Under normal circumstances, a question had to be answered correctly within ten breaths.
Yet the topology problem before Chen Xu, said to contain the Daoist principles of yin and yang, actually allowed a full quarter-hour to answer.
Chen Xu stood upon the bright, glowing Moon Lake, stunned for a moment.
Topology was a mode of thought that ordinary people found difficult to comprehend. Many people might achieve excellent results in other fields of mathematics, yet still fail to understand topology.
A classic introduction to topology was, for instance, the Möbius strip.
Through its wondrous, twisted continuous transformations and its non-orientability, it became a ring that could never possess two boundaries at once.
Just as those outside topology could never step inside and behold the scenery within.
In his previous life, Chen Xu had been an outsider to topology as well!
Standing on the lake's surface, he told himself to calm down. His brain began whirling at high speed, and his powerful Divine Soul sent his memories retracing their course.
Everything relevant he had ever learned now arrayed itself in his mind, returning over and over to be chewed upon.
Divine Soul, another point!
[Divine Soul: 27+]
That was right. Chen Xu still chose to add another point to his Divine Soul to aid himself.
He had not used it before because he felt the time had not yet come, believing he ought to first develop his own abilities properly.
But these were his own attribute points. When the moment truly demanded it, he would add points as needed—Chen Xu would not hesitate.
The moment his Divine Soul increased, Chen Xu suddenly felt as though a sea of stars had exploded within his mind.
Starlight glittered across the heavens, every single point perhaps an inspiration of his.
Chen Xu's thoughts raced at breakneck speed, yet he failed to notice that his face had turned deathly pale in an instant.
His rapidly whirring brain was also swiftly consuming his body's energy!
Cui Yunqi, behind him, noticed this. To his shame, he found himself briefly delighted.
But he quickly admonished himself in secret: Cui Yunqi, Cui Yunqi, if you want to defeat him, defeat him with your skill. What is there to be pleased about because he has suffered a temporary setback?
If one's opponent was too weak, victory held no sense of accomplishment.
Take those students from Jichuan County outside the Bamboo Grove—every last one was mediocre. Cui Yunqi could not even be bothered to give them a second glance.
And take the few friends who had come to Jichuan with Cui Yunqi this time. Though they were his friends, every one of them lagged noticeably behind Cui Yunqi in every aspect of learning.
Though Cui Yunqi associated with many people, he sometimes still felt profoundly lonely.
A song too lofty found few who could join it. Such was the way of it.
Cui Yunqi answered one question with every step, scooping up one little moon after another.
Before long, he had answered twelve questions correctly in a row and was only one step away from Chen Xu.
Those twelve questions came in every conceivable form.
Some concerned mathematics, some the classics, some couplets, some poetry.
There was even a rather profound question-and-answer problem on the Book of Changes, yet Cui Yunqi answered them all with effortless fluency.
He grew increasingly confident. The high-spirited bearing he had worn upon entering the Bamboo Grove earlier gradually returned to him without his noticing.
Having completed twelve steps, Cui Yunqi was about to bend down and scoop up a moon for the thirteenth question.
Suddenly, the Jade Plate-like Moonlight Sprite bounced over and said, "Cui Yunqi, you do not need to scoop up the thirteenth question. Your thirteenth question is the same one as Chen Xu's."
Cui Yunqi froze, then asked in confusion, "The same question? You mean I have to answer his question too? Then the time..."
"Of course you will also be given a quarter-hour. The timing starts now. Would you like to try? Answer this correctly, and you may go see Mr. Zhou."
Cui Yunqi was instantly overjoyed. Saying no more nonsense, he hurriedly focused his gaze on the question.
When he first looked at it, he thought: This seemingly endless trial is finally about to end.
Chen Xu had pondered for so long without answering; clearly, he simply could not solve this problem. If Cui Yunqi, arriving later, overtook him and produced the solution before that scholar from a poor family, would that not let Mr. Zhou see clearly the gap between people?
But Cui Yunqi's wandering thoughts lasted only a single breath. Once he saw what the question ahead actually said—
No, Cui Yunqi felt that he could not make out the question at all!
"Long ago, Grand Void Daoist refined the Yin Yang Twin Jades into pendants, the yang pendant shaped like the Li Trigram..." Cui Yunqi recognized every character, yet once they joined together, every one of them twisted like a demon.
Cui Yunqi could not understand it. He could not comprehend it.
He tried to read the entire question aloud, hoping to deepen his understanding that way.
But as each character left his mouth, he vaguely felt that what he uttered was not the language of the human world.
How was this a question?
This was plainly an illusory calamity descending from beyond the heavens, ghosts walking the endless void, demonic fiends of Baleful Intent amidst the mortal world.
Cui Yunqi's teeth chattered, and sweat poured from him like slurry.
The cool sensation that had formed when the pill entered his stomach now seemed to have turned into hellish molten magma, crashing wildly through his body and wreaking havoc.
"No, no, I have to see it clearly. I have to understand it!"
"I cannot lose. I cannot retreat."
"I am Cui Yunqi. I am the Cui family's Qilin Child, an outstanding talent of Cloud River, a genius of this age."
"How could I possibly fail to understand even one question?"
Yet he simply could not understand it.
Not only could he not understand it, he also vaguely sensed a terrible, indescribable earth-shaking upheaval.
It was as though heaven and earth were about to collapse, and war had erupted in an instant.
The neighing of soldiers and horses came from nowhere, crashing through Cloud River City.
A savage, ferocious general, like an asura, grinned and roared amid the escort of a thousand troops and ten thousand horses. "In the Yonghui years, all under heaven falls into chaos. Heroes should be men like us... Hahaha! Kill—"
With a thunderous crash, the Cui family gates were easily breached by the rebel soldiers.
Cui Yunqi desperately warned himself, "No, that is wrong. No, none of this is real. It is fake, fake, fake!"
The willpower he had cultivated over many years suddenly raised a current of clear qi from his dantian. At the instant that clear qi surged upward, Cui Yunqi fiercely swept away the illusion before his eyes.
His eyes widened. Just as he was about to rejoice at having broken free of the illusion, he suddenly heard someone beside him seemingly say, "This student answers..."
Chen Xu—it was Chen Xu!
That scholar from a poor family answered, "The yang pendant has three apertures, the yin pendant five pivots. Pass the second pivot of the yin pendant through the eastern aperture of the yang pendant..."
What was he saying?
Cui Yunqi wondered.
He must be answering at random. He had lingered there for so long; he surely could not understand the question either.
An illusion seemed about to rise before Cui Yunqi's eyes again, while his ears buzzed into a blur.
As he struggled fiercely against the noise, a clear, gentle voice suddenly fell like moonlight. With a smile, it said slowly, "Wonderful. This is precisely the answer that should be given."
What?
Cui Yunqi seemed not to have reacted.
Only a moment later did the Moonlight Sprite say in delighted, crisp tones, "Ah, Chen Xu, you got it right! Hurry forward, then. Mr. Zhou is waiting for you."
Cui Yunqi could no longer hold it in. A mouthful of bloody sweetness burst from his throat.
Before you continue