Result

Result

"We need to leave this place as soon as possible. Can you still walk?"

Xia Fan returned to Luo Qingqing's side and asked.

That strike had nearly drained all his qi. Right now, what he wanted most was to lie down and rest for a while. But Xia Fan also knew that the battle was not over yet. The roof beams on both sides of the city wall had been set ablaze, and this place would soon be swallowed by fire. He had to withdraw from the breach before then.

Luo Qingqing tried several times but failed to stand. Judging from the pain she was enduring, the blow from the black rope had injured her badly.

"I'll lend you a hand." Xia Fan held out his hand to her. If this had been before, he would have bent down and carried Luo Qingqing on his back already. "Don't worry. No one here will see."

Luo Qingqing froze for a moment, seeming as though she wanted to laugh. But the instant the corners of her lips rose, she tugged at her wound. Biting her lip, she sucked in a sharp breath. "Do you take me for some fossilized fool who cannot adapt? Compared with that, the latter half of what you said is far more likely to be misunderstood! We're merely helping each other and fighting side by side. So what if someone sees?"

With that, she seized Xia Fan's hand and pulled herself up.

"Uh..." Xia Fan did not know how to respond for a moment. He felt as if he had never once said the right thing in front of her.

"Come on. Didn't you say we needed to get out of here quickly?" Luo Qingqing urged.

"Watch your step." He shook his head helplessly and supported her as they carefully made their way down the ruins.

Compared with the enormous difference in speed when they had been climbing up, the two of them were now on the same footing.

The only improvement, perhaps, was the raging fire blazing behind them. At least Mei could not come attack them now.

Halfway down, Xia Fan suddenly realized that at some point, the shouts and sounds of spells above them had fallen silent. The little town seemed to be shrouded in stillness.

His heart sank sharply.

Could it be that he had still acted too late, and the other examinees had failed to hold on until Demon fell?

If the defensive line had already collapsed, then their situation was exceedingly dangerous. In their current state, any Evil Spirit could send them to their deaths.

Luo Qingqing noticed this as well, but her expression did not change. She stopped and listened carefully for a while before speaking in a low voice. "No... Listen again."

Xia Fan focused and listened for another moment, and an astonished expression appeared on his face—the city wall was gradually growing noisy again. But it was not the sound of fighting or fleeing for their lives. It sounded like people were cheering.

This was no illusion, for the voices soon rose one after another, spreading in all directions. More and more people joined the cheers, and the oppressive feeling of Evil Night seemed to vanish like smoke and scatter like clouds.

Dawn was still far away. What on earth had happened up there?

The two exchanged a glance and, without needing to say a word, quickened their pace.

When Xia Fan and Luo Qingqing finally climbed onto the city wall, a wondrous sight unfolded before them—

The dense black fog in the distance had completely faded away, and the night sky once more revealed its stars. Yet more dazzling than the stars were the "Spirit Fires" swaying across the ground. They waxed and waned like some gentle plant, sometimes jade green, sometimes pale violet, spreading from the town all the way to the edge of sight.

Compared with their usual drifting, elusive nature, the scene now carried an air of peace and serenity. Under the glow of the Spirit Fires, the earth seemed to have become a sea of light rippling with tiny waves.

Those were the relics Mei had left behind, as well as proof of passing the Scholar Examination.

The examinees still on the wall either raised their arms and shouted or congratulated one another—at least in that moment, they regarded those beside them as comrades who could fight shoulder to shoulder.

Great Desolation Evil Night had ended.

A day later, all the examinees gathered once more in the center of Qingshan Town.

Perhaps because they had stayed awake through the final battle, the Bureau of Military Affairs gave them ample time to rest. During this long-awaited leisure, the atmosphere in town became harmonious to the extreme. From currying favor to calling one another brothers, everyone seemed to have completely forgotten that only days ago, they had been mutually suspicious and scheming against one another, even coming to blows over a bottle of Source of Spirit Fire.

Xia Fan also learned quite a bit through casual conversation—for instance, the residents of Qingshan Town had all been played by Bureau of Military Affairs personnel; and official Proctors had been hidden among the examinees. In short, Great Desolation Evil Night had seemed perilous, but it had remained under the Bureau of Military Affairs' control from beginning to end. The wounded had received treatment immediately, and apart from a very few unlucky individuals, the examinees' losses were nowhere near as severe as imagined.

To some extent, this confirmed Xia Fan's guess.

The purpose of the Scholar Examination was to select talent for Qi State, not to run some death game. There were certainly risks, but overall, they were basically within controllable limits.

Of course, what everyone discussed most fervently was last night's Demon-Slaying Thunder. Due to the lack of eyewitnesses, most speculation centered on the foremost of the three great families—after all, only the finest among those three great clans could afford Lightning-struck Wood and be willing to use it in the Scholar Examination.

Among them, Fang Xiandao had the most supporters. From the perspective of the other examinees, Fei Nian had first been saved by Luo Qingqing, and Fang Xiandao had then given Luo Qingqing a hand. Such a conclusion was hardly surprising.

Xia Fan, meanwhile, had no intention of claiming the limelight. Whenever the subject arose, he generally brushed it aside with a single sentence. Even when someone remembered that he had also fallen from the city wall, he muddled through by saying the scene had been too chaotic for him to notice anything.

Once everyone had assembled, the Proctor who had appeared on the first day finally showed himself.

This time, a huge wooden board draped in red silk appeared alongside him.

Clearly, that was the "Red List" meant to announce the names of those who had passed, corresponding to the Golden List of the Imperial Examination.

This instantly silenced the previously buzzing crowd.

"First, I must offer my congratulations to all of you." The Proctor stepped onto the long table, his tone far warmer than when he had announced the rules. "After seven days of tempering, the fact that you can still stand here and have successfully achieved the examination's objective already proves that you are qualified to join the Bureau of Military Affairs!"

"I hereby announce the results of the Qingshan Town Scholar Examination: four hundred and one participants, with one hundred and eighty-nine ultimately passing. Among the eliminated examinees, one hundred and fifty-two violated the first rule, twenty-nine violated the second rule, and thirty-one violated the third rule. Both the process and the results comply with the Bureau of Military Affairs' Scholar Examination regulations. This examination is valid!"

A burst of applause and cheers immediately erupted from the crowd.

There was little dispute over the first and second rules. Those mostly concerned participants who had withdrawn early and set their sights on taking the examination again three years later. The key lay in the third rule—the Bureau of Military Affairs had evidently classified those examinees who fled without fighting as people who had endangered their fellow examinees. This meant that even if they had obtained Source of Spirit Fire, they still could not pass the examination.

Naturally, those who had remained on the city wall were delighted by such a result. They lavishly praised the Bureau of Military Affairs for being clear in its rewards and punishments. Only Xia Fan was somewhat dismissive. In his view, the defensive line could have crumbled at any time back then. Most examinees' will to fight had merely been six of one, half a dozen of the other.