As they watched the people of Sanshan City walk away into the distance, Lin Zhengren had not yet spoken when his younger brother Lin Zhengli burst out in indignation: "Impudent mountain savages!"
Lin Zhengren led this debate's delegation from Wangjiang City, while Lin Zhengli fought here as the representative of the first-year cohort of the Wangjiang City Dao Academy.
At the words, Lin Zhengren merely smiled faintly, neither approving nor denying.
Every one of the Wangjiang City cultivators seated about them was decked in beads and jade. Their birthright lifted them all to wealth and rank in Wangjiang, and so they could hardly avoid the airs of young wastrels. Even here on Fenglin's very soil, they spoke without restraint, cursing whoever they pleased.
"The moment the debate begins, I say we teach them a lesson!"
"The people of Fenglin aren't much either. I told them I wanted to visit the Pavilion of Three Parts Fragrance, and they wouldn't even pay me any heed! Stingy to the last!"
"Hahaha, they're poor. Look at that courtyard they put us up in — is that fit for human habitation? They didn't even lay in a floor-dragon heating. And those pallets, no better than common silk-floss wadding!"
"Ahh, a pack of beggared has-beens, what's to be done? I've already sent my servants to make arrangements. We'll just make do for two days, that's all."
As the company bickered on, one voice cut in abruptly: "That Fu Baosong — where's he got to? Not come again?"
"Leave him alone!" Lin Zhengli snorted. "Heaven only knows how the academy head let him slip in, sour and stinking as he is."
Lin Zhengren set his cup down lightly upon the table, and Lin Zhengli fell silent at once.
Lin Zhengren lifted his chopsticks. "Eat."
The mood in the room promptly turned vivacious again.
...
Under Jiang Wang's urging, Jiang An'an had given back to her classmates the whole box of treasure she had won from them, declaring that she would no longer help them cheat on their examinations, that henceforth she would sit her tests properly, do them with style and do them with results, and bring honor to the Old Jiang family.
The condition: that after every dinner she receive an extra portion of pastries from the Guixiang Studio.
Don't you just worry about rotting your teeth!
While Ling He and the others were putting up the friends from distant Sanshan City, Jiang Wang, having finished that day's cultivation, also came to the Mingde Hall to fetch his little sister from school.
He had to admit that with the help of the Dao Essence Control Art, his mastery over Dao essence was progressing at a most gratifying speed, and the most direct sign of it was that he now laid out his array-points with breezy ease and had not erred in a very long while.
Add to that the strengthening the Four Spirit Body-Tempering Art bestowed upon his flesh, greatly multiplying the number of meridian-forging sessions he could sustain. Had he not held himself back, he might well have succeeded in Establishing his Foundation already. But even without pressing his body's potential to the very limit, he was no longer far from that Foundation.
Having collected Jiang An'an, he was just about to go out for a good meal when a girl whose hair was done up in a host of little braids sprang to a stop before him.
Pointing one finger straight at Jiang Wang, she said with the utmost rudeness: "You're the one who wouldn't let An'an play with me?"
Jiang Wang recognized her — this was the little hellion he had seen the other day at the Mingde Hall in front of the old gentleman, a slip of a girl who wore her privilege plainly on her sleeve.
The tiny pearls, jade beads, and emerald drops strung one after another on her braids alone spoke volumes of her wealth.
There was nothing to be gained by making a fuss with such a child. "Little friend, I only told An'an not to cheat on examinations together with you. I didn't tell her not to play with you."
The braided girl sniffed. "Then why did you send all that treasure back to me? That was a token of our friendship!"
"Friendship cannot be witnessed by money." Jiang Wang had little patience for other people's children, so after a cursory lesson he said: "All right, I'm taking An'an home now."
"No! You're not leaving until you've explained yourself!" The braided girl spread her arms wide, barring the way.
Jiang Wang was left with no recourse but to play his killer trump card. "I'll tell your teacher, you know."
"You wouldn't dare?" The braided girl rolled up her sleeves angrily. "Care to bet I can beat you up?"
Before Jiang Wang could answer, Jiang An'an had already spoken up: "Qingzhi, if you hit my brother, I truly won't play with you anymore!"
"Ah, hold on. Then I won't hit him." The little girl, whose name was Qingzhi, promptly rolled her sleeves back down.
Jiang Wang, listening at the side, was rendered speechless. Could you even beat me if you tried? You little snip!
"I'll say it once more, little friend. As long as the two of you don't go doing bad things together — cheating, skipping school, and the like — I won't oppose An'an playing with you. Understood? Then wait here for your family to come fetch you. An'an and I are off to have some boiled meatball soup now!"
Jiang An'an had been about to say a few more words with her good friend, but at the mention of the soup she promptly lost all interest in talking, waving her hand again and again: "Goodbye, Qingzhi! See you tomorrow!"
The braided girl waved back as she stepped aside out of the way, and Jiang Wang carried Jiang An'an off with great strides.
Watching Jiang Wang's long-striding back, she sniffed again and muttered under her breath, "So what of it."
...
The cultivators of Sanshan City finally reached the little courtyard the Fenglin City Dao Academy had prepared for them.
No sooner had the gate shut behind them than the black-robed man, whom the folk of Fenglin City took for a hidden demon lord, sat down plump on the ground, his voice a mixture of grief and fury: "We can scatter now, can't we? We're inside Fenglin City already — where could I possibly run to?"
All along the road he had tried upwards of a hundred ways to slip back to Sanshan City, and every single time he had been hauled back. And then, near the approach to Fenglin City itself, they had formed a ring around him and marched him straight in.
At his words, all the Sanshan cultivators wore expressions of some embarrassment — some looked at the sky, some looked at the earth, and two were examining one another's fingers. But not a single one moved a step.
The true demon lord bounded and skipped toward the rooms inside, and it was only after she had trotted through all six of them that she bounced back into the courtyard. Pointing one finger at the westernmost room, she said — and on each of her wrists hung a silver chain, from the end of which dangled a little silver hammer, swaying all the while with her movements — "All right, you lot go choose your rooms! That one's mine."
Whereupon the whole company scattered in a rush.
"Sun Little Fatty!" Sun Xiaoman called out to Sun Xiaoyan, who had scrambled to his feet in a single roll. "You're taking the room next to mine!"
"I don't want to!" Sun Xiaoyan bellowed — but meeting Sun Xiaoman's gaze, his voice sank at once, and he wilted: "Can I not?"
"You may not." Sun Xiaoman blinked once.
She had a pair of large, bright eyes, and when she blinked, the light in them ran like a moonbeam mirrored in a mountain stream.
But Sun Xiaoyan only wanted to tremble.
Sun Xiaoman skipped on ahead with her hands clasped behind her back, and the pair of little silver hammer ornaments swung left and right, now and then clicking together with a clear, bell-like ring. "Fatty, come along with Big Sister~"
Sun Xiaoyan followed behind her against his will, shuffling into the room while complaining pitifully: "Could you stop calling me Sun Little Fatty? I have a proper name!"
"Of course, Sun Little Fatty." Sun Xiaoman turned around and beckoned carelessly. "Come, sit here."
Sun Xiaoyan obediently sat down, his folded tide of fat filling the chair to overflowing.
Sun Xiaoman reached out and drew back his hood, revealing that chubby face of his.
"Oh my, so swollen." When Sun Xiaoman was not being menacing, her voice turned unexpectedly soft and cute.
Oh heavens, I'm being cared for. Somewhere in Sun Xiaoyan's heart rose a strange warmth.
But he caught himself in an instant. Pah! — he spat, hard, inside his own heart.
Sun Xiaoman produced a little jade bottle, and when she drew the wooden stopper, a wisp of clear fragrance drifted out.
She scooped up a dab of the half-translucent ointment with her little-finger nail, pressed it gently to Sun Xiaoyan's face, and worked it slowly in with the pad of her finger.
Sun Xiaoyan dared not resist, and sat stock-still to receive it. At first his face felt cool, and then — pleasant. All the sore places seemed to ease in that very instant.
"There now!" Having applied the medicine, Sun Xiaoman patted Sun Xiaoyan's big face. "Leave it on overnight, and by tomorrow the swelling will be gone."
A thanks all but rose to Sun Xiaoyan's lips by reflex, but he bit it back himself before it could escape.
Sun Xiaoman put away the little jade bottle and said with a smile: "Remember in the future not to be so impulsive. How ugly would a ruined face be? Think of the shame it would bring on Sanshan City."
Who was it who did this to me, hmm?!?
Bitterness surged in Sun Xiaoyan's heart, but he nonetheless forced a smile onto his face and answered meekly: "Yes, Jiejie."