Waiting

Chen Zui nearly failed to sheath his blade in time. "What else?"

"I'd believe it if you said you were eighty-eight! No, can't you tidy yourself up a little? Tomorrow's the day you choose a master. At least straighten 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." Back home, his mother would remind him, but after leaving home, he had forgotten. "Am I really that sloppy? Why can't I tell?"

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

Chen Zui looked at the others. When he saw them all nodding in unison, realization dawned on him. "No wonder no one wanted to team up with me during the Mountain Examination. So that was why. My mother said people outside don't like messy people. I use a cleaning spell every day, though."

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

"How can a cleaning spell replace a bath?! No! Go bathe right this instant! I have a Fire-Water Spiritual Root—I'll heat your bathwater!"

The crowd watching the spectacle: ...That wasn't how you used a Water-Fire Dual Spiritual Root, hey!

Bian Chunchou pressed Chen Zui into taking a bath. Perhaps he was used to being pressed into it by his mother at home, because he actually did not refuse. Once he had been thoroughly tidied up and 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 gone—hey there, teammate!"

Chen Zui wore Yonglu Mountain's disciple robes. He was exceptionally tall, and from years of blade training, his muscles were remarkably well-developed. Combined with his thick brows, large eyes, and intensely heroic features, to put it in modern terms, his hormones practically came rushing at them.

The person was still the same person, the blade was still the same blade, and the clothes were still the same clothes, but... he was completely different.

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

"Chen Zui-Zui, what exactly did you grow up eating?" After holding it in all day, Bian Chunchou finally could not help asking.

Though so many people were staring at him, Chen Zui did not seem the least bit uncomfortable. He sat down with his blade in hand. "Eating what? My mother wasn't good at cooking. I grew up eating Grain-Repelling Pills. Why?"

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

Bian Chunchou touched his barely noticeable muscles and, feeling sour, slipped over to Wen Xu-Xu's side. "Tell me, how long would I have to train to get a body so good that even thick clothes can't hide it?"

"Why do you want to train yourself into that? 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, muscular physique was the standard equipment of military generals.

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

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

Abs? No one but himself could see them anyway. Wen Xu could not 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 hurt 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 stepped outside, and someone quickly came over to greet him. A Clear Breeze drifted past, carrying neither pill fragrance nor the scent of grass and wood, but several wisps of golden fire aura. He instinctively took a step back, but the newcomer flashed directly behind him. "Little blind man, you're a bit too perceptive. That's on me—I actually came over without concealing my aura."

"May I ask who you are?" Anyone who could appear on Yonglu Mountain ought to be someone from within the sect.

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 has an affinity with you. Take it." After speaking, Zheng Jin stuffed the fan in his hand into the little blind man's grasp. "This fan was something I made on a whim. I didn't use any good materials; I originally intended to use it for cool breezes in summer, but never got around to it. If you come across good materials in the future, I can forge it again for you."

But Wen Xu did not dare accept such a gift. "This fan is far 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, so childish he did not resemble a Nascent Soul True Lord at all.

Wen Xu thought, Could this be Yonglu Mountain extending goodwill to him? If he refused again, it might instead seem improper. Truth be told, when he had handed over this folding fan, he had been quite reluctant. 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—just give it one yourself." It was his own possession, so he could name it himself. There was naturally no need to mention the name Calm the Storm.

After thinking for a moment, Wen Xu said, "How about calling it 'Windfold'?"

"Windfold Fan. Not bad, not bad. Perhaps this name will one day resound throughout the Cultivation Realm." Zheng Jin smiled. Sensing a familiar fluctuation of spiritual power behind him, he immediately shot up into the clouds. "Little blind man, no more chatting for now. I just escaped from the Discipline Hall—if I don't run, they'll catch me and drag me back!"

Wen Xu: ...He escaped from the Discipline Hall?! He 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, he 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... it was Elder Zhao, who had overseen the Mountain Examination. Wen Xu fell silent for a moment. "In reply to Elder, I cannot see, and my cultivation is also shallow."

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.

Chapter 16: Waiting

The Yonglu Mountain Range had an entire Spiritual Vein running through it, and Yonglu Mountain sat precisely where the spiritual energy of that vein gathered most densely. Cultivating within the sect allowed one to gather spiritual energy at least twenty percent faster than outside, not to mention atop the Spiritual Eye covered by the sect's grand formation.

Otherwise, why did cultivators sharpen their heads and squeeze into the Five Major Sects? There were reasons for it. Even Outer Sect disciples received fewer resources and worse treatment than Inner Sect disciples, but once they entered the mountain gate, they were already ahead of at least eighty percent of the Cultivation Realm's low-level cultivators.