Chapter 362
The second reason was the Baixian League's Baixian Dharma Assembly, which would feature competitions and attract business to Jiekai Island, making it quite lively. He also intended to let the students relax a bit.
The third reason, however, was the most important:
The rice fields on Letu Island had matured and needed to be harvested. These students had trained in martial arts and could help their families.
Zheng Fa didn’t want them to be idle and disconnected from the world of labor...
So he decided to give them a long break, and before the holiday, he would hold a major exam. He planned to make this a regular practice in the future.
...
Uncle Pang naturally wouldn’t explain all this; he merely clarified what the entrance exam entailed.
To his surprise, Tongming Shangren and the others seemed quite interested.
“Can we go watch?” Tongming Shangren asked.
“Well…” Uncle Pang looked puzzled. “They’re just ordinary people.”
“Since we have nothing else to do, let’s enjoy the talents of your sect before the Baixian Dharma Assembly…” Tongming Shangren chuckled.
Jiusanzong wouldn’t be participating in the Baixian Dharma Assembly this time, as they were no longer considered part of the Baixian League.
“How can that compare?” Uncle Pang waved his hand. “The participants in the Baixian Dharma Assembly are all elite disciples from various sects.”
This was indeed not a comparison of equals:
The Baixian League was already much larger than Jiusanzong.
Not to mention, the Baixian Dharma Assembly was a competition for outstanding disciples, so the quality of participants was naturally much higher than that of the entrance exam.
It would be like bullying.
“No competition, just a look,” Tongming Shangren insisted.
Uncle Pang had no choice; after discussing it with Zheng Fa, he agreed.
...
Zheng Fa didn’t mind their desire to watch the entrance exam. He was at home, hosting the Seventh Young Master Zhao Jingfan and his sister Zhao Jinglan.
The Seventh Young Master had changed quite a bit; he seemed somewhat subdued.
Zheng Shan was rummaging through her room, finally pulling out a bag of snacks and presenting it to her two guests.
Seeing her bright eyes looking at him, the Seventh Young Master couldn’t help but smile. He patted Zheng Shan’s little head and asked, “Are you scared about the exam?”
Zheng Shan scrunched up her little face and didn’t reply, clearly feeling that the question hit too close to home.
“Hahaha, I was terrified when I was little!” the Seventh Young Master laughed heartily, “Every time the teacher wanted to test me, it felt like the sky was falling.”
“But I’m a young master, so it didn’t matter if I did poorly.”
“Your brother is the sect leader… you have nothing to fear!”
Zheng Shan wrinkled her nose and finally spoke, “Brother is the sect leader, so I’m even more scared!”
“Hmm?”
Now, all three at the table were staring at her as Zheng Shan said very seriously, “If I do poorly, it’ll embarrass my brother.”
The Seventh Young Master was taken aback, then burst into laughter again, repeatedly saying, “That’s great… really great!”
He looked at Zheng Fa and suddenly sighed, saying, “Your sister is wonderful; she was wonderful back then too.”
Zheng Fa gave him a deep look, sensing that the Seventh Young Master was carrying a heavy heart.
...
Zheng Mu, being an ordinary person, thought that when guests arrived, they should be fed.
They were having a meal made from a few types of spiritual plants, including Thunder Pepper.
As the meal was winding down, the Seventh Young Master suddenly asked, “Is there any wine?”
Zheng Fa shot him a glance and looked at his mother.
Zheng Mu said, “We don’t have any at home; I’ll go borrow some from next door.”
As she stepped out, Zheng Fa watched the Seventh Young Master—he remembered that the Seventh Young Master wasn’t fond of alcohol.
Today, for some reason, he was actively asking for it.
When Zheng Mu returned, she was holding a wine jug and looked a bit embarrassed. “It’s homemade; I don’t know if the young master will like it.”
“Sounds good!” The Seventh Young Master nodded, smiling as he asked, “Do you have wine cups?”
“Yes, yes! How many do you need?”
Zheng Mu’s expression showed some concern.
“Three.”
Zhao Jinglan seemed to understand something and gently tugged at Zheng Mu and Zheng Shan, leading them out.
Inside the room, only the Seventh Young Master and Zheng Fa remained.
The Seventh Young Master didn’t speak; he just lowered his head, setting three wine cups on the table and filling them.
Zheng Fa felt a sense of foreboding:
“Gao Yuan…”
“Is dead.”
The Seventh Young Master downed his drink in one go.
Zheng Fa remained silent for a moment before lifting his cup and drinking it all.
The wine was a bit murky and somewhat bitter.
The Seventh Young Master poured another cup onto the floor, then filled three more cups.
After they each drank three cups and poured three more, the Seventh Young Master finally spoke slowly:
“Just to be a clerk… why risk your life for it?”
“Are you an idiot?”
“He told me to come to Tongming Mountain early, but he insisted on waiting… waiting to die!”
Zheng Fa listened to the Seventh Young Master’s complaints. This person had always looked down on Gao Yuan, constantly criticizing him.
Now that Gao Yuan was dead, he was still complaining…
But it seemed Gao Yuan wouldn’t be angry anymore.
After a moment, he asked, “What about Steward Gao?”
“...He received the news and fell ill; he’s lying down.”
“Who killed him?” Zheng Fa asked again.
“Don’t know; it’s all a mess, can’t figure it out. All I know is he died in Chenjun, and that place is now full of the Great Freedom Demon Sect’s people.”
Zheng Fa nodded, noting the location.
“I used to think I could do anything, that I could handle everything…” the Seventh Young Master continued, “But now that I’m the head of the family, I realize how difficult it is.”
“Coming to Qingmu Sect with my mother, there are over four hundred Zhao family members, and more than a thousand servants.”
“Now, with so many dead on the road, and those taken and killed by the Great Freedom Demon Sect… there are over four hundred.”
Zheng Fa didn’t speak, knowing the Seventh Young Master didn’t need him to.
“If it weren’t for you… I might not have been able to protect even these people.”
...The Seventh Young Master was as clear as a mirror in his heart.
“When I was little, I thought the teacher’s tests were like the sky falling,” the Seventh Young Master seemed to have a lot to say, his words coming out jumbled, “But now that the sky has truly fallen and I have to hold it up, I realize how good it was back then…”
“Back then, there was you, and there was Gao Yuan…”
At this point, he fell silent, just lowering his head.
After a long while, the Seventh Young Master looked up at Zheng Fa, sniffled, his eyes red, and pointed at the nearly finished Thunder Pepper, saying:
“This stuff is terrible…”
“Too spicy!”
...
After sending off the Seventh Young Master, Zheng Fa returned to his room.
He took out a storage bag, inside which was an envelope. When he opened it, he found a letter that Gao Yuan had left for him before he departed.
He touched the letter paper, and memories flooded back of the figure standing at the Zhao family gate, carrying a book box and grinning at him.
The last two lines Gao Yuan wrote on the letter, Zheng Fa didn’t need to read to know what they were:
“So I want to go to the academy, to continue my studies, to become a minor official, and see what I can do for this world.”
“If you really become a big shot in the immortal sect and still can’t change anything in this world, I’ll have to laugh at you when we meet again.”
He read the letter over and over until dawn broke.
...
The next day was the entrance exam for Jiusanzong.
Not only Tongming Shangren, but many disciples participating in the Baixian Dharma Assembly also came over.
“Morning exams for literature and arithmetic, afternoon for martial arts and spiritual roots?” Tongming Shangren asked Zheng Fa, clearly curious—what Zheng Fa didn’t know was that Tongming Shangren had many questions in his mind, wanting to understand why Qian Qi had undergone so many changes.
He was here to see what Zheng Fa was doing and how he was recruiting disciples.
“How many people are taking the exam in total?”
“Forty thousand, just under fifty thousand.”
This time, the participants from Letu Island ranged from young to old, with the youngest being about three years younger than Zheng Shan and the oldest already fifteen or sixteen—due to it being the first time, many overage candidates had accumulated, making the situation quite special, hence the relatively high number of candidates.
With so many candidates, one exam site couldn’t accommodate them all, so Zheng Fa set up more than a dozen exam sites on Letu Island.
Zheng Fa stood outside his little sister’s exam site.
Tongming Shangren and the others were also there.
“What are the standards?”
“Total score, with spiritual roots and arithmetic accounting for the majority, while martial arts and literature are supplementary,” Zheng Fa explained.
No matter how much he valued knowledge, one couldn’t avoid the importance of spiritual roots.
Arithmetic was the foundation of all sciences, so it was naturally important.
Martial arts and literature… could only be considered bonus points; Zheng Fa’s focus on these two was mainly to prepare teachers for the mundane world of Jiusanzong.
Tongming Shangren understood this in his own way—this arithmetic was akin to the miscellaneous items like talismans and formations at their Ascension Assembly?
He just didn’t understand why Zheng Fa placed such importance on arithmetic.
Compared to modern standards, this method wasn’t fair, but in the context of the Xuanwei Realm, it provided a path for those capable in research.
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