Rong Shi ended up re-bandaging himself.

Seeing him holding one end of the gauze in his mouth, his bandaging movements smooth, Song Yu casually asked, “So skilled, were you often injured before?”

Rong Shi tied a knot with one hand: “Is it that hard to admit you’re clumsy?”

Song Yu: “…”

His terminal suddenly rang. Song Yu snapped his fingers, and a holographic image of a black-clad alpha appeared in the empty space beside them.

The black-clad alpha looked at Rong Shi with wary eyes.

Song Yu: “Where are they?”

The black-clad alpha stood straighter: “The sniper has been successfully apprehended.”

Song Yu looked at Rong Shi: “What do you say?”

Rong Shi tossed all the blood-stained clothes into the trash can, took a dry shirt from the balcony, and put it on: “Since they’re in your hands, it’s up to you.”

“Maybe I sent them?” Song Yu said with a grin, “So you trust me that much?”

The white shirt concealed his well-proportioned figure. Rong Shi buttoned it up, one by one, “You’re not that stupid.”

Whether satisfied or not with that answer, Song Yu ordered the black-clad alpha: “Handle it according to the old rules.”

“Yes!”

The image vanished. Song Yu watched him put away the medical kit: “So? Have you thought about it?”

Accustomed to life in the military, Rong Shi had a slight obsessive-compulsive disorder; everything had to be neatly arranged.

Seeing no reaction, Song Yu continued to persuade: “Little bunny is so cute, can you bear to let him lose his brother?”

No sooner had he spoken than Rong Shi’s hand, wiping the tweezers, trembled, then suddenly tightened.

“I have an omega I like,” Rong Shi’s voice was very low.

Song Yu looked at the tweezers in his hand.

The metallic surface had a few strands of lint from the fine cotton balls.

“What a coincidence,” he chuckled self-deprecatingly, “I also have an omega I like.”

Rong Shi looked over, his gaze filled with confusion: “Then you still—”

“So what?” Meeting his gaze, Song Yu’s eyes were firm, “If you can’t even guarantee your own safety, what right do you have to think about other things?”

That sentence repeated in Rong Shi’s mind several times. He put down the tweezers and closed the medical kit.

“I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.”

Song Yu didn’t stay long, returning to his dorm. Qin Luo rushed out from who-knows-where.

“Your Highness, are you okay?!” Qin Luo circled him several times, relieved after confirming he wasn’t missing any limbs. “It’s seriously messed up, a sniper in a military academy?!”

Song Yu walked in: “It was a thermal weapon; it can bypass security checks after disassembly.”

Speaking of which, he picked up a pen and paper from the table.

“So cool! Is this a pistol?” Qin Luo leaned over the back of the sofa, “A new model?”

On a draft paper covered with physics formulas, Song Yu sketched a pistol, sleek and streamlined, compact and refined, without any unnecessary frills.

He used a pencil to measure the length, roughly 20 centimeters, and the caliber should be less than 9 millimeters.

For an air-compressed pistol, the smaller the caliber, the greater the compression force, and the stronger the lethality.

“Go check it out. I want detailed information on this gun,” Song Yu tore off the draft paper.

“Got it!” Qin Luo thought he wanted to expand his collection and ran off excitedly with the paper.

In the evening, Rong Shi logged into Star Wars, and Little Cat’s invitation came through.

After sparring for over an hour, the two sat down to rest.

Rong Shi: “That—”

Little Cat was still thinking about the combo he had just used and hummed: “Hmm?”

Rong Shi wanted to ask Little Cat about the marriage, but the words stuck in his throat.

Ultimately, he knew in his heart that even if he and Little Cat had a chance, and even if Little Cat minded, it wouldn’t change anything.

Just as Song Yu said, he couldn’t even guarantee his own safety right now.

Dating was too distant a concept for him.

Indecision was not his style.

“Trouble on your mind?” Little Cat looked over, puzzled.

Rong Shi shook his head, self-deprecatingly: “Realized I’m caught in a self-inflicted loop of overthinking.”

In this matter, Song Yu was more clear-headed than him.

Little Cat smiled, and his cat paw hit his shoulder: “Don’t overthink it, just follow your gut. I’ll always be on your side.”

After figuring it out, Rong Shi felt much lighter.

He stood up and extended a furry rabbit paw to Little Cat: “Come on, I’ll teach you a new combo.”

On the military academy’s anonymous forum, photos of Song Yu beating someone were posted. Especially the high-definition picture of the second-year alpha with his mouth full of branches and blood, which made everyone physically uncomfortable.

“This isn’t just beating someone, it’s abuse? It gives me goosebumps, so ruthless!”

“God, it’s torture! Why would anyone do this to him? What kind of grudge is this?”

“Rong Shi was there the whole time but didn’t stop it! Does he deserve to be president?! Bah!”

“Rong Shi even disciplined the two injured students! But the one who did the beating is perfectly fine, heh heh.”

“Why is this thread so full of negativity? Let’s not take sides before the official announcement, but I believe President Rong will handle it fairly.”

In Liu Hong’s dorm, he and Old Bai were scrolling through the posts, gnawing on pig trotters while cursing loudly: “Damn it, did those two cowards hire internet trolls?”

“Possibly. I’ll have Old Hu check. It’s not normal for so many people to suddenly be cursing Rong Shi.” Old Bai’s fingers tapped rapidly on the virtual keyboard.

Liu Hong spat out a pig bone, growling fiercely: “Find out who’s behind this for me, and I’ll flay them!”

A chat window popped up on the screen, and Old Bai laughed, cursing: “That kid is already investigating, so eager.”

Liu Hong sneered: “Why wouldn’t he be eager? If it weren’t for Rong Shi, his wife would have already run away.”

The two were chatting happily when an alarm suddenly rang.

Liu Hong choked on a piece of pig trotters.

Old Bai said with a wooden face: “…Time to write the papers.”

Liu Hong: “…” Damn! He wanted to curse Rong Shi too.

In the next dorm, Chen Chen had been working on analysis posts all afternoon, ready to publish them on the forum, but found the entire homepage was a storm of controversy, already a chaotic mess.

He immediately switched to the “Handsome Dudes Alliance” group chat.

“Who has dirt on those two bastards, Du Rui and Huang Long? Send it all to me, the more the better! They dared to lay hands on a member of our Handsome Dudes Alliance, I’ll kill them!”

Replies came quickly below—

“They’re the dogs of the Minister of Organization, and the Minister of Organization is Jiang’s dog.”

“I’ve hated them for a long time, damn it, always harassing omegas in the military-political department by relying on their student union status.”

“If you have connections, you should ask the military-political department. They definitely have more dirt than us.”

“I really didn’t expect them to even dare to provoke Song Yu. Just getting branches stuffed in their mouths is light punishment.”

Chen Chen followed their instructions and immediately sought out the military-political department.

He had been creating various technical analysis posts for years and had made many connections because of it, giving him a wide network.

The next day, Rong Shi used his authority as president to retrieve the surveillance footage from the road section where the incident occurred yesterday. However, since it was public surveillance, there was only video, no audio.

—Imperial regulations state that public surveillance is not allowed to record audio.

Du Rui was the first to lunge at Song Yu, but the angle was perfectly chosen, falling into a blind spot of the surveillance, so only the scene of Song Yu kicking him away could be clearly seen.

Rong Shi sat in the student union office, playing the entire surveillance video repeatedly more than a dozen times.

“01, retrieve all surveillance footage of Jiang Xingze from this past week.”

[Collecting data from six thousand four hundred subordinates—filtering—completed.]

Before he could click to open it, there was a knock on the door, and Lu Ming walked in.

“The principal wants to see you in his office.”

Since the start of the semester, the principal hadn’t looked for him. Rong Shi had already guessed the reason for this summons from Lu Ming’s feigned calm eyes.

As they brushed past each other, Lu Ming suppressed the smile on his face and said, “What you did was truly outrageous. No matter how good your relationship is, you can’t just stand by and watch him act so recklessly. You better think about how to explain it to the principal on the way.”

Rong Shi’s slender fingers hooked his tie, loosening it slightly, and he said coldly, “Do your duty.”

Crossing the metal skybridge on the tenth floor, Rong Shi knocked on the principal’s office door.

When he pushed the door open, Principal Li Huating was on a call with someone.

“Okay, okay, okay… Understood, understood! We will certainly treat every student fairly and will not condone any bullying incidents! …Yes! Yes! …Good! …”

Li Huating noticed Rong Shi entering and coldly ended the call, not even inviting him to sit down.

Rong Shi pulled out a chair himself and sat down opposite the desk.

As soon as he hung up, Li Huating began to lose his temper, slamming his hand on the desk, making the documents on it tremble.

“What’s wrong with you?! You didn’t stop it on the scene, causing such a malicious incident! The military’s communications are coming one after another, and I’m overwhelmed now!”

Rong Shi’s expression was calm: “I did try to stop it.”

“You still dare to argue?!” Li Huating, with his beer belly, paced back and forth agitatedly, “Ever since you enrolled, there’s been nothing but trouble! If you can’t be this president, then resign!”

“I can resign,” Rong Shi looked at him indifferently, “but not in this way.”

The most infuriating thing was that you’re angry and he’s not; you’re furious, and he’s still not.

Li Huating roared, “Then tell me how to handle it?! You can’t offend either side! I might even have to go home and farm, let alone you!”

This wasn’t a conversation at all, just an opportunity for him to be a punching bag.

“I’ll handle this,” Rong Shi stood up, impatient to listen further, “As for you, farming is indeed more suitable than being a principal.”

“What did you say?!”

Regardless of how Li Huating roared, Rong Shi nodded and left.

Having suddenly become a brutal assailant, Song Yu ate and attended classes as usual, as if nothing had happened.

If there was a change, the only one was that fewer people approached him when he walked down the road.

Walking past the unmanned store, Song Yu kicked Qin Luo: “Go buy me some lollipops.”

Qin Luo: “…You’ll get cavities.”

Song Yu: “Hurry up.”

Qin Luo: “…”

Since childhood, whenever he wanted candy, he’d always ask him to buy it secretly. Why didn’t he go himself? Didn’t he care about his reputation?!

Song Yu waited by the roadside.

Just as Qin Luo entered the store, Lu Ming walked over from the garden.

“What a coincidence.” Lu Ming stood in front of Song Yu with a proper smile, “No classes this afternoon?”

Song Yu glanced at him coolly: “Getting this close, aren’t you afraid I’ll stab you with a branch?”

“How could that be!” Lu Ming hastily explained, “I believe there must be a reason for you to do this!”

Song Yu sneered: “What, are you pitying me so much that you’ve specially come to comfort me?”

Lu Ming smiled: “I wanted to be friends with you during new recruit training, but unfortunately Rong Shi and I don’t get along, which led to you having many misunderstandings about me.”

“Be friends?” Song Yu said slowly, raising his hand to rest it on a peach branch.

Crack, the branch broke.

At the same time, Lu Ming seemed startled, cautiously retreating half a step.

Seeing Song Yu’s teasing gaze, his face burned, wishing he could crawl into a crack in the ground.

“Sorry, I don’t make friends with people who don’t trust me.”

Just then, Qin Luo came out of the store. Song Yu casually tossed the branch and walked away with long strides.

The night after the widely reported assault incident, Rong Shi knocked on Song Yu’s dorm room door for the first time.

“A rare guest,” Song Yu leaned on the doorframe, looking at him leisurely, “Thought it through?”

Rong Shi walked in, his peripheral vision surveying the entire living room. Snacks and clothes were strewn about, books scattered everywhere—it could only be described as messy.

“I can cooperate, but I have conditions.”

Song Yu poured him water and casually sat at the bar counter: “What benefits do you want? As long as I can give them, it’s negotiable.”

Rong Shi sat in the seat next to him: “We can’t interfere with each other. I won’t inquire about your affairs, and you shouldn’t inquire about mine.”

Song Yu: “Understood.”

Rong Shi: “Since it’s a cooperation, we also can’t hinder each other. If there are unexpected situations, we’ll communicate.”

Song Yu: “No problem.”

Seeing that he didn’t continue, Song Yu probed: “Is that all?”

Rong Shi tilted his head to look at him: “Just cooperation, no feelings. No unnecessary physical contact, and I won’t sleep with you.”

“Damn it!” Song Yu cursed under his breath, “You think I want to sleep with you?”

Rong Shi: “Hard to say. Who knows what you’re craving about me.”

Song Yu was so angered he laughed: “I’m not that desperate.”

Rong Shi extended his hand: “Then, happy cooperation.”

Song Yu clasped it, still annoyed, and said word by word, “Don’t worry, I’d rather die than sleep with you!”