Chapter 21: Aragorn

Hong Tao slouched in his seat located in the last row and looking at Zuo Tingyi’s straight posture beside him, asked surprisingly, “I say, when did you start liking Card Films?”

“Like?” Zuo Tingyi shook his head, “I don’t like Card Films.”

“But I see you looking quite interested.” Hong Tao replied with a strange expression.

Sitting there properly, Zuo Tingyi said lightly, “When doing things, you can’t only pay attention to the outward details. But if you can’t do the outward details well, then you won’t do a good job either.”

“Hypocrite!” Hong Tao spurned and then yawned, saying, “I say, do you have nothing better to do? If you like Card Films, just go buy one to watch. What are we here for, to join in the fun?”

“When solving problems, we cannot only look at the surface…”

Hong Tao quickly interrupted him, impatiently saying, “Point, get to the point.”

“I came for her.” Zuo Tingyi said calmly.

“Her? Which her?” Hong Tao had a look of puzzlement.

Zuo Tingyi glanced at the cla.s.sroom’s corner, “Man Siying.”

Hong Tao’s face petrified and took over half a minute before he recovered as if he heard some unbelievable news. “Man Siying? Good heavens how did you and her hook up? Really Tingyi, you can’t be like this, hiding things so well from me. Not a hint of this! But how did such an unfeeling person like you and her…”

Zuo Tingyi ignored Hong Tao and continued, saying, “I heard recently that Aragorn has started hitting on her.”

This sentence immediately caused Hong Tao to choke his words back. After a bit, he slowly asked, “How did you find out?”

Hong Tao suddenly felt that Zuo Tingyi’s expression towards him was as if seeing a fool. He suddenly realized how stupid a question he just asked. Zuo Tingyi as one of two students in the schools’ disciplinary committee had real authority and connections. Aside from the chief of gossips, Chen Xinyi, he was pretty much the most informed.

“What does this have to do with you?” Hong Tao looked up and down at his friend strangely, “No matter what, you don’t seem like the busy-body righteous type.”

Pah. Sitting there sternly, Zuo Tingyi snapped shut the heavy as stones book in his hands –

Looking at Hong Tao’s stunned expression, Zuo Tingyi then added, “The main thing is however, that the school has entrusted this thing to me.” His expression looked somewhat frustrated, but quickly recovered saying, “Given fellow student Aragorn’s recent boisterous history, I have decided to personally investigate and resolve this issue.”

“After all this talk, it turns out to be like this, ah.” Hong Tao said dully. “This sort of boring thing, what am I here for then?”

Zuo Tingyi glanced at Hong Tao and a.s.serted, “Hired muscle.”

Dong Wei Inst.i.tute followed a very “free” style of learning and students had little restrictions. Furthermore, the school could not afford to offend those students with rich and powerful backgrounds. Thus, the school’s normal policy was to look the other way for disputes between students. Even if problems occur, the students would normally not blame the school. This however, caused law and order to be somewhat of a problem.

One of the reasons Zuo Tingyi was able to become a member of the disciplinary committee was obviously because he was favoured by the faculty. However, the other reason was that he had a strong family background. The disciplinary committee was straight-up a place that offends many people while as a Card Creator, Zuo Tingyi’s personal combat ability was close to nonexistent.

But he was a ruthless character and went home to personally request from his father five strong Card Refiners. His normally gentle father surprisingly fully agreed to support his decision. With the support of five senior Card Refiners, Zuo Tingyi came back to school and started fiercely enforcing the school regulations. Almost all the top troublemakers were severely beat down. Some of these ruffians were also sons of the upper crust – however, their backgrounds were not as strong as Zuo Tingyi’s nor were their men able to contend with the five senior Card Refiners under his command.

All of a sudden, Dong Wei Inst.i.tute’s atmosphere was cleared up. The school was overjoyed and fully put its support behind Zuo Tingyi.

And it was this legendary experience that established Zuo Tingyi’s fierce name in Dong Wei Inst.i.tute. Since then, all those delinquents become like mouse in the presence of a cat whenever they met Zuo Tingyi. Even the teachers tread carefully around him. Thus, Zuo Tingyi did not need to use the threat of his five senior Card Refiners anymore.

The other member of the disciplinary committee was Chen Xinyi. However, this girl seemed to have no interested in the actual work of enforcing discipline but was rather extremely interested in gossip instead.

Aragorn was one of the school’s famous ruffians, being very unruly. But due to his family’s rich background, very few students were able to contend with him. Furthermore, he was also fairly canny, not messing with anyone he could not afford to offend. There are two types of people he could not offend at the school; those with stronger backgrounds and those with superior personal strengths, such as Hong Tao.

He specifically targeted those students from normal families, like Man Siying. By his side were a bunch of similarly minded dandies from rich families.

During this sensitive period of time, the school definitely did not want any sort of negative attention. Thus, Zuo Tingyi took action personally as soon as he received news. Coincidentally, they just happened to be seated behind Chen Mu and Lei Zi.

Suddenly, from the front of the cla.s.sroom came a female scream, “Why you, creep!”

Then a wave of snickers was heard.

“Hey yo beauty, you can’t say things like that. Creep? Where did we creep you?”2

A roguish and oily voice replied, along with another burst of mocking laughs. This was Aragorn. He had a round face, a round head and a rounded belly. Combined with his stubby legs, he seemed like a person composed of round b.a.l.l.s3. A pair of small beady eyes completed the wretched look.

“You…” The girl blushed an angry red, not knowing what to say.

This situation also disrupted the formerly calm cla.s.sroom. Many students seeing there was trouble immediately left the cla.s.sroom out of self-preservation.

Chen Mu was a bit surprised.

This voice…