Xie Lang hurriedly pulled Li Yijiu over to the notice board. Near the top, he found his own name.
“I got ninety-nine!”
A score of eighty was enough to pass.
Xie Lang was delighted, but still looked a little puzzled. “What did I lose that point for? Did I forget to add punctuation somewhere…?”
He turned to Li Yijiu and asked, “Fellow Daoist, shall we go collect our exam papers? I want to see what I got wrong.”
But Li Yijiu stared at the notice board in silence. Xie Lang glanced at her. “Haven’t you found your score yet, Fellow Daoist? I’ll help you look…”
“No, I found it.”
With her powerful spiritual sense, Li Yijiu spotted her name among the dense rows of names at a glance.
“Where is it?”
“Isn’t it sorted by score?”
“How come I can’t see your name?” After searching for ages, Xie Lang finally gave up and asked her directly, “Fellow Daoist Li, what did you score?”
“Probably full marks?”
Li Yijiu: “…Look from the bottom up.”
“Huh? I have to do that?”
Thinking there was some trick to it, Xie Lang immediately turned upside down to look at the notice board. “This is exhausting, and I still can’t find it, Fellow Daoist Li…”
“…”
Li Yijiu: “…I meant start looking from the bottom of the rankings.”
Xie Lang righted himself and brushed the dust from his hands, then began scanning upward from the bottom of the notice board.
This time, he found her name quickly. The number beside it came into view.
Xie Lang froze.
There, in plain sight, was— fifty-nine points!
Fifty-Nine???
Laughter rose from the crowd. “Which one is Fellow Daoist Li? How did she score fifty-nine? Did she doze off during the exam and not finish the paper?”
“Hahaha, how can anyone fail general cultivation knowledge? The Qingxin Sect’s test wasn’t hard this time. We’ve all heard the stories of Patriarch Mingdeng since we were little—even a three-year-old could get eighty, couldn’t they?”
“General cultivation knowledge? It’s all rote memorization. Isn’t it something you can pass with your eyes closed?”
Someone looked around. “So which one of you is Li Yijiu? Don’t be shy, Fellow Daoist—come out and let us meet you. I’m really curious…”
“…”
Xie Lang rubbed his eyes. It was still fifty-nine. He couldn’t believe it. “Could there have been a mistake?”
Li Yijiu thought so too, so they went to collect their exam papers.
When the Qingxin Sect disciple handed Li Yijiu her paper, he noticed the score and, just like Xie Lang, first rubbed his eyes, wondering if he’d read it wrong.
He even offered to check Li’s paper for her. Once he’d confirmed there was no mistake, his expression turned indescribable.
“Fellow Daoist, you…”
The Qingxin Sect disciple let out a long sigh and said, “Go to the pill shop and buy some Brain-Boosting Pills. If you don’t have enough spirit stones, I can lend you some.”
“If there’s really no cure… cultivation isn’t the only way to live. It’s perfectly nice to spend your whole life as a carefree mortal, happily living day to day.”
“…”
Li Yijiu felt the pointed implication.
She looked at her exam paper, covered in red crosses, and frowned. “I didn’t get anything wrong.”
Xie Lang: “…Could the examiner have marked it incorrectly?”
Li Yijiu: “Of course.”
Xie Lang: “…”
Seeing him about to do something, Li Yijiu beat him to it. “I don’t need a Brain-Boosting Pill, thank you.”
“…”
Xie Lang still tipped one out and urged her earnestly, “Fellow Daoist, take it. The sooner you get treated, the sooner you recover. It’s really bad to refuse treatment because you’re afraid of what you’ll find!”
“…”
Then he picked up his own paper and pointed to the only place marked with a red cross. On the verge of tears, he said, “Fellow Daoist, why have you done this to me?”
“The only point I lost was on the question I asked you about yesterday…”
Li Yijiu: “…I really didn’t get it wrong.”
The day she subdued Xuanwu was also the day she and her cultivation partner pledged themselves to each other. How could she possibly have gotten that wrong?
Xie Lang: “…But I just checked with someone else’s history book. The answer wasn’t what you told me…”
Li Yijiu: “Then the history book is wrong.”
“…”
Xie Lang was at a loss for words.
He held out the Brain-Boosting Pill to her.
“…”
Before transmigrating, Li Yijiu had heard jokes about people getting reading-comprehension questions wrong when the passage was about their own writing. She’d never imagined it could happen to her.
She’d taken a test about her own deeds and actually failed?
How did that make any sense?!
Looking at her failing paper, Li Yijiu was very disappointed. It wasn’t she who had failed; it was her disciples and grand-disciples. They had misunderstood her so badly!
The Patriarch was very disappointed.
Seeing the disappointment on her face, Xie Lang misunderstood and comforted her. “It’s all right, Fellow Daoist. Even though you failed general cultivation knowledge, you still have other ways to get into the Qingxin Sect. You can take the aptitude tests for the different paths—alchemy, artifact forging, talisman arts, formations, and so on. Are you good at any of those?”
Li Yijiu: “I’m good at all of them.”
Xie Lang played along. “Fellow Daoist, you’re amazing!”
But the light of trust had already gone out in his eyes. All he wanted was to make her take the Brain-Boosting Pill.
Good at all of them? How could that be?
Not everyone was Patriarch Mingdeng. Ordinary people were lucky if they mastered even one path in their whole lives.
Calmly, Li Yijiu set down her failing exam paper and went to take the aptitude tests for the different paths.
She had no intention of arguing with the examiner. She’d already received more than enough “Brain-Boosting Pills” today. These disciples and grand-disciples were the ones who needed them.
The Patriarch was very, very disappointed.
Among the tests in alchemy, artifact forging, talisman arts, formations, and the other paths, Li Yijiu chose talisman arts because it was the least trouble.
And it really was no trouble at all.
The test was to copy a talisman pattern and draw an Immobilizing Talisman.
It was the most basic kind of talisman.
Li Yijiu was used to drawing talismans in midair, so she picked up the wolf-hair brush on the desk somewhat awkwardly.
She dipped it in cinnabar and began drawing. A few quick strokes later, she was done. Then she stood and left the examination room.
The whole process took no more than a few breaths.
The examiner hadn’t even had time to read out the examination rules before she was gone.
“…”
This time, no one was thrown off by her, because before the exam began, the Qingxin Sect disciples had checked the candidates’ names. Everyone in the examination room knew she was the “Fifty-Nine” who had been the first to hand in her general cultivation knowledge paper.
Out of the corners of their eyes, they’d seen her scribble a few strokes on the talisman paper without even looking at the pattern.
Was she here to make a joke of herself?
How could someone who clearly knew nothing act so confident?
A candidate beside her saw the examiner furrow his brows and stride over, and hurriedly lowered his head, holding his breath. He thought, Is this Fellow Daoist Li Yijiu crazy?
The examiner was Fu Yangzi, the Talisman Peak Elder of Qingxin Sect—a renowned master of talisman arts, and famous for his fiery temper.
What on earth was Li Yijiu thinking?
What good would it do to earn his scorn?
But then Fu Yangzi picked up the talisman paper and paused. His brows slowly relaxed, and he murmured, a little dazed, “Dadao Zhijian…”
Only a few strokes remained on the talisman paper, and they looked almost careless and hasty. Yet there was no doubt that the talisman had been drawn successfully.
Talisman arts used patterns to communicate with the laws of heaven and earth and wield them. Beginners were mostly clumsy and unable to grasp the essential principles, so they proceeded cautiously at every step, making their patterns complicated.
Talisman cultivators who had achieved some mastery gradually moved from complexity to simplicity. But anyone taking the entrance examination had already been tested to ensure they were no older than thirty.
Someone so young had already reached the realm of stripping away complexity to achieve simplicity. Fu Yangzi remembered how awkwardly she had held the brush. This was talent! Even Patriarch Mingdeng had been no more than this in her youth!
A genius! This old man claims her!
Holding the talisman, Fu Yangzi headed outside. “Where’s that one who ran off just now? Where did she go?”
A Qingxin Sect disciple by the examination-room entrance said, “…She just asked me where the sect’s dining hall was. She’s probably gone to eat.”
“…”
When people came to the Qingxin Sect, they usually asked about the Scripture Pavilion, the Treasure Pavilion, or the cultivation grounds.
She was the first person since the sect was founded to head straight for the dining hall.
Besides, the Qingxin Sect valued freedom from worldly desires, and all its disciples took Fasting Pills to stave off hunger.
Where would they get a dining hall?