Those Were the Days of My Lost Youth

After breakfast, the Qingyun Sect disciples gathered on the Cloudsea Plaza. The place was packed with people, shoulder to shoulder as far as the eye could see. The bustling crowd was a testament to the sect's prosperity.

Eight elevated platforms had been erected in the center of the plaza, each more than ten zhang from the next and arranged in the positions of the Eight Trigrams.

The area around the platforms was already packed with people. Beneath the largest platform in the central "Qian" position stood a towering red notice board, several people tall. The names and lot numbers of the participating disciples were written on it in gold characters as big as bowls.

Hao Shuai didn't care who his opponent was, but he still went with the flow of the crowd to take a look at the notice board.

"Huh?" A sudden gasp sounded beside him. Hao Shuai turned to see a young Qingyun disciple with delicate features, dressed in a long robe and appearing to be around twenty. He held a gold-trimmed folding fan painted with what looked like mountains and rivers. The young man had come up beside him, but he wasn't looking at Hao Shuai at all. Instead, he kept staring at Xiao Hui on Hao Shuai's shoulder, nodding and shaking his head from time to time.

When the young man didn't say anything, Hao Shuai turned to leave. But after he'd gone only a few steps, the man followed, wearing a broad smile. In a low voice, he said, "Greetings, Senior Brother. This junior is Zeng Shushu, a disciple of Wind Return Peak. May I ask your name?"

Zeng Shushu?

The son of the Peak Master of Wind Return Peak, Zeng Shuchang? That cultivation second-generation who liked looking at picture books of men and women