The next afternoon, inside the Seventh Courtyard's lecture hall.
Having just finished his martial arts knowledge class, Zhuang Xun found himself surrounded by a crowd once again. Only this time, it was a group of youthful and beautiful young women.
“Junior Brother Yan, are you and Senior Brother Bai really from the same hometown?”
Looking into the bright, wide eyes of the girl in front of him, Zhuang Xun hesitated slightly before nodding.
“Wow, it's actually true!”
“I'm so envious! To think you grew up with Senior Brother Bai since childhood.”
“Doesn't that mean you've known Senior Brother Bai for a very long time, Junior Brother Yan?”
“Junior Brother Yan, did you follow Senior Brother Bai here to the Wanxing Martial Academy?”
The other young women nearby gasped and chattered excitedly, their faces lit up with enthusiasm.
“Junior Brother Yan, can you tell us what Senior Brother Bai was like when he was a child?” asked a young woman with a highly intellectual voice.
The other girls immediately shifted their focus, eagerly echoing the question.
“Yes, yes! Junior Brother Yan, can you tell us?”
“I'm so curious.”
“Is it a secret?” another girl asked, leaning in close to Yan Pingsheng and putting on a pitiful expression.
Wait, let me construct a story here. Hmm...
Feigning a look of embarrassment, Zhuang Xun pondered for a moment before adopting a nostalgic expression. “Actually... I don't know that much either. Senior Brother Bai is amazing—he's been amazing since he was a child. No matter what he did, he could do it best. Nothing could ever stump him.”
“Wow, Senior Brother Bai is so incredible.”
The girls were highly supportive, each of them wearing an expression of rapt attention.
Zhuang Xun continued, “We all admired Senior Brother Bai immensely. We used to follow him around and occasionally sneak peeks at him.”
“Senior Brother Bai never said anything to stop us. He just focused on his own things—reading, practicing martial arts, writing, chopping wood, carrying water, eating... Oh, and if we happened to be around when he was eating, he would even invite us inside to have some food.”
“Wow, Senior Brother Bai is so kind!”
“Ah, just hearing about it makes me feel so happy. I wish I could watch Senior Brother Bai like that all day too.”
“Senior Brother Bai's life was so disciplined.”
“Did Senior Brother Bai cook the meals himself?”
Zhuang Xun nodded. “Yes.”
“I'm so jealous!”
“I want to eat food cooked by Senior Brother Bai's own hands too.”
“What happened next? Is there more? What did Senior Brother Bai's family do?”
Zhuang Xun replied, “Senior Brother Bai's father was a schoolteacher. He was a very kind man.”
“Junior Brother Yan, where is your village? Is it far from here?”
“Yeah, yeah, where is Senior Brother Bai's hometown?”
“Hmm? Is it a secret?”
Zhuang Xun shook his head. “It's in... a very distant place.”
He did not explicitly state the name of the village he had made up. Although beast disasters frequently ravaged this world, forcing entire villages to flee their homes, saying a specific name would invite trouble.
Outside Zechuan City and the Wanxing Market, there were indeed many refugees from all over.
Because information traveled slowly, it was incredibly difficult to trace their origins.
But if he gave a name, someone would surely look into it. It would be highly embarrassing if they actually managed to find a real village with the same name.
“Oh, then why did you come here?”
Zhuang Xun answered, “Due to some rather complicated reasons, we had to leave our hometown.”
“'We'? Are there others?”
“I'm not too sure, as many of us got separated along the way.” Zhuang Xun left some room in his explanation, anticipating that he might need to use the "hometown friend of Bai Yujing" identity for other clones in the future.
As he spoke, Zhuang Xun looked at the big-eyed girl in front of him who was leaning close with her hands propped on his desk, and he quietly leaned back.
Nearby, the girl with the intellectual voice noticed this. Covering her mouth, she giggled, “Junior Sister Tang, you're leaning too close. You're making Junior Brother Yan uncomfortable.”
“Hahaha, Junior Brother Yan is blushing!”
“Junior Brother Yan, you're so cute.”
The other girls joined in the teasing.
The girl surnamed Tang didn't mind. She stood up with easy grace and offered a warm smile to the average-looking Yan Pingsheng.
Hey, hey, if you keep this up, I might actually take you seriously... Zhuang Xun grumbled inwardly.
...
On the other side of the lecture hall.
A group of boys, led by Zhang Tie, watched Yan Pingsheng with deeply sour expressions as he sat surrounded by several girls.
Zhang Tie remarked, “Don't let Pingsheng's act fool you. He's probably overjoyed on the inside.”
“If only I were also Senior Brother Bai's fellow villager,” a rather ordinary-looking boy with small eyes muttered enviously, staring wistfully at the big-eyed girl surnamed Tang.
“Pathetic. It's really nothing special. Brother Yan is truly suffering. Only someone with a gentle temperament like him could endure it. If it were me, I'd find it annoying.”
A boy with a slight underbite spoke haughtily, though his eyes drifted toward the intellectual-voiced girl every now and then.
The young men's infatuation was completely impossible to hide.
The last boy remained silent. Slumped over his desk with his arms blocking his face, he peered out with only his eyes, staring blankly at the girl who was sitting backward on Yan Pingsheng's desk, laughing cheerfully.
...
In the days that followed, almost every day brought people to pester Yan Pingsheng with all kinds of questions. Among them, quite a few tried to cozy up to him in hopes of establishing a connection with Bai Yujing.
This situation persisted for several weeks, only gradually subsiding as the disciples' curiosity and the novelty of the situation wore off.
Even so, Zhuang Xun's life on Yan Pingsheng's end had undergone significant changes.
The most direct change was that the disciples from influential families, who had always looked down on commoners, now treated him with great friendliness, addressing him as an equal in their conversations.
A few of them even took the initiative to befriend him.
However, Zhuang Xun paid little mind to these developments.
He maintained his usual low-profile lifestyle—eating, cultivating, and staying in his dorm reading novels—gradually fading from the other disciples' attention.
The attention of the Outer Court disciples returned to the upcoming promotion assessment, as well as the ongoing bullying of Guichen, the former top-ten expert of the Outer Court.
Bullying the strong as the weak—now that's the true path of dominance.
...
By mid-June, more than two months had passed since Eldest Young Master Zhou's coming-of-age ceremony, leaving just over a month until the promotion assessment.
On this day, Bai Yujing's cultivation broke through once more, his martial arts reaching the Fifth Rank.
The martial physique shaping of the Formless Phaseless Sublime Method in the Sixth Rank realm targeted the neural network coverage of the body's acupoints.
Having completed this step, he could now shift the positions of the acupoints in his body at will, rendering any acupoint-striking martial arts in the world completely useless against him.
“Whew, the title of Chief Disciple is finally well-deserved,” Zhuang Xun thought to himself as he acclimated to the rapid surge of blood qi and strength that came with his breakthrough.
Generally speaking, the Chief Disciple of an organization was considered its strongest disciple.
Yet, whenever the strongest disciple of the Wanxing Martial Academy was mentioned, everyone tacitly assumed it was Yang Ling, the true disciple of the Jixin Courtyard. At only nineteen years old, his martial arts had already reached the peak of the Fifth Rank.
Although Bai Yujing had only just entered the Fifth Rank, leaving a gap of three minor realms between him and Yang Ling.
Still, Zhuang Xun believed that with the raw stats provided by Bai Yujing's Supreme Skeletal Structure, his three martial arts skills, the Formless Phaseless Sublime Method, and most importantly, his flawless mechanical execution, Yang Ling would be no match for him.
The ages and realms of the true disciples from the other three courtyards were as follows:
Zhou Ziruo of the Posuo Courtyard: sixteen years old, mid-stage Sixth Rank;
Lin Qingsu of the Pianqian Courtyard: seventeen years old, early-stage Sixth Rank;
Shi Kaishan of the Linjia Courtyard: seventeen years old, early-stage Sixth Rank.
Rate on N.U.
