My Grandpa Is Qi Tianji!

Qi Lin turned around.

It was a girl!

Like a trumpet flower in midsummer, she bloomed in midair, orange-red as fire.

The girl wore a short orange skirt, pretty and lively, with sunlight in her smile and a sweetness about her lips and teeth.

In Mystic City, there was no one her age so lovely and spirited.

The only woman as beautiful as a heavenly immortal was Su Lianxi, but she was five years older than Qi Lin.

"Hey, I asked you a question."

The girl blinked her big, bright eyes and looked at Qi Lin curiously.

"Yes. I just got here," Qi Lin answered.

"My name is Ling'er." The girl in the orange skirt held out her little hand, her voice sweet and gentle. "We're classmates at the Three Stars Pavilion, so please look after me from now on."

"Qi Lin."

Facing this lively, spirited, and openhearted girl his own age, Qi Lin felt at ease and shook her hand.

"Wow! Your fingers are so hot."

Startled, Ling'er quickly pulled her little hand back.

Qi Lin's scalp tingled.

She must have touched the little finger on his left hand, the one with Fire Burning Disease!

"Are you all right? I just cultivated a blazing fire cultivation method."

Qi Lin could only make something up.

"It doesn't hurt." Ling'er showed him her delicate palm and waved it in front of him. "Are you going to the kingdom law class? Let's go together."

"Sure."

As Qi Lin walked with her, he stole a glance at his little finger.

He wouldn't have known if he hadn't looked, but the sight gave him a fright!

The gaping maw on his left little finger was breathing fire, making the finger look like a fire dragon!

Though it wasn't breathing much fire, it was frightening enough.

You'd better not let it all out at once...

He was worried because the flames didn't look right.

They might be poisonous!

All living beings regarded the Five Decays of the Heavenly Dao as five plagues, and if the fire from his finger could spread Fire Burning Disease, that would be explosive.

Just as he was thinking this, an icy voice suddenly came from beside him.

"Hot fingers? You don't have Fire Burning Disease, do you?"

Qi Lin frowned and looked over. The speaker was a blue-robed youth, rather thin and aloof, who gave off an icy chill.

To enter the Divine Strategy Manor, one had to reach the Mystic Sea Realm by thirteen at the latest, so everyone along the way was among the most outstanding of their age in the entire Great Cang Kingdom.

"Lan Ming, don't talk nonsense. Every student has to be screened for the Five Decays before entering the Divine Strategy Manor. Anyone with one of the diseases can't get in," Ling'er quickly spoke up for Qi Lin, sounding a little displeased.

Lan Ming seemed a little afraid of her, so he said to Qi Lin, "Sorry. My name is Lan Ming, from the Blue Moon Clan of the Divine Capital."

"Pick anyone at random in the Divine Strategy Manor, and their family's standing starts at the city lord level." There was also a brown-clad youth to the right. He and Lan Ming must have been walking with Ling'er from the start, which was why they had kept pace with them. Now he glanced at Qi Lin and said coolly, "I am Yan Dinghao. My father oversees the inspection of a thousand cities in Yongding. And you?"

The two clearly didn't care much for Qi Lin, so they were using their backgrounds to put some pressure on him.

Qi Lin coughed. "My grandpa... is something else."

Yan Dinghao and Lan Ming were taken aback.

Something else? What sort of background was that?

"Have you two had enough? Honestly, how boring." Ling'er was a little exasperated. "We're all classmates. We don't fuss over those things. The atmosphere at the Divine Strategy Manor is really quite nice, isn't it, Qi Lin?"

Qi Lin felt this girl was the sensible one. She didn't seem to care much about distinctions of high and low, noble and humble. She was gentle and soft, like a spring breeze.

Besides the three of them, the other Divine Strategy Manor students also seemed to get along fairly well. The Three Stars Pavilion students in particular all seemed quite innocent.

There was none of the coldness and pride he had imagined, like that of Xiao Tianyang and Ye Qing.

"Good afternoon, Ling'er."

"Ling'er, are you here for kingdom law too?"

From what Qi Lin saw along the way, Ling'er was indeed very popular. She had many friends and enthusiastically introduced Qi Lin to the others.

Most of them didn't ask about his background, either, unlike Lan Ming and Yan Dinghao, who seemed to take a dislike to him.

Before long, they entered a classroom.

"Qi Lin, will you sit next to me?"

Ling'er asked, blinking her big, bright eyes.

"Sure."

After they sat down, the exquisite young girl beside him was so close.

A girl born into wealth and privilege like her had an air of luxury even in the fragrance of her hair. The occasional glance and flutter of her eyes truly stirred the heartstrings.

"There aren't many people in kingdom law class today."

Ling'er rested her cheek in her hand and looked around, her hair brushing Qi Lin's cheek.

"More than thirty people. Isn't that a lot?" Qi Lin asked.

After all, this was only the Three Stars Pavilion.

"There are more in martial arts class. Hundreds every time." Ling'er pouted in frustration. "Those guys put too much stock in martial arts and not enough in learning. Without a little education, they won't even know how to curse people when they fight. Right?"

She looked at Qi Lin, her bright eyes and pearly teeth seeming to take on a veil of dreams in the sunlight streaming through the window.

"Just curse eighteen generations of their ancestors," Qi Lin said.

Ling'er burst out laughing, like a flower opening still wider, as though all the beauty in the world had been written upon the girl's smiling face.

"Quiet."

Just then, a middle-aged man with meticulously combed hair entered the classroom.

He had a stern, rigid face and a commanding presence, imposing even without anger.

"Greetings, Master Fu," some of the Divine Strategy students called out.

Qi Lin couldn't help looking at him. As expected of the Divine Capital. Even a master teaching a literary class probably has cultivation no weaker than Su Fengxuan's.

He had already read the Divine Strategy Manor's regulations. Senior instructors who taught literary classes were called masters, while those who taught martial arts were called martial instructors.

Thud.

Master Fu placed a thick book on the desk.

Qi Lin caught sight of the four large characters on its cover-

Great Cang Kingdom Law.

"Today, I will discuss the definition of 'legitimate self-defense' in our Great Cang Kingdom Law. This definition concerns you all directly, so listen carefully."

Master Fu seemed to teach without much emotion, launching straight into the lesson.

"Great Cang Kingdom Law stipulates that within a combat-prohibited area, if you are attacked through martial means, you may issue three successive warnings. If the other party does not stop, it may be deemed legitimate self-defense, and killing them is no crime!"

"As for what constitutes a combat-prohibited area, that's simple. This classroom, for example, is one. The entire Divine Strategy Manor, apart from a small number of sparring areas, is a combat-prohibited area."

Master Fu spoke at length without looking at the students below.

The students, meanwhile, weren't paying attention to the kingdom law at all.

They had clearly come to scrape together credits. Even Ling'er seemed to be cultivating.

She's the same age as me, yet she's already at the Third Level of the Profound Sea, with True Essence forming a stream. Qi Lin was a little surprised.

Suddenly!

"Oh, I forgot!"

Master Fu spotted Qi Lin and said, "A new student joined the Three Stars Pavilion today, didn't he? Come up and introduce yourself."

"Yes, Master."

Qi Lin walked to his side, faced the thirty-odd talented youths of the Great Cang Kingdom, and said, "I am Qi Lin."

"That's it?" Master Fu rolled his eyes at Qi Lin. "A Divine Strategy student cannot focus solely on martial arts and neglect literary cultivation. Say a little more. At least tell us where you come from."

Qi Lin pursed his lips, looked again at the expectant eyes upon him, and said, "I come from Mystic City."

The instant the words left his mouth, the classroom fell silent.

The Divine Strategy students who had been secretly giggling moments ago suddenly stopped smiling and frowned at Qi Lin.

The atmosphere in the entire classroom turned utterly strange in an instant.

Then, the next moment...

One strange look after another fell upon Ling'er!

Bang!

Ling'er suddenly stood up.

She slowly raised her head. Her sunny smile had turned as cold as the depths of winter!

Even her voice chilled to the bone like a blizzard.

"Is your grandpa's name Qi Tianji?"

Qi Lin was taken aback when he heard that.

"Is your surname Xiao?"

Qi Lin looked at her, the light in his eyes gradually fading.

"Master Fu, close the door."

The girl seemed to have gotten the answer she wanted. She pointed at the classroom's heavy door.

"Xiao Ling'er!" Master Fu gritted his teeth. "This is a Divine Strategy classroom, a combat-prohibited area..."

Bang!

"I told you to close the door!"

Xiao Ling'er suddenly seized the heavy stone desk and hurled the object, weighing several hundred jin, at Master Fu with a crash.

With an explosive bang, the stone desk shattered across the floor!

Master Fu's hair was in disarray, and he looked distinctly bedraggled.

With his strength, he could clearly have blocked it, but he didn't dare block all of it.

Clearly, in the Divine Strategy Manor, masters and martial instructors did not necessarily rank above students.

In the end, it came down to background.

"Student Qi Lin, hold on." Master Fu's voice trembled slightly. "I'll go find the Law Enforcement Hall..."

With that, he hurried out.

"How did he dare come to the Divine Strategy Manor?"

That was what Master Fu muttered as he left, utterly unable to understand.

He couldn't make sense of it.

Clearly, these thirty-odd "classmates" didn't seem able to make sense of it either.

Xiao Ling'er included, none of them had initially imagined that he was the grandson of Mystic City's evil man!

Bang!

Lan Ming went straight over and sealed the classroom door shut.

"Close the windows too." Xiao Ling'er's voice was cold as iron.

Yan Dinghao went to close the windows with a sneer.

Qi Lin suddenly understood!

The reason he had felt comfortable and relaxed, and found the atmosphere pleasant just now... was that Xiao Ling'er had taken him for someone in her circle.

"My brother is Xiao Tianyang."

After Xiao Ling'er said that, her big, bright eyes filled with a cold tide.

"I understand." Qi Lin nodded. "But this is a combat-prohibited area. The kingdom has its laws."

"The kingdom law is still useful."

Xiao Ling'er looked at the copy of Great Cang Kingdom Law on the desk. "Lan Ming, Yan Dinghao, cut off his head and put it on that law book."

Then she looked back at Qi Lin. "I'll take his head back to my clan. I don't want to dirty my hands."