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The next day.
The freshman opening ceremony.
Li Xiang saw Bai Wanhua again. This "young" principal was dressed in an elegant white suit, looking dignified with a touch of authority, not as amiable as he had seen her before.
Beside her were other school leaders, spanning young, middle-aged, and old.
Most were quite friendly towards him. A few had indifferent expressions, maintaining a certain distance in their attitude towards him. They were likely members of the board of directors who had disapproved of giving him high treatment.
He felt this was more normal. They didn't have the ability to foresee the future, nor did they hold a script. Who would dare be certain he would achieve sufficiently high accomplishments in the future?
Unanimous approval without any objections would make the Mist City University board seem a bit foolish.
As for others' likes and dislikes... Li Xiang didn't really care.
He wasn't born to be liked by everyone.
And so, amidst hundreds of curious, youthful faces below, Li Xiang slowly walked to the front, took out the prepared script, and read it calmly, almost like chanting sutras.
Although Su Qian had advised him to be more expressive, looking at the embarrassing sentence structures in the script, he really couldn't muster any passion.
Especially with a camera pointed at his face. To avoid getting nervous, he subconsciously used the Three-Blind Perception Method, making his heart even calmer.
Monotone reading. This might very well become a black mark in his history.
After finishing the two-thousand-word script, he bowed slightly amidst the applause of the students below and stepped down.
Standing high, he could see far. He had just noticed a few people among the freshmen whose ages seemed clearly off.
—Repeater students.
Back when he first arrived here, he had met someone named He... something Hui in the park, who hadn't passed the exam initially and studied on his own for a year before retaking it.
There were many reasons for candidates failing the exam, not necessarily due to lack of strength.
This served as a reminder for Li Xiang.
It was possible that many repeater students would participate in the intra-school selection tournament, and some might have outstanding strength and extraordinary experience.
He needed to be prepared.
Thinking about this, Li Xiang slowly descended from the side of the podium.
"So you're Li Xiang?"
A voice suddenly sounded directly in front of him.
Li Xiang blinked, shifting his attention forward, and saw three boys standing before him, all around seventeen or eighteen years old.
Seeing the metal school badges on their sleeves, he immediately understood these were student council members.
However, judging by their expressions, they seemed hostile.
To think he'd have a day where someone actively picked a fight with him!
How remarkable!
Although he didn't know the reason, Li Xiang still glanced behind him, noticing that Bai Wanhua was speaking just then, and almost no one was paying attention to this area, so he said, "Didn't you hear me just now?"
"Huh?" The boy at the front was stunned, seemingly not reacting.
It wasn't until someone next to him reminded him that he realized Li Xiang was subtly mocking him for being deaf.
After all, Li Xiang had just given a speech on stage.
"You—" The boy angrily stepped forward, reaching out to grab Li Xiang's collar.
Li Xiang raised an eyebrow, sidestepped as the boy reached out, and simultaneously grabbed his hand very swiftly, pulling it behind him.
The boy lost his balance and stumbled forward, his mind blank. Seeing the ground getting closer, he instinctively closed his eyes.
But just as his tender chin was about to make intimate contact with the ground, a pull on his collar yanked him back up.
He stood steadily on the ground again.
His expression was somewhat dazed because the one who pulled him up was also Li Xiang.
The expressions of the other two were similar, as Li Xiang's movements were too effortless. The dozens of kilograms person was like a doll in his hands, falling or rising as he pleased.
"The student council has its own work. Don't always engage in unnecessary nonsense. Be good."
Li Xiang calmly straightened the boy's slightly disheveled collar, patted his chest, and turned to leave.
The three boys watched him leave. Someone wanted to stop him but was pulled back by the leading boy.
"Don't cause too much of a scene!"
That person glared at his companion, looked at Li Xiang's retreating back, his face showing both the humiliation from earlier and a trace of thoughtful expression.
"There's plenty of time. As long as he joins the school team, we'll run into him sooner or later."
"Okay!"
The two agreed.
Just then, a middle-aged man in a well-pressed suit came down from the podium, frowning as he asked, "What's going on over here? Do you know how many people are watching this area?"
The leading boy paled upon seeing the middle-aged man. "Dad..."
"Hmm?"
The middle-aged man's tone rose.
"Director Wei!"
The leading boy jolted and hurriedly corrected himself. The two boys beside him also quickly greeted him.
"...What I do is my business; you don't need to worry about it. Don't provoke that person again. I don't want to say it a second time, understood?"
Seeing him nod meekly, Director Wei showed a look of frustration at his lack of improvement, uttered one last sentence, and left.
The boy lowered his head, his face full of defiance and stubbornness.
...
The opening ceremony ended.
Li Xiang found a reserve senior sister who had been in the student council last year and asked her about the three boys.
This kind of unprovoked picking of a fight—Lin Feng might not care, forgetting about it immediately, but Li Xiang definitely needed to find out, lest he get schemed against someday without knowing who was behind it.
"High hairline, strong perfume smell... Oh, you mean Wei Xiang."
The senior sister thought for a moment and replied, "He's the son of one of our school's directors. What about him?"
Li Xiang told her what had just happened.
"Ah? There's such a thing? Why would he trouble you for no reason?"
The senior sister clearly didn't know the reason either.
"I'd like to know too... I'll ask someone else. Thank you, senior sister. I'll treat you to milk tea sometime." Li Xiang thanked her and went to find Song Jie.
Others might not know, but if he asked Song Jie, Song Jie would definitely get him the answer.
Sure enough, after the white-haired youth found out, it took him ten minutes to find the reason.
The reason was very cliché.
"Targeted by the opposition... truly the troubles of the excellent."
Li Xiang rubbed his temples. Holding a grudge against him because of his father's relationship sounded quite normal.
Trainers were naturally quick-tempered, rarely the tolerant type.
However, there wasn't much to fuss about. There wouldn't be few people like this; they would exist both openly and covertly, at least until he demonstrated his due value.
One more Li Xiang meant one less spot on the school team. For students with ambition, Li Xiang was the enemy.
Those who got in through the "back door" initially definitely couldn't gain public acceptance easily.
"What are you going to do?"
Song Jie asked in a low voice, almost with a "just say the word, and I'll handle it for you" attitude.
"Let it be. I'm not afraid of him. I just needed to figure out what his deal was." Li Xiang waved his hand. "There's no way to cleanly deal with people like this. Waiting until after the selection tournament to settle it once and for all is the way to go."
If he didn't even have that much confidence, he might as well forget about surpassing Su Qian in three years.
Seeing this, Song Jie didn't interfere further.
As it turned out, Li Xiang's thinking was correct.
His existence was too "conspicuous," leading many people to dislike him.
On the forums, there were numerous posts discussing whether he, as a freshman, deserved the treatment he was currently receiving.
They were dense, making one wonder if these students didn't need to eat and survived on lemons alone.
They even drew the fire away from Song Jie and Gong Xuan.
Yet these people were unwilling to actively seek trouble with Li Xiang, all maintaining a wait-and-see attitude.
Li Xiang knew they were all waiting for the intra-school selection tournament in March. Once the results of the selection tournament were out, his true capabilities would be clear for all to see. Then, whether to add insult to injury or add flowers to the brocade would be obvious.
Speaking of which, Mist City University's admissions office really had problems.
Out of the twenty students recruited early from the Youth Training Camp, aside from the three boys Li Xiang knew, the rest were all girls!
That's right, all girls!
The sixteen, including the Lu sisters and Wu Ruoxue, made it seem like there were no male graduates from the Youth Training Camp.
Fortunately, the male-to-female ratio among regular admissions was maintained at around four to six.
That was relatively normal.
Additionally, there were no others receiving the same treatment as Song Jie and the others, i.e., those ranking in the top twenty nationwide.
Li Xiang asked around and found the lowest was around 130th.
It was as if after recruiting him, the national first-place, Mist City University had let go of all the other top students, handing them over to other schools.
This left him somewhat regretful.
Mist City University's admissions office was truly ineffective. They should have at least poached half of the top ten!
Wouldn't it be a sure thing if everyone were teammates?
But unfortunately, they only liked recruiting girls. It was almost as if they wanted to turn Mist City University into a girls' school.
...
A week of normal school passed.
Weekend.
The time to reveal his true strength to Xu He had arrived.
With a week's buffer, Li Xiang had gradually come to accept this matter. He even actively invited Su Qian, the team captain, to observe.
"Eh? Is that okay?"
Su Qian was somewhat surprised, as she had seen Li Xiang quite resistant before.
"Senior sister is the captain, after all. It's necessary for you to understand the basic information of your team members."
Li Xiang smiled. Since entering the school, Su Qian had taken care of him a lot, fully fulfilling her duties as a senior sister and captain, even exceeding them.
"And you'll find out sooner or later anyway."
"That's true. Then I won't hold back and will see right through you, junior."
Hearing this, Su Qian showed a bright smile.
The ones undergoing the strength revelation test weren't just Li Xiang. Song Jie and Gong Xuan were also among them.
The three of them seemed to be highly expected by Xu He, who was already planning to stir things up even though nothing was certain yet.
The three had different hair colors—black, white, and gold—and their handsome faces were extremely eye-catching, causing passersby to frequently glance their way. Those who didn't know might think they had entered a 2D world.
Arriving at the school team's exclusive training facility, it seemed Xu He had been waiting for a long time.
The privacy here was definitely one of the strongest in Mist City University. There were surveillance cameras every three meters, and multiple Porygon and Rotom monitored in real-time.
There was no risk of being secretly recorded.
Li Xiang could fully display his true strength without holding back.
"Without further ado, let's start as soon as possible."
Xu He didn't waste words, getting straight to the point after seeing everyone.
Naturally, no one had any objections.
"Li Xiang, you go first."
He called a name first, then stepped aside, making way into the training room.
"Okay."
Li Xiang touched the PokéBalls on his waist, nodded, and stepped inside.