Li Xuelian had just finished explaining Zhang Yu's situation when a light chuckle came from the other end of the line.
"He's not bad. But we won't be taking him on."
"Why not?" Li Xuelian asked.
Starfire True Person burst into laughter, his tone brimming with delight. "I've already found a true genius. Also a first-year, only fifteen years old. He mastered the Heavenly Martial Heart Refining Art in half an hour. And he isn't bound by any contract."
Li Xuelian gasped. "There's a freak like that?"
"I've told you before," Starfire said, "the first layer of Kunxu has never lacked geniuses — only investors willing to back them. Consider the top scorers in each subject at the college entrance exams, and the overall champions. You know how extraordinarily gifted those people are."
"Every year, the first layer of Kunxu produces several of them, plus a whole crowd only slightly below, all surfacing year after year like chives that never run out. There are too many geniuses. I just never found them in time — someone always snatched them up before me. But now, at last, I got there first."
Li Xuelian cast a regretful glance toward Zhang Yu. "Then won't you sign this Zhang Yu too, just in case?"
"Forget it. From now on, our family's resources are all going to the true genius. No point spreading ourselves thin."
---
In the meeting room beside the exhibition hall, Li Xuelian looked at Zhang Yu with an apologetic expression. "I'm sorry, young man. My father has more pressing matters to attend to, so for now he won't be able to take you on as a disciple."
Her tone was sincere. "However, you can freely use the Heavenly Martial Heart Refining Art from now on — consider the usage rights a gift from me, on my own authority."
Her eyes held nothing but appreciation. "Lastly, I'd like to give you ten thousand yuan, in my personal capacity. Don't rush to refuse. This gift comes purely from my admiration of your talent. I hope when we next meet, you'll have gotten into a top-tier university."
"Oh, right — about those videos you recorded, they involve distribution rights to the Heavenly Martial Heart Refining Art. You'll need to delete them."
As Zhang Yu's back receded, the smile gradually faded from Li Xuelian's face. Though Starfire had no intention of taking the young man, she saw no reason to antagonize a youth of such uncommon talent. The usage rights and the ten thousand yuan were trivial to her, barely worth a moment's effort. She had lost count of how many such small gifts she'd casually tossed at young geniuses over the years. Most, of course, had faded into obscurity, long since forgotten.
Having settled that, she went on to meet a few more important guests, then grew eager to find her father. She was far too curious about this peerless genius Starfire kept praising.
---
On the other side of the exhibition hall, Bai Zhenzhen watched Zhang Yu walk out of the meeting room. "So? Turned down Starfire? Did Li Xuelian give you any trouble?"
Zhang Yu shook his head. "No trouble at all. She rejected me before I could say a word — said Starfire had other matters to attend to. Though she did hand me an extra ten thousand."
Bai Zhenzhen pursed her lips. "Textbook brush-off. Maybe after digging into your records, she found out you're not actually that impressive — poor monthly scores, no sterilization record, mediocre muscle growth, and a mountain of debt."
"Zhen, can't take the loss, so you resort to personal attacks?"
Bai Zhenzhen grabbed his shoulder. "Tell me what hack you're using! Did you bribe the staff and get a sneak preview of the Celestial Combat Painting before everyone else?"
Zhang Yu laughed inside. *Keep going, Zhen. Watching you weaklings wallow in defeat is my entertainment now.*
Just then, Qian Shen walked over, his face grave. "Do you deliberately tank your scores? The Celestial Combat Painting trial raised my resistance to high scorers. But for someone with low scores to surpass me — I find that utterly astonishing."
When Zhang Yu shook his head in denial, Qian Shen grew agitated. "Impossible! The college entrance exam and the six core high-school subjects were designed by the Ten Great Sects specifically as a system to evaluate high-schoolers. It's been verified and adjusted by countless experts and powerhouse cultivators. It's the most optimal, most scientific, most Daoist system for judging a person."
"Every subject, every point, perfectly reflects the gap between people — the superiority of bloodlines, the backwardness of regions, the incompleteness of evolution."
Zhang Yu realized he'd misjudged the guy. *So you're not a simple score-discriminator after all. You've evolved from score discrimination into bloodline, regional, and phenotype discrimination — you've become a zealot of the score-caste system.*
In Qian Shen's world, a high score meant you were elite, entitled to superiority and confidence; a low score meant you were trash. That was the worldview he'd built over years, the source of his pride as a top academic — and, Zhang Yu suspected, the unspoken rule of every elite high school.
"Hmph, fine, refuse to admit it then. But I'll report what happened here to the school. I hope you show your real skill next month — don't turn in a 550 again, so incompletely evolved."
As Qian Shen walked away, Zhang Yu felt he'd been insulted and yet not insulted at all.
Bai Zhenzhen nodded thoughtfully. "Of all his nonsense, he's got one point. The school will learn about this, and when it does, they might come looking to sign you to a contract."
"A contract?" Zhang Yu had heard vague whispers before, but the details had always remained a mystery.
"Not everyone's as rich as Qian Shen's family," Bai Zhenzhen explained. "Many students who are poor but smart and gifted need someone to invest in them. The school is one such investor. Normally, from the start of the second year, it screens out a batch of standouts and signs them, investing in them. But for the rare few so dazzling that someone might snatch them first, the school approaches them as early as the first year." She puffed out her chest. "Like me."
"Why didn't you tell me about this?"
Bai Zhenzhen shot him a look that seemed to say, *Do I need to point out what a mess you were?* "Given your performance at the exhibition, the school will talk to you. The hard part isn't the choice itself — it's whether you truly know yourself. If you're confident in the top ten elite universities, don't sign. If you just want a normal university, sign as long as the terms aren't too one-sided."
A pretty, charming girl approached Zhang Yu. "Hello, classmate. You were really cool just now. Can I add your contact?"
Things like this had happened many times ever since he comprehended the painting — even Lian Tianji from Purple Cloud High had come to add him. Zhang Yu was gradually getting used to it.
"Which school are you from?"
"I'm Wu Qingqing, from the Elite Class of the Holy Maiden's Academy."
Zhang Yu's face stiffened. In the world of Kunxu, a man who looked like a woman wasn't necessarily a woman — but students in a girls' school's Elite Class had definitely been men at some point.
Wu Qingqing smiled. "Old-fashioned thinking, huh? Think we're all just gaming the system to get into an elite school? Some of our top academics are no worse than you. Wait for the city-wide exam and you'll see."
Zhang Yu watched her walk away, speechless. *Even trans people have to prove their scores here before anything else.*
"Congratulations," Zhou Tianyi said, walking over. "Did you sign with the Golden Core True Person?"
Zhang Yu noticed Zhou Tianyi had seemed to vanish into the background during the painting trial.
The rest of the day, Zhang Yu worked as a security guard, trading a few words with guests he knew or didn't know. With the day's work done, his savings grew by 1,600 and then 10,000, vaulting all the way to 13,300. After paying off the remaining 5,000 of this month's loan, his balance dropped to 8,300 — and for the first time in a while, he no longer feared the debt collectors.