The Clown and the Two Goodbyes

"Wait here. I'll go get the boss!"

After getting beaten up twice, Dong Lintian, his face swollen and bruised, shouted indignantly before fleeing the scene.

Weng Daimin looked at Long Chen, who had also taken a beating, and said sympathetically, "It's all your fault, Liushuang!"

"What does it have to do with me?" Xue Liushuang was utterly baffled.

"You jinxed us!"

Xue Liushuang: "..."

Though the process had been a little winding, they had ultimately passed the assessment. Even though Dong Yi'an had suffered two crushing defeats in a row, Zhang Hanlin still passed.

"Liushuang, this works out perfectly. Take these junior students on a tour of the academy."

Xue Liushuang hadn't expected that coming to watch the matches would land her an assignment, but she didn't object. She simply nodded.

"Follow me."

She gathered the long hair over her shoulder and turned to walk out. Her icy blue eyes lingered on Shen Nanxun for a moment before returning to the path ahead. She said nothing more and continued leading them along the academy's tree-lined paths.

The campus of Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy was quieter than she had imagined. Along both sides of the tree-lined paths, statues of outstanding faculty members and graduates from generations past appeared and disappeared among the shadows of the trees. The stone contours had been smoothed by the passage of time.

Xue Liushuang walked at the front, occasionally glancing back to make sure no one had fallen behind. As they crossed the central plaza, an especially imposing statue stood before the fountain.

Na'er tilted her head back to look at it. Sunlight shone through from behind the statue, making it hard for her to see the person's features. Still, the outline seemed strangely familiar. She tugged at Shen Nanxun's sleeve, her cowlick bobbing with the movement. "Why does that statue look a little familiar?"

"That's Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao, founder of the Spirit Pagoda ten thousand years ago." Xue Liushuang had stopped at some point and was standing before the statue's pedestal, gazing up at the stone-carved face, blurred by years of wind and weather.

"Spirit Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao once spent some time at the academy as an exchange student. Every year, new students come to see this statue. It's not so you'll remember his achievements, but so you'll remember..."

She paused. "Spirit Ice Douluo once stood here too. Like you, he started out as a new student and fought his way up, match after match. He did it. So can you."

Xue Liushuang turned around, ready to lead them onward, but suddenly paused. She had heard the conversation behind her. More precisely, she had heard the name that had slipped from the silver-haired girl's lips.

"Shen Nanxun, who do you think is stronger, Spirit Ice Douluo or Na'er?"

"You are."

Xue Liushuang turned back, her gaze falling on the black-haired boy whose sleeve was being tugged by the silver-haired girl. His face was expressionless.

She hadn't paid attention to his name before. Along the way, she'd simply called him "you" or "you all," never thinking to ask. But now that she'd heard those three syllables, her pupils contracted ever so slightly.

Shen Nanxun—the Shen Nanxun who had single-handedly defeated all seven members of Shrek head-on at the Tianhai Alliance Grand Competition. Coming back to herself, she looked at him again, her voice calm but tinged with unconcealed curiosity. "Your name is Shen Nanxun?"

"Mm." Shen Nanxun nodded casually.

Xue Liushuang understood now why even Long Chen had been defeated so easily.

Shen Nanxun was first on the Youth Genius Ranking, the eldest young master of the Shen Family, a heaven-favored prodigy. Even those who had never met him had heard of his achievements. He was especially famous in Ming Capital, and at Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy.

After all, defeating Shrek Academy was what Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy most wanted to see. It was also the ultimate goal of every generation of Sun Moon students.

And now, that ultimate goal had been achieved with ease by a boy who hadn't even enrolled yet—defeating an older team despite being outnumbered.

As Xue Liushuang thought about it, she suddenly felt that Long Chen and Dong Lintian hadn't just deserved that beating. They might even have gotten off lightly.

At the Tianhai Alliance Grand Competition, Shen Nanxun and Gu Yue had faced seven opponents alone. All seven were elite members of the Shrek Outer Court, with three rings at minimum. Their captain, Yu Chen, was a Soul Ancestor of over rank forty. Shen Nanxun, at the time, had been only rank thirty-two. Now he stood on the campus of Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy in a new student uniform, his sleeve tugged by a silver-haired girl with a cowlick, expressionlessly telling her she was stronger than Spirit Ice Douluo.

The more you knew about a gap like that, the more suffocating it felt.

She withdrew her gaze and kept those thoughts to herself. As a senior from the higher division, she felt she had to maintain at least a little dignity in front of the new students.

So she simply started walking again, her tone returning to its usual cool brevity. "Let's go. The Mimicry Cultivation Ground is up ahead. You'll be spending plenty of time there."

Na'er tugged on Shen Nanxun's sleeve. She lowered her voice, though she seemed entirely unaware that she hadn't lowered it at all. "Shen Nanxun, does that senior know you? The way she looked at you just now was exactly like the way Xu Xiaoyan looked at you the first time she saw you."

"I don't know her." Shen Nanxun kept his eyes forward.

Walking ahead, Xue Liushuang cleared her throat. "I just wanted to challenge you to a match."

"Huh?"

Shen Nanxun blinked, eyes wide. He'd been away from Ming Capital for four years. Had things gotten this open while he was gone?

You could just ask someone out like that?

As soon as the words left Xue Liushuang's mouth, she realized how they sounded. The tips of her ears flushed red. She took a deep breath and turned around, keeping her expression cool and composed, though she spoke twice as fast as usual. "I mean a sword match. Sword, as in the weapon. I have a Sword Martial Soul, and I really want to test myself against your Angel Sword."

Behind them, Ye Xi's muffled laughter did nothing to hide itself. Na'er was even less restrained: she tugged on Shen Nanxun's sleeve and gave it a shake, her face full of glee. "What were you thinking?"

"Nothing." Shen Nanxun's expression didn't change. "I accept."

Xue Liushuang paused, then clasped her hands and gave a crisp, formal salute for a sparring match. "Then tomorrow. At the Mimicry Cultivation Ground. Xue Liushuang requests your guidance."

Just as they were still touring the academy, the sound of footsteps came from a distance.

"Boss, it's this new student! He deliberately beat me up during the assessment!" Dong Lintian covered his still-bruised face and came charging over with someone in tow. Behind him walked a tall girl with light blue hair and delicate, striking features. She wore the higher-division uniform of Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy and had her hands in her pockets. Dong Lintian was dragging her along as she strolled toward them at an unhurried pace.

"Dong Lintian, this new student you mentioned had better actually be worth my time." The girl lazily rolled her neck, the sleeve of her higher-division uniform swaying slightly with the movement.

"It's him!" Dong Lintian stood beside Xue Liushuang and pointed over Shen Nanxun's shoulder at the black-haired boy speaking with Long Chen in the distance. "The one in black! He deliberately went too hard during the assessment. He beat up both me and Long Chen!"

Shen Nanxun tilted his head slightly, the corner of his mouth curving up. His tone was casual. "Second Sister, are you going to avenge him?"

The one Dong Lintian had called boss was none other than his second sister, Shen Xing.

Dong Lintian's smug grin froze. He stared blankly at the two of them.

"I'm the clown here?"

A cool breeze swept past.

Shen Xing pulled her hand from her pocket and patted Dong Lintian on the shoulder. The pats weren't hard, but each one made Dong Lintian's legs grow a little weaker. When she finished, she ignored him and walked past Xue Liushuang, straight up to Shen Nanxun. She reached out, pinched his left cheek, and tugged it outward.

"You little rascal. You've been in Ming Capital for days, just holed up in the old house? You didn't even come visit your second sister? Hm?"

"But I came now, didn't I? And there are so many people here. Show me a little face." Shen Nanxun's cheek was pinched, making his words muffled, but he still sounded perfectly justified.

"You still want to save face?" Shen Xing pinched harder, making Shen Nanxun hiss. Only then did she release him. She ruffled his hair vigorously, mussing it up completely.

Then she turned to Na'er, bent down, and gently pressed her high, perky cowlick flat. She smiled, eyes crinkling. "Na'er's gotten so tall. Did you miss your second sister?"

"I did!" Na'er's cowlick sprang back up as she threw herself into Shen Xing's arms. Shen Xing caught her and ruffled her hair, then straightened up to face the group.

The boss's little brother... So that meant...

Dong Lintian's pupils shrank. The person in front of him was Shen Nanxun, the eldest young master of the Shen Family and the number one on the Youth Genius Ranking.

"Damn!"

He'd really kicked an iron plate this time!

He wanted to slip away, but Shen Xing's voice came from nearby.

"Dong Lintian, come have dinner with us."

The restaurant Shen Xing picked was a famous hot pot restaurant in Ming Capital. The red, oily broth bubbled away, sending the aroma of chilies and Sichuan peppercorns commandingly through the entire private room. Yet the atmosphere inside was even more complicated than the spicy broth.

Dong Lintian huddled in a corner seat, his chopsticks hovering in midair, unsure whether to pick something up or put them down. His younger brother, Dong Yi'an, sat diagonally across from him, the entire table between them.

Shen Xing sat at the head of the table, with Shen Nanxun on her left and Na'er on her right. She was swishing a piece of beef tripe in the pot.

Xue Liushuang sat quietly by the window. Every so often, she picked up a bit of leafy green, or glanced at Shen Nanxun across from her as he peeled shrimp. Ye Xi rolled a piece of beef aorta three times in her sesame oil dipping sauce and ate in silence.

"Little brother."

The silence broke.

Dong Yi'an looked up at Dong Lintian, who had stood and raised his drink. The bruises on his face hadn't faded yet, but he still forced out three words with great effort.

"I'm sorry."

"I went too far before. I won't bother you again at the academy. This drink... is for you." He tipped his head back and drained it in one go, then set the glass down heavily, his face flushed red.

Dong Yi'an looked at his brother's multicolored face, fell silent for two seconds, then picked up his own drink and finished it. He set the glass down and gave a slight nod. The two brothers looked at each other across the steaming, bubbling pot, then both looked away at the same time.

"All right, all right, let's eat!" Shen Xing waved her hand grandly and added two more plates of fatty beef to the pot.

After that meal, what amazed Xue Liushuang and the others most was Na'er's incredible appetite. She nearly ate all the ingredients in the hot pot restaurant by herself.

With Shen Xing throwing her weight around, Dong Lintian and Dong Yi'an temporarily repaired their relationship as brothers.

When the meal ended, a call from a higher-division teacher summoned Shen Xing away. Before leaving, she ruffled Shen Nanxun's hair, pinched Na'er's cheek, then disappeared around the street corner in a flurry.

Shen Nanxun and the others walked toward the academy along the pedestrian street outside the hot pot restaurant. Night was deepening, and the lights of Ming Capital came on one after another in the dusk.

When they passed the central plaza, Xue Liushuang suddenly stopped. She looked at the enormous holographic notice screen at the edge of the plaza, her icy blue eyes narrowing slightly. Rows of bold red characters scrolled across the screen.

"Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy's 132nd Freshman Ranking Competition. Registration closes in four days."

"Freshman Ranking Competition." She turned to the new students who had just passed the assessment. "You've arrived at the perfect time. It's the first official competition after new students enroll each year, and anyone can sign up. The final rankings determine priority access to the Mimicry Cultivation Ground and borrowing privileges at the library. More importantly, the top three earn the right to pick one item from the academy's 'Sun Moon Pavilion.' Cultivation manuals, Soul Tools, pills, or rare materials you could use when forging Battle Armor in the future."

Rare materials. Shen Nanxun and Na'er exchanged a glance. Divine Craftsman Zhen Hua had said they still needed at least half the Dazzling Iron Gold. The rest could be found either at auctions or in the academy's Sun Moon Pavilion.

After more than ten thousand years of development, Sun Moon Imperial Soul Master Academy had managed to preserve quite a few treasures.

"However, the Freshman Ranking Competition uses a points system. Each new student is randomly matched in one-on-one bouts. A win earns one point, a loss deducts one point, and a draw earns or loses nothing. The top one hundred make the final ranking. The competition lasts three days, and during that time no new student may enter the Mimicry Cultivation Ground for extra solo training. The idea is to test your ability to adapt to sustained, high-intensity combat."

At this point, Xue Liushuang suddenly took half a step forward. Her icy blue eyes met Shen Nanxun's directly. "Before the competition begins, tomorrow, at the Mimicry Cultivation Ground. Don't forget the match you promised me."

The girl was so devoted to the sword that she reminded him of Ye Xinglan. It seemed that sword wielders all took this path especially seriously. Two thousand years ago, there had been Sword Douluo Chen Xin; ten thousand years ago, during the era of Spirit Ice Douluo, there had been the sword fanatic Ji Juechen; and in this era, he had encountered Sword Martial Soul wielders Xue Liushuang and Ye Xinglan.

Was the path of the sword really so captivating?

Xue Liushuang's figure disappeared at the end of the tree-lined path, and Dong Lintian took the opportunity to slip away too.

On the way back, Ye Xi and Dong Yi'an walked in front, enthusiastically discussing something. It sounded like they were talking about which timeslots were least crowded at the Mimicry Cultivation Ground.

Na'er followed behind Shen Nanxun. Her cowlick nearly poked him in the back several times as she lowered her head and carefully measured the width of his shoulders and waist with her fingers.

"What are you doing?" Shen Nanxun asked without turning around.

"Taking your measurements." Na'er sounded perfectly justified. "They're needed for the Battle Armor design."

"Shouldn't you be figuring out how to make my piece taste good?"

"Not at all!" The girl sounded indignant at being found out.

The four of them had just reached the academy's front gate when Shen Nanxun suddenly stopped. Na'er couldn't stop in time, and her cowlick poked him squarely in the back. She peered out from behind him, and then her cowlick stiffened too.

Two people stood beside one of the stone pillars at the academy gate. The one on the left wore a pink hoodie and held a bulging backpack pressed down by a Star Wheel Ice Staff. She waved at them, her icy blue eyes bright.

"Na'er! Shen Nanxun!"