Chapter 7: Action Movie Star, Rick Lee!

Chapter 7: Action Movie Star, Rick Lee!

While I was in the bathroom changing into my street clothes and wiping away the stray tears—which were definitely caused by a drift of leftover pepper spray and not because my unconditioned body was aching—other conversations were going down across the campus.

Up on the school rooftop, Tina Feng leaned against the safety railing. Watching me walk into the main building below, she raised her eyebrows in a mixture of genuine amusement and surprise.

"What exactly was that?" Tina muttered, a sharp grin cutting across her face. "Rick has never taken a single formal lesson in his life. I saw the footage myself and I still can’t believe it. Did my father finally make his very first mistake for this evaluation game?"

She squinted her golden Phoenix eyes, glancing back at the six broken corporate enforcers down by the front gates who were currently groveling on the concrete, desperately trying to get medical assistance.

"Although I absolutely hate Scott, he did a great job of turning you ruthless, my little Dragon," Tina purred with a soft, melodic laugh. "Now you are dancing right to this Phoenix's rhythm, fufu."

Down at the front gates, the atmosphere was incredibly tense.

Mercy, seeing that her security assignment for the morning was over, climbed back into the leather interior of her white luxury limousine while casting a dismissive glance at the furious Scott Tang. As the driver pulled away from the curb, she activated her hands-free headset to place an encrypted call.

The line hissed before a deep, authoritative voice boomed through the speakers.

[ Why have you called me today? Is little Linda in trouble? ]

"No, sir," Mercy reported, keeping her voice strictly professional. "It seems the young miss has rejected the Tang boy because he tried to permanently cripple that commoner kid again. What do you want me to do?"

A heavy, irritated sigh echoed over the line.

[ Sigh. Is it that Lee kid causing a mess again? She needs to move on. No, the agreement for them to get engaged will happen later this year. I cannot go back on my word over a commoner kid, or I would lose face among the other families. I don't care if she wants to throw a tantrum, she will marry him, even if he is total trash. The fact that the boy dares to marry those troublesome Ning girls before my own angel, he should be castrated for that insult alone. Just keep her safe, that is all. Click... do do do... ]

Mercy just offered a sad, tired smile to herself and muttered quietly.

"Sorry, young miss, but your father has spoken, sigh."

As the white limo pulled completely away from the school quadrant...

Scott stood frozen on the asphalt. Seeing his martial senior brother—a university-tier elite fighter—get totally humiliated by the exact same kid he had used as a punching bag for years made his mind go completely crazy.

"Fuck, did Tony just let himself get beat?!" Scott snarled, his knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists. "No, Rick is a total pussy and I have ruined his life so many times. I have seen him every day and he never once showed he could fight. I don't accept this! Did he fake being weak all along just to fool me and make me look stupid?! My Sensei is going to absolutely kill me when he finds out what happened to his son, fuck!"

Standing right behind him, Nadia and Nicole Ning had also witnessed the entire fight. Having watched Rick get ruthlessly manhandled in the past, they stared at the empty space where I had been standing in sheer horror mixed with a sudden, wild excitement. A bright light gleamed in their sharp blue eyes, showing a level of respect they had never once given to a spoiled heir like Scott. It was a shame they thoroughly hated men, or they would have done everything in their power to drop Scott right then and marry Rick instead.

"Nicole, if I didn't love you more than anything, I think he is the only guy I could actually like now, fufu," Nadia whispered, adjusting the strap of her silver dress. "Too bad he is just a commoner, sigh."

"Sigh, yeah," Nicole replied, her sharp mind already analyzing the fight. "Father would sooner kill us both than let us marry into a commoner family, but I agree with you. He is the only boy who doesn't make me feel completely disgusted right now. But sadly, we can only be around him briefly before the trap closes, so enjoy it while it lasts, sister."

Before the brief, violent fight outside had even taken place...

Linda Lang went to sit in the vacant classroom entirely alone. She kept her eyes tightly closed, thinking about how badly Rick would be broken this morning, her heart heavy with absolute shame over his situation.

The guilt of their very first meeting at the start of freshman year replayed in her mind almost daily.

[ Hi, I am Rick Lee. You're the first person I've met in high school, let's be friends? ]

[ Commoner, don't talk to me so casually, ] her own icy, high-born voice had cut him off back then. [ I don't need you as a friend, humph. ]

Then, another memory completely overlapped with that one.

[ Hi, I am Officer Lee, ] a brave, blood-stained man had whispered to her four years ago during a bank robbery. [ Don't cry, little girl, you will be fine. ]

The exact same blue eyes, the exact same face, the exact same friendly tone...

Suddenly, Linda noticed an anomaly. There was absolutely no noise coming from the courtyard outside, which made no sense because too many students were gathered out there for it to be that quiet. She wanted to look out the window, but her severe fear of violence kept her frozen in her seat.

She strained her ears, listening for any sound of a beating, but heard nothing.

Soon, the school bell rang, and students began making immense noise in the halls as they rushed to their homerooms. Linda watched her classmates animatedly talking about what must have happened outside, catching fragments of their frantic conversations.

"I am so glad I recorded that!"

"It was just like an action movie scene."

"If I didn't know Tang and that university guy were friends, I would think it was a staged fight, he-he."

"I'm so glad I didn't skip school today!"

"I can't believe that was Rick Lee, Scott's personal punching bag. Did he seriously let Scott bully him for four years on purpose?"

Linda, completely confused by the gossip, turned to the girl sitting at the desk next to her.

"Sue, what exactly happened to Rick Lee? Did he get badly hurt?"

Her desk mate Sue gave her a funny, skeptical look, well aware of Linda's forced proximity to Scott.

"Not counting his severe bruising from over the weekend, he didn't even get touched today," Sue said, her voice bubbling with pure adulation. "But the other six goons are definitely going to the hospital for sure. Damn, it was so incredibly cool. I wonder if he has a girlfriend yet?"

"What?!" Linda gasped, her perfect composure cracking.

"What do you mean, 'what'?" Sue giggled. "Rick Lee kicked all their asses in no time, and he made your boyfriend's university buddy take a permanent concrete nap, fufu. It was so awesome!"

Linda sat back in a daze. Knowing the exact history of all of Rick's brutal beatings over the years, she was instantly reminded of his private talk with their teacher, Mr. Chi. Did he willfully let himself get beaten all those years just because he was a commoner who couldn't face the corporate backlash of fighting back? Could she have done more to help him?

Thinking about Officer Lee and his elite fighting ability, it made perfect sense that he would have trained his son. So why take the beatings?

Before her mind could solve the equation, her thoughts were completely distracted by two people coming into the classroom with huge smiles. But her grey eyes completely locked onto only one of them.

Rewind the timeline once again... back in the boys' bathroom.

With my over-taxed, screaming muscles protesting the sudden movement, I managed to get my blue jeans on and slide into a clean grey t-shirt. I folded up my soiled school uniform, stowed the jacket away into my heavy backpack, and turned on the tap to wash my face in the porcelain sink.

Looking into the mirror with my bright blue eyes looking back at me, I noticed my injuries didn't look nearly as bad anymore from my birthday beating over the weekend.

"Have I gotten more handsome?" I muttered to myself, touching my jawline. "No, I think my face hasn't changed at all. It's the absolute confidence of the Grandmaster data that has changed the way I carry myself now. I am no longer a frightened, beaten stray hiding in the dark corners of this city. Alright, let's try and walk with absolute dignity in this world, Rick Lee!"

The moment I stepped past the threshold of the bathroom, about twenty students were waiting in the hall just to see me come out. Before I could move away, a heavy, familiar arm sladdled casually across my shoulders.

James Tong, my six-foot-tall best friend, started to laugh loudly, patting my arm while dragging me toward class. The idiot had absolutely no idea how much intense physical pain his heavy hand was causing my bruised ribs, but my Acting skill instantly locked my facial expressions into a seamless mask of absolute calm.

"Sorry I was late for school, Rick!" James shouted excitedly, completely ignoring the quiet hall. "Had I known you were fighting Scott's elite goon squad, I would have backed you up as primary infantry, brother! Fuck, man, I saw the video and ran here as fast as I could! What the fuck, you've been hiding your Kung-Fu from your own best friend? Oh, wait—it was your sister making you not fight right, sigh, she is so strict... but damn, she is so hot, he-he!"

I smiled at my idiot friend who was acting so excited it felt like he had fought the enforcers himself. We entered the classroom, and the entire student body went dead silent, every single eye locking onto my position.

I could see the entire class was present, except for Scott and the Ning twins. Linda Lang was staring straight at my face from her desk, the heavy dark circles under her grey eyes showing she hadn't slept well over the weekend. Her icy gaze felt like it was trying to pierce right through my chest, sigh.

What a total headache of a woman. Noble girls were a completely separate breed of complex psychological trauma, just like the predatory Ning twins.

While I previously noted that there are four main noble houses running the monitored syndicates across Eurasia, there are also lesser aristocratic houses like the Ning family. They were smaller branch families that split off from the four main clans a couple hundred years ago, right before the four sovereign states became one. However, their corporate power, money, and influence are hard-capped at roughly one-third of the global leverage held by the four primary families. I would estimate there are anywhere from twenty-five to fifty of these lesser noble houses operating across Eurasia, but I hadn't bothered to waste my memory space learning them.

As James and I sat down in our rows—with me in the front and James occupying the seat directly behind me—a female classmate broke away from her desk and walked straight over to my workspace.

"I saw you fight today, Rick," she said, her cheeks turning a bright pink. "And I wanted to know... do you currently have an active girlfriend?"

No, I was not interested in these fair-weather girls. None of them had ever deigned to look at me or offer a single word of conversation before today's display of physical dominance. But maintaining a baseline of public diplomacy was necessary. Deploying my Acting skill, I put on a charming, humble hero routine to safely diffuse the interaction.

"Sorry, I don't have one, due to my studies," I said, offering a soft, perfectly calibrated smile that masked the cold calculation running behind my blue eyes. "I have not had time to fall in love, especially with my schoolwork and training. Plus, I don't think young noble Scott would allow it, ha-ha! Thanks for watching this morning, hope you cheered for me!"

James was giving me the ultimate 'what studying and what training' look from his desk. But the strategic excuse of blaming my miserable love life on Scott's looming corporate shadow made everyone in the room nod. To them, it made total sense.

The girl, despite my words, confidently handed me a folded piece of paper. I had to give her props for being the first girl to actually approach me in four years.

"Sorry to hear that, but take my number if you want to hang out sometime and talk," she said, giving a small wave. "I hope you do. Bye."

James looked completely amazed at my sudden social gains. I kept the number and smiled back at the blushing girl as she walked away. Sure, we could probably have some fun, but I didn't feel that genuine spark. To put it bluntly, I couldn't even imagine her while fapping, if you get my meaning.

In my mind, if you can't fantasize about a woman while imagining filling her up without a single regret, then you shouldn't be putting it in her to begin with. Huh? Wait a minute... I could still get blowjobs from them though, right? Wow, my operational world has seriously expanded!

Just as I was actively imagining the back of that girl's head bobbing up and down on a hypothetical date, three students walked into the classroom right before the teacher arrived. One of the four looked incredibly gloomy, looking exactly like a guy who had just been forced to eat absolute shit.

The bobbing head of the girl immediately vanished from my mental fantasy. I just gave the thoroughly sad Scott a bright smile, silently telling him that his luck absolutely sucked. It was pretty great knowing exactly how the Ning twins were going to make his future arranged marriage a living hell.

Fuck, now I can't get the image of that black and red teddy out of my active memory! Sigh. Those two demons are true, unmitigated succubi.

I was actually a bit surprised to see that when Scott looked over at Linda, she gave him a look of pure, unadulterated hatred. She completely ignored his existence, not even greeting him when he tried to step closer and say hello. It seemed there was serious trouble in paradise. I didn't give a single shit about their corporate drama, but I figured anything that made Scott miserable was an absolute win for me.

Exactly thirty minutes later, the localized quiet of the classroom was shattered by the sharp click of the internal communication network.

[ Please send student Rick Lee to the office, the Police are here to speak with him. ]

The homeroom teacher and the rest of the student body instantly shifted their gazes directly onto me. I remained entirely unbothered. I calmly stood up, systematically packed my things into my heavy backpack, and headed straight for the exit door to face the music.

As I crossed the room, I caught several highly noticeable reactions across the grid:

Scott looked incredibly surprised, but a desperate hope flared in his eyes that whatever legal mess was descending would permanently put me behind bars until long after graduation day.

Nadia Ning violently slapped her own forehead, looking like she had just executed a critical software error. Her twin sister, Nicole, was actively glaring a hole into her skull, completely furious at her for failing to manage a basic assignment correctly yet again.

From his desk, James subtly mouthed the words, 'good luck!' while keeping a low profile.

And Linda... her grey eyes followed my movement with an intense, conflicted look, her lips parting as if she desperately wanted to say something to me.

I chose to completely ignore the variables, stepping past the threshold of the classroom.

Did I accidentally miscalculate my kinetic output during that front-gate engagement? I wondered internally. Did I accidentally kill one of those guys?

The moment I walked into the administrative office, a female police officer who looked entirely pissed and deeply worried bolted upright from her seat.

"Put your wrists out now!" Detective Mary Lee commanded, her voice vibrating with a dangerous mix of genuine protective anger and systemic stress.

Mary didn't offer a single trace of her usual familiar warmth as she moved into my sector, pulling a heavy pair of stainless-steel handcuffs from her belt.

She aggressively snapped the ratchets around my wrists—though she at least had the professional courtesy to secure them in the front rather than forcing my bruised ribs to twist behind my spine. I noted with minor amusement that she completely skipped roughly eighty percent of the standard procedural speech she usually recited to common street criminals.

Mary turned to the petrified administrative desk clerk. "Student Lee will be going to the station, so excuse him for questioning."

I was systematically escorted out of the building and down the front steps. The moment she guided me to the door of her marked squad car and I tried to talk, she cut me off with an icy glare.

"I am so pissed at you right now, that if you say one word, I will Taser you in front of everyone for resisting arrest, get me?" Mary hissed, her hand resting directly on her utility belt. "Now don't hit your head getting in the back seat, sigh."

I slid into the reinforced rear seat, the heavy door slamming shut behind me. I was forced to sit back and actively enjoy my very first official trip to the police station as a primary guest.

Sadly, given the cutthroat nature of my life, my mind highly calculated that this wouldn't be my last time behind bars.

Meanwhile, back inside the school, the two lesser-noble troublemakers had retreated to a corner to exchange hushed, panicked whispers.

"Dammit, Nadia!" Nicole snarled, her blue eyes flashing as she cornered her twin. "I told you to send his sister the video only if he was actively being beaten so she could deploy emergency backup units! What the absolute fuck were you thinking?!"

"Sorry!" Nadia squeaked, looking thoroughly air-headed. "I was so incredibly excited that I sent the video upload to everyone, and she just happened to be on my contact list! Well, look at the bright side, Nicole. At least his own sister arrested him and not some dirty police captain under the Tang Family's payroll. He will be fine... probably. Well... I hope he is out before we get married, so I should probably go get some bail money ready just in case, right?"

Smack!

This time, Nicole violently faceplanted into her own palm at her twin sister's complete lack of situational awareness.