Invigilating

Ning Chen had thought too simply—not only about the matter itself, but about the academy students as well.

He had never imagined that people would cheat even in this era.

There were four cheaters, one of them a petite, adorable-looking female student.

On any other day, Ning Chen might have turned a blind eye and let it pass. But it was snowing today, and he was in a very bad mood.

The piercing pain in his leg had worn down his patience. He turned his head to look at the snow outside, but in the end, he could not convince himself to pretend he had seen nothing.

The wheelchair creaked. The students still answering their papers subconsciously looked up, only to see Ning Chen stop before the nearest female student.

Without saying a word, Ning Chen held out his hand before her, hoping she would hand it over herself.

Lin Wan'er furrowed her willow-leaf brows. Looking at the outstretched hand, she lifted her head and flashed a dazzling smile, with no intention of handing anything over.

The two stared at each other for a long while. Ning Chen's hand remained steadily extended, stubborn and without any sign of withdrawing.

"Give it."

Lin Wan'er's pretty face changed several times. In the end, she chose to yield for the moment and placed the slip of paper in Ning Chen's hand.

Ning Chen nodded slightly and accepted the slip. With a gentle clench of his hand, it became scraps of paper, which he casually scattered into the wooden waste bin beside him.

Following the same process, Ning Chen confiscated the cheating tools of the other three: a writing brush engraved with words, an inkstone with a hidden compartment, and answers sewn into someone's clothing.

Ning Chen showed no mercy. He even watched the last student tear the answers from his clothes himself.

The academy's punishment for cheating was severe, so the three did not dare resist too strongly.

Ning Chen had no intention of preserving the evidence. With one clench of his hand, the brush, inkstone, and strips of cloth all turned into fragments, which he casually tossed into the wooden bin.

The sight made everyone's eyelids twitch. They discovered that this mild-mannered substitute instructor was not nearly as easy to provoke as he appeared.

Though some among them practiced martial arts, none could casually crush both a hard inkstone and soft cloth into fragments as their instructor had.

For the rest of the time, everyone behaved themselves. Just as Ning Chen thought nothing else would happen and closed his eyes to rest, this petite, adorable female student gave him another surprise.

Ning Chen quietly opened his eyes and looked at Lin Wan'er. Then he clenched his hand, and the slip of paper in her hand immediately flew over.

"There will not be a next time."

Ning Chen spoke calmly.

Lin Wan'er's little face flushed with anger, while the others in the hall were startled. In the past two months, this was the first time they had heard Ning Chen speak.

"My grandfather is the Headmaster!"

Lin Wan'er slapped the table, roaring like a furious little lioness.

The students in the hall were frightened, but Ning Chen smiled. What familiar words. He had not expected the same sort of thing to happen in every era.

"I am the invigilator."

Ning Chen pointed at the wooden plaque on his chest.

"You are only a substitute."

Lin Wan'er refused to accept it.

"Even so, I am still your invigilator."

Ning Chen replied calmly.

"You—"

Lin Wan'er was deeply unconvinced, yet she had nothing to refute him with. In the examination hall, the invigilator had the final say. That was academy law.

Seeing Lin Wan'er sitting there and sulking, Ning Chen did not provoke her further. During the exam, he was their invigilator. Once it was over, they were strangers to one another. There was no need for excessive contact.

This examination, covering Confucian poetry, books, rites, and changes, was indeed far from simple. The Master had set few questions, but every one was difficult. Hardly anyone present could finish them all.

Every year, the Master's course was the hardest to pass at the academy. The Master was upright and would not show the slightest bias in grading.

Once the exam ended, Ning Chen collected the papers and left. The snow outside was still heavy, as though it had no intention of stopping. It was cold—so cold that it was hard to bear.

A northern wind blew over, and Ning Chen instinctively hunched his body. Then he turned his wheelchair and headed forward.

Suddenly, he felt his hands grow lighter. Turning around, he saw a young man in blue pushing his wheelchair from behind.

Ning Chen recognized the young man. He was one of the students who had cheated earlier—the one who had sewn the answers into his clothes. It had not been clever, but it had been careful.

"Thank you, Instructor."

Yin Yifei said, looking slightly embarrassed. After all, cheating was nothing honorable.

He had only wanted to earn a better ranking in the Master's course and secure a brighter future for himself, but he had not expected the instructor to discover him.

The academy punished cheating students harshly. Had the instructor kept the evidence, the fate of the few of them would have been miserable. Being expelled from the academy was not impossible; there had been precedents in past years. Yet everyone harbored a gambler's luck, and cheating could never be eradicated entirely.

"Once we leave this classroom, I am no longer an invigilator. You need not call me Instructor."

Ning Chen shook his head.

"In this student's heart, you will always be my instructor."

Yin Yifei said with unusual stubbornness.

Hearing this, Ning Chen did not argue further and simply allowed Yin Yifei to push his wheelchair onward.

From that day on, there was always a young man beside Ning Chen to push his wheelchair.

However, whenever Ning Chen chopped firewood, he never allowed Yin Yifei to help. In his view, the Yin Lineage had sent him to the academy to study literature and martial arts, not to chop wood.

Ning Chen did not know much about the Yin Lineage. He only knew that it was an extraordinary family.

In truth, that was not strange. Pick any academy student at random, and their background would not be simple.

Great Xia had stood for over a thousand years. It had no shortage of nobles and great clans. Across this land at the height of its prosperity, large and small aristocratic families were like stars in the sky—too numerous to count.

If not for the Headmaster presiding over the academy, this bunch of little ancestors would likely have overturned the place long ago.

How terrifying the deterrence of an innate expert was could be seen from the academy's ability to keep so many arrogant heirs of great clans in line.

Ning Chen raised his head and looked through layer upon layer of obstacles toward an inconspicuous house within the academy. He knew that the academy's strongest figure, the Headmaster, was inside—a powerful expert revered throughout Great Xia as though he were a god.

It was said that Great Xia's current Three Grand Ministers had all once been students of the academy. After ten years of arduous cultivation, they entered the inner halls and ultimately became Great Xia's Grand Confucian, Grand General, and Grand Eunuch.

Thus, the academy truly was an excellent place to learn, whether one studied literature or martial arts.

Boom!

Two days later, on an ordinary morning, a dazzling pillar of light shot into the clouds from the distant east. Like a white rainbow piercing heaven and earth, its terrifying might made the entire world tremble.

At that moment, every martial artist in the world was shaken. They all turned their eyes eastward, their gazes filled with disbelief.

"The sixth innate expert."

It was a real and terrifying fact. After nearly a century, someone had finally broken through the shackles of heaven and earth once more, surpassing all those behind them and reaching the innate realm.

"Who could it be?"

That was the question in everyone's heart. Every innate expert was a force of deterrence, and the power represented by this newly advanced innate expert would have an influence on the world's balance that could not be ignored.

Especially now, when the situation under heaven had become complicated to the extreme, no one knew what variables the sudden appearance of an innate expert would bring to the greater tide of events.

"Was it you?"

Ning Chen gazed at the white rainbow soaring into the eastern sky and murmured softly. Within it was an aura familiar to him, yet carrying even more unfamiliarity. For some reason, his mood gradually worsened.

That unfamiliar quality within the familiar aura disgusted him. It made him feel uncomfortable—extremely uncomfortable.

That strange aura was too indifferent: an aloof indifference, an indifference that cast aside everything. Ning Chen disliked it greatly.

Mu Chengxue had been cold in the past as well, but not with this sort of coldness that treated all things in the world with detachment.

"Are you trying to ascend into immortality?"

His heart in turmoil, Ning Chen cursed at the pillar of light in irritation. Then he turned his wheelchair around and left with a foul expression.

That day, the firewood at the academy was chopped into a complete mess, every piece a different size and length, clearly revealing the extremely foul mood of the young man chopping it.

Two more days passed. Once all the academy examinations had ended, the students gradually departed. The time allotted for visiting family was over a month, and the vast majority of students and instructors were going home.

Why say the vast majority? Because one person in the academy had not left: Ning Chen.

It was not that Ning Chen did not wish to return home. It was that he no longer had a home to return to.

After the academy students left, the piled-up firewood no longer needed chopping. Yet Ning Chen still went every day as usual to chop wood, without interruption.

On the fifth day, when night fell, the firewood was finished. Ning Chen stared blankly at the Woodcutter's Blade in his hand, not knowing where he should go from here.

"What are you thinking about?"

At some unknown time, an extremely aged figure in plain white came behind the wheelchair and slowly asked.

"I don't know."

Ning Chen answered in low spirits. It was precisely because he did not know what to think or what to do that he was sitting here in a daze.

"Master, do you have a home?"

Ning Chen asked softly.

"I once did."

The Master answered calmly and slowly.

Having lived so long, he had almost forgotten the word home. Yet he truly had once possessed one.

"Master, I do not know where I should go."

Deep confusion filled Ning Chen's eyes. He could not return to the palace, and the academy's firewood had been chopped. Where should he go?

The world was so vast. How far could this wheelchair beneath him possibly take him?

"Return to where you came from."

The Master's answer was simple. It was also the simplest truth.

"I cannot return."

The confusion in Ning Chen's eyes deepened. He raised his head to look at the falling snow in the night sky. In that distant starry sky, was someone thinking of him as well?

The Master said nothing, quietly listening as Ning Chen spoke.

That night, Ning Chen spoke with the Master about many things. He even told him of his origins. Some matters, hidden in one's heart for too long, could drive one mad, so he told the Master everything.

The Master's expression remained calm. Even after hearing something so inconceivable, he showed little change. Life took a hundred forms; Ning Chen's experience merely lay beyond those hundred forms. But no matter what, it was still life.

The Master was a very good listener. Though Ning Chen had known him for only a short time, his trust in the Master surpassed that which he placed in anyone else.

He was not worried that the Master would tell anyone what had been said tonight. The reason was simple: he was the Master.

"If you have nowhere to go, then travel north for a while. One does not need a destination in order to move forward through life. Sometimes, confusion is not such a bad thing."

At daybreak, the Master spoke calmly, then slowly departed with his aged steps.

Then Ning Chen left as well, heading north in the direction the Master had casually pointed—a direction with no particular meaning.