The morning sun broke through the clouds and mist, its light scattering over the newly awakened earth, golden specks drifting in the air, dazzling yet gentle.
At the foot of the mountain, the bustling market was packed with people, the crowd surging, lively beyond measure.
“Senior Brother, what are you doing here for no reason? We’re not old enough to take disciples yet. We’d be better off going to Hundred Flowers Valley and taking a look, today is also their day to take disciples, there must be plenty of beauties.”
The speaker was a carefree youth, a blade of wild grass in his mouth, sauntering along behind.
Shen Guhan walked in front, as if he had not heard the voice behind him.
Seeing that Shen Guhan did not respond to him at all, Gu Shaoxin instantly moved and caught up to the person in front.
“Senior Brother, if you don’t say anything, I’ll take it that you came here to see your sweetheart?”
Shen Guhan stopped, lowered his eyes, and his indifferent gaze made the hair on Gu Shaoxin’s body stand on end. Only after a long moment did Gu Shaoxin hear by his ear, “You just came out of the disciplinary chamber and already want to go back in?”
At the mention of the disciplinary chamber, Gu Shaoxin jolted all over, his bristling hairs seeming to be charged with electricity, and he waved his hands repeatedly, saying, “Pretend I said nothing, pretend I said nothing.”
With Gu Shaoxin no longer chattering, the two of them quickly reached the disciple-recruitment plaza, the foot of Sword Sect Mountain, the first hurdle in taking disciples.
This was nothing more than the simplest spirit root test, but Sword Sect was the foremost sect in the world, and the people who came stretched like a flood across the mountain foot.
“Martial Uncles,” an old man in daoist robes with a chicken-skin face and crane hair folded his hands toward Shen Guhan and Gu Shaoxin. “Why do the two Martial Uncles have time to come here today?”
Gu Shaoxin spat out the wild grass in his mouth, swayed over to the old man, and looked at him from the corners of his narrow eyes. “What, the sect is selecting disciples, and we can’t look?”
The old man smiled lightly, seeming to treat Gu Shaoxin as an immature junior, and coaxed, “Naturally not. Sect disciple selection is indeed a major matter, but for the two Martial Uncles to grace us with your presence is the honor of this batch of disciples.”
“That would be too much credit, too much credit. I and Senior Brother are merely a bit younger, a bit stronger in cultivation, a bit higher in seniority, and with a bit longer lifespan, nothing compared to you old folks who have worked hard and made great contributions. We can only hope to serve the sect in the future.”
Gu Shaoxin said lazily.
When the old man heard this, his lifespan was already past half, yet he was still at the golden core. The two people in front of him were only a tiny fraction of his age, and one of them’s cultivation had already far surpassed his. His face flushed red, then green, as if he had been struck, changing again and again, his eyes fierce, his lips moving slightly, as if he were about to rage.
“Go down. The sect’s matters are important.”
Shen Guhan spoke, and the chill around him instantly restored the old man’s reason.
“Then I will not disturb the two Martial Uncles.” Before leaving, the old man glared at Gu Shaoxin, cupped his hands again, and left, storming off in anger.
“Just because they recruited a Li Yichan with slightly better talent a few years ago, that group of old men on Zhe Peak started thinking all sorts of things all day long, and even wanted the girl surnamed Li to form a dao companion with you, saying it was for the good of the sect. Our Sword Sect has always relied on strength, those old men from Zhe Peak are truly muddle-headed.”
Although Shen Guhan had driven the old man away, Gu Shaoxin still could not swallow the anger in his heart, and he kicked the wooden pillar beside him.
The wooden pillar was very long, as if it reached straight into the clouds, with no end in sight. Aside from the pillar Gu Shaoxin had kicked, there were eight identical ones on the plaza. No one knew when these nine wooden pillars had come to exist, only that they had been here since the founding of Sword Sect.
Legend said that if someone could make all nine wooden pillars flash together, then that person would be the chosen one selected by heaven.
Just then, the nine wooden pillars flashed with white light. Gu Shaoxin retreated in surprise, raised both hands, and said to his senior brother, “It has nothing to do with me.”
But he saw that the usually indifferent senior brother was looking calmly toward the other side. Gu Shaoxin followed his gaze:
A youth in white, carrying a long wooden sword on his back, with a purple-clad young girl beside him. The two of them were both very good-looking, standing together like a pair of golden boy and jade girl, as if made for each other.
And the youth’s hand was currently firmly stuck to the wooden pillar, unable to pull free no matter what, while the light from the pillar grew even brighter, like nine suns standing on the plaza.
“Oh? Another chosen one has come. So in this world, chosen ones come in batches?”
A teasing expression appeared on Gu Shaoxin’s face, as if he were watching a show.
The old man in daoist robes from earlier quickly walked toward the youth, his expression full of shock.
After a quarter of an hour, the light from the wooden pillars gradually faded, and the youth’s hand was withdrawn.
“What is your name?”
The old man looked at the youth strangely. This youth was also able to make the nine wooden pillars react, so what was going on with that Martial Uncle Li? Could there really be two chosen ones?
Ye Jinyun only felt a pressure approaching, his whole body uncomfortable. He forced down his voice and said, “Ye Jinyun.”
“Ye Jinyun.” The old man frowned, and seeing the youth looking weak, restrained his own spiritual energy. “Come with me.”
“I’ll go too.” Shen Yiling followed closely, her apricot eyes looking at Ye Jinyun pitifully.
The old man looked Shen Yiling up and down, then shook his head. “No.”
Seeing that the old man was unwilling, Ye Jinyun said to Shen Yiling, “Shen younger sister, wait for me here first, I’ll be back in a moment.”
After speaking, he also patted the top of Shen Yiling’s head.
After Ye Jinyun spoke, Shen Yiling could only nod obediently and stay where she was, waiting, like a young girl waiting for her lover.
“Tsk tsk, this young man is truly a model for our generation, coming to register and bringing along a beauty too, how enviable.”
Gu Shaoxin crossed his arms, feeling quite good.
But Shen Guhan’s chill deepened.
“Senior Brother, what’s wrong?”
Gu Shaoxin turned around and saw his senior brother’s face continuously releasing cold air. Could his senior brother really have come to see his sweetheart?
That girl’s looks were indeed rare, not much worse than that girl surnamed Li. No wonder Senior Brother liked her.
Only, when had Senior Brother started liking her? How did he not know?
“Nothing.” Shen Guhan said.
His face was black like that, and he still wanted to be a stubborn duck. Gu Shaoxin let out a long sigh in his heart. Beauties really had many pursuers, better to just watch.
Shen Guhan merely liked Ye Jinyun’s appearance, and with the prophecy that Ye Jinyun would kill him, he wanted to spend some effort and play with Ye Jinyun.
He had not expected that this thing that interested him would actually be somewhat popular. It seemed he had thrown that 01 thing onto Ye Jinyun a little too quickly, there were some things he still had not asked clearly.
However… this was a little more interesting.
Shen Guhan gave a contemptuous smile. What he wanted, no one could covet.
01 sneezed violently at this moment, secretly thinking about who was thinking of him.
“01, what is going on?” Ye Jinyun asked in his heart.
The 01 system had appeared in his mind that day after Shen Guhan left his room. Ever since Ye Jinyun transmigrated into this world, he had thought he was the protagonist. Before transmigrating into a book, he had also read quite a few starting-point novels and knew that novel protagonists all had golden fingers. He had excitedly gone looking, but after searching for more than ten years, he truly found nothing. Fortunately, his spirit root was good and his talent high, so he had forgotten about it. That was, until his family was ruined, his spirit root destroyed, and the Li family broke off the engagement.
After his despair, a system calling itself 01 bound to him. Only then did he know that he had followed the classic overbearing dragon, thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river, do not bully the young and poor pattern.
Thinking of this, Ye Jinyun did not feel the joy of having obtained a golden finger. He had been born into this body, and had long since accepted the fact that the Ye family couple were his dad and mom. He had also known from childhood that Li Yichan was his fiancée. He had been a child of destiny since he was young, his parents proud of him, his fiancée well-matched to his family background, admiring him since childhood. For him, this had been like a dream, only to be abruptly smashed to pieces by someone swinging a big stick at him, and then someone telling him, your life went the wrong way, it should have gone like this. It was truly… very ridiculous.
“Your spirit root was destroyed, so you can only use this method to pass Sword Sect’s first hurdle, the spirit root test.”
01 answered. Its mood was no simpler than Ye Jinyun’s.
The matter went back to earlier.
In the dim guest room, candlelight flickered on Shen Guhan’s exquisite side profile, and 01 tried its best to shrink itself into a smaller ball, fearing that Shen Guhan would notice it.
“What is your relationship with Ye Jinyun?”
In the quiet space, Shen Guhan’s lips parted slightly, his voice cold.
The white ball huddled at the side trembled all over, thinking it was definitely dead. “Nothing.”
“Oh?” Shen Guhan raised an eyebrow, his hand moving lightly, and the white ball was caught in his palm. “Then you’re useless.”
01 instantly felt its hairs stand on end. “There is a relationship, there is a relationship.”
Shen Guhan’s hand loosened, and 01 felt as if it had come back to life. It said in a small voice, “I came this time to bind with Ye Jinyun, help him become the strongest person under heaven, and then ascend to immortality.”
“Ascend to immortality?” The World of Longevity had not seen a cultivator successfully ascend for ten thousand years. Whether righteous cultivators or demonic cultivators who committed every evil, no one had crossed that threshold. No matter how astonishingly talented they were, in the end they all became bones and yellow earth.
Shen Guhan’s voice did not waver. He did not believe that the white ball in front of him, one he could knead however he wanted, could make a person ascend to immortality, but the word immortal was enough to make him ask one more question.
01 shrank back timidly and answered, “Yes, Ye Jinyun is the chosen one in this world, he is destined to ascend to immortality.”
“Destined to ascend to immortality?” Perhaps the words destined to ascend to immortality were too tempting, Shen Guhan also unconsciously repeated them. He came back to his senses and said, “Besides ascension, what else?”
Although he did not believe it, he could not see through the composition of the white ball. He could only control the white ball, but not see through it.
Although Shen Guhan was confident, he was not blindly arrogant. As for whether what the white ball said was true or false, he was not without a way to verify it.
Those nine pillars of Sword Sect were not just decorations. He could use them to test it.