The first was that although the abode disciples kept asking questions and the two of them kept resolving their doubts, there were over four thousand disciples in the plaza, and many more had neither the time nor the opportunity to ask questions.
The second was that on many occasions, the questions raised by the abode disciples were things they had never thought of or encountered before. Although they could answer them after some thought by combining their knowledge and experience, thinking on the spot simply took too much time.
Gu Ningyun was someone who valued efficiency, and Wen Xuan was not one to drag her feet either. After some discussion, the two of them sent out a second notification regarding the Q&A day.
Two weeks before each Q&A day, all Abode Masters would need to collect questions from the disciples in their respective abodes. After filtering out duplicates, organizing, and sorting them, they were to compile them into a blank jade slip and submit it to the Songyue Pavilion affairs office.
Each abode had around two to three hundred disciples, and the Abode Masters had managers under them to share the workload. Moreover, cultivators could use their divine sense to organize the information in the jade slips, so this newly added task of collecting questions would not take up too much of their time.
Once the twenty jade slips were collected, Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan would first do a quick scan with their divine sense to eliminate duplicate questions across different abodes. After removing duplicates, they would each take ten jade slips to review in advance what doubts the disciples had raised this time.
They could skip past the questions they could answer immediately, and for those they had never encountered before, they could think them over beforehand and record their thoughts in the jade slips. As for the questions they could not answer, they could even consult their master and senior sisters.
From sorting and removing duplicates to reading through all the questions, it only took them one hour.
When the Q&A day arrived, because the questions had already been collected, they could skip the question-asking step entirely at the venue. They simply took out the jade slips that already contained the answers and addressed the questions one by one according to the list.
By the end of the day, not only were all the disciples' recent doubts resolved, but they also finished two hours earlier than the scheduled end time set by the sect. Of these two hours, Gu Ningyun and Wen Xuan allocated one hour as an opportunity for follow-up questions. If anyone had further doubts or wanted to say something, they could raise them on the spot.
The remaining hour was used to conclude the session early.
This way, the preparation beforehand ensured the accuracy of their answers, improved the efficiency of the Q&A day, and guaranteed a win-win outcome. The hour saved by ending the Q&A session early also offset the time they and the abode disciples spent on preparation, killing multiple birds with one stone.
Half a year had passed since their first day in office to the conclusion of the second Q&A day.
Over this past half-year, rumors had been trickling out from the outer peaks—especially the other twenty outer peaks. In recent months, these rumors had grown so intense that even the inner peaks had heard of them.
At first, it was said that several new Pavilion Masters liked to seek out the veteran Pavilion Masters of the twenty outer peaks for spars and exchanges. Later, it was rumored that over a dozen new Pavilion Masters were taking turns challenging the veteran Pavilion Masters. Their figures could be seen on Fighting Peak almost every day.
Eventually, as soon as Gu Ningyun opened the Xiaoyao Forum, she would see related posts pinned at the very top of the homepage.
“Shocking! New Outer Peak Pavilion Masters Team Up to Provoke Veterans! Is This a Case of Newborn Calves Not Fearing Tigers, or Have the Veteran Pavilion Masters Lost Their Prestige and Grown Old and Weak?”
“Is it a loss of morality or a distortion of human nature? The new Pavilion Masters take turns waging battle against the veteran Pavilion Masters day and night on Fighting Peak!”
“Latest from the Outer Peaks: Late Foundation Establishment Stage Veteran Pavilion Masters Refuse to Tolerate Anymore! Taking Action to Restore Order, the New Pavilion Masters are Pinned and Pounded on the Fighting Platforms!”
“Debunking Rumors from the New Pavilion Masters: The Tag-Team Provocations are Purely the Individual Actions of a Few Battle Maniacs and Have Nothing to Do with the Rest of the New Pavilion Masters.”
“The Head Pavilion Master of Hanmiao Pavilion Publicly Declares: Hanmiao Pavilion's Spirit Stone Mining Mission Cancels the Pre-Arranged Cooperation Eligibility of Qingwu Pavilion.”
“Speculation: Who Will Secure the Highly Coveted, High-Income Spirit Stone Mining Cooperation Mission Under Hanmiao Pavilion, the First-Place Winner of the Outer Pavilion Competition, This Year?”
...
The Class 11,680 massive group chat was also in an uproar.
Qiu Hongxin: “What's the situation? Are you pavilions not planning to participate in the Outer Pavilion Competition five years from now?”
Zeng Fan: “What does this have to do with the Outer Pavilion Competition?”
Qiu Hongxin: “They've offended the veteran Pavilion Masters. Do you think they'll have an easy time during the Outer Pavilion Competition?”
Zeng Fan: “Hiss! Thank goodness this whole mess blew up before I made my move, otherwise I would've been one of them.”
Fu Zian: “The reputation of our Class 11,680 disciples has been ruined. Even my work as an Abode Master in the External Sect has been affected. The managers are looking at me with nothing but distaste.”
Qiu Hongxin: “I haven't been affected at all here. Senior Brother Fu, I think the fact that they don't like you is purely your own personal issue.”
Xi Caixuan: “So, who ended up taking over that spirit stone mining mission in the end?”
Huan Rong: “It seems to be Guanxin Pavilion. I was also planning to approach Hanmiao Pavilion for that cooperative mission back then, but they said it had already been settled with Guanxin Pavilion. @Jun Luo, @Si Puyu, is it your Guanxin Pavilion?”
Si Puyu: “Slow hands lose out on hot missions.”
He Siyuan: “Guichen Pavilion plays the mantis stalking the cicada, while Guanxin Pavilion plays the oriole behind. Our Qingwu Pavilion's sorrow is beyond words.”
Wang Ya: “What is wrong with you guys? Why did you go out of your way to provoke the veteran Pavilion Masters?”
He Siyuan: “We've been wronged! We only heard that multi-spirit root disciples have rich combat experience, so we wanted to spar and learn from them.”
Zhu Zijin: “Hehe, this is the first time in my life my luck has been this good. Even I managed to snag a cooperative mission for our Hengguang Pavilion.”
Ling Hanbai: “Is your luck... really something worth bragging about?”
Kong Qi: “Senior brothers and sisters, please stop talking about it. We're already so sad, boohoo...”
Shao Yuqi: “What on earth happened? Why did the forum posts say you guys were provoking them?”
Xing Sichen: “The forum posts are just clickbait and exaggerations. They can't be trusted. We really invited them to spar very politely.”
Qin Xiaosheng: “Reliable source here. The forum posts really didn't exaggerate this time.”
“Those dozen or so individuals used the name of sparring to carry out provocations.”
“Though they didn't keep shearing the same single sheep, they caught a small flock of sheep and sheared them repeatedly in a tag-team fashion.”
Qin Xiaosheng: “For buying and selling information, look for Qin Xiaosheng. Xiaosheng is at your service at the earliest moment. My token friend slot is always open for everyone.”
Kong Qi: “We were only a little bit too frequent...”
Xing Sichen: “Us too.”
Deng Kaiyu: “We also only sought them out once per person.”
Shao Yuqi: “I get it. Each of you only issued a challenge once or twice in turn, but with over a dozen of you, doesn't that make twenty or thirty challenges in succession?”
Xi Caixuan: “So in the eyes of the veteran Pavilion Masters, it naturally looked like the new Pavilion Masters were taking turns mounting a tag-team provocation.”
Wang Ya: “Fortunately, a kind-hearted soul posted a thread on the forum in time to debunk the rumors, otherwise the reputation of our Class 11,680 would have been completely finished.”
Lian Anping: “The person who posted that debunking thread was Qin Xiaosheng.”
Zhan Pei: “Fortunately, we had Qin Xiaosheng to save our reputation. I've decided to only buy and sell info with him from now on.”
Wang Ya: “Me too.”
Rate on N.U.
