Chapter 94: Returning to School (21/26)

The car pulled into the Stone Creek campus gates, and Ou Xiaolu hopped out with Arlo, walking on ahead while letting the car find its own parking.

Arlo found it a bit odd that Ou Xiaolu got out so early. Normally, Ou Xiaolu would ride all the way to the dormitory entrance before stepping out.

But Ou Xiaolu had no intention of explaining himself to Arlo. He simply felt that he had never really taken a proper stroll through the campus, and today, a sudden urge stirred his restless heart to come down and walk. As for bringing Arlo along, that was purely incidental.

Still, the news that Ou Xiaolu was walking a tiger across campus spread like wildfire. The few previous times Arlo had appeared on campus, he had always been in the car, and the only places they ever went were the cafeteria and the dormitory, so few people had actually seen him. A few words of explanation from Ou Xiaolu, and nobody bothered to question it.

But now, with Arlo out in full public view, the entire campus erupted into chaos. Students scattered in every direction, as though someone had sprayed a burst of gunfire into the sky.

Before long, some students noticed that no matter how frenzied things got, Ou Xiaolu and his tiger kept an unhurried, steady pace—perhaps the tiger wasn't that dangerous after all.

At that moment, a bold student stepped in front of Ou Xiaolu and said, trembling, "Hey, fellow student, don't you think it's inappropriate to bring a tiger to school?"

Ou Xiaolu pointed behind the student. "See that? That dog back there is only a little smaller than my tiger. They can bring a canine, so why can't I bring a feline?"

The student turned to look, silently cursing, *Fuck*. A little smaller? That dog behind him was clearly one of those horny little ankle-biters—it wouldn't even make a single bite's worth of a meal for the tiger.

But since Ou Xiaolu had offered an explanation, the student couldn't exactly call it unreasonable. He scrambled for another excuse. "Fine, okay, I'm not saying pets aren't allowed in. But everyone who brings a dog in has a leash. Your tiger—"

"Have you ever seen a feline—"

"OK, OK." Seeing Ou Xiaolu about to use the feline excuse again, the student cut in quickly. "Let's drop the feline thing. How do you plan to guarantee student safety with a tiger on campus?"

"That's the least of your worries. Arlo here is smarter than you. And if safety's what you're worried about, just think—you've been standing here blocking the way for this long, and you haven't been attacked, have you?"

The student was taken aback, then glanced at Arlo, only to catch the tiger giving him a dismissive side-eye.

At a loss for words, the student fell silent. Meanwhile, the crowd of onlookers was growing denser by the second. A girl shouted at the top of her lungs, "Oh my god, this tiger is so adorable! I want one too!"

"Yeah, so cute! And so buff—it's a male, right?"

"Fuck, you bitch, where's your head at? This tiger is mine—I'm already dripping wet..."

In the midst of the pandemonium, a Black man elbowed his way through the crowd, shouting as he pushed in, "Rhino Tiger! I'm here! Long time no see, I've missed you so much! Rhino Tiger, where have you been these past few days? Oh, hey there, Arlo."

This Black man was none other than Ou Xiaolu's roommate, Charles. He even tapped paws with Arlo.

After that, Charles said, "Rhino Tiger, did you hear?"

"Hear what?" Ou Xiaolu hadn't been in this world for the past few days; God knows what Charles was talking about.

"It's that movie—the one Steven's directing." Charles kept winking and grimacing at Ou Xiaolu.

"Oh, you mean the one where the director was poisoned? Has the director recovered?" Since Ou Xiaolu had played a bit part as an extra in it himself, he couldn't help asking an extra question.

"You wouldn't know this, but it's been all over the news these past two days. Word is, the investors behind the film want to use the director's poisoning as an excuse to replace him on the fly. The director held a press conference straight from his hospital bed, saying, 'I'm not dead yet, and I'm not handing this movie over to anyone.' Anyway, it's a huge mess."

Listening to Charles recount the story with great animation, Ou Xiaolu felt a little puzzled. "What does this have to do with us?"

"It does, trust me. You don't know—people from the crew have been coming by looking for you these past few days. When they couldn't find you, they chatted with me for a bit. Honestly, Rhino Tiger, they've promised that if you support the new director taking over, you'll be promoted from extra to supporting role in no time."

"Does that even matter?" Ou Xiaolu shot Charles a look. "If I hadn't happened to run into Cameron that day, I wouldn't have set foot in that crew at all."

"Speaking of Cameron—Rhino Tiger, you know how unlucky that fat guy is? He was coming to find you, and right at the campus gate, he got into a car accident. A truck came driving against traffic, flipped over, and nearly crushed the poor guy to death."

"Didn't you know he's got a nickname, the King of Flip-Overs? I've personally seen him flip over three times."

"Really? No wonder his car got into an accident in Chinatown the other day." Charles nodded emphatically. Then, as if something occurred to him, he said, "Wait, no. That's not what I meant to talk about. I'm saying—Rhino Tiger, can you stop derailing my story?"

Ou Xiaolu shot Charles a look. *Interrupt you, you chatterbox? I don't have that kind of power.*

Charles kept right on babbling. "I'm the one who pulled Cameron out of that wreck. And I hear he's now serving as Steven's assistant director. Out of gratitude for saving his life, he gave me a role. Oh my god, I'm going to be a huge star! What do you think, Rhino Tiger—someday when I have superpowers and people recognize me on the street, will it be because I'm a superhero, or because I'm a big celebrity?"

Ou Xiaolu gave him another look, thinking to himself, *If you ever get recognized on the street one day, it'll definitely be because you're a clown.*

Perhaps because Charles had touched Arlo without being attacked, a swarm of girls surged toward Arlo while Ou Xiaolu and Charles were talking. They hugged him, pressed their chests against his face, and snapped selfies with their phones, showing off a ridiculously brave side.

Arlo didn't know whether to yowl or stay quiet. He squirmed this way and that, utterly at a loss for what to do.

Ou Xiaolu and Charles watched from the side, growing more and more speechless. They wished they could shove Arlo aside and squeeze into the crowd themselves, to be the ones surrounded and ogled by all those girls.

Well, no—a lucky protagonist like Ou Xiaolu wouldn't need to resort to such things. That was purely the fantasy of Charles the Unlucky.

Ou Xiaolu nonchalantly edged a little farther away from Charles, casting a glance at Arlo.

Just then, a group of guys, seeing the girls having a blast taking photos with Arlo, wanted to step up and snap a few selfies themselves, to show off their courage and brag later about being tiger-slaying heroes or something.

But at that glance from Ou Xiaolu, Arlo's fur bristled all over, his eyes flashing with menace. He swept his gaze across the boys, sending all of them stumbling back several steps—a few even landed flat on their asses.