Dragon Clan: Avoid the College Entrance Examination to Slay the Dragon

Chapter 40 Above the Clouds
Takahashi Shun accidentally bit through the inside of his mouth while charging, the smell of blood and scorching air burning his throat. He tucked his right fist to his waist, gathering strength, and clenched his left hand into a claw to protect his throat—this was the charging style his predecessor had taught him.

In the field of vision, Gu Yi's posture was so loose that it was almost arrogant, but a kind of unreasonable chill suddenly grabbed the back of his neck. The seemingly casual figure was like the sea before the storm, with a terrifying undercurrent surging beneath the calm.

Ten steps away.

The metal fence twisted into liquid silver light as it moved at high speed. Takahashi Shun's retina suddenly captured Gu Yi's drooping right hand. The pale wrist was trembling slightly, like a vibrating sword about to be unsheathed.

Seven steps away.

The sand suddenly began to flow backward. By the time Takahashi Shun realized it was the hurricane whipped up by Gu Yi's charge, the black-haired boy had already transformed into a spiraling afterimage. The dust from the training ground was swept up into a miniature tornado. The scene reminded Takahashi Shun of the ballistic gel he had seen in forensics class. When the spinning bullet penetrated it, the shattered fibers resembled the spiraling sandstorm.

The image lingering on his retina began to betray reality. The boy was certain he had predicted the angle of Gu Yi's left knee's bend, but his right fist struck nothing. The throbbing veins in his temples were like an alarm. The attack was coming, but from where? How would it strike? His instincts shrieked sharply.

The world began to tilt.

When a pricking warning sounded from the back of his neck, Gao Qiao Shun twisted his waist and spun back. This skill, which had once enabled him to pull off a desperate counterattack in the family competition, was now so slow. He saw the dust stirred up by Gu Yi's kick on the ground suspend into a dazzling star-shaped ring, but his nerve signals didn't even have time to reach his fingertips.

"Snapped!"

A sharp pain exploded from the left side of his face, and the sky suddenly filled his entire field of vision.

The young man tried to curl up, a sort of tuck, and the gravel cracked beneath his back. In the reflection of his dazed pupils, the afterimage of Gu Yi slowly reconstructed: his right arm pointed diagonally toward the sky, his icy gaze like a sword of judgment.

The dead silence covered the training ground like a glass cover.

Amid the buzzing in Takahashi Shun's left ear, some absurd epiphany pierced his consciousness. When he threw the first punch, Gu Yi's palm wind was about to be imprinted on his cheekbone.

Su Yuqing grabbed Ye Sheng's sleeve and said, "Oh my God! Cousin, did you see what happened?"

Ye Sheng narrowed his eyes: "I don't know, it's like the fast-forward button was pressed. Gu Yi suddenly disappeared from the spot, and then Gao Qiao instantly..." He raised his right hand and gestured, and the trajectory of his fingertips passing through the air suddenly broke, as if recreating the scene of the knockback.

The first solitary clap of applause came from outside the arena. The purple-haired girl, who had been writing something down on her tablet, suddenly jumped up and clapped her hands. The applause exploded in the silence. It was as if the sound had shattered some kind of barrier, and the cheers spread like dominoes, eventually converging into a wave that drowned the training ground.

Gu Yi was surrounded by the pushing and shoving crowd, and the cheers formed a honeycomb-like resonance on his eardrums. Through the gaps between the crowds of people, he saw Takahashi Shunzheng slowly straightening up.

When there was a brief lull in the sound waves, Takahashi Shun's voice was like a bamboo sword that cut through the heat waves: "Thank you, you let me see the sky above the clouds clearly."

-

Beneath the dome of Valhalla, sixteen industrial chandeliers cast shadows of steel structures on the marble floor. A school emblem, still painted wet, slowly rotated on the stage backdrop, while students shuttled between scaffolding, hanging a scarlet curtain three stories high.

As Gu Yi stepped over the power cord wrapped around the colored lights, the boy on the ladder adjusting the spotlight trembled, and the beam of light suddenly swept across the front row of the audience. A girl carrying a prop box stumbled and bumped into the truss, and the feather masks in the box fell down like snowflakes. "Everyone, keep working!" Su Yuqing, holding a tape measure in her hand, raised her leg and kicked away the light stand that had rolled to her feet. "Don't stop what you are doing!"

The commotion spread like ripples in the hall. Gu Yi bent down to avoid the falling gold foil sequins and heard the sound of discussions coming from behind him.

Gu Yi looked at Su Yuqing, "Senior, are you in charge here?"

Su Yuqing smiled and said, "Of course not, I'm just a pawn in the Cultural and Entertainment Department, but you came at the right time, junior brother."

The girl suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the control panel. "Minister Vivian is waiting for you to help her complete her life-threatening project."

Gu Yi looked up and saw a brunette kneeling on one knee in the safety net on a ten-meter-high dome beam. The back of her tank top was darkly stained with sweat. She held a nail gun in her right hand, securing the crystal chandelier between the reliefs. The safety buckle on the edge of her shorts repeatedly struck the steel frame as she moved.

"Minister!" Su Yuqing shouted into the intercom, "The coolies you asked for are here!"

The sound of the nail gun stopped abruptly. Vivian suddenly untied the safety rope, took three steps on the beam, and leaped down. As the audience erupted in screams, she grabbed the dangling colored silk and swung in an arc in the air, her shoe sole brushing Gu Yi's nose before landing steadily on a pile of velvet cushions.

"Hello, S-Class. My name is Vivian." She inserted the nail gun back into her thigh straps. "Originally, this kind of aerial work should use a lift, but..."

She ran her oil-soaked thumb across the creaking old equipment behind her. "The school administration said this thing is older than I am."

Gu Yi noticed the fresh scratches on her forearm, "What are you planning?"

"Secret weapon." Vivian suddenly lifted the dust cover from the console, revealing an old-fashioned lighting console the size of a refrigerator. "When the party starts, a ten-meter-high waterfall of flames will rise from here!"

Su Yuqing was helpless. "The minister insisted on adjusting the color temperature of each par lamp himself, saying something like 'the layered feeling of the flame determines the life of art'."

"After all, we need to let the freshmen experience Cassel." Vivian was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a screw falling above her head. "Oh my God! Who in the props team is responsible for the high-altitude bolts?"

Gu Yi reached out to catch the falling lampshade, the polycarbonate shell warming slightly in his palm. A strange silence suddenly fell around him, and he could hear the muffled screams of two girls nearby: "He caught it! He caught it with his bare hands!"

"It seems the principal didn't lie to me." Vivian pulled out her intercom and began adjusting the channel. "S-class is indeed suitable for security officers. Would you consider joining the Cultural and Recreation Department? Your roommate is doing a pressure test on the flame device backstage."

Gu Yi looked towards the orange flames that suddenly shot up in the southeast corner. Finger's screams pierced through the smoke: "Help! This flamethrower is definitely expired!"

"He looks like he's enjoying it." Su Yuqing held back a smile as she handed him the helmet. "He's enjoying it."

Suddenly, a crackling sound echoed from the dome's ceiling, as cables snapped. As Gu Yi dodged to catch the falling scaffolding bar, Vivian was swinging towards the out-of-control lighting truss, clutching a colorful silk ribbon. Amid the screams of the entire hall, he heard the girl's laughter from high above: "You go ahead and do your thing! Come with me to move some things later!"

(End of this chapter)