“Sect Master, wasn’t the effect of your ‘appearing before the people’ just now too weak? There aren’t any demons here, but there are elsewhere. We could catch one and bring it over, and then you could, in front of everyone, with one sword—”
A finger bent, then released, and the paper fox was flicked far away by Lu Xiuyuan’s flick on the head.
“Sect Master, Sect Master, Sect Master, I was wrong, wuwuwu—” The paper fox screamed, waving his limbs and tail trying to keep his balance in the air. Just as his light body was about to be blown away by the wind, a sword scabbard held him up and carried him back to the white-clothed sword cultivator’s side.
“Guanji, wuwuwu…” The paper fox grabbed Guanji’s hair and sobbed. He didn’t dare tattle on Lu Xiuyuan, because Guanji was also Lu Xiuyuan.
“Celestial Fox, we who walk the Dao should take slaying demons and defending the Dao to keep the world at peace as our duty. Catching demons to destroy public property for the sake of ‘appearing before the people’ and endangering people’s lives and property is the doing of the demonic path.” Guanji’s expression was faint, with no scolding, but his words made the paper fox so ashamed he almost caught fire.
“I, I was too eager for quick success; it was my fault; I let the Sect Master down, wuwu…”
Guanji slightly turned his head and wiped his tears with the tip of his thumb, sighing: “Still a child.”
Lu Xiuyuan didn’t blame the paper fox. If anything, the paper fox had foreseen for him the direction the students would need to be guided in.
The paper fox was a very good, obedient fox. Although only a scattered trace of soul remained, he had been well taught by the people of the former Wenxin Sect.
Point out the problem, and the paper fox would quickly realize it wasn’t right.
But the boys and girls who had taken in so much online information were at exactly the age of not knowing the heights of heaven, and either pride or inferiority could push them to extremes.
The dangerous incidents an ordinary student’s extremes could trigger were already deadly enough, let alone these youths who had mastered power.
Lu Xiuyuan pinched the bridge of his nose. School hadn’t formally started yet, and the frequency of his headaches and worries had already risen a lot: “I must first suppress their tempers.”
The paper fox carefully watched Lu Xiuyuan’s expression. Seeing his brow tightly knit, the heart drawn in ink also pounded up and down fiercely.
“Guanji, Guanji, the Sect Master seems very angry, what do I do, what do I do, what if he never talks to me again?” The paper fox pulled Guanji’s collar and asked hesitantly, “Guanji, if you plead with the Sect Master for me, will the Sect Master forgive me?”
Lu Xiuyuan: “…” He hadn’t drawn a brain onto the paper doll, and the little thing really didn’t grow a brain.
Guanji: “…”
The paper fox was frightened by Guanji’s iceberg face and nearly slipped and fell: “S-sorry, Guanji, please, please forgive my rude words first, okay QAQ?”
Lu Xiuyuan had no choice and reached out, scooped up the paper fox, and placed him on his own shoulder.
The paper fox smiled through his tears and hugged Lu Xiuyuan’s hair tightly.
“Sect Master, you’re so nice, hehe~” He happily thought for a while before realizing—
“Sect Master, you’re so bad! Why do you always like to watch me embarrass myself, wah wuwuwu—”
“Comic convention? Photo ops? Freebies? What is all this nonsense?!”
The heads of various families, even before the younger generation had come back from the gymnasium, learned about the situation at the scene through various apps.
The comic convention held in the Lincheng Municipal Gymnasium was not the largest in scale, but those visiting the convention were all young people.
At the age group best at playing with phones, all kinds of stunt videos appeared one after another, and this time unsurprisingly many viral videos appeared as well.
But the most viral was “The Teacher Is Actually My Master, I’m Not Going to School Anymore! Tomorrow I’m Going to Study Cultivation.”
In addition, a jumble of things shot onto the trending lists, like “The Crane That Got Lost Since Age 11 Has Finally Found Me,” “What Military Training Supplies Do Wenxin Cultivation University Freshmen Need to Prepare,” and “Sword cultivators are handsome, body cultivators have great strength, someone help me decide which to pick.”
Most of what had gone viral about “one sword splitting the sea” and “the cultivation world building complex” was edited footage, and people had played with memes and laughed it off.
But this time the hot topic was especially immersive. Large numbers of young people thought it was immersive theater and cheerfully put on personas of themselves also cultivating, having a great time.
Older people who opened their phones thought the matter of spiritual qi reviving had been made public.
“When was it leaked?! Weren’t we supposed to proceed step by step? Revealing it all at once, do you know how much crime it will give rise to!”
The state machinery had originally planned to 404 all the videos that had caused heated discussion online. Letting everyone know the truth of the world too early was not a good thing.
But Lu Xiuyuan opposed such a one-size-fits-all attitude.
“The more you try to hide something, the more they can realize they’ve unwittingly come into contact with the truth,” Lu Xiuyuan said calmly. “Let’s leave it like this. Not many people believe it now anyway, do they?”
Trending videos about Wenxin Sect online easily got several hundred thousand likes, but the reputation points did not increase by much.
Lively as it was, without seeing it with their own eyes, the public had too many reasons to excuse and explain away the truth.
Saying it for real, oddly, made no one believe it.
“This is also a kind of groundwork, to let the public gradually accept the truth that the world is about to be turned upside down.”
Lu Xiuyuan said it breezily, but in fact he was thinking about earning reputation points through the internet.
Although the growth rate of reputation points was not proportional to likes, there were always some edgy teenagers and elderly people who didn’t understand AI technology who believed it.
The growth was slow but steady.
Most importantly, it was free!
Lu Xiuyuan’s attitude was to let it be. The state machinery held several rounds of meetings to discuss it, and by the time their procedures were done, it was already time for the cultivation university’s admissions exam.
“The first of the seventh month, is it the first day of the seventh lunar month or the first of July in the solar calendar!” The chosen ones who had obtained exam qualifications were restless and tossed and turned.
Not one of them could sleep, especially when the critical moment of 23:59:59 came; the agitation of each second feeling like a year was enough to drive one mad.
“Hum—”
In the eager waiting, a golden light flashed through the admissions brochures and the dark-iron swords.
“All examinees must arrive at No. 1 Jiefang Road, Lincheng, before 9:00 on July 1 to take part in Wenxin Cultivation University’s first admissions exam. Those who have not arrived by the deadline will have their exam eligibility canceled. The exam lasts 1 to 30 days. Please notify your parents in advance and make corresponding preparations.”
“Aaaaah I’m going to be a sword cultivator! I’ve made something of myself! Dad! Mom! From now on I’m our family’s connection in the cultivation world!!!”
Some impatient ones immediately packed their luggage to go to the exam site and queue overnight, while some slightly more rational ones planned to get a full sleep first and then go into battle energetically.
Either way, this night was destined to be a restless nine hours.
“It’s true! Absolutely true! That teacher didn’t even touch him, and that fat bastard flew out and vomited blood in gushes!”
The bus door opened, and a group of colorful teenagers poured into the bus. Accompanied by the driver’s shout of “There’s room in the back, squeeze toward the back,” the severely overloaded bus was so packed there was nowhere to put a foot.
Several girls held phones and described, waving their arms, the scene they had seen yesterday.
The girls, who had been excited all day and hadn’t calmed down, chattered nonstop. The office workers about to go to a day of work drooped their heads, dozing against the window or handrails, the age gap like a chasm at that moment.
Someone, unable to stand the noise anymore, snorted coldly and decided to break these edgy kids’ delusions: “You say there are cultivators. What evidence do you have to prove it?”
“Of course there is!” A pink-haired girl proudly held up a piece of stiff card. “See? What’s written here: ‘Wenxin Cultivation University Admissions Brochure, with this voucher you can take the July 1 unified admissions exam for the cultivation university’! Today is July 1, and we’re the cultivators going to take the admissions exam!”
“Yes, yes! We’re cultivators with bright futures!”
The office workers who had been dozing, hearing this, instinctively looked at the card the girl held high. The card was very exquisite, printed with an ancient building complex wreathed in immortal mist, with several mysterious figures scattered here and there, their faces unclear but deeply catching the eye.
The early morning light was not yet bright, and the cold light fell on it, so that in a haze it seemed truly shrouded in a layer of cloud and mist, wisps of golden light faintly appearing and disappearing.
High-end, mysterious, but just a flyer using a bit of new technique.
Some glanced at it, lowered their heads indifferently, and went back to catching up on sleep. There were also sharp-tongued ones who said sarcastically: “Mm-hm, you 2D folks’ stunts are really interesting, but be careful. Fooling others is one thing, but don’t fool yourselves into it.”
The hot-blooded teenagers did not impulsively start a loud argument with him.
The girl holding the brochure raised her chin: “It’s not a stunt. Forget it, I can’t explain it to you. Anyway, I got the cultivation university’s admissions brochure. When I become a sword cultivator you’ll find out how short-sighted you were!”
“Pfft!”
The man laughed out loud, deliberately stretched, and swatted the girl’s brochure out of her hand.
“My opportunity!” the girl cried anxiously and flustered reached out to catch it, but the man again deliberately jostled the person beside him with a big motion. The crowded standing positions were like dominoes, knocking the pink-haired girl crooked, and the card slipped from her fingertips and fell to the ground.
Her companion also wanted to help pick it up: “Excuse me, excuse me, please make way!”
“Oh my, my shoulder is so sore!” The man moved his body again, squeezing everyone in the car crooked.
“Tap.”
The card fell to the floor. The pink-haired girl pushed through the crowd and bent to retrieve it, and malice flashed in the man’s eyes as he lifted a foot to step on it.
“Whoosh—”
Just as the leather shoe was about to print a footprint on the card, a golden light flashed, and the card flew back into the pink-haired girl’s hand.
“!!!”
This scene made quite a few people instinctively raise their hands and rub their eyes.
The pink-haired girl clutched her opportunity tightly. Before the joy of regaining what she’d lost had shown for long, she noticed the man’s blatant gaze, hurriedly put the brochure in the inner pocket of her bag, zipped it up, and held it tightly to her chest.
Her friend also pressed close to her, looking around warily.
“Tch, such a low-grade little magic trick; I can figure it out in a glance. Let me test you, little girl. Do you know where you gave yourself away just now?”
The pink-haired girl said nothing.
Having already tasted the bitter fruit of being high-profile once, she seemed to have suddenly had a rapid growth button pressed and became steady and reserved.
The man was somewhat embarrassed and angry at having been shown up: “A magic prop like this that you can buy for a few yuan, who would care about it!”
The pink-haired girl suddenly asked: “Where do you live?”
The man froze, then curled his lips in a smile he thought was handsome: “So you did all this to get my attention. Should’ve said so earlier! Kids these days really will do anything to get attention.”
Wang Zixuan’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were misty, as if carrying the heart’s worries of all sixteen-year-old girls—
“When I can fly on a sword, you’ll be the first house I go to! Don’t worry, I’ll let you see what real ‘magic technique’ is!”
She would train her sword-riding skill proficiency to max as fast as possible, and then hit this man in the face hard!