# Chapter Twenty-Two: The Superiority Dog Specialist

Mu Ningxue's speech had been brief, and Mo Fan genuinely couldn't fathom what had the other boys so worked up — acting as if any of them might actually get into Imperial Capital Magic Academy someday.

Imperial Capital Magic Academy was, of course, the finest magic university in the country. For a city like Bo City, sending even a handful of students there each year was already considered a feat.

The acceptance rate alone told the whole story. The fact that Mu Ningxue had earned a special exemption — admitted without even attending magic high school — said everything about just how exceptional she truly was.

"Brother Fan, push hard these next two years and test your way into the Imperial Capital," Zhang Xiaohou said. "Once you're at Imperial Capital Magic Academy, even the Mu Clan's long arm might not reach that far — and then... heh heh heh."

Zhang Xiaohou had barely finished when that perpetual nuisance, Zhao Kunsan, materialized from somewhere in the crowd.

"Don't make everyone laugh. After today, your precious Brother Fan is getting expelled. Imperial Capital Magic Academy — sure."

"Zhao Kunsan, what is wrong with you?" Zhang Xiaohou had been putting up with this for a long time. "When did my Brother Fan ever do anything to you? Do you have to jump in every single time we open our mouths and bark like a dog?"

Zhang Xiaohou was, by any standard, one of the standout students in class now — among the few who could actually cast magic. He genuinely couldn't understand what gave Zhao Kunsan, a deadweight who could barely scrape together six Star Motes, the nerve to howl in his face.

"He hasn't done anything to me. I just can't stand shameless little lowlifes like him." Zhao Kunsan jabbed a finger at Mo Fan's face. "Honestly, I will never understand where you found the nerve back then to cozy up to Lady Mu Ningxue. Know what you are and act like it. Stop filling your head with delusions. If not for you, our family's land in the village wouldn't have been taken back."

Zhao Kunsan was from the same district — another of the Mu Clan's dependents, in every meaningful sense of the word.

*Dependent* — the term felt jarringly archaic in the modern world, but when your family's entire livelihood had always hinged on the Mu Clan matriarch's love of flowers, when the Zhao family had spent generations tending the estate's gardens and greenhouses, what else were they, really, but gardeners? Servants?

The Mu Clan Estate was vast beyond easy description — vast in the way of the old feudal nobility. The clan's own bloodline might number only a few hundred, but arrayed around them — farmers, laborers, domestics of every kind — were thousands. The Mu Clan's shadow stretched very, very far.

According to the elders, this entire city district had once belonged to the Mu Clan. Bo City's true first family. It stood to reason that countless families like Mo Fan's and Zhao Kunsan's had always lived in their orbit, dependent on their goodwill.

What Zhao Kunsan had never forgiven was this: if not for Mo Fan's reckless audacity in provoking the old master, the gardening families could have gone on living quite comfortably.

"Let me tell you something, Mo Fan." Zhao Kunsan pressed on, contempt dripping from every word. "You just have no brain. I've known for a long time that there are people who are simply untouchable for people like us. Keeping your distance — for your own sake and your family's — is the only sensible move. But no. You had to go and court disaster. Thought a toad could eat swan meat, did you? Did you think this was some novel or TV drama — the cowherd-marries-the-princess arc? Give it a rest."

Mu Ningxue's reappearance had cracked open all the resentment Zhao Kunsan had been sitting on. Mo Fan's foolishness all those years ago had rippled outward and swept up too many people, too many families.

A princess was a princess. Keep your distance and know your place.

This wasn't a fairy tale. Cross that line — and when the king's temper flares and he raises taxes just a fraction — entire villages of hard-working families find their lives turned to misery.

And there stood the king himself: slightly behind the main podium, temples streaked silver-white, middle-aged, radiating an iron authority. His name was Mu Zhuoyun. A man who could shake all of Bo City with a single footstep.

The man Mo Fan had dared to offend.

It could be said that Mu Zhuoyun had shown mercy. The fact that he hadn't already reduced Mo Fan's family to destitution was, arguably, generous.

"Zhao Kunsan. Shut your mouth."

"What — am I wrong?" Zhao Kunsan said.

Mo Fan looked at him for a moment.

In all honesty, those words had come as something of a surprise. The guy saw reality more clearly than Mo Fan had ever given him credit for.

There were people, Mo Fan reflected, who only understood much later in life how foolish they'd been — mocking the poor students and the "dumb rich kids" in school, only to discover, out in the real world, that those same kids had gone abroad, come back with impressive degrees, and landed jobs paying tens of thousands a month without breaking a sweat, still complaining the money wasn't enough. Meanwhile, the hardworking student who'd clawed their way into a decent university found themselves swallowed up in the sea of ordinary job-seekers, living in an entirely different world from the people they'd once looked down on — dreams ground to dust, ambition long gone, working themselves to the bone and still broke.

What Zhao Kunsan had said showed a maturity uncommon for his age. Seeing yourself clearly early was far better than chasing blindly after things out of reach. Because when dreams collapse and reality slams into you all at once, it strips everything away in an instant — like waking from a nightmare you can't accept.

Not that Mo Fan had any reason to admire Zhao Kunsan for this clarity. He found it more laughable than anything.

"Zhao Kunsan," Mo Fan said, voice perfectly level, "you have real talent for being a dog. True vocation. Genuine self-awareness. That's something I, Mo Fan, could never manage in this lifetime. Color me impressed."

"The hell are *you*?" Zhao Kunsan snarled. "If I'm a dog, I'm a noble dog — quality kibble, a nice house, fine clothes. You? You're a stray. A drowning dog. A garbage-eating dog. Look at yourself — every inch of you reeks of the trash heap, and the most precious thing about you is that you still don't know how bad you smell. You burned your family's last scrap of property to drag yourself into this magic high school, and you're still going to get kicked out in the end. I just want to ask your father Mo Jiaxing — has he ever once regretted the day you were born? You're nothing but a walking jinx."

Mo Fan's shot had landed clean — Zhao Kunsan clearly felt it. But Zhao Kunsan wasn't the type to swallow a hit quietly. He'd admitted to being a dog, all right. And then he bit.

Mo Fan swept his gaze across the crowd.

There — he spotted him. The one whose eyes held just a flicker of quiet satisfaction. Mu Bai. That pampered young lord who lived as a dependent in someone else's house — the same boy Mo Fan had once pinned to the ground and beaten soundly.

When they were small, revenge was nothing more than a stone through a window. Petty, harmless. But now, Magic Awakening and assessments were reshaping people's lives entirely. The risen Mu Bai finally had something to fight back with.

*For now, let this hound Zhao Kunsan run loose. Mu Bai has been scheming for a long time. I'll find the right opening and land the real blow.*

*Not bad. Not bad at all.* These little bastards he'd once beaten into the ground — they'd actually learned to play the long game. All those years of his "education" hadn't gone to waste.

Come on then. Use every trick you've got.

I, Mo Fan, have been curing trash-talkers and superiority dogs for a hundred years without a single loss. I meet contempt with contempt, and I repay every slight down to the last.