In the city of Jiangzhou, located in the Lingnan region, stood Qi Middle School, known simply as Qi Middle.
Renowned throughout Lingnan as a bastion of the elite, every student at Qi Middle School came from a wealthy family. To put it in today's arrogant slang, if you threw a brick, you'd hit a whole group of students whose family assets were measured in the hundreds of millions.
On a scorching summer day, the Year Three, Class Seven classroom, with its thirty-odd students, was so quiet you could hear a pin drop.
Suddenly, a loud shout erupted from the back of the room!
"I'm not dead? I'm still alive? Haha! HAHAHA!"
A boy who had been sleeping on his desk abruptly lifted his head, shouting and laughing like a madman.
"Pfft—!"
"Hahaha—!"
The once-silent classroom burst into laughter.
"Damn! This waste of space is getting way ahead of himself!"
"Shit! What kind of dream was he having?"
"This is the most attention that waste Qin Fan has ever gotten, haha!"
Following Qin Fan's crazed laughter, a torrent of mocking, scathing insults swarmed him. Mockery, contempt, disdain, disgust—countless such looks flashed in the eyes of the students. Among the thirty or so students in the class, there were almost no exceptions. From their gazes alone, one could draw a single conclusion: Qin Fan had no friends here.
Yet, the Qin Fan seated at the back of the classroom completely ignored these mocking voices and gazes. His face twitched with excitement, clearly lost in his own world.
I'm not dead? I actually didn't die? Wasn't I obliterated by the final, eighty-first layer of the Heavenly Thunder Tribulation during my ascension?
Qin Fan tried to recall everything that had happened before he opened his eyes, but the escalating laughter and taunts shattered his thoughts. His body jolted violently as he was pulled back to the reality before him. He scanned the room.
Wait—something's not right! What's going on? Isn't this Year Three, Class Seven? Isn't this the place where I was oppressed, humiliated, and mocked five hundred years ago? Aren't these the same hateful faces that trampled on my soul, inflicting one deep wound after another? Have I... been reborn? Have I returned to five hundred years ago?
The moment he had this thought, endless memories surged and replayed in his mind.
The Jiangzhou Qin Family, who had disowned him and severed all ties.
Du Tiancong, who drove his college girlfriend, Jiang Yino, to suicide.
His so-called second uncle, who colluded with the Du Family to steal the hundreds of millions his parents had painstakingly earned after being cast out, framing them with fabricated crimes and having them thrown into prison!
These tragic memories painted a life of suffering too immense to be described.
In the end, his family was destroyed. His parents were framed and imprisoned. His girlfriend, Yino, was driven to a mental breakdown by Du Tiancong and jumped to her death. His childhood friend couldn't escape Du Tiancong's clutches either, all because of him. And as for himself, Du Tiancong later sent men to shatter his kneecaps, turning him into a cripple confined to a wheelchair.
Just as he had lost all hope and was preparing to end his life at Yino's grave to be with her, the Heavenly Dao Elder appeared out of thin air, saved him, and took him to the Cangqiong Continent in another world to pursue cultivation.
Driven by his burning desire for revenge, he chose the most arduous path of cultivation: the legacy of the Victorious Fighting Buddha. Relying on a complete disregard for life and death, as well as a talent that the Heavenly Dao Elder endlessly praised, he became the only mortal in hundreds of years to become a Saint Emperor on the Cangqiong Continent.
Yet unexpectedly, he still failed to overcome the final hurdle—to shatter the Xu Kong and ascend to the Heavenly Court's Immortal Class. He fell during the final, eighty-first layer of the Heavenly Thunder Tribulation.
But now, I'm alive? Not only am I alive, but I've been reborn five hundred years in the past? Is this the heavens' act of redemption after five hundred years?
A cold smile crept onto Qin Fan's face.
My Qin Family! My dear second uncle! Du Tiancong! The Du Family! None of you ever imagined that I, Qin Fan, would return after five hundred years, did you? The humiliation and torture you inflicted upon me in my past life... in this life, I will repay it a hundred, a thousand times over! None of you will escape! Dad, Mom, childhood friend, Yino! In this life, with me here, no one will ever harm you again! Never again!
"Quiet down, all of you!"
A middle-aged man wearing glasses walked in from outside the classroom. Frowning, he pushed his hands down in a silencing gesture. The raucous laughter instantly died down. Though these students were the self-proclaimed elite scions of officials and tycoons, they didn't dare misbehave in front of the staff of Qi Middle School. If they were actually expelled by the powerful and well-backed school, they would become the laughingstock of the entire Lingnan region.
"What happened? Someone tell me," the Dean asked in a low voice, standing at the center of the lectern.
"Dean, I'll tell you," Wang Zijun said, standing up. "Our classmate Qin Fan here must have been having a wonderful dream. He suddenly shouted, 'I'm not dead, hahaha.' I mean, Dean, how could we not laugh?" After speaking, he made sure to turn and shoot Qin Fan a contemptuous smirk.
For Wang Zijun, whose father was a high-ranking official in Jiangzhou's Xiuyue District, Qin Fan was just an outcast from the Qin family. Disdaining him was nothing. If the Dean hadn't walked in, he would have gone over to teach Qin Fan a lesson himself.
"Is that true?" the Dean asked, his face dark.
"Yes!" a chorus erupted from the class. It seemed everyone, boy or girl, was happy to watch Qin Fan suffer.
"You! Yes, you! I'm talking to you! Stand up! Get up, now!"
Did the Dean know Qin Fan's name? Of course. Who in Qi Middle School didn't know of Qin Fan, the family outcast whom everyone felt they could step on? Yet, he didn't use his name. He just pointed in Qin Fan's direction and yelled in disgust. Wasn't this, in itself, a clear display of contempt?
"If you're going to play the part of a thug, have some respect for the role and don't just make empty threats."
"And if you're a teacher, respect your profession and conduct yourself accordingly!"
As Qin Fan slowly rose from his seat, his gaze was no longer evasive as it once was. Instead, it locked unwaveringly onto the Dean, a direct confrontation.
The moment he spoke, the entire classroom fell into a deathly, disbelieving silence. You could hear a pin drop.
Was this outcast from the Qin family, whom everyone could step on, still dreaming? How dare he speak to the Dean of Qi Middle School like that?
Damn it! That waste of space must still be lost in his dream world.