The Rooftop Ambush

Though it wasn’t the kind of moonless, wind-swept night often associated with murder, the pre-dawn sky was undeniably black, as dark as the complexion of a foreign student afflicted by the dreaded Ice Soul Silver Needle.

A biting gust of wind swept through, causing Guo Hao, who had just deftly scaled the wall with a light foot and the aid of qinggong, to let out an involuntary sneeze.

“Who’s there? Which dorm are you from? Why are you scaling walls at this hour?”

A flashlight beam suddenly cut through the darkness. Guo Hao, who moments before had been groggily cursing the ancestors of the elementary school brat responsible for their crushing defeat in last night’s final competitive match, was jolted wide awake. Without a second thought, he unleashed his qinggong, sprinting frantically towards the dormitories. The school was currently undergoing a massive disciplinary overhaul as part of the ‘Heavenly Dynasty 213 Project’ evaluation, and being caught climbing walls in the dead of night was no laughing matter.

Fortunately, while his overall martial prowess might not have been top-tier, Guo Hao’s qinggong was undeniably exceptional. Despite being merely a student, his desperate, headlong sprint proved successful, allowing him to shake off the school’s night patrol guards who had been drawn by the noise.

Leaning against the wall behind the hot water room, he paused to catch his breath, simultaneously confirming he had successfully eluded danger. A long sigh escaped his lips. His 322 undergraduate dormitory was just around the corner, past the Boshi Student Building. This clandestine return to the dorms had, against all odds, concluded safely, albeit with a fright.

‘Damn it all,’ he fumed, ‘if it weren’t for Old Mushroom’s “Principles of Patriotism and People’s Ideology” class this morning, I’d absolutely be grinding to get those lost ladder points back…’

Muttering curses about a certain bald monk from the Shaolin Imperial Key Laboratory, who had caught him skipping class just weeks prior, Guo Hao tiptoed through the narrow passage between the dormitory building and the sports field.

Victory was tantalizingly close. Even the sky, serving as a silent backdrop, now shimmered with the gentle, pearlescent white of approaching dawn—a truly lovely sight!

‘A quick wash, then some breakfast at the first canteen to appease my stomach,’ he mused to himself, ‘and then it’s off to Old Mushroom’s class in the fifth teaching building for a little rendezvous with Duke Zhou. When you put it like that, life isn’t half bad.’ Guo Hao found himself unconsciously thinking that life, after all, held such fascinating possibilities.

Alas, the events that followed would swiftly disabuse him of this notion, forcing him to confront the stark reality that he was, indeed, ‘too young, too simple, sometimes naive…’

Just as he reached the dormitory entrance, a sudden, inexplicable unease compelled him to cast his gaze skyward.

Despite the burgeoning dawn, a lingering gloom clung to the sky. Within that indistinct backdrop, high atop the dormitory building, a solitary figure stood silhouetted.

A cold breeze stirred, and the figure’s right sleeve billowed, giving the unsettling impression of a missing arm…

‘How can that damned fellow be standing there?’ he cursed under his breath, his eyes fixed on the rooftop. ‘This spells trouble…’ Recognizing the silhouette, Guo Hao abandoned his intent to enter the dorm, instead glaring upwards.

What transpired next was, to put it mildly, both bewildering and utterly ridiculous. The figure, seemingly having spotted Guo Hao, then, with an air of profound grievance, simply plunged headfirst from the rooftop.

‘Honestly, at this ungodly hour, striking such a dramatic pose on the rooftop, it would be weirder if they *didn’t* jump,’ he mused with a touch of dark humor. ‘Perhaps he should just really fall to his death. Isn’t jumping off a building the quintessential heartbroken suicide, damn it?’ Guo Hao’s thoughts veered darkly, yet even a fool knew such a fatal outcome was impossible. This was Jinwu University of Science and Technology, after all, and the scoundrel currently plummeting possessed a mastery of qinggong that was nothing short of breathtaking.

Shaking his head, Guo Hao sighed at the impending trouble. He covertly channeled his internal energy, his gaze fixed intently on the black silhouette hurtling from the sky. As the figure accelerated under gravity’s pull, a palpable pressure descended from above, causing even the already wary Guo Hao to involuntarily shift his stance.

‘What a troublesome family,’ Guo Hao thought, ‘especially since this palm technique perfectly aligns with his current emotional state—and that eternal bachelor just got dumped again yesterday, damn it all…’ The crushing force from above intensified, and Guo Hao steadily brought his internal energy to its peak. Just as the figure, sleeves whipping in the wind of their descent, was poised to strike with a single downward-pressing hand, Guo Hao let out a silent roar. He shot upwards, simultaneously thrusting his palm skyward, directly confronting the attack that harnessed the full momentum of the fall. His movements were as fierce and majestic as a soaring flood dragon.

‘This is precisely “Flying Dragon in the Sky,” one of the Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms,’ he realized.

Bang! Their palms collided. The sheer force was enough to crush a man, and even with Guo Hao employing the world’s most formidable and pure Eighteen Dragon Subduing Palms, his body was rocked violently. The attack also carried an immense surge of internal energy. Following the clash, he plummeted earthward, landing in a four-limbed stance that shattered the cement beneath him. In an instant, stone chips and dust erupted, engulfing Guo Hao in a cloud of debris and leaving him utterly disheveled.

Despite his disheveled state, Guo Hao had successfully parried the earth-shattering move, ‘Acting Against the Natural Order’. The attacker, leveraging Guo Hao’s counter-force, landed three meters away, making no further aggressive moves.

‘I’m warning you,’ Guo Hao said, having recovered from his momentary disarray and now standing, dusting off his clothes. ‘Why the sudden ambush so early in the morning? What kind of chaos are you trying to stir up?’

The other person offered no reply, standing coldly in the dim morning light. Their right sleeve hung empty, lending them an air of profound aloofness.

Guo Hao, witnessing the other’s persistent theatricality, had already cursed them to the deepest pits of hell in his mind. Yet, despite his irritation, this was his long-time best friend and roommate. Having endured ‘that’ ordeal just yesterday, their current mood was, to some extent, understandable. A pang of guilt also pricked Guo Hao, for as a loyal friend, he hadn’t been there to drown their sorrows, having been too absorbed in the frenzied slaughter of Aamon when the text arrived.

He slowly approached, intending to pat their shoulder and offer a few words of encouragement. Yet, he was utterly unprepared to discover that the aloof, stern figure, so imposing from a distance in the dazzling morning light, was in fact a pathetic mess, tears and snot streaming down their face…

‘Waaah… Haozi,’ the boy who had ambushed him from the rooftop wailed, lunging at Guo Hao in an uncontrollable fit of tears. ‘I got dumped again, damn it, boohoohoo!’ In the burgeoning morning light, it became starkly clear: one of his hands was cunningly tucked into his sleeve, while the other emerged from a zipper near his chest. This bizarre get-up, coupled with the backdraft from his sudden lunge, instantly stripped off the upper garment on his right side, leaving the half-naked figure in the morning glow looking even more utterly ferocious.

Bang!