Honor Roll

The students of Class Five might have been a bunch of weirdos, but they certainly weren't stupid. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been Chen Shi'an's classmates.

Uh... wasn't that backward? Who had been here first?

At first, his classmates had assumed Chen Shi'an had transferred into Class Five because of his outstanding grades. Now that misunderstanding had been cleared up: their Daoist Master hadn't even completed compulsory education and needed to start with middle school fundamentals.

As students at Yunqi No. 1 High School, they all knew how hard it was to get in, let alone transfer in midway through the year. You needed either exceptional grades, extraordinary talents, or a very substantial family fortune.

Grades were clearly out for their Daoist Master. As for talents... did practicing Taoism really count as a talent the school recognized?

As for his family fortune... they couldn't quite tell whether their Daoist Master was rich or poor. But from past experience, students who simply bought their way into the school couldn't get placed in an elite class.

After a quick process of elimination, only one possibility remained—their Daoist Master had connections at the very top!

Where was the top of Yunqi No. 1 High School? Where else but with the man sitting in the principal's office?

Besides, he was the only person in class who shared a desk with Lin Meng Qiu. Who was Meng Qiu? Without the principal's arrangements, who could possibly sit beside her? No wonder that rascal Old Liang was so enthusiastic toward their Daoist Master!

With two such formidable figures in their modest-sized class, everyone felt a little suffocated...

Fortunately, their Daoist Master was much easier to get along with than their class monitor. As if they'd found an outlet, everyone redirected all the enthusiasm they would otherwise have shown Lin Meng Qiu toward Chen Shi'an.

"Shi'an! Our class is over here!"

Chen Shi'an had followed his classmates onto the sports field for morning exercises. They were still assembling, and everyone stood in scattered clusters. From left to right were the classes from the first through third years, with Senior Class Five somewhere around the middle.

"Are we lining up?"

"Yeah. One line for boys, one for girls. Just find yourself a spot, Shi'an."

Xu Zihan, the class sports representative, briefly straightened out the lines, then ran to the front to lead the exercises.

Chen Shi'an was relatively tall for his class, so he stood toward the back of the boys' line.

Science classes had fewer girls than boys. Since the lines needed to be even, the extra boys joined the back of the girls' line until both were the same length.

This was Chen Shi'an's first time doing morning exercises, and it felt rather novel.

He glanced around. Heads filled his view, and he couldn't spot Wen Zhixia anywhere. She was probably toward the front of Class Eleven because she was so short.

Lin Meng Qiu, on the other hand, was easy to spot. They were in the same class, after all, and she was tall too. She stood in the girls' line, only a few places diagonally ahead of Chen Shi'an.

Unlike the students around her, who were still chatting, Lin Meng Qiu remained quiet and serious even during morning exercises. She stood like a slender green bamboo beside the water, her shoulders and back perfectly straight yet somehow effortlessly light. Beneath her plain school uniform, her shoulder blades were faintly visible, like the outlines of folded butterfly wings.

Despite her refined, ladylike air, she always felt distant. Even the breeze stirring the tips of her hair seemed gentler and slower than it was around everyone else.

Chen Shi'an noticed that, besides some boys in his own class, plenty from other classes were also casting admiring looks at Lin Meng Qiu. Unfortunately, the girl gazed into empty space, so all those looks were probably wasted...

As Chen Shi'an watched her, Lin Meng Qiu turned her head. Her gaze swept from the boys in the front row all the way back, pausing briefly on his face. She looked no farther and turned away again.

What's that supposed to mean? Was she checking whether I came to do exercises?

Chen Shi'an found it amusing. Even though he was a good judge of people, sometimes he couldn't tell what she was thinking. His master had been right: a woman's thoughts were the hardest to fathom. Best not to tell fortunes for women.

The exercises were about to begin.

The assembled classes began spreading out. Seen from the classroom building, it would have been quite a spectacle. The three or four thousand students on the field spread outward from the center like formations moved by invisible hands. Gaps gradually opened in the once-impenetrable wall of people, and the morning sunlight spilled down from overhead, cutting patches of light and shadow between the moving figures.

In moments, the loose crowd had settled into a neat grid.

The air flowed more freely, and the view became less obstructed.

Chen Shi'an glanced toward Class Eleven again and finally spotted Wen Zhixia through a gap in the crowd.

She was talking to the girl standing behind her.

As a humanities class, Class Eleven had the opposite gender ratio from Class Five. In Class Five, boys filled out the girls' line; in Class Eleven, girls filled out the boys' line.

After a moment's thought, Chen Shi'an asked Zou Xiaokun, who stood ahead of him.

"Xiaokun, what kind of class is Class Eleven?"

"An elite humanities class. Just like ours-the very best!"

Zou Xiaokun was delighted that Chen Shi'an had approached him with a question. He chuckled. "Shi'an, there's nothing about this school I don't know! If there's anything you're unsure about, just ask me!"

So it's an elite class too. Looks like that little chatterbox gets pretty good grades.

"Then how are the classes assigned here?"

"By subject choices and grades. We choose our subjects and get assigned classes in the second semester of first year. There are elite classes, advanced classes, and regular classes. After the big exams at the end of each semester, people get promoted or dropped... Don't worry, Shi'an. They'd kick that idiot Zihan out before they'd ever kick you out."

"..."

"Shi'an, do you know how to do the exercises?"

"What exercises?"

"The Broadcast Exercises. The ones we do at school."

"I've never learned them."

"Then how did you stay healthy at the temple? Running?"

"Seated meditation, controlled breathing, or things like the Eight-Section Brocade, Five-Animal Exercises, and Guiding and Pulling Technique."

As they listened, the boys around Chen Shi'an once again wore expressions that said, That's badass.

"Even breathing can be exercise?"

"Of course. Breath Regulation is an important part of qi cultivation: Qi Absorption, Qi Ingestion, Qi Intake, Qi Swallowing, Qi Circulation, Qi Gathering, upper breathing, lower breathing, full breathing, surging breathing, held breathing, long breathing, deep breathing... Wind-Aspect Observation scatters the mind, Panting-Aspect Observation knots it, and Qi-Aspect Observation tires it. Only Breath-Aspect Observation settles the mind."

"Bro! Take me as your disciple! I've seriously got to learn this!"

Chen Shi'an: "..."

The lads didn't think Chen Shi'an was showing off.

Mastering Taoist teachings and cultivation at such a young age wasn't him trying to act impressive. Most of the time, he simply was impressive!

If they learned even a trick or two from their Daoist Master, wouldn't they look ridiculously cool wherever they went?

Chen Shi'an didn't accept insincere disciples.

The Broadcast Exercises began.

The students on the field performed the prescribed movements in time with the music. Those in the front rows did fairly well, while those in the back were considerably more halfhearted.

Since Chen Shi'an didn't know the routine, he stood and watched for a while. It didn't seem difficult, so he started following along, watching and practicing half a beat behind everyone else.

His assessment... he could only say the exercise was better than nothing.

This routine mostly just got the limbs moving. It was unlike Chen Shi'an's usual practice, which cultivated the mind even more than it trained the body.

After the Broadcast Exercises ended, the students assembled on the field couldn't leave immediately. Instead, they drew back together to wait for the school administrators' speeches.

Today was the first day of school, and Principal Lin was the one speaking onstage.

Principal Lin rarely gave speeches. The students preferred him to the other administrators simply because he understood how tiring it was for them to stand there. He generally kept things to a few brief remarks.

Vice Principal Zhou, however, was absolute crap. Once he got his hands on the microphone, he wouldn't leave the stage for at least half an hour!

As Principal Lin's own daughter, how did Lin Meng Qiu feel about watching her father speak onstage?

Curious, Chen Shi'an observed her and discovered that the normally expressionless Lin Meng Qiu kept making little eye-rolling faces. She hadn't even lifted her head to glance at the platform...

Principal Lin, meanwhile, occasionally looked toward Senior Class Five to check on his darling daughter...

Fortunately, Vice Principal Zhou didn't get the microphone today. Principal Lin briefly welcomed the new first-years, encouraged the second- and third-years to work hard, then had the PE teachers organize their departure.

Only then did the quiet crowd erupt into chatter again.

There were only so many stairway entrances. Some students at the rear, closer to the classroom building, immediately took off running upstairs. The slower ones could only get stuck with the crowd at the entrances and shuffle up in line.

Chen Shi'an was among the slower ones. With the stairway entrance completely jammed, he didn't try to squeeze in.

He happened to notice the Honor Roll on the noticeboard and stopped to take a look.

[Science]

[First place: Senior Class Five, Lin Meng Qiu—Chinese: 136, mathematics: 150, English: 140, physics: 95, chemistry: 93, biology: 92, total: 706]

Although grades weren't the only measure of a person, when it came to academic achievement, nothing was more straightforward than rankings.

Chen Shi'an didn't have much sense of what the scores meant, but a comparison made it clear that Lin Meng Qiu's grades were excellent. She was a full fifteen points ahead of second place. Almost everyone in the top ten had scored above 670, and it took at least 600 to make the Honor Roll-the top hundred.

Now that his master was gone, only he and Fat Ink remained at Pure Dust Temple. Fat Ink did nothing but eat and sleep all day; not disgracing the temple was already enough to ask. Restoring Pure Dust Temple's glory rested entirely on Chen Shi'an. Naturally, he didn't want to embarrass the temple with terrible grades, but he had only just enrolled. Academic results weren't something he could rush.

Still, without a clear mind, one could not perceive the Way; without firm resolve, one could achieve nothing. He needed a goal.

Of course, Chen Shi'an wasn't going to settle for merely making the top hundred.

He stared at Lin Meng Qiu's ranking and subject scores for quite a while...

My little deskmate wasn't being honest. She said seven hundred points would get me first place, but she hadn't counted herself...

Hah. What an arrogant deskmate. Couldn't she be a little more humble, like me?

After looking over the science rankings, Chen Shi'an stepped sideways to the humanities Honor Roll.

The first name that greeted him was so familiar-

[Humanities]

[First place: second-year Class Eleven, Wen Zhixia-Chinese: 141, mathematics: 138, English: 146, politics: 89, history: 92, geography: 88, total: 689]

Wen Zhixia's chirpy manner was completely different from Lin Meng Qiu's serious demeanor. Ever since they had met on the bus yesterday, she had complained plenty to Chen Shi'an about how hard and exhausting studying was. One moment she envied Taoist priests; the next, she envied cats, wailing, "Aaaah! ┗|｀O′|┛ Aaaah~~ I don't want to study..."

Chen Shi'an had thought her grades were average at best. Yet here she was-when had she quietly become number one in humanities?!

Little chatterbox, you weren't being honest either!