Chapter 147 — The Long-Awaited...

In the spring semester, universities generally start around February 25th. It wasn't quite the start of term yet, but some graduate and doctoral students with projects had already come back to campus early, so the university didn't seem particularly deserted.

Of course, there were also some young student couples deep in love, missing each other, who had likewise returned to school early to make the most of their time together before classes began.

That naturally applied to students whose families lived out of town. For people like Yang Ce and Chen Shutang, there was no need for such things.

Yang Juehuan's car had a campus pass, so he could drive straight in. Back then, his first pass had been arranged by Liu Yan and kept in Zhang Bin's car. Later, when passes were renewed at the end of the year, Yang Duoji handled it himself—and discovered that getting a pass actually cost two hundred yuan.

He'd thought it was free back then. Now that he thought about it, Liu Yan had truly treated him well. At that time they hadn't yet become sworn kin—he'd only rented a place from Liu Yan, and not only had the man not asked for rent, he'd even put up money to help him get the pass and the door card.

Thinking of this, Yang Ce couldn't help but feel a touch of emotion. It could be said that benefactors had kept appearing around him one after another—that was what had made his present success possible.

"What's going on up ahead?" Wang Yanqiu said, pointing forward.

They had just turned onto the campus path when they suddenly found the road ahead blocked, completely stopped up by a crowd of people. They were all students, gathered around watching something. Yang Ce and the others were too far away to make out what had happened up there.

Of course, Yang Ce could have used his abilities to probe into it, but using them for something so trivial seemed like overkill. Yang Shuoxuan didn't want to become someone who relied on his powers for everything.

So he parked the car off to the side, and the five of them got out to take a look.

"It's not a mass brawl, is it?" Li Dagang said offhandedly.

"Probably not." Yang Ce shook his head. A large-scale brawl on campus would be a joke—the next day you'd be expelled or given demerits.

The five had just stepped forward when a boy in a tracksuit came over and handed them flyers.

Yang Ce and the others took the flyers and read them. So this was what it was about. A while back, a Thai boxing champion had been shooting his mouth off, claiming that Chinese kung fu was worthless and that he could beat Chinese martial arts on stage with absolute superiority. Not long after that news broke, Songjiang Engineering University received notice of an invitational martial arts tournament from a Thai university. A campus boxing team from a Thai university was planning a trip to Songjiang, and had sent a challenge to the top-ranked local school, Songjiang Engineering University. The wording was extremely arrogant.

After reading the flyer, Yang Ce felt somewhat helpless. If that boxing champion was arrogant, well, he had the credentials to be arrogant. Whether he could actually win—that was another matter, not worth commenting on for now.

But for some campus Muay Thai club to take such a lofty tone and challenge them while on vacation—of course that would stir up the students' fury.

The ones handing out flyers were from the school's martial arts club. The club had been established for a long time, but most of the members who joined did so with the goal of building up their health; few wanted to use their kung fu in competitions.

When the head of the martial arts club received the challenge letter, he was very anxious. This concerned the face of the entire school. If he declined the challenge, not only would the school leadership lose face, but his tenure as club head would be over.

And besides, what would the other schools think of them? Yet to send the club's own people into the fight—even he himself felt they stood no chance at all. After all, if the other side dared to come challenge them, they must have something to back it up; no one would walk in just to be slaughtered.

So there was no help for it. President Wang, the head of the club, could only rally the whole student body, hoping to make enough of a show of force that some capable people on campus might be moved to sign up.

Though President Wang was only taking a gamble, plenty of web novels went on about martial arts masters hidden on campus, people with supernatural powers hidden on campus, retired assassins and special forces men coming to campus—whenever he had a spare moment, President Wang liked to read that sort of wish-fulfillment fantasy. So now he pinned his hopes on the masters supposedly lurking somewhere in the school.

But several days of publicity had passed, and still no one had signed up. After all, indignation was one thing, but most people had never studied martial arts at all. Even the members of the martial arts club were not sure of winning, let alone anyone else.

So most people just voiced their support; no one actually stepped forward to try. And even for those few who did entertain the idea, President Wang would not lightly agree to let them into the ring. Knowing nothing at all, armed with nothing but hot blood, wouldn't they just be lining up to get beaten?

Yang Jincong laughed a couple of times. With this kind of amateur challenge, you simply ignored them and there was nothing they could do about it—surely they wouldn't come charging over to kill you? The other side had clearly come well prepared, and Songjiang Engineering University was no match for them.

But what he never expected was that after Wang Yanqiu read the flyer, she walked over to the registration table and said, "I want to sign up."

The one in charge of registration was a female student named Zheng Minghua, also from the martial arts club. The Muay Thai club of that Thai university had invited them to a match with both men's and women's divisions, but she was the only girl in the martial arts club, and not a single boy had come to register here, let alone any girl.

In the end there was nothing for it but for Zheng Minghua herself to step into the ring. She was not afraid, though; even if she could not win, she would not concede easily. If she had to lose, she would lose with a little backbone.

She was just mulling this over when she heard someone come to register—and a girl, at that. Zheng Minghua was taken aback for a moment. She looked up and saw a petite, delicate girl standing before her, and asked, a little puzzled, "You want to sign up?"

Wang Yanqiu nodded and said, "Yes."

Zheng Minghua had assumed that anyone signing up would at least be a big, burly girl, but she had never imagined Wang Yanqiu would be so small and slender. Would that do? So she said quickly, "This match is very dangerous. You—"

"It's no problem." Wang Yanqiu gave her a lovely smile. "My name is Wang Yanqiu. I'm from the east campus, the history department."

"Ah." Seeing Wang Yanqiu's utterly certain expression, Zheng Minghua could hardly say anything more, so she handed Wang Yanqiu a form and told her to fill it out.

When Yang Ce saw that Wang Yanqiu had quietly gone off to register, he was startled for a moment, then somewhat resigned, and could only follow after her. But the moment Yang Cenbin walked over, many people immediately recognized Yang Ce.

Most of these onlookers who had gathered to make a show of force were martial arts enthusiasts themselves. Yang Ce's great battle with Liu Zhaodong and Li Jiasheng, the president and vice president of the taekwondo club, was still vivid in their memories. So the moment they saw Yang Ce, they shouted at once, "Isn't that Yang Ce? Yang Ce is here! With him, we don't have to fear that Muay Thai club!"

"Exactly! Yang Ce took down the whole taekwondo club—what's a Muay Thai club to him?"

"Go Yang Ce! Yang Ce, you can do it!"