Chapter 7: Preparing to Pull Down the Mountain Head

  After bandaging in the infirmary, I originally wanted to send Zhou Lin back first, but she refused.

  "You've got a wound on your head and can't be in the wind, so I'll send you back today." Zhou Lin said, then took my hand proactively.

  I immediately felt a warmth in my heart, it seems that to some extent I should feel grateful for this beating.

  Although we didn't speak to each other along the way, Zhou Lin also lowered her head very low, but I felt that this feeling was very happy. There's a saying: I want to hold your hand and keep walking like this.

  I was probably feeling like this back then.

  When I arrived at the entrance of the dormitory building, I saw Ma Long anxiously waiting there. As soon as he saw me coming back, he immediately came over to greet me.

  "Damn, you're hurt this badly? Is it really Hong Jun's doing? Dammit, something unexpected happened in our dorm today, so we came back a bit early and couldn't help you..." Ma Long said with an apologetic face.

  I told Zhou Lin to leave first, then patted Ma Long's shoulder and said, "Brother, it's enough that you have this heart."

  But I don't think so in my heart.

  Ma Long didn't let me go back to the dormitory to face Hong Jun, but instead directly pulled me to his dormitory.

  As soon as I entered Malong's dormitory, I felt that the atmosphere was a bit off. After calming down and taking a closer look, I found that everyone in the dormitory except for Malong had been injured to varying degrees.

  "Huh? What's going on here, I know my brothers are usually nice to me, but do they have to be so consistent in getting hurt all the time?" I felt something was off, and at the same time, I knew Ma Long wasn't making up excuses to deceive me.

  Zhao Ziyang's face fell as he said, "To be honest with you, Yifeng, we've been bought out. The one who took us down is Heilong from the second year of high school. We're unlucky to have messed with him."

  During that time in middle school I had heard of some notorious names, this Hei Long is one of the four gang leaders in high school year two, he's a real thug, much more formidable than Liu Tao.

  Don't look at Liu Tao being fierce in high school, but when facing a hoodlum in high school, he still has to bow his head and call him "brother" repeatedly.

  Of course, this doesn't mean that all the freshmen are afraid of sophomores now. Liu Tao is not daring to offend the sophomores now simply because he hasn't established himself yet and his feet haven't stood firm, so he urgently needs to fight a few times to establish prestige, and I'm afraid I'll be one of the stepping stones for him to establish prestige.

  As far as I know, there are two thugs in the first year of high school who are much stronger than Liu Tao. One is called Tie Lu and the other is called Chen Shao. It's said that these two have already fought with thugs from the second year of high school, and the outcome was a draw.

  So in the first year of high school, if you want to compete for hegemony, only Tie Lu and Chen Shao have this qualification, while Liu Tao can only watch.

  Alright, judging from the current situation, Liu Tao still has a chance, but I don't even have that.

  Seeing me not speaking, Ma Long thought I didn't know who Hei Long was and hastily explained to me: "Hei Long is a big hoodlum in high school, one level higher than our high school's Tie Lu and Chen Shao."

  I nodded and asked curiously, "You guys are really something. I just offended a Hong Jun with Liu Tao backing him up, but you've gone and directly offended the Black Dragon. What's going on?"

  Zhao Ziyang patted his chest and looked regretful, saying: "This thing was caused by me. Last night, when I was smoking in the toilet, someone asked me for a light. I saw that he had a sly look on his face, so I didn't lend it to him. Then we had a verbal argument. At that time, several brothers from our dormitory happened to be returning together and heard me shouting loudly in the toilet, so they came in to help me beat up that little guy. Heh heh, but who knew that little guy was actually Black Dragon's younger brother? So there's no need to elaborate on what happened next."

  I nodded and said: "Later on, did someone find your dormitory and beat you up?"

  Everyone nodded together.

  "What about Ma Long? How come this kid didn't get beaten up? Has he defected?" I looked at Ma Long curiously.

  Zhao Ziyang said: "This is not the case, in fact, we have to thank Ma Long more. If it weren't for Ma Long's plea, with Heilong's temperament, do you think our injuries would be lighter than yours?"

  "Ma Long? Hei Long? Are you two related by blood?" I turned my head to look at Ma Long.

  "It's nothing, but I actually know Heilong, my sister is his ex-girlfriend, so Heilong still gave me some face." Ma Long said with a bit of helplessness.

  Since Ma Long said his sister was He Long's ex-girlfriend, and he looked uncomfortable, we didn't continue gossiping about his sister and He Long's past.

  After they finished talking about their own affairs, they finally turned the topic back to me.

  And I roughly told them what happened in the classroom tonight, of course, I didn't tell them the humiliating part in detail.

  "This is outrageous, Hong Jun has gone too far. We're all in the same class, yet he invites students from other classes to bully his own classmates, what a *** loser." Zhao Ziyang jumped down from his bed with a burst of anger.

  "Let's just forget it, we're no match for Liu Tao now." Ma Long said with some helplessness, but what he said was the truth.

  But at this time I had a bold idea in my heart.

  I sank into thought for a moment and asked the crowd in Malong's dormitory: "Do you want to be a hoodlum?"

  Everyone's face was shocked and they all looked at me.

  "Yifeng, you mean we're going to learn from those hoodlums who gang up and fight?" Malong asked immediately.

  I nodded and said, "I know most of you are good students, and in your original school, you were also considered top-notch. You dare to fight for your friends, but you never thought about being a troublemaker. After all, who doesn't want to study hard and strive upwards every day after entering the best high school?"

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  I looked at the crowd and saw that no one immediately opposed me, so I continued: "Actually, we don't have to bully others just because we're a gang. As long as we stick together and make sure we're not bullied by others, that's enough. Think about it, I've offended Liu Tao, you've offended Hei Long, who knows if they'll come looking for us often in the future? Can we still study with such a group of people always following us around, threatening to beat us up? So, for self-protection and to create a good learning environment for ourselves, I think it's necessary for us to become a gang."

  Okay, at the time I thought what I said was quite provocative because it at least stirred myself.

  Zhao Ziyang's temper flared up, and in less than three seconds, he said: "Damn it, if I can get into a key university, why should I be afraid of some punk?"

  Ma Long seemed timid, but he was the second to agree with my proposal: "Well, let's just mix it up, anyway I've been thinking about mixing it up for a long time, I just didn't have the chance."

  Xu Dong, Sun Li, Er Niu and Zhan Xiong from Ma Long's dormitory also expressed their agreement.

  It seems we've formed a clique, so now we urgently need to choose a leader.

  "Hmm, as expected by all, I have been elected as the new leader of our new group."

  Alright, to be honest, although I was elected as the leader, it's not because everyone thinks I'm the most capable, but rather because they think I got beaten up pretty badly today, so they gave me a consolation prize and let me be the temporary leader.

  And as for who will be the leader later on, it will depend on everyone's performance during our organization's development process.

  Since the dormitory building is now locked, we decided to go out and celebrate again tomorrow night, and drink the wine that our sworn brothers had given us.

  Our carefree chat, we didn't drown in the sorrow of being beaten, to others we seemed happy, but they didn't know how much pain and helplessness there was on our bodies and in our hearts.

  There is physical pain, there is humiliation of being trampled on one's dignity, and there is the helplessness of feeling oneself falling.

  At night, I didn't stay in Malong's dormitory. I felt that I had to go back and face Hongjun. I wanted to tell him that I hadn't given up, but just temporarily endured it. One day, I would make him deeply regret everything he did today.

  When I returned to the dormitory, Hong Jun was indeed not asleep. He was boasting to his "roommates" about how "brave" he was in class today, and how I was beaten up so "miserably".

  After entering the dormitory, I gave him a cold stare, but didn't say anything and went back to sleep on my own bunk.

  My actions, however, made Hong Jun think that I had softened up and didn't dare to offend him anymore. He mustered up the courage to walk over to my bed and said: "Yi Feng, this bedding was bought by your dormitory mates, you can't just let everyone spend their own money, can you?"

  I snorted and pulled out 100 yuan from my wallet, throwing it at Hong Jun: "That's all I have on me."

  Hong Jun has the shadow of being beaten by me, and doesn't dare to rush me too much. After taking the 100-yuan bill, he didn't care about me anymore, but instead turned around to show off to his roommates: "See, our Yi Feng classmate is still very sympathetic and reasonable. If it were like this earlier, we wouldn't have had to provoke those thugs."

  "That's right, that's right, what Hong said is correct." The guys in the dorm immediately started applauding.

  Hong Jun was even more pleased when Hong Ge called him, and he bragged about his past again in a muddled way, saying something about conquering the junior high school department of Yizhong, and basically almost blew himself up to the sky.

  But in his heart, he was secretly laughing: "Flatten the First Middle School's junior high department? How can Liu Tao, who also came from the First Middle School's junior high department, explain that?"

  However, this time I did not expose Hong Jun's lies in public, not because I didn't have the courage, but because I was extremely disdainful of him.

  Of course, if it were before I was beaten today, I would definitely block Hong Jun in public and wouldn't even let him fart.

  I found myself changing gradually, as I was calculating in my heart how to make Hong Jun and Liu Tao unable to lift their heads again, rather than embarrassing them openly like before.

  I also feel myself becoming more ruthless because I never thought of giving Hong Jun and Liu Tao any room for maneuver.

  I think I've become more mature because I've learned to tolerate things.

  Maybe it's because I lost too much blood, but I felt dizzy in the head, so I slept very well at night. By the time I woke up the next day, more than half of the morning self-study time had passed, so I simply slept through the entire morning self-study period.

  It wasn't until I finished washing up and slowly walked out of the dormitory at breakfast time that I found Zhou Lin waiting for me with a large bowl of millet porridge and several boiled eggs.

  At that moment, the chill in my heart was temporarily warmed up.