Knowing the Face but Not the Heart

Seeing that the day was nearly over, Wenren Sheng decided to conduct one more inspection before returning to practice his Five Great Defense Skills.

After all, the assessment still had a full week to go. The candidates taking the exam on the first day were only a small portion, so there was no need for him to rush.

The Jiangnan District examination site was a beautiful, sprawling ancient garden, with candidates undergoing their assessments throughout its grounds.

He controlled the Ruyi Puppet as it moved through the garden, preparing to return to the judges' private lounge and wait.

As he passed a pavilion, an utterly unremarkable candidate caught his attention.

He was an ordinary-looking young man with calm eyes, around thirty years old. He was chatting with several friends inside the pavilion.

"We really got lucky this time. We all passed," a girl said, patting her chest.

"It's just a shame about Old Meng and the others. Such a waste. As expected, chance encounters are unreliable. Only keeping your feet on the ground lets you keep living," another man said, shaking his head.

"Yeah. Two years ago, if they hadn't gone looking for some treasure to speed up their Otherworldly cultivation, and had just cultivated peacefully like us, they could have gotten through it safely."

"Exactly. Not only did they fail to improve their progress in the end, they died in the wilderness and had their Otherworldly Seeds reclaimed. Who knows which newcomer got them cheap? Fate really is unpredictable."

"If I'd known, I should have tried harder to persuade them in the group chat. Who could have expected such a tragedy?" said the calm-eyed man with a sigh, seeming just as saddened as everyone else.

Yet Wenren Sheng sensed a familiar aura from him, something somewhat similar to Liu