บท 35: Challenge
บรรณาธิการ: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Late that night, Ye Sheng stopped after he had passed down 100 books to the Earthlings. It wasn't that he didn't want to continue, but this process simply consumed too much of his energy, and he was very tired now.
The process involved memorizing an entire book and then sending down the contents on thousands of rocks. After doing this 100 times, Ye Sheng felt as if he were really drained of energy.
At this point, Ye Sheng was only at Psyche Nourishing Level First Stage, so he couldn't hold up at all.
It was close to midnight, so Ye Sheng sat down on a chair and just closed his eyes to rest and wait for Zhou Meiren.
Around midnight, Zhou Meiren approached and asked, "You're not going to read anymore?"
Ye Sheng shook his head and stood up. "I'm very tired now. I need to rest."
"Let's go then." Zhou Meiren didn't say anything more, and they walked out immediately.
The moon shone brightly and the wind blew gently all the way back to their house. Ye Sheng and Zhou Meiren didn't speak at all. Once they got back to the house, Ye Sheng just got into his bed and fell asleep.
Zhou Meiren raised an eyebrow and thought to himself, "What book was he reading? Why did it take up so much of his energy?"
First thing the next morning, Ye Sheng woke up as soon as the rooster crowed. He jumped into the river to bathe and then started to cultivate his psyche by observation and meditation.
He had managed to observe and meditate on the sun and the moon the day before, and it had improved his psyche by quite a bit. Today, he wanted to do the same thing with this long river.
The river was long and vast. Ye Sheng followed its length and started to meditate on it within his consciousness. The great surge of the river soon overwhelmed his psyche.
People's psyches were very fragile. If a normal person had done this, their psyche would have been drowned by the river, softened, and eventually become nothingness.
But Ye Sheng was different. His psyche seemed to be like a swimming dragon, happily and leisurely swimming through the river's water.
After Ye Sheng opened his eyes, he noticed that his psyche had gone up in strength again and his cultivation process had gone extremely smoothly.
"Could I really be a Daoist genius?" It had gone so smoothly that even Ye Sheng himself could hardly believe it.
Ever since he'd started on his Daoist cultivation, he had not run into any obstacles at all. No matter what he was meditating on, he had found it very simple to do.
If anyone else found out about this, soon everyone would start hating on Ye Sheng again.
"I went to sit in on a Daoist class yesterday, so I'll go to sit in on a martial arts class today," thought Ye Sheng to himself.
He was going to gather the best of all the faculties and make them his own. He wasn't going to cultivate in only one aspect.
But before going to class, Ye Sheng went to get himself a Jade Plaque for the library.
Without this Jade Plaque, he wouldn't be able to enter the library after hours, and Ye Sheng didn't want Zhou Meiren to have to take him there all the time.
But the librarian told Ye Sheng that new students had to wait three months before they could apply for a Jade Plaque.
Ye Sheng immediately asked, "So how did Zhou Meiren get his?"
"Zhou Meiren's father is the Second Sage of Confucianism, so he gets special privileges." The explanation that the librarian gave left Ye Sheng speechless.
That was the good part about having a famous father.
He opened his mouth and thought of telling the librarian that his father was Lord Ye, but that made Ye Sheng feel sick, and he gave up on this idea.
Ye Sheng was annoyed that he couldn't get a Jade Plaque. This was the mood he was in as he walked toward the martial arts teaching area. Of the few hundred new students, a large majority had chosen to study martial arts. Occultism, Buddhism, and Daoism didn't get more than 30 or 40 students each. Only martial arts had more than 100 students.
One Ye Sheng among 100-odd students wasn't very conspicuous. All Ye Sheng wanted to do was just quietly listen in on one class to see if it was helpful to him. But, unfortunately, things didn't turn out the way he had hoped they would.
Perhaps Ye Sheng didn't realize it himself, but he was already very famous among the current batch of new students.
First, he'd decided not to choose a teacher and had wanted to learn from every faculty. Then Priest Qingxu had said that he would be the best student of this current batch. That put Ye Sheng in a very difficult position.
Ye Sheng thought that he was keeping a low profile, but the moment he stepped into the martial arts teaching area, everybody immediately spun around to look at him.
A young man in expensive embroidered clothing spoke up immediately, "Mister Number One is here. So it was Daoism yesterday, martial arts today, and, what, Buddhism tomorrow?"
"You think that you're going to just come in and out of the various faculties to learn their cultivation methods like the faculties are your harem?" Another man with a cold smile chimed in.
More than 100 students were now staring at Ye Sheng, and most of them were unfriendly stares. His nickname of Mister Number One was simply too flashy.
Ye Sheng stared back at all of them and responded, "Who are you people? I don't need your permission to be here."
The young man in embroidered clothing's face darkened, and he scoffed coldly, "Ye Sheng, you're the child born to Lord Ye and the Sacred Lady of the Reincarnation Sect. Even though you're Lord Ye's child, you're a child of a concubine and you're not loved by the family, your status is low, and you've contributed very little within Ye Manor. But you got the nickname of being Mister Number One the minute you stepped into Jixia Academy. I want to know if you can really live up to this nickname of yours."
"Ye Sheng, I've already checked on you. You're already 16, but you're only at Acquired Level Third Stage, so you can't be considered a genius at all. You've gained admission into Jixia Academy only because Consort Ye begged the emperor to grant you the title of an Emperor's Disciple, so you got in through the back door. You're supposedly guaranteed admission, but it really just means that you've used your connections to get here and not your abilities. So how could someone like you become Mister Number One?" said the muscular man with a cold smile.
The entire crowd went into an uproar after listening to these words. Those who had previously been afraid of Ye Sheng for being Lord Ye's son also started laughing coldly now.
He was the lowly and unloved son of a concubine, was only at Acquired Level Third Stage, and had gotten into Jixia Academy solely through his connections. When all these things were put together, they changed their original impressions of Ye Sheng.
He was just a good-for-nothing.
That was how Ye Sheng ought to be described. He wasn't the so called Mister Number One of the school.
"Who on earth are the two of you?" asked Ye Sheng without any change in expression as he looked at the two men who were trying to provoke him.
"I am Yang Kun, the grandson of Yang Ji, Forefather of Great Qin," replied the youth in embroidered clothing arrogantly.
Ye Sheng looked at the other muscular man. "So he's got the backing of a Forefather. What about you?"
"I'm Li Ying, the grandson of Li Su, the Navy Commander of Great Qin," replied the muscular man proudly.
"My, my, you're both from pretty impressive backgrounds," said Ye Sheng sarcastically.
Forefather Yang Ji was the first military general who had followed the first emperor of Qin to conquer the land. After the nation was founded, he was given the title of Forefather, and he was of very high standing in the land.
Navy Commander Li Su was a famous martial artist and Great Qin's naval defense general. His power and influence were not much lower than Lord Ye's, and the entire navy was under his command.
It made sense for these two young men to want to pick on Ye Sheng since they were all from fairly equivalent backgrounds. But these two young men were children of official wives, while Ye Sheng was born of a concubine. Their cultivation levels were also higher than Ye Sheng's, so they didn't see why Ye Sheng should take the title of being Mister Number One.
"Enough of this nonsense. Since you're supposedly the best of the batch, then exchange a few moves with me and show me what amazing things you're made of," said Li Ying impatiently. He got into a fighting stance and stared straight at Ye Sheng. A fierce and violent aura surged out of his body as if he was a ferocious tiger coming down from the mountains to hunt.
"Do you really want to fight me?" asked Ye Sheng as he narrowed his eyes.
"You're so long-winded. If you're scared, then get the h*ll out of here and never come back to the martial arts faculty. If you're not scared, then come and fight," said Li Ying with a cold laugh.
"I don't mind fighting, but what do I get out of this fight?" Ye Sheng's expression grew cold as he started to negotiate with them.
Ye Sheng was already very angry inside because his request for a Jade Plaque had been rejected earlier, and now some idiots were publicly challenging him to a fight. It wasn't Ye Sheng's style to allow himself to get thrashed like this.
Li Ying and Ye Qing were at the same cultivation level of Acquired Level Sixth Stage, but Li Ying was much steadier and could clearly withstand more. Even though they were at the same level, Li Ying would probably be able to defeat Ye Qing by himself.
But that wasn't enough to threaten Ye Sheng.
"If you defeat me, then I'll acknowledge that you're truly the best around here," replied Li Ying in a low, threatening voice.
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