Nightfall

Gently patting his cheeks and rubbing his hands, Ning Que gathered himself to go upstairs and meet the female teacher. After waving away the cicada, he took out the book from the bookcase and looked at it with hope. Seeing the new writing on the paper, he could not help but feel pleased as he raised his eyebrows. However, soon after, he became somewhat angry and his eyebrows then lowered.

The mysterious guy was not polite at all in the message, and even could be said to be extremely cold-blooded, shattering Ning Que’s hopes during these days. That guy shattered his hope that “where there’s a will, there’s a way” and directly told him that no one in the world was able to open up the acupoint by his own strength, and that all those who had tried to do so were dead now.

“Dead? How about the people from Devil’s Doctrine?”

Ning Que muttered to himself with disappointed eyes and secretly thought in his heart, ” Since the gray-haired man said that everyone could be the God of Cookery (someone who was good at cooking), then why couldn’t everyone be a cultivator ?”

After a long time of silence, he finally decided to stop reading Wu Shanyang’s Theory on Haoran Sword .

For many reasons, Ning Que could have used his strong perseverance to painstakingly move the mountains, not caring about the difficulties or obstacles he might have faced. However, courage and perseverance were not equivalent to stubbornness and stone-like obstinance.

Although even now he still did not know the mysterious messager’s identity and status in the Academy, he firmly believed that the man was certainly a cultivation genius, whose understanding of cultivation was far deeper than his own. Since the man said that forcedly opening up the acupoint could lead to death, then it would be very dangerous for him to blindly move the mountains.

” Anyone who is smart enough may serve as my teacher, and it’s wise to follow their good suggestions .” Ning Que’s rational thinking made him decide to temporarily stop using the Eight Strokes Calligraphy of Yong. Yet he still felt inevitably disappointed and could not help but write a passage with an ink-dipped brush before leaving the old library.

“Today I won’t read anymore, but tomorrow I’ll continue it. Now I’m readingWu Shanyang’s Theory on Haoran Sword  instead of Primary Exploration on Ocean of Qi and Mountain of Snow 

. You can leave me a message over there. I have a final question: if most people can’t sense the Breath of Nature for their different physiques and this is the fate Haotian gave us, do you think that the Haotian master is too unfair?”

…

…

Late at night, Chen Pipi appeared again in the building. He looked out the window to see the dark night sky where stars were covered by clouds. Taking out the book from the bookshelf, he got that piece of paper and could not help but laugh after reading it. With pettish, obese, round cheeks, he thought this lad had become blunter and blunter in the message, who seemed to order him to do certain things even if he was actually asking for help. He really did not know where the bold lad came from.

Although he thought that, he still panted while squatting his body to take outWu Shanyang’s Theory on Haoran Sword  from the bookshelf and then went to the western window so as to begin to reply Ning Que.

As the most shining genius student of the Academy in recent years, after entering into the Second Floor, Chen Pipi had to learn from the classes under the pressure of those terrifying Senior Brothers for the past few years, with no chance to exert his own hobby of teaching others. That night, he saw Ning Que’s self-expression message and occasionally felt interested to reply to it. Since then, he had kept his mind on it, wanting to see whether the poor guy could have a breakthrough, as well as wanting to meet his needs of teaching others.

It was so called the helping addiction. Chen Pipi did not know that poor guy’s name, gender, or age. But since he began to help, it was like the mud in the wetland before the building, sticking to the hands and hard to get rid of. Therefore, this was purely a psychological problem.

…

…

The second day, Ning Que went to the old library, directly taking out the book about Haoran Sword, and then saw the mysterious man’s message as he wished. Seeing two lines of arrogant words on the paper, he could not help but rub his eyebrows with a grin.

“There is no equality at all in the world. The Haotian master is like the sunshine on Snow Mountain, who will always be taking pity on the clouds while on the lotus above and lazily looking at the small grass at the foot of the mountain. For example, I’m the lotus as the unique genius in the world and you’re a poor fellow who can’t cultivate for having no acupoint in the body. So as grass, what you need to do now is to accept it rather than doubt it.”

Ning Que held that thin paper and murmured, “The unique genius in the world? What an arrogant guy!”

Reading this message, he was increasingly skeptical of the identity of the mysterious man. From the sentence construction, this man was not like the venerable professors in the Academy those years, but more like the Xie San master, Zhong Dajun, who had grown up in the greenhouse as a kind of precious orchid.

But this person was obviously better than Xie Chengyun and others by a few levels because of the natural tone in which he said he was a genius—as if it was an irrefutable and absolute truth proven countless times by the world and by time; such as water naturally flowed downhill, hot and sour noodle slice soup was delicious, and Sangsang was hard-working.

However, in terms of self-confidence, Ning Que has always been wildly competitive.

He never kept a high profile in front of a crowd or classmates, for he thought he had already passed that stage of life and it was not suitable, as well as naive, to do so. But it did not mean that he had the slightest doubt about his own ability.

Since childhood, he had been on the school’s genius list. From kindergarten to a variety of interest classes and math exams, he had always been invincible under the Chinese education system. Therefore, this lad absolutely believed that he was the real genius.

So today he answered it in this way:

“There’s no need to argue about the lotus and the grass. But what I want to say is that if there is a unique genius in the world, then this genius can only be me rather than you. Because only I’m qualified to become the only one. Thus there is a question. Since you said that Haotian master would only pity the true genius, why can’t I cultivate as the real one?”

…

…

West Hill Divine Kingdom, which had the most believers, Supermundane Experts, wealth, and power in the world, naturally had a lot of geniuses and talents who silently cultivated before the Seven Tomes of Arcane.

The Academy in the Tang Empire, which had the most respected status, the greatest number of hermits, and a character like the Headmaster of the Academy, naturally had a lot of geniuses and wise people, who calmly spent the days behind a few statues on the Second Floor.

With a just short sixteen-year life, Chen Pipi had been studying in the two places for years and had long been recognized as the world’s most outstanding genius from the teachers’ attitudes and in the students’ eyes. Even if he met the other two people from the Unknown Place, he was also proud enough to take his usual attitude and his confident messages for granted. Because he thought that it only elaborated a simple fact.

Now he finally met a guy prouder and more confident than him.

The problem was that in Chen Pipi’s view, that guy who called himself the only genius was just a poor person who was ignorant about cultivation and had no acupoint but only some perseverance and clever ideas… Well, Chen Pipi recognized that the guy could be regarded as both intelligent and resolute, but how could the guy compete with him for the genius title?

Furious, Chen Pipi left a question in the message for Ning Que under the dim starlight through the clouds, accompanied by the angry cicadas beside the window:

“You used Eight Strokes Calligraphy of Yong to deconstruct the words. In this stupid way of reading the book and forgetting the words’ meanings, you might have already hurt the heart and lungs when reading the book about Haoran Sword. Then I’ll ask you how to treat the heart and lungs injury. Don’t mention the heavy medicine like grass seed. I only ask you how to cook and eat mugworts and felon herbs, and how to deal with angelica roots and ginkgos. Slice or grind them? How many doses of red ginseng and brown sugar? How to mix them? When to add Chinese olives and sweet wormwoods? Answer me now!”

…

…

“Mugworts and felon herbs? Angelica roots and ginkgos? Red ginseng and brown sugar? Chinese olives and sweet wormwoods?”

Looking at those scrawled messages on the paper, Ning Que imagined the mad appearance of that man, who must be very young, and could not help but raise his eyebrows, thinking it was really interesting.

It was not surprising that the guy left questions to test him. But to his surprise, the questions left by that guy had nothing to do with the six subjects of cultivation—such as how many sword meanings could be read by the method of Eight Strokes Calligraphy of Yong—but were actually questions about the approaches of medicine.

Instantly, he understood his opponent’s intention. That guy regarded himself as a unique genius on cultivation. So it was naturally kind of unfair if he used the questions on cultivation to test others. Thus, he simply chose the questions that had nothing to do with the six subjects of cultivation, but on how to choose, cook, and take the traditional Chinese medicine.

His opponent’s choice for this topic was very clear, for he was very proud—the so-called genius was a versatile person. If it was unfair to use the cultivation questions for a test, then he just had to use the problems that the opponent had already met.

“What an extremely proud guy.”

Ning Que shook his head with a smile and then suddenly stopped smiling, for he really did not know how to solve this problem or how to deal with those familiar drugs to cure his own lung injury. The doctor in Chang’an had received Sangsang’s 20 taels of silver, but only told him to have a good rest. Although he had the habit of herbal healing treatment in Min Mountain, he really did not know how to cure this lung injury or use these drugs.

If someone was not competitive in his daily life, then he might not think that was worth doing. Have you seen the lad Wang Bo argue with his contemporaries about the writing methods? Have you seen Lin Zhiying at the age of 17 compete with students in Hua Gang art school? But if the lad Wang Bo met Gan Luo, or Lin Zhiying at the age of 17 met Sun Yaowei…

Ning Que now encountered a proud guy who proclaimed himself to be a genius and was also likely to be a true genius. Of course, he wanted to argue with his opponent. But unfortunately, he really did not know how to answer this question.

“I really can’t answer your questions.” He wrote on the paper with shame.

Then he lifted up his eyebrows a bit, with a few shining freckles on his face, and tightened his right hand holding the brush, freely writing on the paper: “But for fairness, I have a question to test you. Can you answer it?”

…

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2011102323 revision. (To be continued… If you like this novel, we welcome you to go to qidian.com to give recommended votes and a monthly pass. Your support is my greatest motivation.)