The door to Flender's office closed behind Li Wei with a soft click, sealing away the final words of negotiation. A contract was now tucked inside his storage ring—discreet, invisible to the eye, but binding nonetheless.
A quiet sigh escaped his lips as he descended the old stone steps. The Shrek Academy grounds, sun-drenched and broken, spread out before him like the bones of a forgotten giant.
Ruined walls.
Crumbling tiles.
Half-dead trees stretching toward a weary sky.
It was more ruin than school. But it had air. It had space. And most importantly, it had silence.
Not a bad place to lay low. At least for now.
Li Wei's fingers brushed across the Diend Driver at his hip. With a pulse of thought, the device shimmered out of view, fading into motes of blue light. The pressure that clung to the air along with it vanished.
Now he looked like any other thirteen-year-old boy in an old uniform. The uniform of nameless Caelus.
Deceptively ordinary when compare to the others.
Perfect.
---
A strange scent tickled his senses. Smoke—rich and slightly sweet, with an undercurrent of something wild.
Li Wei followed it around a corner and came to a halt when the scent become thicker.
A barrel sat beneath the crooked shadow of a collapsed shed. Perched atop it, like a king on a throne of junk, was a boy with spiky flame-red hair. His head tilted back, exhaling a lazy plume of violet-tinged smoke into the afternoon sky.
The source of the scent was obvious.
He sit there in cross-legged. He look like he is trying to suppress something. An occasional weak fire seem to be release from his own body.
The boy noticed him but didn't move. He control himself and suppressed the desire. It not that strong right now, he can do it.
"You're the new guy," he said flatly. "You've got that shiny blue box thingy, right? Diend or something?"
Li Wei regarded him in silence for a beat, then answered with a mild nod.
"I suppose that's one way to describe it. You can call it as a gun."
The boy chuckled, lips curled in an amused grin.
"Name's Ma Hongjun. You can call me anything you want. They usually settle on 'pervert' or 'burnout' eventually."
Li Wei tilted his head slightly.
Broad shoulders. Deep spiritual energy. His smile's relaxed, but his flame isn't. Constantly burning under the skin. Not a bluff. Not a show.
He nodded once more.
"Ma Hongjun. The Evil Fire Phoenix."
That made the other boy blink.
"Oh? You know about the my martial souls."
"I try to stay informed."
"Smart," Hongjun said, exhaling another puff. "Then you probably also know my 'little problem.'"
Li Wei's expression didn't change.
"The side effect of your flame. Uncontrolled lust. A curse disguised as power."
"Yup. That's the one."
Ma Hongjun leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. Trying to project a respectable senior image but failed miserably. It more closely resemble big fat person that show his belly.
"I get urges. Strong ones. Worse than normal. And if I don't let the flame out... it turns inward. Burns me up from the inside."
He said it casually, as if discussing the weather. Ma Hongjun already felt it as normal because it happen almost everyday well if you are including his usual conduct it perfect for him.
Li Wei nodded once.
"Have you ever thought about cutting it off?"
A pause.
Then—
"Wha—?! Are you serious?!"
Li Wei blinked.
"No."
A beat of silence.
"Pfft... Hahaha!"
Then Ma Hongjun burst into laughter, nearly dropping down on the floor.
"Damn, that's dark. You're colder than Dai Mubai and he thinks he's nobility or something."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"You should."
Hongjun calmed, exhaling smoke again as he glanced sideways at Li Wei.
"You don't talk much, huh? Kinda hard to read."
"Maybe," Li Wei replied. "But you're easier than most."
"Oh?"
"You're not pretending to be something you're not."
The compliment caught Ma Hongjun off guard. He blinked once, then grinned.
"Guess that's true. No point hiding it when it's written all over me anyway."
The silence that followed was warm, not tense.
Then, Hongjun stretched and stood with a yawn.
"Anyway, I'm heading into the city."
Li Wei didn't ask. He already knew what that meant.
"To relieve the fire?"
"Yeah. It's… maintenance."
"You're rather open about it."
"No point in lying. Oscar's already made jokes, and Mubai just rolls his eyes. They all know."
He paused.
"You coming?"
Li Wei shook his head.
"Not interested."
"Fair enough," Hongjun said, slipping his hand into his robe. "I wouldn't be either, if I didn't have to."
He started to walk away, then turned his head.
"Hey."
Li Wei looked up.
"You're not what I expected. I thought you'd be another stuck-up pretty boy like Mubai, or another joke machine like Oscar. But you've got that quiet, scary vibe."
He grinned.
"I like it. Welcome to the freak show."
Li Wei's lips tugged into the faintest of smiles.
"Thanks."
And then, just like that, Hongjun was gone, whistling as he vanished into the road leading into Suotuo City.
---
The courtyard was quiet again.
Li Wei stood alone in the orange light of early evening, gaze trailing after the smoke that lingered in the air.
Four students. Four... oddities.
A lust-bound phoenix.
A drunk princeling.
A sausage-wielding clown.
And him—a stranger with the spirit of kings, wearing a power that didn't belong to this world.
He wasn't sure what Flender was thinking gathering a group like this.
But one thing was clear:
This academy… was not ordinary.
And maybe that was why he felt strangely at home.