Blade of Tyranny - Chapter 18

Chapter 18: Cousin

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation

Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

Nie Fan, Lin Xinyan and Xu Xiaoshuang were met with stunned gazes when they entered classes.

Who was that brat? Would they not be envious and jealous when he came in beside two of the class’s great beauties?

The classroom itself was very wide but there were only a little over twenty students. The latest V-type computer was furnished on each desk, with bright sunlight streaming from the French window. Moreover, there was a semi-circular balcony outside that was hundreds of squared meters ride and grown full of all manner of green plants, stirring one’s spirit after one look.

Indeed, the classroom could be described as extravagant!

Xu Hong was seated at the last row of the classroom and doing something. He then looked up, his eyes showing delight when he noticed Lin Xinyan entering, but quickly grimaced when he saw Nie Fan behind her. He had already met Nie Fan in-game, and certainly did not expect her to bring him to class, and naturally could not help suspect the relationship between Nie Fan and Lin Xinyan.

Nie Fan had seen Xu Hong as well, but he quickly withdrew his gaze and smiled at the other boys sitting at the front rows. “Hello, everyone. I’m Nie Fan, Xinyan’s cousin—I might be hanging around a few days, you wouldn’t mind, right?”

Even Nie Fan thought that his smile was quite affable.

Meanwhile, the boys at the front rows brightened immediately. So, he was Xinyan’s cousin and not a love rival. After all, since she was unquestionably a target of their affection, each of them was already thinking how they should get closer to Nie Fan after learning that he was her cousin.

“Hello. I’m Wu Hongfei, please take care of me.” A huge, muscular boy was all smiles.

“Hello…”

Several boys were all introducing themselves very warmly.

“Hello, we’ve met before.” Xu Hong came to him as well, extending his right hand gentlemanly.

Some of the boys made way by reflex when they saw Xu Hong. In their perspective, his powerful background undoubtedly made him the one they wanted to provoke the least—his father was said to be the father of a certain conglomerate group with strong influences in Yinhai, and Xu Hong himself was the student council president of the school and therefore could be considered influential here too. Coupled with his good looks, he was as such rather reputable amongst the girls, but in spite of all that, Lin Xinyan never agreed to be his girlfriend despite his persistent advances for some reason.

“Hello.” Nie Fan nodded and shook hands with Xu Hong. He could tell that Xu Hong was being cordial but was not all friendly, although he was no coward and naturally would not be afraid of Xu Hong.

“Xinyan, there’s a basketball match between our school and Wuzhong tomorrow. The class teacher hopes that you could come and cheer for us, are you coming?” Xu Hong was looking at Lin Xinyan hopefully. She was often lukewarm towards him, but he did not think much of that normally since she behaved coolly towards everyone. Be that as it may, he felt danger with Nie Fan’s appearance—he might be classmates with Lin Xinyan, but Nie Fan was the very picture of a childhood friend.

“I’m a little tired so I can’t come. Not this time.” Lin Xinyan refused unhappily; she disapproved of how he had involved the class teacher.

A dark look flashed over Xu Hong’s face at her words, but he did not say anything else.

Nie Fan kept quiet beside them, but he observed every bit of Lin Xinyan’s reaction and Xu Hong’s expression. It seemed that Lin Xinyan was not at all taken with Xu Hong, which was a pity since he was handsome and seemed to come from a good family, making him a good match for her. Still, matching did not always matter when it came to sentiment, although Nie Fan never considered himself a courter of Lin Xinyan since he was perfectly aware that he could not reach her.

***

A dozen minutes later, a tall, slim female teacher who was dressed raunchily but was not much of a looker entered. Her class was about universal theories and planetary ecosystems, about how living planets were found one after another with the arrival of starfaring, enriching resources and profound welfare states. Human population hence rapidly broke past thirty billion and were distributed over different planets. And as universal neutron communication appeared amongst the stars, a brand-new society was formed.

Nie Fan was sitting at the last row. He certainly never learned about the latest technological information during early middle school, and had gained much knowledge from that class alone. According to Federation statistics, 87% of the thirty billion population kept VR games as their primary entertainment—of that number, Blade of Tyranny occupies 30% of the industry and was still growing, and one could imagine how vast a market it would be soon!

There were over twenty continents in Blade of Tyranny, each hosting thousands of cities and innumerable villages. Still, Earth players were only allowed to choose between the continents of Osland and Okado, with 99% of players in China picking Osland.

No VR game before could accommodate so many players. There had been another game which could accommodate two hundred million players concurrently, but that record was broken by Blade of Tyranny, which server volume appeared to be infinite. It was also rumored that Blade of Tyranny would install Continental Portals during later stages so that residents of different planets could meet through the game itself, which was the major attraction for most players. The large planetary migrations had separated many families and relatives, and with Blade of Tyranny fulfilling that wish, one could naturally imagine the commercial opportunities when such populations of players gather within a single game.

But as Nie Fan allowed his thoughts to drift away, he realized that Lin Xinyan was sneaking a look at him from her seat up front, and could not help being taken aback.

In fact, she was not concentrating during this lesson since all her mind would think about was whether Nie Fan was focusing. She kept holding it in, until she finally couldn’t and turned to look, only to be caught by Nie Fan. As their eyes met, her heart stirred nervously and she promptly make a silly face at him before quickly turning again.

Nie Fan felt a warmth at the sight of her mischief. Could she be worried that he wasn’t used to being in class?

Sitting nearby, Xu Hong took it all in, and his face turned as dark as the bottom of a pot. Even if every other student in the class thought that Nie Fan was Lin Xinyan’s cousin, only he knew otherwise.

The lesson lasted thirty minutes, and it was soon recess.

Xu Hong approached Ni Fan after the teacher left, and asked rather provokingly, “Our class is having a practice match. Would you join us?”

“Basketball? I’m no good at it.” Nie Fan shook his head. Xu Hong finally couldn’t hold it any longer—he was too youthful in the end, and Nie Fan could not help finding the funny side as Xu Hong now took him for a love rival as he seethed in anger.

“Come join us. It’s not a regular match, just a three on three game for fun. We’ll be playing at the gym next door.” Wu Hongfei said warmly, unaware of the conflict between Xu Hong and Nie Fan and assuming that Xu Hong was inviting Nie Fan out of goodwill.

Nie Fan kept quiet for a moment before nodding—Wu Hongfei did not appear to be scheming and appear to be a good person. “Alright, I could play for a bit.”

Even if Nie Fan did not play much basketball before, he often watched games. That, along with his constant Neijia and kickboxing practice meant that he was in tip-top physical shape.

Nonetheless, Xu Hong sneered when Nie Fan agreed to join the game. He was the ace of the school’s basketball team, and was confident that Nie Fan would never win against him.

Meanwhile, he and Wu Hongfei sought out three other classmates and headed to the gym. Every other student in the class also went when they heard about the match, whereas Lin Xinyan looked worried as she watched Nie Fan leave with Xu Hong.

“Let’s go watch too.” Xu Xiaoshuang took Lin Xinyan by the hand, muttering, “Nobody in class can beat Xu Hong in a match.”

Lin Xinyan certainly could tell that Xu Hong was deceitful and narrow-minded as a person, which was why she would always keep her distance from him. Even so, Xu Hong himself appeared to have no self-awareness and thought the world of himself, constantly bugging her. That was the reason she brought Nie Fan to school, but she was now worried that Xu Hong would find trouble with Nie Fan. Once she thought about that, she believed that only she could stop them if push came to shove.

***

Nie Fan and Wu Hongfei was grouped together with a short boy, while Xu Hong got two other classmates to join him. Everyone thought then that only Wu Hongfei, who stood at one point nine five meters could hold his own against Xu Hong.

Like every other place in the school, the gym was very wide. Over six hundred square meters, it was equipped with various sporting equipment, along with basketball courts and badminton courts. Nie Fan was speechless when someone told him that this gym was exclusively used by their class—it was definitely a school for nobility, what with the annual school fees costing up to six hundred thousand dollars.

“If you don’t think you have enough players, you can have one more.” Xu Hong said smugly.

Wu Hongfei’s mouth twitched with disdain and whispered to Nie Fan. “Ignore him—he’s always been a fart. Anyway, which position do you usually play, cousin?”

“Just Nie Fan is fine.” Nie Fan chuckled. “I usually play point guard.”

“Got it.” Wu Hongfei nodded.

A whole ring of classmates surrounded their court while they were discussing their game plan, and Nie Fan noticed that Lin Xinyan and Xu Xiaoshuang were standing together, surrounding a crowd of girls. He had to admit that the standard of the girls here was quite high—all of them had good looks and none were particularly ugly, not to mention that everyone was dressed youthfully in the latest fashion, with some even putting on makeup.

“Let’s play for half an hour. It’s tip-off,” Xu Hong said impatiently as he watched Nie Fan and Wu Hongfei quietly mumbled away.

The trio took their positions, with Xu Hong and Wu Hongfei on the tip-off. The ball was sent flying above at the whistle and both boys leaped up almost at the same time. But even though Wu Hongfei was an entire foot taller than Xu Hong, he was much weaker in his leap—Xu Hong hence got the ball, sending it to one of his teammates.

Then, after landing, Xu Hong darted past Wu Hongfei and caught the fine pass from his teammate, scoring a three-step slam-dunk elegantly, drawing cheers from the girls outside the caught.

He threw a provoking look at Nie Fan, who shrugged nonchalantly.

Play continued.

Nie Fan’s game was simple: he would occasionally intercept the ball and quickly pass it to Wu Hongfei, basically not joining the scoring efforts and simply wandering around the edge. Even if he did not usually play, he quickly familiarized himself with the game, not to mention that he had several strong advantages: the first was his fine physicality, the second was his quick hand-eye coordination and the third was his agile pace. Xu Hong was confident that the game was yet to be decided if he became serious, but he didn’t really mind the game’s outcome since it did not matter to him anyway.

Meanwhile, the points gap continued widening and eventually reached 21:7. Wu Hongfei might have a strong body, but he was nowhere near as nimble as Xu Hong, allowing Xu Hong to slip away on each turn without hope of guarding him.

Soon, Wu Hongfei was panting heavily from the toll of guarding Xu Hong alone. He was too slow and simply could not keep up.

That said, Xu Hong had come trying to make Nie Fan look bad in the first place. He did not expect Nie Fan to simply act as if it had nothing to do with him at all and refused to come in direct contact, which left Xu Hong a feeling that he was punching a cotton.

Nonetheless, he clapped his hand on Wu Hongfei’s shoulder and beamed smugly. “Your skill really never improved,” he said, and headed to the edge of the court.

“Damn it! Who do you think you are, a star?!” Wu Hongfei snorted coolly, watching Xu Hong’s back as he left.

Meanwhile, the girls outside the court were cheering by waves as they watched Xu Hong scored without stopping, screaming his name in extraordinary excitement.

On the other hand, Nie Fan remained calm in spite of everything going on around him, and Lin Xinyan was much more relieved when she saw that he was not clashing with Xu Hong directly. She did not care at all about how the match would end, and certainly did not care to watch how insufferably Xu Hong was playing.