At the top floor of the Ascension Academy office building, Dean Fang Zhuo, who had once appeared on the flying boat, now bowed and scraped, looking respectfully ahead.
Sitting in his chair was a young woman in white with black hairpins, an exquisite appearance, and a cold demeanor.
If Yang Ning were here, he would surely recognize her. This person was none other than Lin Tianheng's little flunky, Wang Yi.
Wang Yi acted as obedient as a quail beside Lin Tianheng, but upon arriving at the Ascension Academy, she immediately flipped the script to become a master above others. She simply flipped through the documents on the table, while Fang Zhuo did not even dare to let out a single fart.
"Are there any particularly outstanding students in this batch?"
"There are a few!" Fang Zhuo hurriedly said. "Zhang Feiran from Yongzhou, Bo Haitang from Southern Prefecture, and Leng Yuxi from Qingyuan are all geniuses whose breathing techniques entered the fold in seven days. There's also Lin Jingyun from Dasheng; although it took him eight days, he consumed an Exquisite Pill, so I imagine achieving Qi Refining is within his grasp."
"It took him eight days even after consuming an Exquisite Pill. Just how much of a good-for-nothing is he?" Wang Yi frowned.
"Uh, he's the adopted son of the Princess of the Man Family!" Fang Zhuo cautiously reminded her.
"So what!" Wang Yi sneered. "Even if that Princess were standing right here, I'd still say the same thing. Besides, for such a good-for-nothing to have so much effort poured into his upbringing—is he really an adopted son? I'm afraid he's an illegitimate one! I remember the Princess of the Man Family was hunted down thirteen years ago and hid in Dasheng for a period of time, right?"
Fang Zhuo did not dare to answer. The Princess of the Man Family was not someone he could afford to offend, and Wang Yi was even less so.
"My lord, are you looking to select a few from the new students to groom?" Fang Zhuo asked.
"Groom? What is there to groom? Among the Inner Disciples, there are plenty begging to kiss up to my young master. Why would I need to pick from the students?" Wang Yi said indifferently.
Fang Zhuo was speechless, harboring the thought that students were simple-minded and far more loyal.
Yet upon second thought, as long as one had strength, one simply didn't fear betrayal.
Without strength, not even the most loyal person could be kept by one's side.
To cultivators, a word like loyalty held little meaning; to Golden Core Stage cultivators, even more so.
"Then what brings you here this trip?"
"Three months from now, the Demon Subduing Valley secret realm opens. I want you to send that boatload of people led by Wei Daocheng all inside!"
"What!" Fang Zhuo was startled, and hurriedly said, "Although the Demon Subduing Valley opens every year, the number of demon beasts inside remains massive. Entering without Fifth Level of Body Refinement is simply courting death!"
"And then?"
Fang Zhuo understood. She simply wanted that group of people to die!
However—
"Is this... Young Master Tianheng's intention?"
Wang Yi looked coldly at Fang Zhuo. "What, are you very interested in Young Master Tianheng's thoughts?"
"No, no!" Fang Zhuo hurriedly shook his head. "I was merely wondering under what pretext we should send them."
"As a dignified dean, will you run out of excuses?" Wang Yi stood up and placed a jade bottle on the table. "Working for Young Master Tianheng, you won't be treated unfairly!"
"I... this... sigh..." Fang Zhuo stared eagerly at that bottle of pills, as though still hesitating, but until Wang Yi left, he did not speak up again.
It was not until a long while later that Fang Zhuo tremblingly picked up that jade bottle.
Opening it gingerly, he saw a pearl-round, bluish-white pill quietly lying inside.
The Azure Green Pill, condensed by gathering the Water of the Netherworld and the Qi of the Azure Sky, can cleanse dharma power and assist one in condensing a Supernatural Power Seed. Come to think of it, isn't the netherworld just the azure sky? This phrase must be a parallelism; the original meaning should be pills condensed from the water and qi in the azure sky, right?
Massaging his temples, Yang Ning felt his heart ached a little. These cultivators didn't seem to study Chinese linguistics. He didn't ask for their literary talent to be soaring, but at least could they write a sentence smoothly!
A single typo turned one substance into an entirely different one!
Not to mention the ones with non-sequiturs, tangled word orders, grammatical errors, and newly fabricated characters when the Chinese language lacked the proper ones...
Many issues could be resolved by Deep Blue, but some could not; those required him and Deep Blue to discuss them together.
No wonder there were so few people in the library. He had thought the textbooks were already written very perfunctorily, but it turned out they were still the tall ones among the short; the ones in the library were even more casual!
Did they not know that education was the foundational plan for a sect? If they couldn't even compile textbooks properly, how could they expect the Ascension Academy to produce talent?
"Brother Yang!" A call rang out beside Yang Ning. Yang Ning turned his head and saw Ning Rong appear at his side out of nowhere.
"I didn't expect you to really be here!" Ning Rong's tone held suspicion and astonishment. "I heard you haven't attended class for a whole month, nor have you returned to the dorms. Aside from eating, you just read books, neither cultivating nor sleeping?"
"Ah, has it already been a month?" Yang Ning scratched his head in a daze. "Time really flies by, I didn't even notice!"
"You've read yourself stupid!" Ning Rong angrily snatched the book out of Yang Ning's hands. "Did we come to the Ascension Academy to read books? We came to cultivate immortality! What on earth are you trying to accomplish by torturing your body like this?"
"Did I!" Yang Ning blinked, looking as though he was still lost in the world of books and hadn't snapped back to reality. "Weren't we here to study?"
"Study what? This is the Ascension Academy! Cultivating immortality is the most important thing, studying is only secondary! What on earth is wrong with you? What did you experience at Qin Mountain? The Brother Yang I used to know wasn't like this!" Ning Rong was bewildered. "Where did that high-spirited Brother Yang go?"
"High-spirited? Me? Was I?" Yang Ning blinked, feeling as though Ning Rong was talking about a total stranger!
"Who else if not you? 'To summit the peak and survey all mountains small,' weren't those your words? 'The time will come to ride the wind and cleave the waves, to hang my cloudy sail and bridge the deep blue sea,' wasn't that also you?"
Yang Ning was quite satisfied. It seemed his acting was quite qualified, as even an acquaintance had been fooled by him.
Well, no need to correct her; this impression had to be deepened further.
"Let's go outside and talk. People are reading books here!" Some people were already noticing the argument here, and Yang Ning didn't want to draw the librarian's attention, so he pulled Ning Rong out into the hallway.
"Fine, I want to hear how you explain this!" Ning Rong let out a breath. Perhaps Brother Yang really had some other scheme in mind.
"First of all, literary creation cannot represent a person's true nature; it must be analyzed in combination with the historical background and personal circumstances. At that time, I placed as Top Scholar and was single-mindedly thinking of accomplishing some great deeds, yet I was assigned to the Hanlin Academy to compile books. Naturally, I wasn't satisfied. But everyone there was an intellectual, and we couldn't directly confront our superiors with feedback, so I wrote those two poems to express my thoughts. Fortunately, my superior saw them and understood them as well, so I was transferred from the Hanlin Academy to the Ministry of Works."
"Is... is that how it was?" Ning Rong blinked, suddenly feeling something was a bit off, and immediately said, "Wait, what we're talking about is the issue of you not cultivating! Stop dragging up those past events!"
"What kind of person do you think I am?" Yang Ning asked.
"Uh, lofty in ambitions, holding the world in your heart, anxious for the country and the people!" Ning Rong blushed. She had originally wanted to say handsome and dashing, but in the end felt a bit embarrassed and changed it instead. "And possessing peerless talent!"
To put it bluntly, Yang Ning was the most brilliant star in the Yue Kingdom since its founding four hundred years ago. There was no telling how many romantic young maidens dreamed of Yang Ning, and Ning Rong was naturally no exception.
Yang Ning had to admit that these were all facts.
However, this persona was far too dangerous in the Cultivation World, so what Yang Ning needed to do was to make this persona collapse!
"Those were all fake!" Yang Ning shook his head.
"What?"
"Just put on for others to see!" Yang Ning said. "In reality, I'm just an ordinary person who likes tinkering with contraptions. Reading and being an official were all in service of my hobbies."
"Re... really?" Ning Rong was dumbfounded.
Thinking about it carefully, what he said actually made a bit of sense, because although he possessed exceptional literary talent, he hadn't written many poems or essays; most of the time, he was busy tinkering with all sorts of bizarre inventions.
This behavior of passionate invention matched his words.
She had no idea that Yang Ning's initial dream was to become a scientific giant who brought truth to the world.
"Then... then you still shouldn't waste your talent! You clearly have the opportunity to cultivate immortality—could a hobby possibly be more important than cultivation?" Ning Rong asked.
"Let me ask you, what is the purpose of cultivating immortality?"
"Longevity, of course!"
"And what is the purpose of longevity?"
"Uh, to do the things you want to do?" And to grow old together with the person you like!
Yang Ning nodded. "Correct. Longevity is precisely so that one has enough time to do the things one wants to do. I embarked on the path of cultivating immortality purely for the hobby of craftsmanship and ingenuity. If you were to make me abandon this hobby, what remaining meaning would cultivating immortality have for me?"
"This—" Ning Rong was stunned. Could things even be explained this way?
Yet logically, there didn't seem to be any flaws either!
"No!" Ning Rong immediately reacted. "But you aren't even cultivating! Forget about longevity—your lifespan might even be shorter than an ordinary person's. How can you pursue your hobby like this?"
"It's my fault!" Yang Ning looked as though he had just snapped out of a trance. "I was simply too thirsty for knowledge. Ever since I entered the Ascension Academy and discovered the library here, it felt just like a mouse falling into a rice vat, and I couldn't help myself for a moment!"
"So that's how it was!" Ning Rong let out a breath. "I thought you were going to give up cultivation! Even if you love reading, you still need to do it in moderation!"
"I'll pay attention to it!" Yang Ning replied. "Thanks to you coming to remind me, otherwise if things went on like this any longer, my body would have collapsed sooner or later!"
"Mm-hmm, we hail from the same country, so we naturally ought to support each other. If I don't remind you, who else is going to!" Ning Rong smiled. "Put the book down and go back to get some rest first. You can't be like this in the future!"
"Alright!" Yang Ning nodded. "Then I'll be leaving first!"
"Okay!" Ning Rong smiled and clenched her fists, then stared fixedly at Yang Ning until he left the library. A profound sense of immense satisfaction welled up in her heart!
Could this be considered saving a lost youth?
Before you continue