21: Chapter 21: Picking up a classmate on the street...

Lu Cheng felt suddenly cold on his way home. Who was running the AC on the street in midsummer?

This feeling didn't seem like the triggering of Seeking Good Fortune and Avoiding Bad Luck...

He paused, frowned, and looked around. Not far away on the ground lay a slender figure.

A faint icy aura radiated around her, and a thin, ethereal white mist crept along the ground, staining a small patch of tiles near her with cold frost.

Lu Cheng stopped in his tracks.

"Su Wan?"

"No way, sister, even if you're sleepy, you can't sleep on the street..."

He walked over quickly. Just as he was about to reach out to touch her, he subconsciously stopped.

Only when he was close did he notice a large patch of dark red on Su Wan's clothes. The smell of blood was masked by the cold air, making it almost impossible to smell until he was close.

She was lying on her side, her face terrifyingly pale, long hair spread over her shoulders, her breathing extremely shallow, as if it would stop the next second.

Lu Cheng's heart sank.

"Damn it... how did you end up like this?"

Hearing the voice, Su Wan's eyelashes trembled slightly.

It seemed to take a great effort for her to slowly open her eyes.

Her gaze was unfocused at first, but when she saw it was Lu Cheng, the tension in her eyes finally eased a little, and her whole body seemed to let out a breath.

"It's you..."

Her voice was very soft, clearly weak.

"What happened to you? Do you need me to call the police?"

Su Wan's breathing was a bit ragged, but she managed to speak:

"It's fine... the wounds have already almost healed."

Calling the police now would be equivalent to exposing herself to the Zhou Family's sight... It would be difficult to do anything then.

Lu Cheng: "?"

He looked down and realized that although the wounds were bloody, the deepest parts were indeed starting to close, and in some places, there was only the trace of torn flesh left, no longer bleeding.

Su Wan bit her lip and continued:

"But I don't have the strength to move right now... Can you help me get home?"

Lu Cheng frowned at her for two seconds.

He didn't ask "Where is your home?" but simply bent down and helped her up.

"Let's get you up first."

Su Wan was clearly near her limit. As soon as she leaned on him, her body swayed slightly, and she almost slumped against Lu Cheng.

The girl's body was shockingly cold.

Through her clothes, Lu Cheng could feel a chill drilling into his arm, like holding a piece of jade just dragged out of a freezer.

"Can you walk?"

"... A little, if we go slowly."

"Alright."

Lu Cheng directly picked her up in a princess carry. Su Wan was startled but didn't say anything.

Following Su Wan's directions, Lu Cheng walked for a distance, and suddenly realized their routes home seemed to overlap.

After turning another corner, Lu Cheng couldn't help but glance at her.

"Don't tell me you live in this area too?"

Su Wan gave a soft "Mm."

After walking a bit further, Lu Cheng was completely speechless.

"So our homes are just a street apart?"

Su Wan didn't speak, just closed her eyes wearily.

Lu Cheng's mouth twitched.

They had met so many times at school, he really hadn't expected them to live so close.

Along the way, Lu Cheng could clearly feel that Su Wan's condition was very poor.

She said her wounds had almost healed, but that just meant they hadn't deteriorated further.

The blood on her body hadn't dried, and her breathing remained very shallow while walking, as if she were afraid that any movement would tear them open again.

"Do you want me to take you to the hospital?"

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

Su Wan answered very decisively.

Lu Cheng looked at her and didn't try to persuade her again.

He could tell that Su Wan wasn't just putting on a brave front; she really didn't want to go.

Soon, they arrived near Su Wan's home.

It was a row of low, one-story bungalows. The wall paint was a bit old, and the courtyard gate wasn't sturdy either; one could tell at a glance that life was tight.

As they reached the door, Su Wan suddenly whispered:

"Don't use the front door."

Lu Cheng was stunned: "Huh?"

Su Wan looked toward the side of the house.

"Go in through the window."

"I don't want my mom to see me like this."

Lu Cheng looked in the direction she indicated, fell silent for a moment, and understood.

Covered in blood, face as pale as paper—if the elders at home saw her, they'd probably be scared to death on the spot.

"Fine."

He supported Su Wan and went around to the back.

It was even shabbier here. The window was an old-fashioned sliding type, and the latch wasn't very secure.

Lu Cheng glanced at it and couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

Hmm... living in the same district as me, how much better could the conditions be?

He pushed the window open gently, then nimbly climbed in while holding Su Wan.

Su Wan's room wasn't big, and the furnishings were simple to the point of being meager: a table, a bed, a wardrobe—a few items arranged neatly.

Lu Cheng helped her sit on the edge of the bed.

Su Wan leaned against the headboard, her complexion finally recovering a bit, and she said softly:

"Thank you..."

"Don't rush to thank me yet." Lu Cheng looked at her blood-stained body, his scalp tingling a bit, "In your condition... do you need me to bring you some medicine?"

Su Wan shook her head.

"There's a pink towel in the bathroom outside... could you trouble yourself to get it for me?"

"Sure."

Lu Cheng turned and left the room.

Someone was clearly already asleep in Su Wan's house. The place was very quiet, and any movement was particularly noticeable.

Lu Cheng stepped very lightly, subconsciously using Wandering Step.

He moved like a silent wind, brushing past the wall, making almost no sound at all.

By the time he got the pink towel, he couldn't help but feel a bit awkward.

His mouth twitched.

This feeling was just too strange.

In the middle of the night, climbing into a girl's house, and then sneaking into the bathroom to get a towel...

No matter how he thought about it, it felt like an affair, afraid of being caught red-handed by her parents.

Lu Cheng shook the messy thoughts out of his head and hurried back to the room.

When he returned, Su Wan had already taken out a bottle of external medicine and a few rolls of gauze from under the nightstand.

The two made eye contact. Su Wan's ear tips turned slightly red, and she whispered:

"Thanks... could you... mind looking away?"

Lu Cheng nodded, and just as he was about to turn, he stopped again.

Looking at Su Wan's bloody, mangled wounds, a fire inexplicably rose in his heart.

"Before I go, can I ask what happened today?"

Su Wan's gaze paused slightly.

Lu Cheng stared at her, his voice lowering a few degrees.

"Was it that group of people who came to find you again?"

His first reaction was the thugs who had blocked her before, or people related to them.

Su Wan looked up at him.

She could feel that Lu Cheng was truly angry.

But precisely because of that, it was even more impossible for her to say.

No matter how much Lu Cheng had changed, he was ultimately just in the Body Refining Realm.

Facing the Zhou Family... or even the things behind the Zhou Family, he was like an ant on the side of the road.

So she just shook her head.

"It's nothing... I just got hurt by accident."

Are you trying to fool a ghost?

But he knew very well that Su Wan was very stubborn.

If she didn't want to say something, he wouldn't get anything out of her by pressing further.

After a few seconds of silence, Lu Cheng sighed.

"Forget it... if you don't want to say it, that's fine."

As he spoke, he took out his phone and shook it.

"Since we're here, let's add each other on Green Bubble."

Su Wan was startled: "Now?"

"Obviously, otherwise where am I supposed to pick you up next time you collapse on the road?"

She was silent for a moment, then took her phone, and they scanned each other's codes.

After adding her, Lu Cheng put away his phone, his expression becoming more serious.

"If anything happens, call me anytime."

"Never mind whether I can help or not, just call first."

Su Wan looked at him and gave a soft "Mm."

Only then did Lu Cheng turn and leave. After leaving Su Wan's house, Lu Cheng didn't think about it too much.

Some things weren't for him to dig into right now.

At least without strength, knowing too much wasn't necessarily a good thing.

The next two days were unexpectedly peaceful.

School, training, going home, cultivating—life seemed to be pressed into a fixed track.

Instructor Qin Feng didn't mention the aftermath of the beast rampage again, and Zhou Lize had also quieted down quite a bit—not knowing if he was plotting something evil, or just beaten into submission for a few days.

As for Lu Cheng, he poured almost all his time into cultivation.

After completely digesting the gains from the intermediate energy room, his skin tempering was finally complete, and he smoothly stepped into the second small level of the Body Refining Realm—Tendon & Bone Stage!

The moment he broke through, he could clearly feel that the sense of power in his body had moved up a level.

When clenching his fist, the joints were more stable, and his Crushing Fist was executed more smoothly.

In addition, Wandering Step was also pushed to the Origin level by him.

[Wandering Step · Origin: Footwork like a swimming dragon, greatly improving movement speed, capable of high-frequency changes in direction within a tiny range, movement trajectory is harder to capture, and blood energy consumption is reduced.]

It felt great, but he was also truly broke.

In his room, Lu Cheng looked at the few coins and the empty snack bags on the table, lost in thought.

"I'm out of money."

He rubbed his stomach.

After breaking through to the Tendon & Bone Stage, the consumption of blood energy was even more outrageous.

Guiding Technique needed energy to automatically temper the body, martial arts practice needed energy, and maintaining a high-intensity state daily also needed energy.

Simply put, it meant... eating!

Eating like crazy.

Every day, besides eating, he was thinking about eating; he got hungry faster than a dog.

The "mental damages" he'd gotten from Brother Black Dog, plus the spare change he had, had been burned through in these two days.

Lu Cheng lay on the bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

"In a high-martial world, it's true that literature is poor and martial arts are expensive."

"If this keeps up, I'm afraid I'll starve to death on the road to becoming a powerhouse."

Complaining aside, real-world problems had to be solved.

He still had to make money.

And as soon as possible.

He couldn't really go to Xia Xi for help, could he?

If that girl knew he was short on money, she'd probably rush over with her bank card the next second.

No, he had just transmigrated, how could he be so spineless!

He sat up, took out his phone, and started searching.

"How can a high school student make money."

"Ways for martial artists to make money."

"Part-time jobs in Rong City for high-martial world."

"Fast and legal ways to make money..."

After searching for a long time, what popped up was either food delivery or moving cargo, or otherwise "daily-paid security."

As for the fast money, organ donation paid 300,000... Lu Cheng's face turned black as he read it.

It wasn't that he couldn't do those previous jobs, but the cost-performance ratio was too low.

His time was already tight; if he really took a regular part-time job, the money he earned wouldn't even cover a single meal.