Spiritual Qi Aptitude: 3 Points, Low Grade!

May 1, 3066 of the Cultivation Punk Calendar, 3:00 a.m., Mingyang City East District No. 13 Nursery—

Above the gray sky, the stars fabricated by the True Lords had yet to fade, and the great sun that heralded the coming of day had yet to rise.

With a chorus of brakes, a row of buses belonging to Radiant Heavenly Sun, the megacorporation Ten Directions Bright's subsidiary in Mingyang City, came to a steady stop at the gates of the children's home.

There they waited quietly for the children, who had long since gotten ready.

Today was the day all the eight-year-old children in Mingyang City's children's homes took their Spiritual Qi aptitude test.

Radiant Heavenly Sun, the subsidiary that managed Mingyang City, had therefore made a special allocation of buses to take them all to the testing site in the city center.

As for what happened to the children raised by their biological parents...

Silly child, they had parents. Of course their parents had paid for them to take the test early, when they entered elementary school at six.

The children taking the test today were all children without a piece of driftwood to cling to.

The gates of the Thirteenth Orphanage slowly opened, and under the guidance of the undying old director, the eight-year-old children boarded different buses one after another.

Boys and girls took separate buses-

Lü Yuan, who hadn't slept a wink all night, was the last to board, because the undying old director had deliberately kept him until the end.

In a heartfelt voice, the director said, "Little Lü, remember to visit often during your holidays. This will always be your home."

You undying old bastard, who are you putting on this happy-family act for? Anyone who didn't know better would think you'd ever cared whether we lived or died.

Though that was what Lü Yuan thought, he still clasped the director's hand with apparent sincerity.

"Director, I will always remember the kindness you showed in nurturing me these past eight years. I will never forget it."

Always remember it and never forget it. Meaning, when I come back one day, I'll be sure to nurture you good and proper-

As for how I nurture you, that's none of your concern.

If I don't plant you in the ground like a ginseng root, I'll take your surname.

Whether the director believed him or not was another matter. At least he really did say nothing more after that.

He looked reasonably satisfied.

"Lin Qi, bus seventeen."

Before long, the attendant finally called the one name Lü Yuan cared about.

She boarded at the call, without a single unnecessary movement the entire time.

Lü Yuan gave her another look.

Although he and she had signed a contract for an earth-shattering gamble that day, they had barely interacted over the past two months.

Only now did Lü Yuan notice that the small, scrawny figure from that day seemed to have changed somewhat.

Perhaps because the time had finally come to escape her predicament, she no longer hid the sharp edge in her dark eyes.

She had cut the long hair she had kept to make people overlook her; now it only reached her shoulders.

Her fair little face was unusually calm.

She looks confident. She didn't even look back at me.

Does she think the people in this Lower City nursery aren't worth fearing?

She is a Purple Mansion reincarnator, after all...

Even so, Lü Yuan merely smiled playfully. But the more she acts like this, the more I want to see what this hundred-year-old crone looks like when she loses half her starting capital and cries in frustration-

Besides, only then can I control her and achieve my goal.

I hope what a Purple Mansion reincarnator knows can help me close some of the gap between me and the other me.

With that thought, Lü Yuan dwelled on it no longer. He simply waited in silence for his name to be called.

"Lü Yuan, bus one."

In this age of capitalist cultivation, distinctions of rank and status existed everywhere.

Just like now.

It was no different from the factory.

Even these eight-year-old children were divided into different ranks, and as a factory-nominated student, Lü Yuan naturally belonged to the first rank.

That was why bus one, at the very front, was reserved for people like him.

The space inside bus one was extravagantly wasted, because compared to the other buses, there were hardly any people aboard.

But as soon as Lü Yuan stepped on, he felt the gazes of the other seven settle on him.

They didn't budge.

Six of them quickly looked away. They didn't know Lü Yuan and came from several other districts of Mingyang City.

But the last one, who also came from the East District, was the only one who didn't.

Not only that, he even greeted Lü Yuan warmly.

After all, they were old acquaintances.

"Yo, Lü Yuan, haven't seen you for a few months. How'd you get so lame?"

Wang Yan, the only one among the younger generation in all the nurseries in Mingyang City's East District who could stand alongside Lü Yuan, was smiling cheerfully.

"I heard a lower third-class worker who got lucky and received funding from her biological parents challenged you, and you even wagered your qualification to open your second Spirit Aperture."

"I don't think someone on par with me would lose, but there's an exception to everything-"

"Have you thought about how lonely as snow my elementary school years would be if you turned out to be no good at this, lost, and had your future taken away?"

Lü Yuan passed over the rows of empty seats and walked straight to Wang Yan's side. Raising his foot, he didn't respond to Wang Yan's narcissism and merely said:

"Move over and give your Brother Lü a seat."

Then...

Wang Yan followed his heart and moved over.

There was no other reason: a man had to know when to yield and when to stand firm. Lü Yuan's mastery of the many martial arts for beasts of burden was extraordinary. Over the years, his kicks had met no match in the East District nurseries, and that naturally included Wang Yan.

He was certain that if he didn't move, this guy really could kick him to his knees.

Bus one set off, and behind it, the long convoy also began making its way toward the city center.

At that moment, the hearts of all Mingyang City's eight-year-old orphans couldn't help pounding with excitement and fear.

They pounded because this would decide their futures, or at least part of them.

They were excited because they hoped to test well and see a glimmer of light, enough at least to make the next ten years less hard to bear.

And there was only one reason for their fear.

They feared an unsatisfactory result, leaving them to accept a future in which the highest they could reach in the latter half of their lives was second- or first-class worker.

There was one exception. At this moment, only Lü Yuan, for whom this was like an open-book exam, had no worries whatsoever.

Bored, he even closed his eyes and called on Ancient Cultivator Lü Yuan for a chat.

"Aren't you afraid?" Wang Yan, sitting beside him, suddenly asked.

He couldn't understand why Lü Yuan was so calm, as though he wasn't worried about the result at all.

His burden should clearly have been greater than anyone else's here, so why...

At least on this point, Wang Yan knew himself well enough to admit he couldn't do the same.

"Why should I be afraid?" After taking back the Spirit Root and arranging for Ancient Cultivator Lü Yuan to take it back again before his test,

Punk Lü Yuan slowly came to and looked at the factory-nominated student beside him, who, like him, had fought his own way out of an army of thousands.

"Are you that confident your Spiritual Qi aptitude will be high?" Wang Yan asked again.

"Want to guess?"

Lü Yuan asked in return, "Or do you want to make a bet with me, like that girl did?"

Wang Yan looked at him, then shook his head after a long while. "I'm not like you-"

"I have no intention of betting everything just to make a windfall."

"Nor do I intend to stake my future on this. To tell the truth, I don't want any accidents affecting my life just as it's gradually getting on track."

Lü Yuan merely chuckled softly. "A fortune you're destined to make isn't a windfall, and an accident that's destined to happen isn't an accident."

"The former is me. Do you think the latter might be you?"

[Spiritual Qi aptitude: 3 points, low grade!]

In the testing facility in central Mingyang City, beneath the newly risen sun, Wang Yan stared at the conspicuous line of large characters on the big screen.

He clenched his fists.

Then he recalled what Lü Yuan had said to him on the bus not long ago and was struck speechless.

At the very back, looking up at the scene, Lü Yuan simply said to himself in his heart, quite calmly:

Holy shit-

This has nothing to do with my jinx, right?

When I said that, I really just wanted to act a little more mature and show off in front of this guy.