CHAPTER 51: THE XU-WANG BARGAIN

“Drop the hearing?” Wang Zen said. “Can you really do that? Lu Daomengt says it’s practically over for me. I doubt even my family can sway the headmaster.”

“Well, you shouldn’t compare what my family can do with what yours can.” Xu Hau said, sounding slightly bored. “My family is pureblood while yours is bribebloods.”

“Bribeblood,” Wang Zen repeated the unfamiliar word.

“Yes,” she said impatiently. “Now do you want to stay or not?”

Zen opened his mouth and closed it. He was not sure if he wanted to stay. Was this not what he wanted all along? Did he not wish to go home to his friends and comfort? But would it be worth it for him to return because he was expelled for being a pervert?

A smile uncontrollably tugged at the corners of Wang Zen as he thought of his father’s outraged and probably girly reaction at how his son had been expelled for peeking at the girls’ bathhouse. Would he take off his mask, he thought.

“What are you smiling about?” Xu Hau said with an annoyed tone.

“Hmm?” Zen was brought back to reality.

“Well? Do you want to stay or not?”

Zen gulped as he thought on his answer.

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“Well?” she tapped her foot.

“I…” Zen began, “I… want to stay.” Zen decided to save face instead of fulfilling his dream of going home.

Xu Hau smiled at this. “Good, but you’ll have to do something for me.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Xu Hau leaned closer to him, narrowing her eyes at him. “At first I didn’t recognise you but today in the headmasters office, I realised who you were. You’re the 3 seconds boy.”

Zen groaned at the name causing Xu Hau to smile.

“I knew it,” she said, snapping her fingers. “You and your little band of misfits have been bothering my friend Chen Jian.”

“If your friend has so many people bothering him then maybe he is the one bothering them.” Zen said, feeling a flare of mutiny and anger rising in him at the mention of Chen Jian.

“Don’t talk badly about my friend,” she said. “Now, I want you and your friends to stop what you’re doing.”

“I don’t control them.”

“Yes? Of course you don’t. The fat one, your all his puppets.”

“I’m no ones puppet,” Zen said.

“Could’ve fooled me,” she said. “I mean, he tells you to challenge Jian Chen and you do it. He tells you to to spy on Jian Chen and you do it. He tells you to jump and you eagerly say, ‘how high?’”

“I am not his puppet!”

Xu Hau’s face twisted in anger at his tone. “Your right, your not his puppet because from now on, your mine. If you want to stay, you will spy on your friends and report what they do to me.”

“What? But… I can’t do that.”

“Then you’ll go home as a disgrace.”

Zen shut his eyes and looked away, a moment later he raised his hand, too ashamed at what he was doing to look at her.

“What is this?” Xu Hau looked at his raised fist. “Are you threatening me?”

Zen looked at her in confusion. “No. This is how we seal this vow… this bargain, by touching fists.”

“That seems so… uncouth.” She shook her head. “We’ll have a verbal agreement, that will be enough.” She said before walking away.

Zen looked at his fist, feeling as empty as it was alone in the air.