You're the Incompetent One

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I really didn't mean to..." Ai Tutu looked like a battered little stray kitten, every last shred of her usual feistiness gone, eyes red and swollen as she apologized to Mo Fan.

She wouldn't apologize to Gu Jian — someone like him wasn't worth a second thought. But she couldn't not care about Mo Fan. Mo Fan was her friend.

Looking at Ai Tutu, clearly shattered, Mo Fan patted her gently on the head. He couldn't bring himself to blame her — not even a little.

They'd known each other long enough that Mo Fan had a solid read on her personality. So even for something as outrageous as impersonating him in the competition, he'd really only roll his eyes and give her a mild scolding...

But she was still a woman. No matter what she'd done wrong, she absolutely did not deserve to be on the receiving end of Gu Jian's degrading, humiliating tirade.

Mo Fan would never do that. Even if Ai Tutu had ruined all three of his matches, he would never use words like those on her. Part of it was their friendship — but more fundamentally, no man, under any circumstances, had the right to be that contemptible, that much of a worthless piece of trash.

"Stop crying. Come on, stop it," Mo Fan said softly.

"You... you're not angry at me?" Ai Tutu looked up, eyes puffy and red, staring at him in disbelief.

"You went a little too far this time, sure — but it's not the end of the world. Besides, have you forgotten? I was already a guaranteed pick for the selection. If you hadn't pushed me to enter the nominations, I probably wouldn't have bothered at all." Mo Fan cracked a grin.

Ai Tutu tilted her head back to look at him. At this close distance, it struck her all at once — when this Great Demon Lord actually smiled, he was warm and strikingly handsome, the kind of smile that left a comfortable glow in your chest...

"Even so, I still owe you an apology. I'm sorry — I'll find a way to make it up to you," Ai Tutu said, completely in earnest.

"Alright, I accept. But first..." Mo Fan glanced to the side, his gaze locking onto Gu Jian, who was still muttering and grumbling not far away. "But first, let me settle the score for you. Then we can talk about making it up to me."

Mo Fan let go of Ai Tutu — who'd been clinging to him like a lost little stray — and guided her to a seat off to the side to rest.

Ding Yumian had been watching quietly from where she sat. When Ai Tutu settled down beside her, she handed her a bottle of water without a word, giving her space to collect herself. Then her gaze drifted back to Mo Fan, following him as he walked toward Gu Jian.

She was curious what he would do.

As a Mind Element Mage, she could see it — a thread of anger running through Mo Fan's calm black eyes, buried beneath that lazy, easygoing surface.

"You're Gu Jian?" Mo Fan stepped up to him and asked flatly.

"So what if I am? Here to stick up for that woman?" Gu Jian wasn't blind — he'd seen Ai Tutu throw herself into this man's arms — but his eyes were full of contempt.

*A woman cracking the Elemental Rankings top twenty — she probably got there on her looks alone. Of course she'd have some man rushing to her defense.*

"Nothing much. Just here to tell you this — get down on your hands and knees right now, crawl from here all the way over to her, and let her give you three good hard slaps across the face as an apology. Do that, and I'll forgive you for those filthy words of yours. Oh, and while I'm at it — I want to be absolutely clear that I speak only for myself here — go f**k your entire family!" Mo Fan stood face to face with Gu Jian, and on those last words his voice rose until every corner of the arena could hear them.

Gu Jian's face went livid.

His fury hadn't dimmed in the slightest. Jabbing a finger at Mo Fan, he bellowed, "Who the hell are you supposed to be? Before I change my mind about putting someone in the hospital today, you'd better get as far away from me as you can!"

"Can't win your own match, so you turn around and blame a woman... You want to talk about dogs? At least dogs come from normal breeding. You, you miserable bastard — you were born when a dog ate so much garbage it accidentally swallowed something else, got knocked up, and then farted you out!" Mo Fan shot back.

That string of insults left both Ding Yumian and Ai Tutu staring open-mouthed.

On one hand, neither of them could quite follow the internal logic of the insult. On the other, neither had ever imagined Mo Fan could say something quite so spectacularly, creatively offensive.

They were all Mages — university students, the supposed pillars of the nation — and yet these filthy, utterly unhinged words... why did they feel so deeply satisfying to witness?

The arena went dead silent. Mo Fan's words were still echoing in everyone's ears. Some of the girls hadn't quite registered what had been said and were urgently whispering to the boys beside them, who were grinning with unmistakably wicked amusement.

"You... you..." Whatever crude vocabulary Gu Jian had managed to scrape together despite his privileged upbringing had been completely exhausted today. He couldn't find a single word to fight back with. The pressure in his chest was so intense he could almost taste blood rising in his throat.

Mo Fan had grown up in the rougher parts of town. Someone like Gu Jian was no match for him in this particular arena.

"Talking smack is one thing — if you've got real guts, face us on the floor. We'll make you regret every word you just said!" Gu Jian finally pulled himself together enough to speak, pointing at Mo Fan.

"Oh, so you do know that trash talk counts for nothing — then what were you so proud of when you were tearing into my friend Ai Tutu just now?" Mo Fan said with a cold smile.

That line hit Gu Jian like he'd just shot himself in the foot. He glanced around and found the whole crowd laughing at him. His expression turned truly ugly.

But he could never admit he'd lowered himself. "Was I wrong?" he snapped. "She doesn't have the ability to be anywhere near a nominations competition. A deadweight like her — what's wrong with saying so?"

"That's your own incompetence talking. Your team was never going to beat them in that match to begin with!" Mo Fan said.

"Ha! Think you're so impressive? Let me tell you something — if the school didn't have rules against private fights during the nominations, I'd have already reduced you to a vegetable. You should be thanking the school's regulations for keeping you on your feet right now. And I'm not about to throw away my future over trash like you. When your team has a useless woman like her dragging everyone down, nobody wins!" Gu Jian snapped.

Mo Fan could see clearly that Gu Jian was genuinely worthless — but with the school's referee instructors present, the moment he tried to flatten the guy they'd step in to stop it. And Gu Jian was obviously too smart to wander outside their line of sight.

He fixed Gu Jian with a cold smile. "Those are your words. Care to make a bet?"

"I said what I said. Everyone saw what happened — that woman is clearly the problem... What kind of bet?" Gu Jian was still obviously trying to salvage his image.

"Third match — I'll take the field. My team: her, and these two. If I win, you crawl on your hands and knees from right here to where she's sitting, exactly like I said, and let her slap you three times as an apology." Inside, Mo Fan's contempt for Gu Jian had reached its limit.

*What a sorry excuse for a human being. If the instructors weren't here, I'd have already beaten him senseless.*

Gu Jian hesitated for a moment...

He glanced around at everyone watching. Faced with this demand in front of the entire crowd, he had no way to refuse. Refusing would mean that everything he'd just said was nothing but hot air.

"Fine. But if you lose..." He paused. "Oh, I just remembered — there's a lawn right outside my apartment building. Old ladies walk their dogs there all the time. The whole thing is covered in dog droppings. You and that stupid woman can split it between you." Gu Jian sneered.

"Gu Jian, his condition is more reasonable than yours." Even his teammate Ah Li Jie found it hard to watch.

Gu Jian shot him a vicious glare.

Mo Fan didn't care — whatever condition Gu Jian named, he'd accept it. A few months ago, he wouldn't have dared be this reckless. But now, with his little Flame Queen having entered the Juvenile Stage, he had every reason for confidence.

"Deal." Mo Fan turned around and called out loud, "Referee instructors — would you mind serving as witnesses?"

The three referee instructors were all fairly young. On the surface they wore expressions of weary exasperation at the students' spectacle — but inside, they'd been buzzing with anticipation for quite some time. *Holy hell, this was exactly the kind of match worth showing up for!*

And this guy who'd just walked in... now *that* was someone worth watching. Absolutely audacious.

Still, rules were rules. One of the instructors spoke up: "This is a personal matter between you. We can allow it, but your team's performance won't count toward your score regardless of the outcome — the opposing side will be scored normally. If both parties agree to those terms, we have no objection."

"Works for me. The third match was basically a write-off the moment all this started anyway," Ah Li Jie said.

Liu Xin nodded as well. If the third match was already a foregone conclusion, there was no harm in playing it out against this boldly confident newcomer. And for some reason, there was something oddly familiar about him.