Chapter 37: The Violent Bat Swinging Psycho Tiger
Before he knew it, Hu Chuntian took out the metal bat he wore on a sling on his back and swung it at him.
Mo Aini narrowly avoided it and knelt to the ground before it smashed his brains out. "AHHHHH!!!"
Hu Chuntian prepared to swing for him again and Mo Aini could only bring his arms above his head, bracing himself.....
"Oh, you're a student here."
"H-Huh?" Mo Aini looked up when he didn't feel the bat hit him.
"I don't know how you found my brawling spot with the Shenling bastards." Hu Chuntian instead picked up the man Mo Aini had stepped on. "But this isn't your business so scram and keep your mouth shut. Understood?"
Mo Aini just stayed still kneeling there, jaw hung open from catching his breath from the sudden adrenaline rush. "Hu Chuntian...."
Hu Chuntian 3.0 turned to him and nodded. "Yeah. How did you know my name? You hold a grudge or something?"
"No...." Mo Aini wanted to hug him right then and there but he knows he doesn't remember him.
"You've heard the rumors then, I suppose." Hu Chuntian lifted the heavy man up and slung him on his shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
Mo Aini stood up. "What did these people do to you for you to.... k-ki...."
Hu Chuntian rolled his eyes. "Ki— what? Spit it out before I get annoyed and punch you in the face."
"Kill them. Why did you kill them?"
Hu Chuntian's icy blue eyes the color of snowflakes widened at this question and then....
He hold his head back and laughed. "Hahahahaha! You thought these people are dead?"
(Brat, don't fucking laugh! I'm worried you've become a psycho for a moment!) Mo Aini clenched his fist. "What else am I supposed to think? They aren't moving anymore and you left them to freeze so..."
Hu Chuntian continued laughing like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard in this life. "Can't you figure out what is still living and what is not? As much as I want to kill them, I can't gain a new criminal record or my father would kill me for sure. And I'll be a sloppy serial killer if I use this method. I know how strong I should swing, they'll wake up in 2 hours or so."
"Ok, so what did they do to deserve to be beaten up so bad then?" Mo Aini remembered that as much as he doesn't despise this guy anymore, he can be so annoying.
"They're Shenling thugs, that's why. Don't you recognize the uniform of our school's greatest enemy?" Hu Chuntian said as Mo Aini followed him to the van. "They came to vandalize while security is getting low because of the blizzard. I should be thanked as a hero, and yet I'm getting accused of mass genocide."
Mo Aini remembered back in the film festival that Shenling really was the name of the rival school of Nushen. "Is that so? I'll help you pick these goons up then."
He picked the nearest guy up, a real burly bear twice his size, and easily put it on his shoulder like Hu Chuntian did.
Hu Chuntian observed him, pretty impressed. "Never could have guessed those noddle arms could lift that much weight."
Mo Aini made a face at him. "I may not work out but I worked several part-time jobs to sustain myself so I do have guns, you just can't see it from this jacket."
"You had many part-time jobs as a high schooler?" Hu Chuntian lifted his eyebrows. "Are you a repeater like me?"
Mo Aini decided that he can't immediately convince this violent Hu Chuntian to touch the poem in the cherry blossom tree without it being awkward. He has to study his character in here first and gain his trust, he's too unpredictable at the moment.
"Yeah, I'm 24 now." Mo Aini made a mental note to forge his ID card, it really is getting to be a nuisance to be in the body of a high schooler. "Got involved in a few troubles and slacked off since I was a kid."
"Wow, you must be a real troublemaker then, Da Ge!" Hu Chuntian's eyes suddenly lit up when he realized he was talking to a fellow delinquent. His tone immediately changed from a cold thug to an enthusiastic child's. "How come I've never heard of you before? Do you join Shengxiao Club matches?"
(Shengxiao? I'm assuming that must be some kind of street brawl club type of thing.)
"Uh.... yeah." Mo Aini carried two guys this time to show off. "Ooff! I mean, isn't it obvious?"
"Huh, I don't remember brawling with you or watching your matches. And I've been to for a year now."
Mo Aini shrugged. "Well, I'm a veteran who's tryin' to turn over a new leaf. I don't go anymore."
[More like a veteran of lying.]
(I'm not kidding. I used to be in one of those things for a while until I got into art.)
[Huh, interesting. So you were a former delinquent yourself, User Mo Aini? Yet you hate bad boys. It's true what they say, we hate those who remind us of what we hate on ourselves. But then again, the more you hate, the more you love.]
(Whoever you are, I wish you bite your tongue off from all your incessant yapping.)
"A veteran, huh. What's your street name?" Hu Chuntian asked him. "You've heard of mine, probably. I'm Tiger Emperor."
".....Black Cat."
[Isn't that the name of some foreign cartoon's superhero?]
(Shut up, I can't think of anything else and that name was stuck with me during the whole rooftop scandal arc .)
"Don't you think of joining anymore, Black Cat Da Ge? I'd like to spar with you sometime, you have pretty quick reflexes." Hu Chuntian smirked. "..... For an elderly."
"Why, you ungrateful brat!" Mo Aini jokingly ruffled his hair. "I'm helping you clean up your mess and this is how you repay me?"
"I didn't ask for you to help me in the first place. But if you want payment, then sure." They finished tossing all the sleeping Shenling thugs and Hu Chuntian closed the back of the van.
"No need, kid. I'm not a brawler anymore who accepts dirty money." Mo Aini leaned on the van, really acting the 'ole street ruffian' role so well. "What I want to know is where are you taking these poor idiots?"
"Back to the hell they came from." Hu Chuntian lit a cigarette to warm his paling lips. "I'd just toss them to the trash cans of Shenling and some janitor may find them and bring them to the clinic. Care to join me, Da Ge?"
Hu Chuntian opened the door of the van, stepped inside, and shook a cigarette tantalizingly in front of him.
[Don't skip class, User Mo Aini. You'll lose your chance to help Mo Jiagei's make choices---]
"You beat me to it. I had no intention of taking class seriously anyway, the holidays are coming soon." Mo Aini took his hand and joined him in the backseat of the van.
(I'll make time for that later. I didn't affect Mo Jiagei's choices until later on in Shu Chuanli's route anyway, so what's the difference?)
The system went quiet for a while, then said:
[Update to User Mo Aini's Bio.....
PERSONALITY:
Irrelevant, scaredy-cat AND simp for Hu Chuntian]
Mo Aini responded with, ( System's Personality: Evil, totally not funny, and annoying as fuck)
That shut the system up.
Mo Aini put the cigarette to his lips with a pleased smile and rolled down the window. "Lighter, please."
And so, Hu Chuntian's driver took them all the way to their school's rival university in a white van, plus a handful of knocked-out thugs, as they smoked and shared fight stories on the road.
----------------------
"No way, you knocked 7 of his teeth!?" Hu Chuntian listened carefully to every exaggerated and slightly inaccurate school fight anecdote that came out of his Da Ge's mouth. They are now headed back to Nushen, 40 minutes late for their first class.
"Yep. That guy deserved it, he kept spitting on my food in the cafeteria and talking shit about me." Mo Aini leaned on the soft, cozy chair. "Now, all he can do is spit and not talk shit until he gets his dentures."
Hu Chuntian nodded. "Yeah, scums like that don't deserve to walk with two legs."
"He's what got me into fighting. Him and those 'bullies'. I don't really like that term, it's something you would say to the principal's office like a baby. 'Ms. Wang, so-and-so bullied me, waaahhh!'. It sounds so stupid. I much prefer to call them what they are: assholes."
"Agreed." Hu Chuntian nodded, putting his cigarette butts in an ashtray. "The school doesn't give a shit about these things so you gotta take it up with your own fist."
"Yeah...."Mo Aini frowned. "But then I realized that..... Revenge doesn't do any shit, man. It turns into an endless cycle of violence. That guy I knocked the teeth out of had a brother who tried to punch me in the jaw the next day too. Nobody ever learns their lesson, just continuously beating up each other. It gets tiring eventually."
"I decided for myself that I have to move to a new school and try not to stand out so no one would bother me anymore. Tried to keep my anger in check and vented my rage through art."
"Sounds like something from those inspirational rehab videos." Hu Chuntian grinned. "I don't know shit about art, so no thanks."
"Yeah, I'm not trying to change your lifestyle or somethin'." Mo Aini only smoked one stick while Hu Chuntian is already at his sixth. "You enjoy fighting as a hobby or some kind of vigilante heroism, right? Your case is different, so I won't judge."
"Nah, I don't think it's really different. You fight people you don't like, I fight people I don't like."
"Yeah, but mine may be a little bit personal than yours."
"Nope, I take an ugly face very personally." Hu Chuntian chuckled. "And besides, fighting's not that bad. A friend that you made from punching in the face at first, then developed a mutual respect with, is bound to stay longer than a friend that you made from saying nice hellos. You know these people aren't gonna fake out on you because you already know their true colors."
"So you have more friends in the Shengxiao than in Nushen High, huh?"
Hu Chuntian snorted. "Hey, Da Ge. I thought you were a veteran. Don't you remember the code?"
Mo Aini wasn't fazed. "I told you, it's already been a long time since I quit. And I've been juggling jobs so it must have escaped my mind."
"Okay then. " Hu Chuntian believed him. "Our code is: The brotherhood forged in Shengxiao stays in Shengxiao. The brotherhood forged outside stays outside."
"So basically when you see your Shengxiao friends at school, you just ignore them?"
"Pfft, no. They ignore me." Hu Chuntian said proudly. "Because I don't care about any stupid rules like that, I do what I want. They want to keep their brawling life as a secret while I don't give a damn if someone spread rumors about the thing I love to do."
Mo Aini scoffed along with him. "What a bunch of losers. Now that I remembered it, I probably would not care about such dumb rule either."
Though Mo Aini did not see it, Hu Chuntian's eyes sparkled like a dancing snowflake.
Hu Chuntian thought, 'Who is this guy, and why did he just come into his life in such an awkward first encounter?'
They've just met but he already feels familiar with him, like they must have known each other in another life.
"Da Ge..... even though you don't brawl anymore, can you teach me those techniques you told me about? Might be useful in my next match with the big thugs." Hu Chuntian said.
Mo Aini was surprised he'd ask this on their first day of meeting, but sadly had to reply. "Nah, I'm too busy, kid."
(I actually would like to, but I have to get into class and help my sister because of this tyrannical system that would possess me if I don't.)
"Oh, come on!" Hu Chuntian elbowed him and insisted. "You can finally show me those guns you're bragging about. I bet mine is way bigger, though I guess it's bad to compare with the elderly—"
"Ayysh, alright, alright!" Mo Aini ruffled his hair again. "At lunch, on that cherry blossom tree! Just during lunch, ok!?"
"Yes!" Hu Chuntian pumped his fist in the air. The expression he made was so adorable that it made Mo Aini's kokoro* flutter.
(Damn it! It's this side of him that made it difficult to just forget and not care about him in the first place!)
They got off the van, and as they walked, Hu Chuntian wrapped his arm around his shoulders. In a friendly way, at least, that's what Mo Aini tells himself. "What class are you in, Da Ge?"
"C."
"Same class as me! Let's go together!" Hu Chuntian was about to open the door but Mo Aini pulled him back.
"No, you idiot! The teacher hasn't left yet!" Mo Aini whispered.
"Oh, right. I was used to coming inside unannounced, forgot you were 'turning over a new leaf'." Hu Chuntian rolled his eyes.
"What's the point, anyway? You'll have an absentee mark on the first subject."
"But at least I won't be caught skipping with you red-handed!" Mo Aini nervously peeked on the door to see how the class was going.
Hu Chuntian just laughed and joked around. "What's so bad about getting caught skipping with me? Let's just tell them we went on a date—"
"Class dismissed."
Once Mo Aini heard that, his quick reflexes—or maybe paranoia— made him pull Hu Chuntian by the waist and hide themselves on one of the lockers.
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Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone