Improvement

Guiling Niang chuckled softly. "Enough, stop putting on an act. Why aren't you getting up? What kind of conduct is this?"

Since she had said so, Ning Ye rose to his feet.

He still wore a look of utter defiance.

Guiling Niang did not mind. "What? Still complaining? Blaming your senior sister for not teaching you? And, while you're at it, blaming me, your master, for refusing to guide you?"

"Yes!" Ning Ye said, stubbornly craning his neck.

"Ning Ye, don't be disrespectful!" Yue Xinluo snapped.

"It's fine." Guiling Niang did not take offense.

She walked over to Ning Ye, looked him over, and said, "It's been many years since anyone dared speak to me this way. Who would have thought that after taking in a disciple, he would point out my faults? That is rather fresh. Interesting."

She paused, then said, "You performed well this time. You have passed. Among the disciples of Langya Pavilion, one of the nine great powers of the Heaven's Center Realm, we have never lacked geniuses. Yet there are many who rely on their talent and look down on all else—those who call themselves geniuses yet refuse to strive forward. Thus, the greater the genius, the more they need to be beaten down a little. First temper their will, then strip away their gaudy vanity."

At this point, Guiling Niang paused. "But it seems that does not work on you."

Yue Xinluo snorted. "It only fed his arrogance."

"You shut up!" Guiling Niang harrumphed. "I told you to temper him, not to ignore him completely. Do you truly think you have done well as his senior sister?"

Yue Xinluo was, after all, a Nirvana Realm powerhouse. Yet when rebuked by her master, she could only lower her head, while shooting Ning Ye a vicious