Lewdness

"Ha! For making a living, nothing beats frugality; for preserving one's health, nothing beats restraining one's desires. We of the Mohist School don't go in for that sort of thing."

Yan Jinghong swept his sleeve and strode away across the waves, his figure swift and spirited. From afar, Si Ming could hear him singing:

"Majestic by nature, tall and green, / Hundreds of fathoms high, aloof and serene. / It stands unbending beneath the sky, / Its heart hollow from the ground up high. / With age, its roots grow ever stronger; / Beneath the fierce sun, its leaves shade longer. / In peaceful times, to soothe all strife, / May it be hewn into a five-stringed zither."

Si Ming watched his departing figure and sighed. "Born to toil, that's what he is. I admire him, but I could never do the same."

"Then what kind of person do you want to be?"

A voice suddenly sounded beside his ear, giving Si Ming a fright. He turned and saw Liu Qingqing standing less than ten meters away, looking as though she had come out for a stroll after dinner.

"When did you get here?"

Liu Qingqing thought for a moment. "Since you shouted 'Iron Palm Water Skimming.'"

"Then you've been watching for quite a while, and I never noticed..." Si Ming was disheartened. His five senses had clearly improved a great deal through his cultivation lately. "My master didn't fail to notice you too, did he?"

"No, Senior Yan noticed me ages ago. He nodded to me when he came ashore."

"...Does it take a Spirit Transformation expert to sense your presence? It's such a waste that you didn't become a phantom thief. Otherwise, you might even have made a name for yourself as Saint Girl."

After a moment of surprise, Si Ming suddenly thought of something and asked suspiciously, "Is today the first time you've come to the lake to watch me train?"

Liu Qingqing shook her head. "I found out half a month ago. Since you always did it after dinner, I'd stop by to watch after I ate. Congratulations on finally passing the test. Even just watching from the side, I could tell it was very difficult. If it had been me, I wouldn't have had any confidence at all in escaping Senior Yan's pursuit."

Si Ming felt no joy at his success. Instead, he took a devastating critical hit and muttered under his breath, "She's been watching me for half a month, and I didn't notice even once. Giving an ability like that to a woman is such a waste..."

Auntie Liu insisted that her daughter had no talent, but in Si Ming's view, a low presence was clearly a gift many professions dreamed of having: assassins, thieves, ninjas, stalkers, train gropers, and so on.

"In just four months, you've reached level three in internal cultivation. Progress like that would leave a lot of people dumbstruck. At least, I can't connect the person you are now with the one who always wore a gloomy face four months ago," Liu Qingqing said with heartfelt emotion.

Si Ming knew perfectly well that her surprise had more to do with the change in his personality than his martial arts, so he changed the subject. "I've only reached the average level of a middle school student. Internal cultivation has always gotten harder to break through the higher you go. If I remember right, you broke through to level four three months ago, didn't you?"

Although Liu Qingqing was usually inconspicuous, had won almost no awards, and had no achievements that would make anyone remember her name, her aptitude was actually above average, enough to rank around twentieth in a class of sixty.

"Going from level three to level four is just a matter of accumulation. I'm sure you'll get there soon too."

Odd-numbered internal cultivation levels were thresholds that required factors such as talent, fortuitous encounters, pills, or mental fortitude to break through. Even-numbered levels, on the other hand, were a matter of accumulation; once the time was ripe, a breakthrough would come naturally.

Someone who broke through to internal cultivation level five would surely advance to level six sooner or later; it was only a matter of time. But a martial artist at level six would not necessarily break through to level seven and might be stuck at level six for life.

Si Ming said, "I hope so. But right now, I'm more concerned about these final exams than my internal cultivation. I wonder if I managed to snatch the throne of first place in the grade from Murong Qing. The results should be out at tomorrow's end-of-term assembly, right?"

Chapter 39: Lewdness

Although Si Ming had promised Yan Jinghong that he would train diligently without stopping, he slept in the very next day. The moment his alarm clock rang, he put it down humanely.

If young people didn't sleep in, could they still be called young people?

Only corporate livestock would think about getting up on time, catching a ride on time, going to work on time, getting off work on time, going to bed on time, getting up on time...

"I wonder if there's a martial art called the Sleeping Dream Arhat Fist. It'd be great if I could train while I slept."

Although the end-of-term assembly started much later than classes usually did, he still had to go. So Si Ming dragged himself out of bed, feeling even more tired from having slept too long, washed and groomed himself perfunctorily, then left his room and went downstairs.

As he passed through the hallway, he glanced at the mirror on the wall and stopped. "My hair's sticking up. At first glance, it looks just like an ahoge. That kind of character design doesn't suit me."

Yao Bilian happened to pass by in her pajamas and laughed. "What a coincidence. My hair's sticking up too."

Si Ming turned to look at the woman's hair and saw that none of it was sticking up at all. His face darkened. "Please, you have to tell me you mean your armpit hair. Otherwise, I could just about accept nose hair."

Yao Bilian burst out laughing, not at all concerned that she might accidentally expose herself. "Little virgins are so fussy. It's just 'beep-' hair. Being all coy and covering it up only makes people pay more attention."

"Why did censoring it make it even filthier?!"

Si Ming felt as though he had been force-fed a cup of black coffee without sugar first thing in the morning. The flavor was so strong that his chest felt stuffy.

"You don't look so good. Today's the end-of-term assembly, the day you say goodbye to your classmates. You could at least put on a cheerful face. Don't students love holidays most of all?"

"Whose fault do you think that is? Anyone would look like this after hearing a filthy, heavy-duty dirty joke first thing in the morning!"

Yao Bilian looked troubled and thought seriously for a while. "I think that joke was pretty mild. If I had to give it a score, it'd be about sixty-three."

"You're clearly troubled by the wrong thing! Give it some serious thought! Telling dirty jokes to a minor is sexual harassment! And what's with those oddly specific extra three points? Couldn't you make it sixty-five or seventy? You're going to drive people with OCD to death!"

Si Ming had still been a little groggy, but now he was wide awake. He didn't like this way of waking his brain up one bit, though. Too lazy even to fix his hair, he ran out with a tuft sticking up like an ahoge, afraid that if he stayed any longer, he would be tainted all over.

He bought breakfast at random on the way. By the time he arrived at school, things were already at their liveliest. The final exam results had been posted on the bulletin board, and a crowd of students had squeezed in front of it, heads bobbing as they searched for their names.

The Mohist School advocated "exalting the worthy"-revering those of virtue and ability and appointing people on merit alone—so it had no worries about publishing rankings hurting poor students. It always made the results public openly and honorably.

Mozi said, "Suppose one wished to increase the number of skilled archers and charioteers in a state. One would surely enrich them, elevate them, respect them, and praise them. Then the state would have many skilled archers and charioteers."

That meant that if one wanted to increase the number of talented archers in a country, one had to make them wealthy and eminent, respect them, and praise them. Then the country would soon gain many, many talented archers.

A school of thought with such ideas would not fear competition. On the contrary, it would encourage competition, so that worthy people could stand out from the crowd.

It was easy for Si Ming to find his own name. He only had to look at the first few; there was no need to search through the densely packed mass of names.

Sure enough, he spotted his name at a glance, right at the top of the grade. Murong Qing was second, two points behind him.

"Ha! I didn't spend those twenty-odd years on Earth for nothing after all."

Whether martial arts, talent, or even knowledge, they all belonged to this world. Only his methods of studying and taking exams were the wealth his previous life had left him.

Quite a few classmates came over to offer Si Ming a few words of congratulations when they saw him, with a touch of envy mixed in. But they weren't overly shocked. Over the past four months, Si Ming had already shown his talent for learning, climbing a few places in the rankings with every test. Over time, his classmates and teachers had formed the impression that he was improving rapidly, and that sort of thing was not uncommon.

Si Ming had entered the grade's top ten in the previous exam. Now that he had taken the crown of first place, it felt like a natural progression. Most people were thinking, more or less, "He really did it."