The Legendary Father and Mother

The Petulant Test Paper read out the answers word by word, and Xie Yu copied them down word by word.

From time to time, he and the paper exchanged a few compliments, chatting happily.

Time flew by.

Xie Yu even felt a little lost. This exam, such a momentous event in the original owner's life, had ended the moment the paper flew away.

There was no second or third exam, no complicated array of subjects or additional tests. This exam, for which someone had taken drugs and died suddenly, ended just like that, without fanfare, when the bell rang.

Exam hall 17401 was right in Pinecone Town. It was essentially a vacant auditorium provided by the government offices, so there was a small stage at the front.

On the stage, the mage invigilators from the provincial education department gathered and arranged everyone's papers with wind elemental magic. They then carefully sealed all the papers and affixed anti-divination gold-threaded paper printed uniformly across the kingdom.

The mage invigilators rigorously completed every step and showed all the candidates that the papers had been sealed before allowing them to leave.

Although the vast majority of candidates understood neither the magical principles behind this complicated procedure nor why it could protect everyone's papers, the young people of Pinecone Town who filled the hall mostly had clear, innocent eyes and didn't care about any of it.

Compared with his peers in town, Xie Yu could be considered lucky and accomplished. His family could afford to spend money on his magical education, and he had at least studied seriously and memorized a great deal.

As the papers were collected, Xie Yu noticed that most people hadn't even finished the fill-in-the-blank questions and weren't qualified to turn their papers over.

Apparently, The Petulant Test Paper hadn't exaggerated when it said getting the first twenty questions perfectly right would put him ahead of ninety percent of the candidates.

As for finishing the reverse side, at least in this exam hall, no other candidate had managed it.

Xie Yu had thought this would make the invigilators take special notice of him. Whether they suspected him of cheating or of writing nonsense, they ought to have reacted somehow... Perhaps one of them was the personal disciple of a peerless sage, working as an invigilator to clear his head after hitting a stumbling block in his magical research, and would accidentally discover a genius like him.

But the invigilators hurried away, doing nothing to fulfill Xie Yu's self-centered fantasy.

Still, barring any surprises, a perfect exam paper could lead to all sorts of developments. If he stood out too much, might a powerful mage seize him for research?

With the exam over, he relaxed at once and let his thoughts wander for a little while.

"Did they not see my perfect exam paper?" Xie Yu asked.

[An auditorium lacking a father's love (Affection 17) said:]

[They saw it. I heard them talking about you!]

The word "Affection" had appeared above the auditorium, but Xie Yu wasn't surprised. He had seen it before the exam began, though the auditorium's Affection for him had been only zero then, and it hadn't paid him any attention.

Xie Yu, absorbed in the atmosphere of the exam, had paid the auditorium no attention either.

He hadn't expected the auditorium's Affection to rise somewhat just because he had finished the exam.

"What were they saying about me?" Xie Yu asked curiously.

[An auditorium lacking a father's love (Affection 10) thought your question was not polite at all and said unhappily:]

[Why should I tell you?]

Tsk, this auditorium was even more willful than the exam paper. He had only asked a question, and its Affection had dropped instantly?

That was right, Affection could fall too. Although Xie Yu had yet to fully understand its mysteries and patterns, he had roughly observed that different things had different personalities, and those personalities made them entirely different in how difficult they were to win over.

"Honorable auditorium, please tell me what they were saying about me. It's very important to me," Xie Yu said, trying to give the auditorium what it wanted.

[An auditorium lacking a father's love (Affection plummeted to 0) thought you were too weak and was no longer willing to pay you any attention.]

Xie Yu's smile froze. He hadn't expected a little auditorium to have such a strange temper.

Going along with it didn't work either.

He wasn't annoyed at being rebuffed by the auditorium. If it hadn't known something he was interested in, he wouldn't have bothered dealing with it at all.

Outside the town government compound, two concerned gazes fell on the young Xie Yu, though they weren't the mage invigilators he had hoped for.

One gaze belonged to his mother, who had come to take him home, and the other to his father, who had come to take him home.

Although the exam hall was right in town, only a ten-minute walk or so from home, and Xie Yu was far too old to get lost, today was a special occasion. Both his parents felt they should show him a little extra care.

"That boy's talking to the air again," the man said with a sigh.

"Did he do badly on the exam? Go ask him." The woman pinched her husband's waist. "Our son was saying this morning that words were appearing in front of his eyes, and you didn't take it seriously. If I hadn't cleaned his room today, I wouldn't even have known he'd been taking 'concentration potion.' Look what you've driven him to!"

"How did I drive him to anything?" The man frowned, feeling wronged. "I've always told him it was fine if he didn't pass. If he didn't get in, he could come manage the family shops. It's not like he couldn't make a living."

"All you think about are those two lousy shops of yours. How could our son possibly like that? Aren't you just scaring him?" The woman saw Xie Yu muttering who knew what at the auditorium wall and felt even more distressed.

"How are they lousy shops?" The man coughed twice. He knew the woman was worried, but he still couldn't help laughing.

Lousy or not, the shops provided for the family. Everyone in town had to walk into those two tailor shops and spend money there; they could almost be called the leading monopoly in Pinecone Town's handmade clothing trade.

"He couldn't have taken so much potion that he damaged his brain, could he?" The woman grew even more worried.

"I asked about it. Xie Yu had Keli buy the potion for him. It's a legitimate product under the name of a proper Magister at a major academy in the big city," the man said, reassuring her.

"How can you be so naive? No matter whose name is on it, isn't it still mixed by young apprentices? It's not as if the pharmacist makes it personally. Heaven knows whether those young brats were hungover when they mixed it." The woman grew increasingly anxious and looked ready to grab the man's ear.

Their arguing soon died down.

Xie Yu had spotted them and was walking over.

The couple became harmonious again in an instant and went to meet him, pretending they hadn't been arguing at all.

"How did it go?" they asked with concern, one on either side of him.

"I got a perfect score," Xie Yu answered truthfully.

"See? I told you there was something wrong with that potion! It really has damaged his brain." The woman's eyes reddened at once, and she reached out and punched the man hard on the shoulder.

"Xiao Yu's like this, and what kind of father have you been? You said everything was fine, and you said you didn't pressure him. You old fool, is there a single honest word out of your mouth?"

"I really didn't..." The man had grievances he couldn't voice.

Xie Yu scratched his head.

He didn't understand. He'd only said he was going to get a perfect score, so why was she suddenly about to cry?

There were many times when he actually found his father and mother harder to understand than the questions on a magic exam paper. It had been that way in both his previous life and this one. Dealing with family really was a major problem.

Neither parent had an Affection value above their head, and he found them a little difficult to handle.

Xie Yu listened for a while and carefully mulled over the couple's words. He roughly understood that their argument revolved around him, specifically, "whether Xie Yu's brain was damaged."

That really was difficult to explain. When he had asked about the "abnormal Affection phenomenon" earlier, he had tried his best to broach the subject indirectly, only to find out whether it was simply how the world worked. He had finally confirmed that it was unique to him, but he seemed to have left a terrible impression on his parents.

It seemed that no matter how he explained it, he would only make things worse between the couple.

In the interest of promoting family harmony, Xie Yu finally decided to play dumb.

After all, he wasn't here to break them up; he was here to join them.

"I got a perfect score. Aren't you happy?"

At that, the couple stopped fighting and turned their attention back to Xie Yu.

The woman sighed, reached out to feel Xie Yu's forehead, and said:

"Yes, I'm happy. Mom's happy."

The man wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Then shall we apply to the academy you want, based on a perfect score?"

In this world's entrance exam for magic apprentices, scores were only a criterion for admission. Candidates still had to decide for themselves where to study after the exam. How far it was from home, the city and its location, and relationships with friends and relatives that couldn't be discussed openly were all among the things candidates had to consider.

Candidates could apply to their preferred academies through the provincial education department's admissions staff and wait to be accepted.

The process was much like filling out a list of preferred schools in Xie Yu's memory. In this world, however, there were no school rankings. After all, most ordinary people were still feeling their way blindly when it came to magic, and no mage had the ability to rank magic research institutes and academies against one another. Even the kingdom couldn't do it.

The vast majority of people had no access at all to the many branches of knowledge in the field of magic, but ordinary people had their own wisdom. They generally judged magic academies by three standards:

The bigger the city, the better, with the capital being best. The more mages and the higher their levels, the better. The more generous the magic apprentice stipend, the better.

After the examination system had been in effect for more than a decade, people had formed their own rankings of the schools.

It was said that a certain sage had once flown into a rage over this.

The esteemed sage couldn't accept a bunch of bumpkins who knew nothing about magic saying that the Capital Sealed Object Research Institute, where he worked, was inferior to the Supreme Magic Comprehensive Research Institute next door. He had even written at length in the newspapers to refute people's foolish views of the academies... but in the end, the matter came to nothing.

After all, the sages themselves couldn't settle the question, and the dispute over the academies' reputations didn't rise to the level of a fight. In the end, the sage angrily doubled the magic apprentice stipend for the entire research institute.

The general public and the kingdom's government were both delighted by this.

"Have you lost your mind!?" the woman shrieked.

It was bad enough that their son had gone stupid, and now he was going crazy too?

Their son said he'd gotten a perfect score, but in his condition, could anything he said be taken seriously?

"I'm just trying to comfort Xiao Yu. Calm down," the man said quietly to the woman.

"Then let's go fill it out and submit the application now." Xie Yu had actually heard the man and woman muttering, but he pretended he hadn't.

In fact, the couple thinking he had a mental problem might not be a bad thing for Xie Yu.

Although he had retained the memories of this life, his way of doing things, personality, and mindset were still different from the original owner's.

It would presumably be troublesome to play the part meticulously enough to conceal his reincarnation.

He might as well make himself full of inconsistencies. As long as there were inconsistencies everywhere and nothing about him was normal, then he should look normal.

[An auditorium lacking a father's love (Affection rose back to 15) was watching you and your father with some envy.]

"Hey? That works too?"

Xie Yu looked back at the auditorium. Its curved roof, built of white stone bricks, shone brilliantly in the afternoon sunlight.

The young man, who had intended to leave the exam hall and never return, jogged back to the auditorium and touched its outer wall, his gaze burning.

This is so interesting. Could this be the breakthrough?

A lack of a father's love... Xie Yu's eyes lit up. He had an idea.

Seeing that Xie Yu seemed to be acting strangely again, the couple didn't know why he had suddenly run off. They followed, puzzled, but didn't dare get too close, afraid of upsetting him.

They heard Xie Yu say to the wall:

"Do you want to have a father too?"

"?" The woman gave the man a look.

"..." The man scratched his head, knitted his brows, and bit his lip, all in one smooth sequence.

[An auditorium lacking a father's love (Affection fell to 0) said angrily:]

[You're the one without a father! Do you know why I won't tell you? I have no obligation to tell you, understand? Don't expect to learn anything from me! You little scoundrel.]

"Damn! Why did your Affection drop back down again? You really do have a strange temper for an auditorium!" Xie Yu could hardly believe it.

The man calmly stepped forward and said solemnly to Xie Yu:

"Tomorrow we'll go see the best mental and soul physician in the city. If that doesn't work, Dad will take you to the capital. Gold coins aren't a problem."

"Ahem, I'm really not sick." Xie Yu shook his head and waved his hands.

He knew he was perfectly normal, as normal as could be. His thoughts were clear and his mind was agile. He was someone who could max out The Petulant Test Paper's Affection in just one hour. Someone like him definitely wasn't sick.

"People who are sick all say they're not, and only people who aren't sick say they are," the woman said anxiously from the side.

"No," Xie Yu argued. "This auditorium is hiding something from me and refuses to tell me. I just got a little emotional because I was in a hurry..."

Halfway through, Xie Yu also felt that the couple had led him astray.

There was no point in trying to prove himself here.

What he was saying did indeed seem impossible for them to understand.

If he really had to produce evidence of his ability, Xie Yu could do it. The ink-reservoir pen he had used during the exam was in his pocket and could testify for him.

He could design an experiment in which his parents wrote something with the ink-reservoir pen, and then he asked the pen what they had written. It could prove that he wasn't crazy and that everything was real. He could devise hundreds, thousands of such experiments until they believed him.

But was it really necessary?

His instinctive urge to argue came from not wanting to see a so-called mental physician, so he wanted to prove he wasn't crazy.

Yet proving everything to his parents in this life, proving that Affection existed, would benefit neither him nor them.

A little crazy it was, then. Being a little crazy was the right answer.

He could excuse any strange behavior in the future by saying he was crazy. It would be perfect cover.

If he were normal, the power of "Affection" would be rather difficult to use.

"I'm really not sick. It's all the auditorium's fault. Cunning auditorium, ill-tempered auditorium."

Xie Yu deliberately spoke through gritted teeth, taking the opportunity to curse the auditorium a couple of times on the sly.

But the act he put such effort into was less natural than what he had shown earlier, and his parents' expressions didn't change as dramatically as before.

After giving it some thought, Xie Yu realized he didn't actually need to worry about being taken for a genuine madman. That perfect exam paper would speak in his defense.

Someone who could get a perfect score, even if truly crazy, would be a madman worthy of respect and emulation. Any madness would be a distinctive personality that left a deep impression.

The perfect exam paper concealed his madness, and the madness concealed the power of "Affection" and his reincarnation.

A brand-new Xie Yu had thus gained a foothold in this world.