C1 Expelled

The intense summer heat was starting to blow, leaving the air hot and heavy in its wake.

"You are duly expelled from this school! Take your things and remove yourself from the premises immediately."

Class Director Wang Zhong stood at the doorway of the faculty room in the teachers' building. They were in Jinnan City's most prestigious high school, and the man was currently pointing a trembling finger at one of his students as he roared his head off.

Zhang Muye clenched his hands into fists and let his teacher rage on before speaking. "What right do you have to expel me?" he finally demanded, his face twisting with a mix of anger and despair. "On what grounds?"

Wang Zhong scratched the back of his head in obvious frustration.

"I am your teacher, I naturally have the right to enforce the institution's policies! You skip your classes and pay more attention to your childish romances. Worse, you even pick fights with other students! There, I said it! This is why you're expelled.

Now get out of here!"

He tossed the boy's schoolbag into the hall, causing the latter's books and notes to scatter all over the floor.

To his credit, Zhang Muye silently gathered his belongings even as his classmates whispered among themselves behind his back.

"The college entrance exams are just around the corner, and he got himself expelled. What a pitiful situation."

"Is he, though? I don't think so. Every time he takes an exam, he only gets around three or four hundred points anyway. People like him are bound to make a living from physical labor instead of a formal profession."

"Oh, that's right. I also heard that his girlfriend is now dating some rich, second-generation conglomerate heir."

"Well, what do you expect? That girl is not a good person either."

Muye turned a deaf ear to the barbs and insults that were blatantly hurled at him, but it did nothing to lessen the anger and sadness in his heart. He quietly finished picking up his belongings and walked out of the school grounds without a backward glance.

It was almost noon, so the sun was high up in the sky. Not that Muye noticed. He felt as though he had just been plunged into a dark, cold pond.

He was livid. How could they expel him just as the college entrance exams were coming up?

This one single act had decidedly shattered any hope he had for a decent future.

Muye was just trudging past the campus gates when a black Ferrari suddenly screeched into a stop right in front of him, drenching him with dirty puddle water in the process.

A young couple alighted from the car. The man was tall and handsome enough, while the woman's features weren’t that easy to distinguish due to her heavy makeup.

They slowly sauntered over. The guy—Huang Gaang, took out a stack of money from his pocket and flung the bills at Muye's face. "That's 1,000 yuan. I'm buying off your relationship with Lili. If you dare get close to her again, I'll make sure you get beaten to death."

Right on cue, a band of rough-looking men suddenly appeared out of nowhere. They had iron pipes and knives in their hands, and they surrounded Muye with menacing looks in their faces.

But he was not at all intimidated. Instead, his anger only flared. "Lili, who is this?" he asked in a tone that made his feelings known. "Have you forgotten all about us?"

"You piece of trash!" the woman spat out. "What us, huh? Just take the money and leave me alone!"

Lili's face was full of disgust. She had always found Zhang Muye handsome. It was the reason she had decided to be with him, after all. Had she known from the start that he was actually dirt-poor, she wouldn't have wasted her time.

Muye narrowed his eyes at the girl. He hadn't imagined her to be this heartless. Well, this was probably for the best. He turned to Huang Gaang and said, "Take your money. I don't need it, nor do I need to be insulted by the likes of you."

The man let out a loud, almost maniacal laugh. "But I want to insult you! I like it. Come on now, be a good dog and just do as I say."

Muye's nails bit into his palms as his fists tightened. He had been trying to calm himself all this time, but it seemed that Huang Gaang was really itching for some trouble. "And if I don't?" he retorted with a cold smile.

Huang Gaang's face turned red with fury. Without any warning, he pulled back his fist and punched Muye square in the face.

'This rat still dares to act arrogant in front of me?' he thought wildly.

"Kill him!"

At his command, the ruffians all rushed at Muye and began beating him with their makeshift weapons. It wasn't long before his whole body was bloodied and bruised. A few bones were also broken here and there.

"Brother Gaang," one of the delinquents said. "He's no longer moving. What should we do now?"

"Throw him into the lake and make it look like he drowned to death."

The men wasted no time and picked up Muye's limp body from the ground. Huang Gaang smiled as he watched his goons carry their victim over to the lake just beside the school. "So I hit your ex-boyfriend," he said, turning to Lili. "You have no objections or anything, do you?"

"What ex-boyfriend? That guy is nothing more than a dog in my eyes."

"Ah, now I'm worried. Do you also treat me as a dog?"

Lili clung to Huang Gaang's arm then, and began to act like a spoiled brat. "Of course not! You're my one and only hubby."

"Is that so?" he asked, his voice turning deep, his eyes glinting with lust. "Why don't you fulfill your wifely duties, then? How about it? Should we go to a hotel after this?"

"Sure, you can do whatever you want. But you're going to have to buy me the latest iPhone model as a gift, okay?"

"Of course."

Huang Gaang all but carried her into the Ferrari, and soon they were speeding away from the school.

Zhang Muye awoke to absolute darkness. He tried to take a breath, only to realize that he was deep underwater.

So he had really been thrown into the lake.

He quickly collected his bearings and recalled everything that had happened. Despite their obvious ruthlessness, he hadn't really expected Huang Gaang and Lili to go through with their vicious scheme. They had practically tried to murder him! And for what? Just so they could carry on with their disgusting relationship?

Muye moved his arms to try and swim, and almost passed out again from the pain that wracked his whole body. Try as he might, he couldn't muster the strength to pull himself to the surface. This wasn't surprising, since the men had broken his limbs and even cracked his ribs.

'What should I do? Am I going to die here?'

It was getting harder and harder to hold his breath. His lungs felt like they might explode any second.

Then, just as he was about to resign himself to death, he felt a shock throughout his body, as though an electric current was coursing through his veins. It was painful. He writhed as the tremors went on and on, and the pain never stopped. They came in waves, each one worse in the last. If he hadn't been underwater, Muye would probably have screamed his throat raw.

And then something shifted, and all of a sudden he could feel everything. He sensed the tremors as they rushed through his veins, into his arteries, and the rest of his organs. Once it was done, it all shot back up into his brain.

His head pounded like nothing he had ever experience before. He heard a loud rumbling in his ears, and then his life flashed in his vision like a movie reel being played in snippets. Muye saw the moment he had been born in a private hospital, then the time when he had separated from his parents. Countless other memories he had no way of remembering flooded into his mind.

Even as this was happening, the tremors didn't stop.

It was torture, pure and simple.

He didn't know how long it lasted, but when he woke up again, he found himself ashore. It was raining heavily, and the sky occasionally flashed with lightning.

'I'm not dead?!'

That was the first thought that came to Muye's mind.

He instantly sat up to check himself. That was when he realized that something was not right.

Hadn't he been beaten up to an inch of his life? Why was there no pain? Instead, he felt invigorated.

He tried to stretch his arms and found them to be perfectly fine. Then he looked at his legs. Nothing was broken.

What the hell was going on?