Waiting

Waiting

Chen Zui nearly failed to sheathe his blade in time. "What else could it be?"

"I'd believe it if you said you were eighty-eight! No, can't you be a little less rough around the edges? Tomorrow's the day you choose a master. At least tidy up your appearance, will you? Anyone who didn't know better would think you'd been picking up trash all the way here... Wait, seriously?"

Chen Zui solemnly explained, "I just... didn't have spirit stones to stay at an inn, so I slept out in the wild." When he had been home, his mother would remind him. After leaving home, he had forgotten. "Am I really that rough-looking? How come I can't feel it?"

"Really! Extremely! Incredibly rough-looking! If you don't believe me, ask everyone else!"

Chen Zui looked toward the others. When he saw them all nod in unison, realization suddenly dawned on him. "No wonder no one wanted to team up with me during the Mountain Examination. So this was why. My mother said people outside don't like messy people. But I use a cleansing art every day."

...But you looked like you hadn't bathed in three years.

"How can a cleansing art replace bathing? No! Go take a bath right this instant! I have a Water-Fire Dual Spiritual Root—I'll heat your bathwater!"

The melon-eating onlookers: ...That wasn't how Water-Fire Dual Spiritual Roots were supposed to be used, hey!

Bian Chunchou forced Chen Zui to wash up. Perhaps Chen Zui had grown used to being pressed into it by his mother at home, because he actually did not refuse. Once he had been thoroughly cleaned and fixed up, he emerged again—

"Wow, handsome guy, who are you?"

"No way? This is Chen Zui?"

"If he'd looked like this during the Mountain Examination, I would've been all—hey, teammate!"

Chen Zui wore Yonglu Mountain's disciple uniform. He was exceptionally tall, and after years of practicing the blade, his muscles were remarkably well-developed. Together with his thick brows, large eyes, and intensely valiant features, to put it in modern terms, he had hormones practically pouring off him.

He was still the same person, with the same blade and the same clothes, but... he was completely not the same person anymore!

But how should one put it? He looked even less like eighteen now.

"Chen Zuizui, what exactly did you grow up eating?" Having held it in all day, Bian Chunchou finally could not resist asking.

Though so many people were watching him, Chen Zui showed not the slightest discomfort. He carried his blade over and sat down. "What did I eat? My mother wasn't good at cooking. I grew up eating Grain-Repelling Pills. What's wrong?"

"How is that possible? I don't believe it."

Bian Chunchou touched his barely noticeable muscles, then slunk sourly over to Wen Xu's side. "Tell me, how long would I have to train to get a figure so good that even thick clothes can't hide it?"

"What do you want to train into that for? Do you want to practice the blade too?" Wen Xu was a scholar, with a typical scholar's sense of beauty. To him, that kind of knotted-muscle physique was the standard equipment of military generals.

He imagined Bian Chunchou covered in muscles. Uh, how should he put it? It would be pretty strange.

"No! What man wouldn't want eight-pack abs?" Sadly, he only had one round belly.

Abs? No one else could see them anyway. Wen Xu found it impossible to understand. "As long as you're happy."

After all, he had already decided to keep pretending to be blind. As long as he could not see, it did not matter what Bian Chunchou trained himself into. Even if it was an eyesore, it would only sting other people's eyes.

"Wen Xu, is Wen Xu here? Someone from Pill Peak is looking for you outside."

Pill Peak? Elder Zhan? Could he be here to examine Wen Xu's eyes?

Wen Xu went outside, and someone soon came forward to meet him. A breeze drifted over. There was no pill fragrance, nor any scent of grass and trees, but there were several wisps of metallic fire aura. He instinctively stepped back, but the newcomer flashed directly behind him. "Little blind one, you're a little too perceptive. It's my fault—I actually came over without concealing my aura."

"May I ask who you are, sir?" Anyone who could appear on Yonglu Mountain should be someone from within the sect, right?

Junior Uncle Zheng said with a smile, "Me? I'm from Artifact Refining Peak. I came to give you a little gift."

Artifact Refining Peak? Giving him a gift? Why?

"Here, this folding fan is fated with you. It's yours." After Zheng Jin spoke, he stuffed the fan in his hand into the little blind one's grasp. "This fan was something I made on a whim. I didn't use any particularly good materials; I originally meant to use it for fanning myself cool in summer. But I never got around to using it. If you find some good materials in the future, I can reforge it for you."

Wen Xu did not dare accept such a gift. "This fan is too valuable. This junior fears..."

"I don't like hearing that. If you don't want it, just throw it away." Zheng Jin directly covered his ears, acting so childishly that he did not resemble a Nascent Soul True Lord at all.

Wen Xu thought that this might be Yonglu Mountain extending goodwill toward him. If he refused again, it would probably be improper instead. Truthfully, when he had handed over this folding fan, he had felt deeply reluctant to part with it. He had even asked the disciple collecting magical artifacts whether there was any way to buy the fan back.

"Does this fan have a name?"

"That's more like it. Of course it doesn't have a name. You can name it yourself." Since it was his own possession, he could name it himself. There was naturally no need to mention the name Calm the Storm.

Wen Xu thought for a moment, then said, "How about calling it 'Windfold'?"

"Windfold Fan—nice, nice. Perhaps this name will one day resound throughout the cultivation world." Zheng Jin smiled. Sensing familiar spiritual power fluctuations behind him, he immediately shot up into the clouds. "Little blind one, no more chatting for now. I just escaped from the Discipline Hall. If I don't run now, they'll catch me and drag me back!"

Wen Xu: ...He escaped from the Discipline Hall?! He had accepted the folding fan too soon!!

Zheng Jin had barely fled when Zhao Qi came chasing after him. Seeing the folding fan in Wen Xu's hand, Zhao Qi understood at once, yet deliberately asked, "Where is the person who gave you that folding fan? Did you see which way he ran?"

That voice... belonged to Elder Zhao, who had presided over the Mountain Examination. Wen Xu was silent for a moment. "In reply to Elder, I cannot see, and my cultivation is weak."

Zhao Qi: ...

Meanwhile, in the Council Hall on Sect Master Peak, Yonglu Mountain's elders with real authority were holding a small discussion over which of them would win the Mutated Wind Spiritual Root genius.

Waiting

The Yonglu Mountain Range had an entire Spiritual Vein running through it, and Yonglu Mountain lay where the vein's spiritual energy gathered most densely. Cultivating within the sect allowed one to gather spiritual energy at least twenty percent faster than outside, let alone atop Spiritual Eyes covered by the sect's grand formation.

Otherwise, why would cultivators sharpen their heads and squeeze their way into the five great sects? There were reasons for it. Even outer sect disciples received poorer treatment and resources than inner sect disciples, but once they entered the mountain gates, they were already ahead of at least eighty percent of the cultivation world's low-level cultivators.