Chapter 84: Stirring Up a Hornet’s Nest

At last, Chen Meng told Yan Ruoxi where he had learned martial arts, and from then on he planned to use the dojo as their dating spot... no, as the base for studying extreme yoga.

Yan Ruoxi nodded, though she still looked puzzled. “Isn’t a martial arts hall supposed to be a place to learn fighting? Wouldn’t it be a little inconvenient with so many people around?”

Hearing that, Chen Meng could not help but laugh. Senior, if you knew how deserted that dojo is now, you would never say that.

“Don’t worry. The place is practically empty now. No one will disturb us, whatever we do.”

With a mysterious smile, Chen Meng did not intend to explain further. Once Yan Ruoxi went there, she would understand.

After today’s tutoring session ended, Chen Meng left the house and took the bus home.

He took out his exam paper for the general studies course and began reading it on the bus. Although Yan Ruoxi had already explained the paper to him, much of general studies depended on memorization, and even after becoming a divine-body life, his memory had not improved much at all.

Time slipped by minute by minute, and he was only one stop away from home.

He rolled his shoulders. Keeping the same posture for so long had made them ache.

But then, a chill suddenly brushed through him, and his brow furrowed slightly. It was already early summer; his body should not have been feeling cold.

Perception...

Chen Meng murmured inwardly. After taking the Pale Potion, his senses had increased greatly. This must be a warning from his perception.

Someone seemed to be targeting him, and his heart gave a jolt. He almost wanted to find the one harboring ill intent toward him immediately.

“Who could it be?”

Chen Meng could not guess the person’s identity, but he was certain that the man was on this very bus.

He forced himself to stay calm and, without giving anything away, took out his phone and started a video call with his mother.

The front camera captured not only him, but also several people seated behind him. Very quickly, he locked onto his target: a heavily built man over six feet tall wearing a thick gold chain. In the camera image, that man was staring at him intently.

“Mom, I’ll be home soon. I’m hanging up now.”

Pretending to be impatient, he ended the video call. His face, however, had gone dark as thunder. If he remembered correctly, this man had boarded the bus with him; perhaps the man had not shown such murderous intent yet, or perhaps he had simply overlooked it, and so had paid no attention.

“The man is probably a divine-body life as well, most likely at the first level,” Chen Meng analyzed carefully. “The way he looks at me, he clearly doesn’t take me seriously. He may not even know that I’ve already advanced into a divine-body life. As for whether he has accomplices, that’s beyond what I can tell. No matter what, I absolutely cannot place myself in danger. At a time like this, as a high school student, the first thing I should do is...”

As he spoke, Chen Meng picked up the phone and called Han Hao.

But after the phone rang three times, before Han Hao could answer, he immediately hung up. When Han Hao called back, he rejected the call without hesitation and refused to answer at all.

Then he sent Han Hao a message.

“Uncle, help!”

Immediately after, he turned on location sharing.

Just then, the announcement for the next stop sounded, and Chen Meng still chose to get off.

The man certainly knew he would get off at this stop. If he did not, that would only arouse suspicion.

If that made the man strike early, and if one remembered that they were still inside a bus, it might well implicate the other passengers too.

Chen Meng quickly took the dagger out of his backpack, gripped it tightly in his palm, and then covered his hand with the jacket he had worn that morning.

As for the two pistols, he no longer had time to take them out, because the man was already walking toward him. If the man saw him retrieving a handgun from his backpack, he would certainly attack at once.

He followed the other passengers off the bus and toward the door.

He could even hear the man’s footsteps and breathing behind him. The man was definitely drawing closer on purpose, and might even choose this moment to make a move.

Chen Meng held the dagger tightly. This C-rank blade, if used properly, could pierce the neck of a second-level divine-body life with a single thrust and sever the head outright.

He had already stepped through the bus doorway when, suddenly, he felt the movement of the air. A current far stronger than before surged from behind him straight toward him.

Without the slightest hesitation, he spun and thrust sideways.

Only then did he clearly see the man: a hideous-faced brute who had already seized his backpack.

At the instant the dagger came stabbing toward him, the man reacted and yanked on Chen Meng’s backpack to block it.

Riiip!

The backpack was slashed open by Chen Meng’s dagger. Two of the general studies textbooks flew out, and one of the two pistols fell to the ground.

Chen Meng moved to pick up the gun, but the man kicked at him.

Chen Meng felt the terrible power in that kick and was so alarmed that he hurriedly cut the shoulder strap of the backpack and vaulted to the flower bed by the roadside.

At that moment, the other pistol in his backpack also slipped out and struck the manhole cover beside him.

The bus driver had already started pulling away. Seeing what had happened behind the bus, he was so frightened that he accelerated, while several passengers had already taken out their phones and begun calling the enforcement bureau.

“Who are you?”

Chen Meng stared at the man. He still did not know why the man wanted to kill him.

The man grinned foolishly. “I’ll tell you. My name is Huang Xiaomao. I’m here to avenge my aunt, my uncle, and my cousin.”

Chen Meng was speechless. Aunt? Uncle? Cousin?

But just as he was about to refute it, his expression shifted slightly. “You’re a relative of those three cultists outside the Jiangzhou Academy...”

He thought back to what had happened a few days ago at the gate of Jiangzhou Academy. Back then, it had indeed been a family of three cultists.

Huang Xiaomao nodded vigorously. “Right, right. That was my aunt, my uncle, and my cousin.”

Chen Meng drew a deep breath, feeling that he was truly unlucky. Those cultists had been killed and arrested—how was it that someone still came seeking revenge?

He looked at Huang Xiaomao and found him rather odd too, as if the man’s mind were not particularly bright.

One might even say he seemed a little slow.

“Huang Xiaomao, was it? You’ve got the wrong person. It wasn’t me who killed your cousin, and your aunt and uncle being arrested had nothing to do with me either. I know nothing.”

“Stop lying to me. My sister already told me it was you.”

As he said that, Huang Xiaomao added with certainty, “And you described it so clearly. If it wasn’t you, then who was it? I even thought my aunt and uncle had been killed by you too. So they were only arrested.”

“Damn it!”

Chen Meng wanted to curse aloud. A moment ago, he had thought this guy was a fool—how had he suddenly become so smart?

“I’ll kill you right now!”

Huang Xiaomao roared and charged at Chen Meng.

Seeing the two pistols on the ground, Chen Meng knew he had no time to pick them up.

In that case, hand-to-hand it was. He guessed Huang Xiaomao had probably only recently taken the advancement potion and might not be much stronger than he was. Besides, he still had a dagger hidden in his hand, so in theory he need not fear Huang Xiaomao.

Boom!

Huang Xiaomao punched at Chen Meng’s head. The blow was like a cannonball.

Chen Meng only felt as if a motorcycle speeding at seventy-five miles an hour had slammed into him. At that moment, he set his feet in the Ghost-Step Lotus. With a tricky shift of posture, he evaded the punch, and the jacket in his hand flew away, revealing the gleaming dagger.

Riiip!

With a reverse grip, the dagger stabbed toward Huang Xiaomao’s arm and sank into it.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Huang Xiaomao screamed in pain, but Chen Meng did not pause for a second. He twisted the dagger halfway, tearing through Huang Xiaomao’s arm, then, using the momentum, slipped behind him, seized the gold chain around Huang Xiaomao’s neck, and spun around him like a top. At the same time, the dagger drove straight into Huang Xiaomao’s thigh, burying itself completely.

“Ow, ow, ow!”

Huang Xiaomao cried out again, and with his thigh pierced, he staggered and crouched down.

Chen Meng then took hold of the dagger, rolled away from Huang Xiaomao, and sprinted toward his gun, quickly snatching one of the pistols up.

“Whether you’re truly slow-witted or just pretending, if you want to kill me and I kill you, you have no grounds to complain.”

Chen Meng raised the gun and aimed at the back of Huang Xiaomao’s head, but just then a motorcycle from the enforcement bureau came speeding toward them.

“Chen Meng.”

A familiar voice rang out. It was Jiang Feiyu, who braked sharply to a stop in front of Chen Meng.

“Brother Jiang?”

Chen Meng was not particularly surprised; after all, Jiang Feiyu had already been transferred to the Eastern District with Han Hao.

Jiang Feiyu got off the motorcycle and smiled. “Impressive. In just a few days, you’ve caught another cultist.”

Chen Meng felt helpless. This was hardly a matter of catching anyone; it was more like being targeted at his doorstep. Still, with someone this dim, he had no idea what the cult had been thinking. Did they really believe someone like this could kill him?

Two enforcement vehicles had also arrived by then, and two officers swiftly cuffed Huang Xiaomao.

Huang Xiaomao turned back to Chen Meng and gritted his teeth. “I’ll definitely kill you. My father, my mother, my brother, my sister, my great-uncle... and my grandfather and the rest of them will never let you off.”

Chen Meng was utterly dumbfounded.

What was this situation? A whole family of cultists?

Even Jiang Feiyu stared at him, equally stunned.

After thinking for a long while, he slowly said, “Chen Meng, it looks like you’ve kicked over a cult nest. It’s rare in history for an entire family to be cultists. There was once a case reported in Green State Province: a family of seventy-six, all cultists.”

Yet Chen Meng could not bring himself to laugh at all. He only felt that this time, he had truly stirred up a huge mess.