The Eve of the Tournament (2)

Lan Jingqi's name was thunderous within the Profound Heaven Sect. Shen Yuxi was naturally no stranger to his great reputation. It was not because the original novel had placed any particular emphasis on him, but mainly because of the "legends" passed from mouth to mouth within the sect.

Whenever a disciple conducted a transaction at the Merit Hall and voiced the slightest complaint about the appraisal, the accounting disciple on duty would pull a long face and say earnestly:

"Be content, Junior Brother. The sect has already been as benevolent as possible! If you'd been born a few years earlier and caught Senior Brother Lan in charge, spiritual fruits of your quality would be valued at half a fruit only if the old man was in a good mood! You want them counted as whole fruits? Sure—deduct the cultivation labor, spiritual soil losses, and spiritual spring irrigation costs one by one first!"

As time went by, the words "Back when Senior Brother Lan was around..." became familiar to nearly every disciple. Though most younger disciples had never seen his true face, everyone had heard of Senior Brother Lan's "heroic exploits." His formidable reputation for meticulous calculation and iron-faced impartiality had sunk deep into everyone's hearts.

Trying to squeeze a bargain out of this man's hands was truly daydreaming beneath a blue sky in broad daylight.

Shen Yuxi even noticed that not long after the troublemaker began shouting, a disciple standing behind Lan Jingqi had quietly taken out a grayish, dull-glowing Recording Pearl.

It was the kind Shen Yuxi had once bought wholesale—the lowest-grade sort, crudely made, usually capable of only one use before shattering on its own. Precisely because of that, the images it recorded could never be altered, so it was often used as one-time evidence.

Had it been