After hearing what Senior Brother Chang Yi and Senior Brother Song had said, the expressions on the faces of all the disciples present changed as well.
“So, you see, the Immortal Alliance Conference isn’t that easy to win. Ever since our Qingxuan Sect began participating in the Immortal Alliance Conference, we haven’t even made it into the top five once.”
After hearing Chang Yi say this, the disciples who had been full of fighting spirit just moments ago all became dispirited.
After a while, one disciple in the crowd could not help asking, “Then… can’t we just not go?”
If they did not go, would they not have to endure people’s cold looks or suffer their humiliation?
Chang Yi ruthlessly rejected the idea. “No. Our Qingxuan Sect is already located in a remote area. If we don’t show our faces at the Immortal Alliance Conference, recruiting disciples will probably become even more difficult in the future.”
The number of disciples they had managed to recruit over the past few years was already pitifully small. If that number fell any further, the entire Qingxuan Sect would have an even harder time surviving.
“Forget it.”
Song Yihen stood up and said, “Whether we face it head-on or shrink back, we’re going to take a blow either way, so we might as well get it over with. I refuse to believe that our Qingxuan Sect can keep losing forever!
“Even if we older ones aren’t up to the task, we still have all of you younger ones. Train hard. In three years, you’ll be the ones bringing honor to our Qingxuan Sect!”
The disciples, who had still looked somewhat dispirited, instantly filled with fighting spirit after hearing this.
“Good! We definitely won’t let our Senior Brothers down. We’ll work hard at our cultivation and make it into the top five of the Immortal Alliance Conference three years from now!”
“Have some ambition. We’re going straight for first place!”
“That’s right! First place!”
“First place!”
As Chang Yi and Song Yihen were leaving, they heard all the disciples present shouting “First place!” in unison. The two exchanged a knowing glance and smiled.
Making it into the top five was already extremely difficult, let alone taking first place.
Every year, nearly a dozen sects, large and small, participated in the Immortal Alliance Conference, while first place always belonged to the Xianling Sect.
Thinking of the exceptionally gifted prodigies in the Xianling Sect, Chang Yi and Song Yihen’s expressions darkened.
*
Today, in the Sword Practice Hall, Xie Zhao had heard his two Senior Brothers explain just how difficult it was to take first place in the Immortal Alliance Conference.
Although the Immortal Alliance Conference was still far away for him at present, it could also serve as a goal.
He had heard that only disciples who took first place in their sect’s selection examination could represent the Qingxuan Sect at the triennial Immortal Alliance Conference.
Xie Zhao knew that he was not yet qualified this year, so he would work hard and represent the Qingxuan Sect at the Immortal Alliance Conference three years from now.
If he was going to do something, he would become the strongest!
Only then would he be worthy of Senior Sister, be able to protect Senior Sister, and be qualified to stand at her side!
However, the one thing that had been troubling Xie Zhao lately was his body. There was something very wrong with it.
The Back Mountain behind Qiyun Residence.
Xie Zhao was wearing only a thin set of nightclothes as he sat in the icy-cold spirit spring. Only after he felt the heat within his body completely subside did he stand up from the spring.
The young man draped his outer robe over himself and left the spirit spring.
When Xie Zhao returned to Qiyun Residence, he saw that the room whose lamp he had not lit before leaving was now illuminated.
Qiyun Residence was very spacious, and only two disciples lived in each room.
The disciple currently sharing a room with Xie Zhao was a youth named Ming An.
Xie Zhao casually pushed open the door. The sudden movement startled the several youths inside, making them shudder.
Perhaps because he was feeling somewhat nervous, Ming An instinctively snatched up the quilt beside him and tightly hid the book in his hands beneath it.
As soon as Xie Zhao entered, he saw two other youths sitting on Ming An’s bed not far away. The moment they saw him, all three stared at him as if they had been caught doing something bad.
“What are you doing?” Xie Zhao frowned. Seeing that Ming An’s face was flushed, he asked, “Ming An, are you feeling unwell? Do you have a fever?”
“Huh?” Ming An, whose name had suddenly been called, froze for a moment. He instinctively touched his burning face and said, “N-no… I’m fine. It’s probably just because the room is too warm.”
As he spoke, Ming An glanced at the two disciples beside him.
The two disciples understood at once and hurriedly echoed him. “Y-yes… this room is a little too warm. I’m feeling rather hot too.”
As they spoke, the two of them really did seem somewhat warm, for they even took off their outer robes.
Xie Zhao felt that there was something indescribably strange about the three of them, but he did not ask further. He walked over to his own bed and straightened the bedding, then said to the three on the other side, “I’m getting ready to sleep. Keep your voices down.”
“All right, all right.” Ming An hurriedly nodded.
Then he looked at his two friends beside him, glanced at Xie Zhao in the distance, and asked in a low voice, “Why don’t we… ask him to watch with us?”
Otherwise, with him sleeping alone over there while the three of them looked at this here, it felt rather strange.
“Won’t he tell anyone?” one of the disciples asked.
Ming An thought about it and said, “He… he probably won’t. A-Zhao is a pretty good person.”
Besides, surely no man would refuse this sort of thing.
Xie Zhao had just finished arranging his bedding and was preparing to lie down when the three suddenly appeared behind him, startling him.
“What are you doing?”
Ming An hooked an arm around his shoulders and dragged him over. “Brother, I’m going to show you something good today!”
Looking at the lecherous grin on Ming An’s face, Xie Zhao was confused.
The three of them then pulled him onto the bed. Ming An carefully took a book out from beneath his bedding. There were no words at all on the book’s cover.
Seeing how extraordinarily reverent Ming An’s movements were, Xie Zhao was just about to ask whether he had secretly taken some kind of cultivation manual from the sect’s Scripture Repository when Ming An opened the book.
When Xie Zhao saw what was drawn inside and realized what the two scantily clad little figures were doing, the tips of his ears suddenly flushed bright red.
Xie Zhao shot up from the bed.
Seeing his utterly shocked expression, Ming An asked, “A-Zhao, don’t tell me you’ve never seen this before?”
The youth said nothing, his ears red.
“You really haven’t seen it?” Ming An asked in astonishment.
Xie Zhao turned around and was about to leave.
“If you don’t look at this, then once you get married in the future, how are you going to attend to your Senior Sister?”
Xie Zhao’s footsteps halted, and he asked in shock, “Do you have to look at this when you get married?”
“Not only do you have to look at it, you have to learn it too. Otherwise, how are you going to make Senior Sister Yun Yuan happy?” Ming An continued, “I went through a lot of trouble to steal this from my older brother. It would be a waste not to look at it. I heard people say that if you don’t know how to do these things, your wife can easily run off with another man in the future.”
Hearing this, Xie Zhao became thoroughly alarmed. He immediately sat back down, straight-backed and serious.
However, when he saw all the various movements of the two little figures in the book, a wave of heat rose throughout his entire body.
After he and Senior Sister married, would they also do the things the two little figures in the book were doing?
Just imagining himself and Senior Sister doing such things made Xie Zhao’s head spin again and again…
That night, the young Xie Zhao opened up a new world…