59: Opening Ceremony

After declining Qi Chuanyu and Liao Zhongyang's offer to travel together,

Shen Bei felt a bit bored. He scrolled through videos while accompanying Jian Tong towards the auditorium.

Jian Tong looked annoyed: "Can you stop watching videos of beautiful women? It's not like you can eat them."

Jian Tong still harbored some resentment.

He had a beautiful woman by his side, yet he was watching little vixen-like women in videos?

At the mention of 'little vixen,' Jian Tong couldn't help but think of Yu Qiuyi.

She became even more irritated.

Shen Bei, however, said calmly: "These Young Misses in the videos work hard to find angles to film and please me. They don't cheat me out of money, nor do they cheat me out of my feelings. All they want is a trivial like from me. What's wrong with that?"

Jian Tong...

For a moment, Jian Tong thought Shen Bei's words made a lot of sense. She was speechless and couldn't refute him.

Jian Tong also pulled out her phone and started scrolling through videos of handsome men.

Shen Bei: "..."

"Stop scrolling, we're here," Shen Bei grumbled.

Jian Tong gave him a glare.

Come on, let's hurt each other.

...

Inside the auditorium, the new students greeted each other, laughing and chattering noisily.

Then, several figures walked in.

Silence fell instantly.

Leading the way was Principal Zhang Dao'an, a burly man with a square face, exuding an air of authority without needing to be angry.

He sat in the first row, prominent like a large, oval marble sphere placed there.

Gradually, other teachers from Lingnan City Martial Arts University also entered the auditorium.

Among them was Professor Gu Xinrou.

The person presiding over the opening ceremony was a young man, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old.

The young man, who introduced himself as a first-year assistant instructor at the Martial Arts University, had a gentle smile and a calm speaking voice.

"My name is Hu Haipeng, and I am your assistant instructor for this session. It's a pleasure to meet all of you, and I'm also happy to embark on my fifth assistant instructor experience with you..."

"However, there's one regrettable point: the time I can serve you won't be very long."

"Because my application has just been approved. Once this semester ends, I will embark on my first journey to the front lines of the underground battlefield."

Hu Haipeng smiled genuinely when he said this, then turned and opened a not-so-complicated film projection device.

However, the images that appeared on the screen were not from any movie.

"These are all... real historical images that you, as ordinary people, would never be able to see," Hu Haipeng said solemnly, like a narrator for a historical documentary.

The next second, gasps erupted throughout the vast auditorium.

In the footage, Vicious Beasts or Stranger from the underground launched fierce attacks.

For a moment, earth and rocks flew, dust billowed, and the world within the camera's view was as oppressive and heavy as the end of days.

And the Martial Artists, as humans, rose from the trenches, eyes closed or open, cursing, or simply screaming madly.

These dozen or so Martial Artists, with a dozen heavy machine guns, first unleashed a furious barrage.

So much so that almost the entire screen was covered by gunfire and the rising dust from bullet impacts.

However, when the dust cleared,

the Vicious Beasts and Stranger from the underground had suffered only minimal casualties.

Most were unharmed, merely forced back dozens of meters.

They turned leisurely, and with an extremely disdainful posture, they sprinted wildly, jaws agape, charging head-on.

They were too fast, too fast.

In an instant, the Vicious Beasts and Stranger had reached the trenches.

In the next scene, machine guns and human bodies shattered together, and the limbs of the Martial Artists, like scattered grains of rice during harvest, were strewn across the ground.

In the scene after that, more Martial Artists counterattacked frantically.

Various Martial Skills and secret arts filled the air.

"Kill!"

"Defend our homeland!"

"Victory or death!"

"Counterattack the underground!"

"Draw your blades! Charge!"

"I die, but the mountains and rivers remain!"

But it was futile.

The Vicious Beasts' bodies were extremely tough; they charged, constantly circling back, and each impact plowed a path covered in flesh and blood through the crowd.

The figures of the Stranger were even more unpredictable and elusive; each time they appeared, a Martial Artist was decapitated.

Soon, this wilderness was covered in shattered corpses and mangled bodies, blood flowing like rivers, a scene of utter silence.

The Martial Artists who had died were fortunate.

Those who were injured and maimed were still wailing...

This scene, perhaps, could not even be described as a purgatory.

"I'm sorry to show you all this," Hu Haipeng said.

The hall was silent. Suddenly, from some corner, the first sob broke out, and then more cries erupted from almost every row, every section.

Many students here, since enrolling in the Martial Arts University, had forgotten their original intentions.

The nation's cultivation of Martial Artists and the provision of preferential treatment were only one aspect.

The most important task was to resist the underground and protect the national borders from invasion.

However, with the passage of time, some people had forgotten their initial mission, only thinking that... becoming a Martial Artist meant being superior to ordinary people, becoming a person above others.

Even those students who had not forgotten their initial aspirations and were full of passion, after watching the recorded footage, trembled all over, unable to bear the bloody cruelty of such a battlefield when faced with it in reality.

Amidst the cries filling the hall, Hu Haipeng's voice was clear and firm, "I am very, very sorry, but truly, these are our enemies, enemies we still don't fully understand, an alien civilization that is constantly probing the underground, searching the Sea of Hopelessness, and may invade on a large scale at any time..."

Shen Bei below looked solemn.

It was understandable to have a patriotic education session at the opening ceremony.

This was to remind the students what a true Martial Artist was.

But... the bloody scenes were all pixelated!

Some students had even vomited.

The smell was too strong...

Just as Shen Bei thought Hu Haipeng would continue with the patriotic education,

once the noisy students finally quieted down,

Hu Haipeng changed his stance, sat somewhat casually on the edge of the stage, and then, in a very relaxed manner, spoke with a smile:

"Next, let's talk about another topic... love."

This shift... the audience reacted in various ways: some laughed, some were indifferent, some were shy, and some feigned seriousness.

Who would have thought that at the Martial Arts University's opening ceremony, one moment it was brutal Martial Artist combat, and the next it would pivot to the topic of love?

Shen Bei gave a mental thumbs-up. As expected of a fundamental national policy.

Without love, without having children, no nation could last long.

"Once a Martial Artist, always a Martial Artist—this is our destiny. So, first, I want to say that the Martial Arts University campus... does not oppose love."

"Secondly, I can frankly tell you that here, due to certain objective reasons, love often happens more easily."

Amidst low laughter and murmurs, Hu Haipeng's expression darkened, his tone grew heavy, and he raised his voice:

"And finally, what I want to solemnly tell you is... it is also very easy to lose. Even easier than it is to happen... suddenly, to be lost."

"Did you ever have a neighborhood older sister?" Hu Haipeng, sitting on the edge of the stage, suddenly asked in a conversational tone, "You know, the kind who was three or four years older than you. When she was jumping rope, you'd squat and watch. When she carried her schoolbag to school, you'd watch enviously. She grew taller, and you were still tiny... an older sister you followed and admired."

"I had one, from my village. I watched her jump rope, followed her to pick fiddleheads, watched her go to school... until one day, she grew up first, became a young woman, and no longer often took me to play. We became less close, only occasionally greeting each other and exchanging a few words."