Chapter 40: Who Would Win the Fight?

A simple awards podium was built in the middle of the field. Hao Ren and the third-place runner walked onto it successively, but Huang Xujie couldn't be found by the organizers.

The broadcaster had no choice but to announce that Huang Xujie was injured and won't participate in the awards ceremony. The girls in and out of the field murmured among themselves with concern. The fact was, they didn't care if Huang Xujie won the first-place in the competition or not; all they wanted was for him to continued to be handsome and cool.

Despite the vacancy on the awards podium, the awards ceremony went on, and Gu Jialing, the Student Council President, presented the Certificates of Merit to Hao Ren and the third-place runner.

The certificates were just a symbol while the most attractive part of the awards was that the champion of each event would get 1,000 yuan in cash, second place would get 500 yuan, and third place would get 250 yuan.

The prize money was set up to encourage participation in the competitions. Of course, people like Zhou Liren who knew they were weak would never enter the competitions just for the money.

While Hao Ren was receiving the Certificate of Merit and prize money, Zhao Jiayi was busy collecting his money.

"Hurry! Hurry! Hand me the money you lost in the bet!" He waved the paper written with records of the bets, "Yu Rong, 200! Chen Ke, 300! And don't run, Zhou Liren! You owe me 200, too!"

Those guys were both pleased and reluctant. On the one hand, they were surprised and happy that Hao Ren had won first place; on the other hand, they scolded themselves for underestimating his strength.

With the certificate and prize money in hand, Hao Ren walked back to the stand while talking to Xie Yujia. He looked for Zhao Yanzi and Ling, but found that they were gone.

"Zhao Jiayi! Where are the girls who were sitting here?" Hao Ren raised his head and asked Zhao Jiayi who was busy collecting money.

"Oh, they left after you crossed the finish line," Zhao Jiayi answered.

Well... Hao Ren was a little disappointed.

But he soon rallied and shouted at Zhao Jiayi, "I won the prize money! I will treat you all to dinner tonight!"

"Forget it!" Zhou Liren, who had lost 200 yuan, shouted sulkily, "Zhao Jiayi has won much more than you! Dinner is on him!"

Hearing Zhou Liren's suggestion, the other guys who had lost yelled in agreement, "Yeah! It's on Zhao Jiayi!"

Zhao Jiayi was never a stingy person; on the contrary, he was the most generous one among the group. He laughed. "Ok! Tonight, let's go eat something fancy! I will spend all my winnings to celebrate Hao Ren's victory!"

The others all agreed. After all, they were proud that Hao Ren won the race, and none of them minded their small losses. Xie Yujia smiled with joy at the friendship among the guys.

"Class President, you come with us too!" Zhao Jiayi shouted.

"Uh?" Xie Yujia was surprised, "Don't count me in. You guys have a good celebration!"

"Come on! Come on!" Zhao Jiayi coaxed her with enthusiasm while the other guys shouted in agreements.

Xie Yujia blushed. "Ok, I will join your celebration. But... you must invite the girls in the class as well."

She wouldn't find it awkward if she weren't the only girl among them.

They only had six girls in the class, so Zhao Jiayi waved his hand grandly and shouted, "Ok! I invite all of them!"

"The next event is the Aerobics Competition. All the contestants, please enter the field as soon as possible!" The broadcaster announced the next competition.

At the announcement, the boisterous guys suddenly became quiet while their eyes lit up. Then, they howled with delight.

"Well... these guys..." Xie Yujia sighed with helplessness and sat down. Of course, she knew what was on the guys' minds. They faked interest in the Aerobics Competition while they focused their attention on the girls who were competing.

Hao Ren sat down. He moved a bit closer to Xie Yujia, "Urm, Class President, I want to donate my 1,000 yuan prize money to the class. I planned to spend it on the dinner, but now that I don't have to pay for it..."

Staring at Hao Ren, Xie Yujia interrupted him, "Why donate it? You won it! Besides, you won honor for the class and the department. You deserve it!"

Hao Ren froze a little looking at her serious expression. "Ok, then I will keep it," he said.

In fact, he felt he owed a lot to Xie Yujia for his win, and donating the prize money to the class was his way of expressing his gratitude.

Meanwhile, Xie Yujia looked away from Hao Ren and thought, "Hao Ren is indeed different from the other guys. He is neither greedy nor dirty-minded..."

Her heart fluttered. But when she turned to Hao Ren again, she found him staring at the first aerobic contestant from the Management Department entering the field. His mouth was slightly open, and his eyes lit up.

"Well, forget it..." Xie Yujia was speechless.

The Aerobic Competition was the last event. Pretty girls with great figures selected from each major leaped and swayed with the music. It was a pretty sight.

This wise schedule had successfully kept a majority of the guys to the end of the whole competition. The competition ended with the announcement of the results of the unity prizes for each department. They were given by the school's management team according to the overall performance of each major in the competitions.

The students on the stands left one after another.

Zhao Jiayi sent out his invitations and led everyone to a BBQ restaurant.

Except for the two girls who couldn't make it, four girls, including Xie Yujia, joined the 20 plus guys. When they entered the restaurant, they almost took up half of the small establishment.

Hao Ren's victory in the long-distance race was unexpected but worthy of celebrating. To award Hao Ren, who was today's hero, Zhao Jiayi arranged Xie Yujia, the pink-faced beautiful Class President, to sit next to him.

Hao Ren tried to stop them while he kept apologizing to Xie Yujia. Fortunately, Xie Yujia knew their ways; she pouted with helplessness but was not angry.

Beer, roasted meat, and pretty girls... All these raised the guys' adrenaline levels. They clinked their beer mugs repeatedly, and half of the BBQ restaurant became their venue of revelry.

Under the persuasion of the naive-looking Cao Ronghua, Xie Yujia drank several glasses of beer. Sitting next to Hao Ren, her face was deep pink, and she looked sweet and bright like an apple.

As for Hao Ren, they didn't go easy on him. Almost everyone came over to drink with him. Although it was only beer, Hao Ren began to feel the effects of the indulgent drinking.

The scene looked more like a wedding feast just before the wedding night than a celebration for Hao Ren's victory.

Half drunk, Hao Ren wanted to send a message to Zhao Yanzi to ask her if her trip back to school was safe and was she home yet. However, when he dug out his mobile phone, he suddenly remembered that he didn't have Zhao Yanzi's number. He patted himself on the head and lamented about his drunkenness.

"Hey! You are too loud!"

A harsh voice cut into their boisterous conversations with a loud bang on the table at the other end of the room.

Zhao Jiayi and others stopped talking and looked toward that direction.

A brawny guy with a crew cut was glaring at them while holding a glass of beer in his hand.

"This is a public place. If you find it noisy, you can go to another place," Zhao Jiayi turned to the guy and retorted.

As the leader of the dorm, Zhao Jiayi had always put Hao Ren under his protection. When he was in middle school, he had been a big gun at his school and never had to back off from anyone.

"Sophomores, right?" that guy looked at Zhao Jiayi as he stood up.

When he stood up, the people in the room saw his unusual height. Almost six feet four inches tall, he was one head taller than Zhao Jiayi!

Sensing a fight was in the air, Xie Yujia stood up immediately and called out with her Class President tone, "Zhao Jiayi, come back! Ignore him!"

However, Zhao Jiayi's motto was to never back off. He stared back at that guy without fear.

The other guys eating with the tall guy abruptly stood up. Each of them was at least 6 feet tall, and they looked like a group of aggressive mountains when they stood together.

Fearing for Zhao Jiayi's safety, the usually timid Zhou Liren, who was the tallest of the guys, rushed over and stood next to Zhao Jiayi.

Then, the other guys in Hao Ren's class walked over and stood on both sides of Zhao Jiayi. Hao Ren was about to go as well, but Xie Yujia caught him with a firm grip.

Zhao Jiayi's group had no advantage in height, but their number was four times of their opponents'. If the fight broke out, the worst result would be heavy losses for both parties.

Sensing that a fight was about to break out, Xie Yujia screamed, "Come back here! Don't fight!"

But at that moment, who would care about her opinion?

"You! Are you a bad-*ss?" the biggest guy with the crew cut suddenly pointed at Hao Ren who was held back by Xie Yujia.

Xie Yujia stared at that guy in astonishment and realized they were here to cause trouble for Hao Ren. She searched her brain and abruptly remembered that this guy was Bai Zhixiong, a fourth-year student and the Deputy Captain of the university's basketball team. He was also one of Huang Xujie's good friends.

"Are you here to mess with Ren?" while Xie Yujia racked her brains for a solution, Zhao Jiayi saw the real intention as he asked that guy directly.

Although the guys in the Mechatronics Engineering Department were a group of otakus, they stuck with each other when needed. They always teased Hao Ren, but they would never allow anyone to bully him. Never!

"Zhao Jiayi, they are here for me." when Xie Yujia's grip on his arm slackened a bit, Hao Ren escaped her grasp and strode over.

He didn't want Zhao Jiayi and his other buddies to get hurt because of him. Since they came for him, he had no reasons to hide.

The big guy had planned to intimidate Hao Ren and didn't expect the ordinary-looking Hao Ren to have the guts to face him. The speech he had prepared for this occasion was now useless. He stared at Hao Ren blankly, trying to find a way out.

At his silence, Hao Ren walked up to him and said, "If you think we are younger than you and would be good targets for bullying, you are mistaken. As seniors, you have nothing to be proud of. Huang Xujie does excel in some areas, but he is too full of himself! He overestimated himself, and that is why he lost to me."

"You are indeed arrogant," Bai Zhixiong looked down at Hao Ren and said.

Hao Ren shook his head and sighed, "This is not arrogance. I'm trying to reason with you. You don't like me, just like how I don't like you. However, I didn't randomly mess with you, but you think you can mess with us just because you are seniors."

"There's no use reasoning with them. They messed with us; let's fight with them!" Zhao Jiayi shouted from the side. He had never liked these self-important guys who preyed on the weak. He was especially displeased with them since they had repeatedly taken the basketball court away from him and his friends.

Swoosh...

Suddenly, a brown basketball flew in from the outside.

The ball swept over Zhao Jiayi's head and smashed into Bai Zhixiong's face.

As strong as Bai Zhixiong was, he couldn't withstand the sneak-attack of the basketball, and blood flowed from his nose.

"Who the f*ck told you to come out? Get your *sses back to the gym!" a thundering shout exploded from the outside of the door.

Hao Ren turned and saw a huge figure block the entire doorway.

"Brother..." an inaudible word jumped out of Xie Yujia's mouth.