Shen Tang felt as though her brain had tied itself into knots.
"Shaomei's Way of the Scholar is Steal What One Likes, so your Perfection Ritual wouldn't be—" Yuan Liang, who got along disgustingly well with Liao Jia—no, who shared the same ideals with Liao Jia—flashed rapidly through her mind. As the sovereign of these two, she had to admit in good conscience that they were equally rotten! From this, she boldly assumed, then carefully tested her theory: "Could it be that the Perfection Ritual of a hidden third party is to steal the results of another person's ritual at the very moment they achieve perfection?"
Now that was what "Steal What One Likes" meant!
If she had guessed correctly, Liao Jia's Way of the Scholar had truly raised the art of being "rotten" to a whole new level! It was even worse than Yuan Liang ruining Xian Deng's Perfection Ritual back then. The two sides would absolutely fight until one of them was dead!
Liao Jia was startled at first, then broke into a strangely sly grin.
"She who knows me best is indeed my liege!"
Some details were off, but the general idea matched.
Alas, the way a Literary Scholar's Way of the Scholar reached perfection was more or less related to the person's abilities. Even before learning the ritual's contents, Liao Jia had already made some guesses. Steal What One Likes had to involve the seven emotions and six desires.
What were the seven emotions?
Joy, anger, sorrow, fear, love, hatred, and desire.
And what were the six desires?
Life, death, ears, eyes, mouth, and nose.
No matter which it was, the difficulty was certainly formidable. Liao Jia had not dared spread his guesses, fearing that they would cause unnecessary panic among his colleagues. It was not