The tension at the café had reached a boiling point. Young Master Wei was vibrating with rage, his face flushing a deep crimson that clashed horribly with his orange silk tie. Colonel Yan, meanwhile, had adopted a stance so rigid he looked like a statue of a vengeful war god. To them, Chen Feng was an insult—a man who treated their life-or-death social hierarchy like a mildly annoying fly.
"Enough!" Wei slammed a platinum card onto the marble table. "A man of your 'status' clearly only understands one thing: a challenge. I propose a duel. If I win, you vanish from Shanghai forever."
"And if I win," Colonel Yan added, his voice like grinding stones, "you hand over your combat techniques and enlist in the special forces under my command. You won't be a vagrant; you'll be a weapon."
Chen Feng looked at the card, then at the two men. He let out a long, theatrical sigh. "A duel? Fine. But I choose the battlefield. Follow me."
He didn't lead them to a dojo or a racing track. He led them to an "e-Sports Lounge" in the basement of a nearby mall. He pointed to three leather racing seats equipped with Nintendo Switches.
"Mario Kart 8," Chen Feng announced, sitting down and picking a blue-shelled controller. "Rainbow Road. Three laps. If you win, I'll do whatever you want. If I win, you both have to buy me a year's supply of strawberry milk and never speak to me again."
"This is a joke!" Wei screamed.
"A warrior adapts to all terrains," Colonel Yan said, sitting down with grim determination. He gripped the plastic steering wheel with enough force to make the casing groan.
The race began. Young Master Wei drove like he lived—recklessly, throwing "Red Shells" at everything that moved. Colonel Yan drove with terrifying precision, taking every corner with mathematical perfection.
Chen Feng? Chen Feng was playing as a small toad on a bicycle. He drifted through the neon vacuum of space with his eyes half-closed. Whenever a shell was about to hit him, he didn't even look; he just adjusted his thumb by a fraction of a millimeter, using the "Dao of the Joystick" to slip through the chaos.
In the final stretch, Wei was in first. Yan was a close second. Chen Feng was trailing in eighth.
"You're finished, vagrant!" Wei laughed.
Suddenly, Chen Feng's eyes flashed gold. He didn't use a cheat code; he simply understood the "Karma of the Track." He hit a single mystery box, pulled a "Blue Shell," and launched it. The explosion caused a chain reaction that knocked Yan off the track and sent Chen Feng's toad flying across the finish line on a mushroom boost.
"Luck!" Wei shrieked, throwing his controller.
"The Dao is in the drift," Chen Feng said, standing up and stretching. "I'll take my milk in weekly installments."
As Chen Feng walked out of the arcade, feeling triumphant, he was blocked by Su Meiling. She wasn't angry this time. She was smiling. It was a smile that made Chen Feng's internal alarms scream "DANGER."
"Since you're so good at 'mentoring' delivery boys and high schoolers," Meiling said, handing him a gold-embossed scroll. "My father and the board have appointed you as the Honorary Dean of the Su-Lin Joint Academy of Applied Sciences."
"Applied Sciences?" Chen Feng squinted. "Is that a code for 'more work'?"
"It means you have an office, a salary, and you have to give one lecture a week," Meiling explained, her eyes glinting. "If you refuse, I'll tell the police you stole that Lamborghini."
"It was a gift!"
"Try telling that to a judge."
While Chen Feng was being blackmailed into academia, Director Zhao was sitting in a damp, candle-lit basement in the city's outskirts. His face was gaunt, his eyes bloodshot. He had lost his career, his status, and his dignity.
He wasn't alone. He stood before a weathered stone altar he had unearthed from an illegal excavation site. Atop it sat a jar of black, viscous oil and a collection of jagged obsidian needles.
"The Sovereign thinks he won," Zhao hissed, his voice echoing off the damp walls. "He thinks he can mock me with pandas and churros."
He picked up a needle and dipped it into the black oil. "He doesn't know that the Su-Lin Academy was built over an ancient burial mound. By accepting the title of Dean, he has unwittingly tied his fate to the land."
Zhao began to carve a twisted sigil into a wax effigy that bore a striking, if crudely made, resemblance to Chen Feng. "I don't need evidence to destroy him. I just need a drop of his blood or a strand of his hair. Once he stands at the podium, I will ignite the Seven-Slay Soul-Wither Curse. He won't just lose his reputation; his soul will rot while he tries to explain algebra to a bunch of teenagers."
Zhao let out a jagged, desperate laugh. "Let's see him drift his way out of a death-hex."