Jiangzhou University, September 1st, 8:12 a.m.
Lin Feng opened his eyes to the sound of a morning bell he had never heard before.
He was sitting in the last row of Classroom 301, Finance Department Building 3.
Sunlight poured through the window, dust motes dancing like tiny golden dragons.
A brand-new student ID hung around his neck:
**Lin Feng – Class 1, Finance Year 2025**
**Student Number: 0000**
The four zeros made several students nearby glance over curiously, then quickly look away when they met his eyes.
On the desk in front of him was a textbook he had never bought, a class schedule he had never seen, and a phone that definitely wasn't his yesterday.
The lock screen showed one unread message.
[Don't skip homeroom. The teacher hates tardiness.
P.S. Your uniform looks good on you. Qingxue]
Lin Feng's fingers froze above the screen.
He looked up.
Third row from the front, window seat.
Su Qingxue sat there in the girls' uniform white shirt, dark skirt, long hair tied in a high ponytail.
She was writing something in a notebook, pen moving elegantly.
As if feeling his gaze, she turned her head slightly and gave him a small, mocking smile.
Then she mouthed two words without sound:
Welcome back.
Lin Feng's heart beat once hard like a war drum from another life.
Memories of last night flooded in at the same time:
The coffin.
The child.
The fusion.
Su Qingxue dying in his arms.
And then nothing.
Pure darkness until this morning bell.
He closed his eyes and spread his divine sense across the entire campus.
Nothing.
No corpses. No Blood Shadow Sect. No destroyed mountain.
Even the sixteen families were alive and well; he could feel their heartbeats in the city, fat and complacent.
Time had been turned back.
Or worse someone had created a perfect cage shaped like the world he destroyed.
The classroom door slid open.
A woman walked in.
Mid-twenties, black-rimmed glasses, long hair in a bun, professional suit that hugged her figure just enough to make every boy in class swallow.
On the surface, she looked like a young, beautiful lecturer.
But Lin Feng's pupils shrank to needle points the instant she stepped over the threshold.
Because the aura hidden beneath that human skin was deeper than the Mariana Trench.
She wrote three characters on the blackboard with chalk that made no sound:
**柳如烟**
Liu Ruyan
Then she turned and smiled at the class.
"Good morning, everyone. Starting today, I'm your homeroom teacher for the next four years."
Her gaze swept the room and stopped on Lin Feng for half a second.
In that half second, Lin Feng felt eight invisible chains lock around his soul, his meridians, his dragon blood everything.
Chains forged from laws he did not recognize.
Liu Ruyan's smile widened.
"Student Lin Feng, sleeping on the first day? Stand up and introduce yourself."
Forty-nine pairs of eyes turned to him at once.
Lin Feng stood up slowly.
The moment he did, every phone in the classroom vibrated simultaneously.
A campus forum notification popped up on every screen:
[Breaking! Transfer student Lin Feng—mysterious background, suspected super-rich second gen disguised as poor kid! Photos attached!]
The attached photos were of him walking on air last night, golden eyes blazing, nine dragon heads roaring behind him.
Yet somehow, the students only saw a tall, average-looking boy with a calm expression.
The dissonance made Lin Feng's lips curve.
Interesting.
He spoke, voice neither loud nor soft, yet every person heard it clearly.
"My name is Lin Feng. Hobby is collecting debts. Goal is to graduate peacefully."
A few students laughed, thinking it was a joke.
Liu Ruyan did not laugh.
"Debt collecting?" She tapped the desk with one finger. "Then you'll fit right in. This class… specializes in that."
She clapped once.
The classroom door locked itself.
The windows turned pitch black, as if the entire building had been moved into the void.
All natural light vanished.
Only the fluorescent tubes overhead remained, flickering like dying souls.
Liu Ruyan's smile finally disappeared.
"Welcome, everyone," she said, voice suddenly echoing from every direction at once.
"To the Heavenly Mandate Academy Class Zero."
"From today onward, you are no longer ordinary students."
"You are candidates."
"Candidates for what?" a brave boy in the front row asked.
Liu Ruyan looked at him like a cat looks at a mouse.
"For the throne of the new Heavenly Emperor, of course."
She snapped her fingers.
Forty-nine desks rose into the air, rearranging themselves into a perfect circle.
Every student except Lin Feng and Su Qingxue was bound to their chairs by chains of black runes.
Panic erupted.
Liu Ruyan ignored the screams.
She walked straight to Lin Feng and stopped one meter away.
Up close, her pupils were vertical slits dragon pupils.
"Number Zero," she said softly, using the title the nameless old man in the capital had used last night.
"Did you really think eating your own weakness would let you escape the game?"
She reached out and touched the place between his eyebrows.
The spot where Su Qingxue's drop of True Dragon blood had entered.
A burning sensation spread through his soul.
Lin Feng finally spoke.
"Who are you people?"
Liu Ruyan laughed. The sound made the void outside the windows tremble.
"We are the Board of Education," she said. "And you, little monster, have been enrolled against your will."
She stepped back.
"Rule number one: in this classroom, strength is the only grade that matters."
"Rule number two: every month, the student with the lowest 'performance score' dies."
"Rule number three:"
She glanced at Su Qingxue, who was still free to move, smiling coldly.
"Graduation requirement kill the current Heavenly Emperor and take his place."
"Or be killed by the next candidate."
The bound students were now openly sobbing.
One girl wet herself.
Liu Ruyan clapped again.
The chains vanished.
The windows returned to normal morning sunlight.
Everything looked exactly as it had five minutes ago.
Except now every student knew—this was no longer Earth as they understood it.
Liu Ruyan returned to the podium.
"First period is self-study. Get to know each other. You'll be trying to murder one another soon enough."
She sat down, opened a book titled "101 Ways to Flay a Dragon", and began reading as if nothing happened.
The class remained frozen for ten full seconds.
Then chaos.
Students rushed to the door found it wouldn't open.
Some tried the windows same result.
A few boys charged at Liu Ruyan, shouting they would call the police.
She didn't even look up from her book.
The boys turned into black ash mid-step, not even having time to scream.
Silence fell again.
Lin Feng sat back down.
Su Qingxue turned in her seat to look at him.
Her voice carried clearly through the deathly quiet room.
"Looks like I really did drag you to hell with me, ancestor."
She held up her phone.
On the screen was the class group chat, automatically created.
Class motto:
**"Only one graduates. The rest become stepping stones."**
Current member count: 50.
Lin Feng looked at the number and laughed under his breath.
Fifty candidates.
Including him.
Including the girl who should be dead.
He sent a single message in the group chat.
[Lin Feng: Let the games begin.]
Instantly, forty-eight other phones vibrated.
Su Qingxue's eyes curved into crescents.
She replied with a voice message that played for the whole class to hear:
"Good luck, ancestor. Try not to die before I kill you personally."
Liu Ruyan finally looked up from her book, eyes shining with amusement.
"Oh, I like this batch."
She closed the book.
"By the way, I forgot to mention the welcome gift."
She waved her hand.
Forty-nine black jade tokens fell onto forty-nine desks.
Each token had a number carved on it.
From 0001 to 0049.
Lin Feng's desk remained empty.
Liu Ruyan smiled sweetly at him.
"Number Zero doesn't need a number. Everyone already knows who the final boss is."
Then she stood up and walked to the door.
"Class dismissed. Lunch break until 2 p.m."
"The first trial begins tonight at midnight."
"Location: the old campus behind the mountain."
"Task: survive until dawn."
"Reward for the last one standing: 1000 points."
"Penalty for dying: well… you won't be needing points anymore."
The door opened by itself.
Students stumbled out, some crying, some already looking at classmates with calculating eyes.
Lin Feng stayed in his seat.
So did Su Qingxue.
When the classroom was empty except for the two of them and the teacher who was no longer there,
Su Qingxue walked over and sat on his desk, legs swinging.
"Answer me one question," she said.
Lin Feng looked up at her.
"How are you alive?"
She leaned down until their faces were inches apart.
"Because you made a wish when you closed my eyes on that mountain."
"You said: 'I wish you could live to hate me properly.'"
She tapped the spot between his eyebrows—the same place the True Dragon blood had entered.
"Someone out there granted it."
"Congratulations, ancestor. You're not the only one who gets to crawl out of coffins anymore."
She stood up and walked toward the door.
At the threshold she paused.
"See you tonight, Lin Feng."
"Try not to die too early."
"I still have twenty years of nails to return."
The door closed behind her.
Lin Feng sat alone in the empty classroom.
After a long time, he laughed.
The laugh built until he was gripping the desk so hard it cracked.
When he finally stopped, his eyes were pure gold again.
But now there was something new in them.
Excitement.
He stood up and walked to the window.
Below, forty-eight students were scattering across campus like panicked ants.
Some were calling parents who would never answer again.
Some were already forming alliances.
Some were hiding in dorms, crying.
Lin Feng watched them the way a dragon watches sheep.
Then he looked higher—past the campus, past the city, into the void where something ancient and immense was watching back.
He spoke to the empty air.
"You want a new Heavenly Emperor?"
His voice carried across dimensions.
"Then come."
"I'll kill every single candidate you throw at me."
"I'll burn your academy to the ground."
"And when I sit on that throne…"
He smiled, sharp as a blade.
"I'll drag every last one of you bastards down to keep me company."
Far away, in the secret chamber with thousands of mirrors.
The nameless old man watched the scene and laughed until tears came.
"Perfect."
He turned to the shadows behind him.
"Open the gates."
"Let the rest of the monsters out."
"Tell them Number Zero is already here."
Somewhere else, in a coffin at the bottom of the East China Sea.
Golden eyes snapped open.
A child's voice echoed through the dark water.
"Big brother… wait for me…"
Back on campus.
The lunchtime bell rang.
Lin Feng put his hands in his pockets and walked out of the classroom like any ordinary student.
Behind him, the cracked desk slowly turned into black ash and scattered in the wind.
The first trial was at midnight.
But for some people,
The hunting had already begun.