Chapter 38: An Inevitable Life
Translator: WQL Editor: Geoffrey
The impact of being beaten in the Iron Thorns Fighting Club on Wednesday slowly appeared on Thursday morning.
Yesterday, Zhang Tie casually took a comfortable, hot-water bath in the staff-only bathroom before returning home. Thankfully, there were only a few bruises on his body and none on his face. Therefore, Zhang Tie didn’t need to worry about his bruises being discovered by his dad and mom.
After supper, Zhang Tie chatted with his dad, mom, and sister-in-law for a while. After washing his feet and brushing his teeth, Zhang Tie stealthily took two sweet potatoes and a handful of soybeans to his bedroom.
Zhang Tie then naturally began his land reclamation inside the Castle of Black Iron. Beside the sprouted niblets land and the potatoes land, Zhang Tie buried the two sweet potatoes inside the soil and sowed a row of soybeans like what he had previously done with the niblets.
When those sweet potatoes sprouted, he would need to move the sprouts into separate pits like what he had done with the potatoes. This was something that was taught in school. As for the soybeans, similar to what he had done with the niblets, he simply poked holes with the steel bar and buried them into holes one by one.
The aura value in the Castle of Black Iron kept increasing and had already broken through to 13. On Wednesday, besides those sprouting niblets, Zhang Tie had found that the casually spread grass seeds had also sprouted from the ground.
Over a day was left before the first Leakless Fruit would become ripe. On the other twig of the small tree hung a tiny silver fruit. Touching the fruit, Zhang Tie found that the fruit still had a bit less than three-quarters of progress to go before it became ripe. It seemed that the fruit would almost be ripe after another four to five beatings.
Leakless Fruit… Iron Body Fruit… Heh heh heh heh…
Finishing his cultivation as usual, Zhang Tie muttered the names of the two fruits as he fell asleep...
On Thursday morning, when Zhang Tie’s biological clock passed 6:15, Zhang Tie woke up. The moment he wanted to get off the bed, his face turned pale. Dense drops of sweat appeared all over his forehead as excruciating pain could be felt all over his body. Every place where he was beaten was so painful and was almost broken, especially his two hands that were used to block kicks and punches yesterday. This phenomenon could be explained through two reasons. Firstly, this was a natural reaction from his body after suffering from external damage after a night’s worth of rest. Secondly, it seemed that he truly exercised a lot yesterday; therefore, his muscles ached and felt swollen after one night’s rest.
He sucked in a deep breath and slowly put on his clothes. During this process, whenever he made a slight movement, he would feel an indescribable pain.
Zhang Tie now understood that it was not that easy to be a training partner, and the Iron Body Fruit was also not that easily obtained.
Today, it took Zhang Tie twice as long to get to school from his home. Throughout the day, he moved sluggishly.
Arriving at the school gates, Zhang Tie saw the august, one-eyed man standing outside the school gate. With lowered heads, students walked past the school gate as far away from him as possible while he patted the iron stick on his other palm, producing a loud sound.
“Good boy, I heard you performed well yesterday. You didn’t make me lose face!” Zhang Tie did not expect that Captain Kerlin would praise him before he greeted him.
Looking bashful, Zhang Tie forced a smile. At this moment, Zhang Tie didn’t know whether he should thank or hate this one-eyed man.
Arriving at the classroom, Zhang Tie realized that the horny students weren’t discussing amongst themselves about why nobody cleaned their desks and chairs. Instead, a group of his horny classmates was hiding in a neighboring classroom this morning in hopes to see the “idiot” who arrived early each morning to clean their desks and chairs. Unfortunately, they were unable to find anyone at all, thus they became boisterous.
“Motherf*cker, I have to secretly do good deeds from now on,” Zhang Tie thought to himself. Since his horny classmates were so curious, he was no longer able to use this method to earn merit value points.
After acquiring the Castle of Black Iron, Zhang Tie didn’t want to become the center of attention at school or the classroom, as it would be quite strange for a normal student to do good deeds so passionately for no apparent reason.
Although it was difficult for people to associate what Zhang Tie did with the merit value points from the illusory land, Zhang Tie still thought it would be considered wise to be low-key.
The morning classes proceeded as usual. Perhaps due to the fact that they would leave school forever in two weeks, the teachers taught fewer theories than before; instead, they lectured about their experiences. As a result, the students would sometimes be completely immersed within their teacher’s life experiences and perceptions.
Starting next month on June 1 and ending on August 31, according to the rules held by all schools in Blackhot City, every undergraduate would have to participate in a two-month mandatory survival training. This test was a great assessment of the knowledge and abilities that the students had learned at school. As the survival training was the best test, no other test would be arranged. Consequently, those unqualified to survive in this age would be eliminated. Every year, there would be casualties among the undergraduates of Blackhot City during the survival training. Last year, five students were eliminated; four of which were dead, while the other one became a cripple. In its history, more than twenty undergraduates from the Seventh National Middle School have been eliminated during the survival training. For the horny undergraduates, the two-month survival training was seen as a coming-of-age ceremony.
It would be a coming-of-age ceremony at the cost of one’s blood — and even one’s life! This coming-of-age ceremony was without the protection of the high city walls of Blackhot City, implying that the horny students would encounter the most realistic situations in this age.
After two months of survival training, their days as students would come to an end. Following the survival training came a three-month holiday before most of them would be enlisted in the army to serve for a long term. Over their three-month holiday, before receiving the official notice of serving the army, a few talented individuals would have the chance to obtain the recommendation from school and would have the opportunity to learn in a more advanced place. They would directly become the elites of the age and would be backed by many huge powers and organizations. By this point in time, the direction of many people’s lives would have already been fixed. The period of serving in the army was equal to the time they spent in compulsory education. It was their right to accept compulsory education and their obligation to serve the army. Eight years later, when most people finished serving the army, they would realize that they are completely different than those who had a chance to accept better education.
After the four classes in the morning, those horny undergraduates rushed into cafeteria again. Like usual, when the group of students lined up to get a dining plate, Glaze’s group swaggered inside. Jumping the queue, they became the first in line after chasing away the timid and unlucky fellows at the front of the line.
Look at the way Glaze’s group acted over the past few days, Zhang Tie always asked himself, “What would I do if that unlucky moment happened to me?” Within his heart, he knew the answer. Every time at lunch, he would choose a spot near the end of the line. He would try to avoid trouble; however, for a 15-year-old adolescent, this was a really hard choice.
At lunch, Fatty Barley told Zhang Tie that he would help Zhang Tie complete another coming-of-age ceremony.
“From then on, all of us, the members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood, will no longer be virgins!” Hearing Barley’s great declaration, the horny brotherhood members at the table smiled obscenely.
In truth, although Zhang Tie was dreaming a day ago about his “happy life” and the “astounding love” between him and Miss Daina in the future, hearing Barley’s declaration, Zhang Tie’s heart started pounding. He gradually aspired to become a real man. After a series of images came to mind, his crotch area of his trousers finally raised up like a tent. Zhang Tie then had to admit that as a member of the horny students, he was not more sensible than the other members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood. However, Zhang Tie still considered his affection for Miss Daina sacred!
For the remainder of their lunch, the horny members of the Hit-Plane Brotherhood started to laugh at Zhang Tie’s raised tent. However, as Zhang Tie has gotten used to these guys, he didn’t mind it. After lunch, those guys went to play cards in the classroom, while Zhang Tie entered the small woods beside the cafeteria and sat down to cultivate . According to the book, he had to visualize the three-column abacus in a split second in order to reach the requirements of the first level. Once he reached the first level, he would instantly be able to get the computation result of the four operations within three digits.
It was still quite a distance away from reaching the requirements of the first level described by the book. Within 15 seconds, he was only able to visualize the three-column abacus, and it took him longer than 4 seconds to compute using the four operations. When he thought of the sentence on the cover of that book — After-Class Readings for Preliminary Students — Zhang Tie felt ashamed. This seemed like an ability that was mastered by preliminary students, yet he was not able to reach the first level even after so many days of practice — so ashamed!!
At that moment, it seemed that someone wanted to make him even more ashamed. Standing in front of Zhang Tie was one of Glaze’s followers. While Zhang Tie was curious about his sudden appearance, the slightly gloomy guy threw a pile of dirty dining plates onto the patch of grass where Zhang Tie sat.
“Clean them and hand them over the cafeteria!” The guy threw the dining plates and left without even glancing at Zhang Tie It seemed as if he had never considered that the common looking student sitting against the tree would refuse his orders.
Gazing at the four messy plates, Zhang Tie scratched his head and felt dejected. There were always some hard choices that you had to make in life…