Villains Aren't Stepping Stones!

A week had passed since the new influx of talented students had successfully completed their chaotic and rather gruelling enrollment procedures and settled into their respective territories within the majestic city limits.

Seven days of profound calm and stillness had allowed the dust to firmly settle over the fractured streets of the administration office, yet beneath the surface, the fires of ambition were burning brighter than ever before.

And right now, within the pristine, ward-protected courtyard of the Falling Blossom Villa, Shen Haoran and the massive gathering of his elite faction were formally preparing to head directly into the academic core of Academy City to officially begin their first day of class.

The Imperial Academy’s rigid, meritocratic class distribution registry had been finalized and broadcasted across their identity tokens early that morning, revealing a strictly organized hierarchy that reflected the cultivation level, talent, and age of their group.

Shen Haoran, Huo Yue, and the absolute Top 5 of the Shen Clan’s Ten Crowns—Shen Tao, Shen Fei, Shen Xinye, Shen Jian, and Shen Ji—had all been integrated into the absolute highest echelon of the Nascent Class, Grade A.

This elite hall housed the absolute finest, most terrifyingly dangerous Nascent Soul Realm prodigies of the modern era, providing them with access to the highest-ranking Master Teachers and the most opulent cultivation resource vaults the school could physically provide.

The Lower 5 of the legendary Crowns—Shen Xun’er, Shen Hei, Shen Cai, Shen Bai, and Shen Ying—had all been safely integrated into a lower grade, the Nascent Class, Grade B.

Though placed a single tier lower due to a far inferior performance during the Academy Enrollment, their combat readiness was no less terrifying than the one in Grade A.

As for Qian Yunxi and Xia Mengyao, the two of them had been cleanly integrated into the mid-tier baseline: the Nascent Class, Grade C, a position that gave them ample room to quietly accumulate strength without drawing any attention.

Meanwhile, the rest of the girls were placed within the lower class due to their rather inferior cultivation base, and not because they lack the talent.

Luo Mingye, Ning Xueli, and Zhu Ziyan—whose feline ears were currently twitching with a mixture of nervousness and quiet determination—had all been integrated into Golden Class, Grade A.

Finally, the remaining two girls, Ling Luochen and Xu Xiansu, were placed within the Golden Class, Grade B.

”Alright, is everyone completely ready?” asked Shen Haoran, his voice smooth as silk as he adjusted his immaculate black academy uniform.

These things were delivered to them yesterday.

White Uniform is for Golden Class, Black for Nascent Class, Red for Spirit Class, and Gold for Nirvana Class.

Hearing his words, every single person in the courtyard all firmly nodded their heads.

”Good,” Haoran murmured, his lips curving into a sharp, magnificent smile that promised absolute ruin for any faction that dared to cross their path today. ”Then, let us officially depart.”

*

*

*

”Ah, what an absolutely fine, pristine day it truly is to be alive!”

Lin Che smiled brightly to himself, standing comfortably at the edge of the grand stone plaza located right outside the massive, towering archways of the main Academy Gates.

He was loosely holding his trusty bamboo broom in his right hand, gently sweeping away the light layers of dust and fallen leaves off the polished cobblestones while lazily watching the endless river of multi-colored student robes come and go through the grand entrance.

He offered a warm, harmless, and completely polite smile to the passing disciples.

Looking at their bright, ambitious faces, his mind couldn’t help but drift back to his previous life on Earth.

Back then, before his tragic demise, he had also deeply, and rather quite desperately wanted to go to a normal school, experience a fun, lighthearted high school life, and maybe successfully get a cute girlfriend or two to walk home with.

Unfortunately, the brutal realities of his past existence had completely shattered those innocent, youthful dreams.

Because of his profound and deeply ingrained sense of filial piety and loyalty toward his adoptive parents, he had been forced to completely give up his higher education, abandoning his books to work several grueling, low-paying manual jobs at the exact same time just to keep their household afloat.

And how had those beloved adoptive parents ultimately rewarded his absolute devotion?

The moment he was tragically run over by a speeding car, suffering catastrophic physical injuries, those vile monsters had quite literally abandoned him to rot in a cold hospital bed, running away under the cover of night while stealing every single cent of the massive financial compensation money given by the driver who had run him over.

He shook his head violently, a soft, self-deprecating chuckle escaping his lips as he cleared the dark memories from his brain.

’Well, there is absolutely no real need to waste my mental energy thinking about those depressing, dead things anymore,’ he thought happily, adjusting his faded gray robes. ’The past is already dead and buried. And I have already thoroughly moved on with my life. I am living quite a magnificent, perfectly safe, and honest life now as a background character, if I do say so myself.’

With that comforting thought, he began to hum a small, cheerful tune under his breath, his broom moving rhythmically across the stones as he accumulated his daily sign-in rewards in absolute peace.

Just then...

”Excuse me, Mr. Sweeper. May I trouble you for a brief moment?”

A soft, melodious, and highly sophisticated female voice suddenly broke through his quiet humming.

Lin Che paused his broom mid-stroke and calmly turned his body around to face the newcomer.

Standing just a few feet away from him was an exceptionally beautiful young woman.

She possessed a pair of striking, intelligent red eyes and long, rich purple hair that was styled in a highly specific hair style; the long locks were tied into a single, loose braid that draped gracefully over her left shoulder, a look that was infamously and universally known in his past life’s otaku culture as the legendary ”anime dead mom hairstyle.”

”Ah, miss, you don’t happen to currently have a young child at home, do you?” Lin Che unconsciously blurted out, the words escaping his lips before his logical filters could even process the absolute absurdity of the question.

The moment the words left his mouth, he saw the beautiful girl’s perfect eyebrows raise into a sudden expression of profound and utterly paralyzed confusion.

Realizing the intense creepiness of what he had just casually said to a complete stranger on the street, Lin Che’s face instantly turned pale, and he internally screamed, wanting to violently slap himself right across the face for his idiocy.

Thankfully, this young woman wasn’t one of those extremely arrogant young lady who will kill anyone who said something rude to her.

”My, my, uncle... you certainly seem to be quite unusually interested in my personal life,” said the woman, a deeply playful, amused smirk curling upon her lips as she adjusted her sashes. ”Well, to answer your curious mind, my name is Gu Xunyi. I am currently still completely single, and quite ready to mingle, as the commoners like to say. As for having a child... hopefully, I get the fortune to have one someday in the future. Won’t a golden hair go well with my red eyes?”

”Err...” Lin Che awkwardly scratched his cheek, a nervous sweat breaking out down his neck as he tried to patch over his social blunder with a bit of defensive otaku logic. ”Then... I highly...no, I desperately hope for your own sake that you choose to permanently change your hairstyle if you actually do get a child one day, miss.”

Um. He thought, taking a deep breath as he adjusted his broom. Now, deep within his heart, he actually felt a strange sense of profound, moral satisfaction.

In his mind, he had just successfully saved a human life from the absolute laws of anime tropes.

He was a hero in the shadows.

”Is that truly so?” Gu Xunyi murmured, looking amused as she extended her slender fingers, lazily twirling the long braids that draped over her left shoulder. ”I personally think this specific hair style is rather good and elegant, no?”

”It is certainly very good and charming for a young, unattached woman,” Lin Che stated with absolute, deadpan seriousness. ”But it is definitely quite a death sentence for a young mother. Trust me on this one.”

To give a few example; one of them died from an illness, the other died from getting stabbed by a crazed stalker, and one of them died getting eaten by her husband’s ex that got turned into a giant man eating monster.

Speaking of which, aren’t their death basically what pushed the plot forward?

Damn. The writers be killing them for plot.

How pitiful.

”Hmm,” Gu Xunyi stared intently at her own purple braids for a brief, silent moment, entirely baffled by his cryptic warnings, before slowly shaking her head to clear her thoughts. ”Well, anyways, let’s cast that aside. Uncle, you have been standing guard here at the grand gates since early this morning, yes?”

”I’ve been sweeping since even before the first rays of the sun rose over the mountains,” Lin Che said, smiling smugly as he patted his broom.

That absolute, unyielding diligence was the direct result of his past life’s years of grueling survival, doing multiple intense manual jobs at the exact same time.

His internal biological clock would simply wake his mind up incredibly early in the morning, completely incapable of sleeping in.

”Then, have you perhaps seen a specific, highly prominent group of golden-haired students pass through these gates today?” Gu Xunyi asked, her red eyes locking onto his face.

”A group of golden-haired students?” Lin Che’s brows furrowed in deep thought. ”We’re talking about approximately how many people in total, miss?”

”Around twelve or so,” said Gu Xunyi, quickly calculating the numbers in her head, thinking of the Ten Crowns plus their young master Shen Haoran, and that striking Qian Yunxi girl who always traveled tightly within their perimeter.

Lin Che pondered the description for a brief moment, his eyes scanning the horizon of the long avenue.

Suddenly, his gaze locked onto a specific, highly structured procession currently moving through the back of the crowded plaza, walking with slow, and immensely authoritative strides straight toward the primary academy gates.

Almost every single one of them possessed brilliant, shimmering golden hair that caught the sunlight like fire.

”Oh, isn’t that the exact—”

He abruptly paused mid-sentence.

His pupils violently contracted to the size of pinpricks, and his jaw practically unhinged in absolute, primitive horror as his eyes locked onto the immaculate, golden-haired young man leading the procession with absolute dominance.

’Holy mother of absolute shit!’ Lin Che screamed frantically within the deepest, most terrified recesses of his soul, his knees trembling violently beneath his patched robes. ’Isn’t that that exact same terrifying, monstrous young master who tried to casually murder me with an invisible finger-gun blast a week ago, just because I politely refused to act as their local street guide!?’

Gu Xunyi swiftly turned her head toward the exact direction his trembling finger was pointing, and a bright, highly satisfied smile immediately illuminated her beautiful features as she spotted the brilliant black and gold robes of Shen Haoran.

”Oh, look at that, there they finally are,” she chirped happily, turning back to give the pale sweeper a polite nod. ”Thanks for the excellent help, uncle. You’ve saved me a lot of walking.”

With that final farewell, she gracefully hopped and bounded forward across the plaza, her figure weaving through the crowd as she happily ran straight toward the approaching group.

The exact millisecond her back was turned, Lin Che violently spun around on his heel, gripped his broom with a death grip, and began to sprint away into the deep shadows of the outer walls at the highest velocity humanly possible, his heart hammering against his ribs in pure panic.

Nope!

Absolutely, definitely not!

There is no way in hell I am letting any of these people my existence and ruin my peaceful, honest life!

Run away!