21: The sun shines through the night! All the girls in the class have forged an indestructible golden ring for me!

A deafening blast instantly tore through the morning's tranquility, and the smell of gunpowder surged in through the shattered rear window.

Su Chen felt a sharp sting in his eardrums.

In his line of sight, the reinforced explosion-proof film finally reached its limit under the close-range shotgun blast, clattering to the floor.

These bastards actually managed to get their hands on heavy firepower!

Su Chen cursed inwardly, but his body moved like lightning as he pressed the back of Lin Mengyao's head, forcing her down beneath the seat.

Just then, the dim emergency lights in the cabin flickered twice before going out completely.

Darkness flooded everything like a tide.

The girls' screams rose and fell, fear multiplying in the enclosed space.

"What's going on? Is the circuit broken?"

Su Chen narrowed his eyes; with the faint night vision provided by his family's internal cultivation, he clearly saw a cowering figure near the driver's seat.

Zhao Wanting was clutching a folding dagger she'd gotten from somewhere, its blade still hooked with a wire she'd severed at the root.

Her face was deathly pale.

The hand holding the knife shook like a leaf, and her eyes held a madness of mutual destruction.

Because Su Chen had been so dominant along the way, she, the former class monitor, had completely lost her say.

This massive psychological gap led her to choose the most extreme method—inviting the wolf into the house.

"The door is here!"

Chen Hao's raspy voice roared from outside the bus door.

With a loud bang, the front door was forced open by sheer strength.

Chen Hao, exuding a thuggish aura, rushed in first holding a steel pipe; the sinister laughs of his lackeys behind him sounded particularly wretched in the dark.

"Leave the women, chop the men up and feed them to the dogs!"

Su Chen snorted coldly and kicked over the aluminum alloy bench beside him.

The iron-blue seat scraped across the floor with a tooth-aching screech, wedging perfectly in the center of the aisle and blocking the enemy's momentum.

"If you want to live, hold hands and surround me!"

Su Chen's voice wasn't loud, yet it carried a reassuring authority.

Lin Mengyao was the first to respond.

This usually aloof campus belle practically scrambled over, her smooth, cold little hand tightly gripping Su Chen's left hand.

Next, Qin Ya also felt her way over.

Her warm, soft palm pressed against his right hand, their fingers interlocking.

With leaders established, the girls who were already terrified in the darkness were like drowning people grabbing onto driftwood.

Instinctively, they grabbed one another, quickly forming a human chain in the narrow cabin.

"Extreme Yang Sacred Body, rotate for me!"

Su Chen closed his eyes, and the dry heat accumulated in his dantian instantly exploded, like a mass of magma surging wildly through his meridians.

He could clearly feel his palms turning into massive heat sources.

That violent energy known as 'Yang Energy' followed the pulses of Lin Mengyao and Qin Ya, spreading throughout the bus in a ring.

In the originally pitch-black cabin, a thin but resilient pale golden shimmer suddenly emerged.

"What is... that?"

Chen Hao squinted, dazzled by this sudden phenomenon. Before he could react, Zhou Xiaomeng, who had been shrinking in the corner, suddenly erupted with a scream.

It was long-suppressed anger.

Zhou Xiaomeng, whose leg was injured, felt a warm current surge into her limbs; her wound no longer hurt, replaced by boundless strength.

She grabbed a long-handled wrench from the floor and swung it at Zhang Wei, who was charging at the front.

With a crack, Zhang Wei's thick glasses shattered instantly, and he was sent flying like a broken kite, crashing against the window.

Li Sisi was even more ruthless; this top student who usually couldn't even unscrew a water bottle was now as agile as a cat, her stainless steel ruler precisely piercing through Liu Biao's instep.

"Fuck!"

Liu Biao rolled on the floor in agony.

Even the usually frailest Tang Yurou, bolstered by that golden light, shoved a lit homemade Molotov cocktail down the opponent's collar.

The cabin instantly became a chaotic mess; the wolves from Class Two, who thought they had entered a flock of sheep, now found themselves in a meat grinder.

Su Chen stood at the center of the formation, feeling the Yang Energy being constantly drawn out and then flowing back in a cycle.

He opened his eyes, his gaze like torches, staring intently at Chen Hao, who was hiding on the roof attempting to fire again.

His body blurred, and using the explosive power of the Yang Energy, he grabbed Chen Hao by the collar with one hand and slammed him through the broken window like a dead dog with a low growl.

Glass shards flew along with splashes of blood as Chen Hao let out a shrill scream, tumbling out of the bus.

Su Chen's low growl carried Internal Energy, terrifying the remnants of Class Two to their cores.

They had never seen such a scene; seeing their companions beaten bloody one by one, they scrambled back into their steel monster with strange cries.

With the frantic roar of the modified bus's engine, that pack of stray dogs vanished from sight as if fleeing for their lives.

The Yang Energy gradually subsided.

Su Chen keenly noticed that under the recent energy surge, the bus's exterior had developed a strange metallic luster.

The dents made by the shotgun shells actually squirmed and healed like living things, becoming even tougher than before.

"Zhao Wanting!"

Zhou Xiaomeng's sharp reprimand broke the post-battle silence.

The Yang Energy cycle just now was extremely domineering; because Zhao Wanting harbored ill intentions and sabotaged the circuit, she not only failed to receive the buff but was also violently blown back by the repulsive force of the energy circuit.

Now she was curled up by the iron rack on the roof, her once-tidy clothes in disarray and a shocking streak of red at the corner of her mouth.

The faint light of dawn filtered into the cabin.

Lin Mengyao slowly let go of Su Chen's hand, but she didn't stand up; instead, under everyone's gaze, she gently knelt at Su Chen's feet.

She picked up Su Chen's hand, stained with Chen Hao's blood, and pressed it reverently to her forehead, her voice trembling but firm: "From now on, you are our core."

The twenty-odd girls on the bus looked at each other and bowed their heads in unison, creating a powerful scene of submission.

Only Zhao Wanting remained curled in the corner, her nails digging deep into the cracks of the floor, blood seeping from her fingertips.

She finally understood that in this world, she had lost even the qualification to be Su Chen's pawn.

Just as she tried to prop herself up to say something, an extremely faint crack came from her chest.

Zhao Wanting's face instantly turned from white to livid, and a rattling sound came from her throat.

As a teacher, Qin Ya instinctively wanted to go over and help her, but after just two steps, Zhao Wanting suddenly spat out a mouthful of frothy blood and collapsed limply.

Qin Ya knelt down, and as soon as her fingertips touched Zhao Wanting's carotid artery, her expression changed.