had to persevere with.

First, to deal with unforeseen events that might occur in the future;

Second, cultivation brought extremely practical benefits to his real life. Apart from being able to withstand more of the natural Backlash when occasionally forced to use Art Casting, his thinking and reactions became increasingly agile, and his physique grew stronger and stronger. Although he still looked fair and slender, he actually possessed strength and reflexes beyond those of ordinary peers. To put it plainly, his personal combat ability was very strong.

By the time Su Chunfeng returned to the dormitory, it was already past eleven at night.

The lights in the dorm had long been turned off.

He tiptoed to the inner bunk bed and was about to take off his shoes to climb to the upper bunk when he heard Han Qiang’s voice from behind: “Chunfeng, you’re back?”

“Hmm?” Su Chunfeng turned around and whispered with a smile, “Not asleep yet?”

Han Qiang sat up. Because he was tall and slept on the lower bunk, he leaned forward, lit a cigarette, took a slow puff, and said, “About the fight between Li Zhichao and us from Heyi Town tonight… you were involved too, right?”

“Tonight?” Su Chunfeng was taken aback. “Wasn’t it just the fight on the playground right after school?”

“You really don’t know what happened tonight?” Han Qiang sounded somewhat disbelieving and snorted angrily, asking, “Then where were you, coming back so late?”

Su Chunfeng frowned. “If you have something to say, say it. Do I need to tell you what I was doing?”

“Li Zhichao led a bunch of guys. After that fight on the playground, they went to the freshman boys’ dormitory and ‘finished the job’ on everyone one by one…” Han Qiang’s tone was full of displeasure and anger. “Chunfeng, I didn’t get involved in this from start to finish. Getting into a few fights among our classmates is no big deal, but this time Li Zhichao beating them up and then ‘finishing the job’… isn’t that going too far? Do you really think we from Heyi Town are afraid of you?”

Su Chunfeng was immediately stunned—he really hadn’t expected Li Zhichao to do something so out of line.

After a moment of thought, Su Chunfeng said, “Did the students from Heyi Town come to you?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the idea, then?” Su Chunfeng said calmly. Since it had already happened, saying anything else now was useless. And since those guys had approached Han Qiang, and Han Qiang had brought it up with him, it probably meant they wanted to talk peace, or perhaps Han Qiang personally didn’t want to fight.

Han Qiang said, “All of us from Heyi Town are thinking of joining forces for another fight… To be honest, you should know that in County No.1 High School, we from Heyi Town have the most people, including sophomores and seniors. Not to mention others, you’ve heard of Qian Jingjiang and his group from senior year, right? Qian Jingjiang is from our Heyi Town. If it really comes to a fight, you guys can’t win.”

“Is that all you wanted to tell me?” Su Chunfeng sneered.

Hearing Su Chunfeng’s unfriendly and slightly impatient tone, Han Qiang felt a chill run down his back. He quickly waved his left hand holding the cigarette and said, “Among the freshmen from Heyi Town, my words still carry some weight. What I mean is, we’re all classmates; there’s no need to fight to the death. So it’s best to settle this privately. This incident isn’t about who’s right or wrong; it’s just about words getting heated. But what Li Zhichao did tonight by ‘finishing the job’ was too much. So I thought, please, Chunfeng, go talk to him. Have him apologize, a few of us have a drink, and this matter will be settled… How does the saying go? ‘No discord, no concord.’ We can still be friends.”

“That sounds reasonable.” Su Chunfeng nodded. “I’ll go talk to Zhichao now.”

“Alright then.” Han Qiang breathed a sigh of relief.

He knew that Li Zhichao from Class 15, who had been growing more imposing lately, actually listened most to this seemingly honest, top-scoring Su Chunfeng from Class 1 in private.

Usually, group fights among classmates wouldn’t make one side submit or fear the other, especially for students from Heyi Town. They weren’t even afraid of the local town students, let alone those from distant townships. However, although Li Zhichao’s act of “finishing the job” was excessively infuriating, it also genuinely made Han Qiang and some freshmen from Heyi Town feel chilled and fearful—this guy was simply too ruthless.

Around eleven at night.

Su Chunfeng went to Dormitory Building 4, Room 323, called Li Zhichao out, and the two had a serious talk.

Regarding Li Zhichao’s actions this time, Su Chunfeng did not criticize or blame him. Being mature-minded, he clearly understood that Li Zhichao’s actions couldn’t be simply labeled right or wrong. Even strategically, it was a correct decision. Since a fight was unavoidable, it had to be decisive, not dragged out.

Moreover, based on Su Chunfeng’s understanding of Li Zhichao, he judged that this person was slick, ruthless, and extremely cunning and resourceful. The reason he chose such a ruthless and excessive “finishing the job” tactic… aside from reasons of face and strategy, there was one crucial reason—Li Zhichao was afraid, he lacked confidence, but he had to fight this battle. So he took the risky decision to settle it in one go. Otherwise, he and his buddies would have a hard time enduring the endless retaliatory fights with the numerous students from Heyi Town.

Thus, the peace talk proposal put forward by the Heyi Town freshmen involved in the fight, represented by Han Qiang, was readily and happily agreed to by Li Zhichao, who had achieved a complete victory, through Su Chunfeng’s mediation.

The peace talk was scheduled for Monday night.

Four o’clock in the morning.

Su Chunfeng was unaffected by the group fight from the night before. He woke up early, went to the common washroom outside, washed up with cold water, then went to the empty, chilly playground to exercise and cultivate.

Just as he was seriously practicing his punches while guiding Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy into his body, he keenly heard footsteps approaching from not far away.

He immediately stopped his cultivation and, acting normally, began doing simple calisthenics to warm up.