Chapter 60

Ling Qingming pondered.

Qingzhu Academy placed its bets on archery, calligraphy, and music.

Unexpectedly, during the music competition, Wei Xi outshone everyone else.

With Mu Yunchuan, their key player, absent, Qingzhu Academy’s students, although performing well, were not as impressive as those from other well-established academies.

As the host, if they didn’t have outstanding performances later on, it would be a blow to their reputation.

However, he then thought that Cuiwei Academy’s entry into the retest was also a stroke of luck. They would likely lose this round, while Qingzhu was stable. There was no need to see Cuiwei as a rival and lower the status of their own academy.

With these thoughts in mind, Ling Qingming showed no signs of concern and quickly discussed the results of this round with the other judges.

Cuiwei Academy, thanks to Wei Xi’s outstanding performance, won the top spot in this round!

Wei Xi set a good example, and Shen Cui and the others were naturally overjoyed. Serving tea and wiping sweat were basic operations. Mu Er Pang looked at his junior brother’s reddened fingertips and felt sorry for him, massaging his hands.

Shen Cui saw that Wei Xi looked slightly tired and checked his panel in the system. His mood was good, but his constitution had dropped by 2 points, which made her feel a bit sorry for him. She hoped that the next round, whether it was archery or mathematics, would allow him to rest for a while.

However, to their disappointment, the third round was indeed calligraphy.

“I’m fine.” Wei Xi smiled and reassured everyone that he was okay.

Then he went up again.

For this calligraphy competition, the old head of Hongle Academy announced the topic, “The so-called ‘Heaven unites, Earth unites, People unite, Self unites,’ the four unities are the way to success. All students, please write the four characters ‘Heaven, Earth, People, Self.'”

The fasting man lit a stick of incense, and all the students respectfully complied.

“Are we only writing these simple characters for the retest? Wasn’t the difficulty supposed to be greatly increased?” Mu Er Pang asked Lao Buyu quietly outside the arena.

Lao Buyu replied, “Small characters are easy, but large characters are difficult. And these four characters… are really not easy to write.”

If the preliminary round of calligraphy competition focused on speed and handwriting, the retest, with these four characters, emphasized elegance, charm, and even artistic conception.

It’s like cooking. Many chefs can cook delicious dishes with exotic ingredients, but cooking a simple dish like vegetables or tofu, transforming simplicity into a different kind of deliciousness, requires extremely high skill and talent.

With Lao Buyu’s explanation, Shen Cui and Mu Er Pang were both nervous for Wei Xi.

Likewise, the other students in the arena were in no rush to start writing, quietly experiencing the artistic conception of the four characters.

Halfway through the allotted time, everyone started writing, and Wei Xi followed suit.

After finishing the four characters, sweat covered his forehead, making him look more exhausted than when he had played the zither for so long.

After the fasting man collected the papers, everyone left the stage.

When they returned to the Cuiwei Academy’s viewing area, Wei Xi’s face lost its smile, and he shook his head to indicate that he didn’t perform well.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. We didn’t focus on ‘calligraphy’ to begin with, and the preparation wasn’t thorough enough. Just do your best,” Lao Buyu comforted him in a gentle voice.

Mu Er Pang gently wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. “Sir is right. Besides, you just played the zither for so long and went straight to the second round. It’s understandable that you’re tired.”

At this moment, Shen Cui regretted not being able to speak. If she could, she would be able to better comfort Wei Xi compared to Lao Buyu and Mu Er Pang, who were not very eloquent.

Unable to speak, she could only gently pat Wei Xi’s back, letting him know not to be disheartened.
Even though everyone’s words made sense, Wei Xi knew deep down that the main reason was not lack of preparation or fatigue, but simply that he was not as skilled as others. He couldn’t bring out the elegance and charm in those four simple characters.

Before this academy competition, Wei Xi had been somewhat arrogant. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have refused to go even to Qingzhu Academy for Lao Buyu.

He was aware of Lao Buyu’s mixed reputation, but he believed that with his talent, he could surpass others in learning.

Now he realized that there were many talented people in the world, and he was not the only one.

Fortunately, he discovered this in calligraphy, which was not his strong suit. If he had lost in his area of expertise, it would have been a real blow.

[System prompt: The emotional state of Training Target 2 has changed, Emotional Intelligence +1.]

Shen Cui was very surprised.

Since Wei Xi joined them, she had used many items from the system, and the only thing that had improved was his physique.

She had verified with the system that, just like in an online game, the higher the level, the more experience points required to level up, and the harder it became. Mu Er Pang started with a low base, so he could increase each attribute by 20 points with a single [Opening Pill]. However, as he approached 40 points in each attribute and exceeded his peers, his leveling speed slowed down. In the year and a half since the establishment of Cuiwei Academy, Mu Er Pang had only increased his overall attributes by 10 points.

So she had always thought that, apart from his physical fitness, his attributes, mostly over 80 and close to 90, were unlikely to increase further.

Unexpectedly, participating in the academy competition this time brought such a harvest!

Shortly after, the fourth round of competition arrived. This round was archery.

It was Mu Er Pang’s turn to compete.

Although it was still archery, the distance for this round’s target was much farther than what Lao Buyu had imagined the day before. It was a distance that Mu Er Pang had never practiced before.

The target placed at the end looked like a small black dot to the person standing at the starting point.

The contestants were still divided into five groups, but because the preliminary round had already eliminated a batch of people, and the retest could not use the strategy of overwhelming numbers, the teams were much shorter.
Wei Shu did not participate in the battle the previous day, and today the difficulty of the test has greatly increased, so it was his turn to go up.

As luck would have it, the two of them were placed in the same team, with Wei Shu standing behind Mu Er Pang.

The day before, when they were playing the game of throwing pots, the participating students were very lively, but today the referee still forbade them to make any noise, so it was unusually quiet.

It was soon Mu Er Pang’s turn. The referee distributed the arrows, and Wei Shu suddenly whispered to him, “Don’t let your eyes deceive you.”

After saying this, Wei Shu did not speak again.

Mu Er Pang did not understand the meaning of his words for a moment and looked at the scholar in front of him.

The scholar exerted a lot of force, and his aim was good, but the arrow he threw just grazed the pot, getting a “leaning pole,” which means it did not hit and scored no points.

Thinking back to what Wei Shu had said, Mu Er Pang understood.

When your eyes see the pot mouth become so small, you will subconsciously feel that you need to use a lot of force!

If he had realized this after hitting the pot with his first arrow, then there would definitely be no chance of success.

The person before him missed the first arrow, but he was still a strong player. After failing once, he hit three “scatter arrows” in a row, but only got three points.

After that person left, Mu Er Pang stood up first.

Relaxing his body and feeling the direction of the wind, he slightly reduced his strength and threw it out—another “initial hit,” scoring ten points!

Mu Er Pang turned to look at Wei Shu, who also smiled, but then returned to his usual expression.

Mu Er Pang no longer distracted himself and threw again, but his skill was limited, and luck did not favor him. His last three arrows all failed to hit the pot due to various problems.

After he finished, it was Wei Shu’s turn. Mu Er Pang deliberately slowed down a bit, and Wei Shu’s movements were also very quick. He shot four arrows in a row, only hearing four crisp sounds— he hit all four arrows!

This is the strength that once won all the academies and took the top spot in the “shooting” field!

Mu Er Pang looked at him admiringly. If it weren’t for being in front of others, the two fat thumbs would have wanted to give him a vigorous thumbs-up!

After leaving the field, the two returned to their respective stands.

Mu Er Pang didn’t hide anything and said directly, “I didn’t do well in this round. It’s not common for Brother Wei to hit all four arrows and get ‘from start to finish,’ but there are quite a few who hit three arrows in a row.”

Not long after this was said, Qingzhu Academy quickly tallied the results.

Cuimei Academy, no names on the list.

They had already competed in four rounds in a row. Cuimei Academy had only passed one “music” round. Even if they counted the “math” round as a pass, they had no chance of advancing to the next round of the competition.

Shen Cui had spent so much time and resources preparing for this in order to receive the reward for passing the retest. At this point, the effectiveness of her “Disguise Pill” was also running out. According to reason, she should find an opportunity to leave and return to her original identity.

But at this moment, ‘he’ unhesitatingly renewed the second pill in the system. In the eyes of everyone who was somewhat disappointed, ‘he’ confidently patted his chest!

His unwavering appearance quickly infected others. Without saying a word, he smiled and said, “If we don’t pass the retest, so be it. We still have a trump card! Xiao Xi got the first place in the retest. We will also get a top grade in the ‘math’ round!”

There was no need to say more about what followed. If they could get two top grades in the retest, who could say that Cuimei Academy was a joke and had brought shame to the local scholars?!

Wei Xi and Mu Er Pang came to participate in this competition to broaden their horizons and protect their master’s reputation. They immediately stopped blaming themselves and looked at ‘Zhang Sheng’ hopefully.

At this time, the several judges gathered together were also trying to avoid leaking any questions to any academy. They were now handing out the final round of math papers.

The last question was given by the old headmaster of Hongle Academy.

After this question was given, the other judges hesitated to speak, but in the end, it was Ling Qingming, as the organizer, who helped them speak out, tentatively asking, “Is this question… a bit too difficult?”

Not to mention the students taking the retest, even the headmaster and scholars who were not good at math would find this question quite difficult.

The old headmaster stroked his beard and remained silent, then after a while, he slowly said, “Both of you have already given out your questions, which can already test the students’ abilities. Mine can be considered as an additional question.”