"Another issue of the school newspaper." Early in the morning, students from the other classes got up and found an extra school newspaper on their desks, and they were quietly delighted.
A deskmate lay sprawled across his desk, making up for lost sleep, and could not be bothered to lift his head. "What's interesting about the school newspaper? If it isn't a speech from the leadership, it's chicken soup for the soul. The writing isn't even as interesting as my essays."
"If that's how you want to judge it, then Chu Xiaoyao's essays are still more interesting. I heard she wrote some story or other in a composition, got hauled into the office, and was given a thorough scolding by her class's Chinese teacher. The other Chinese teachers were all secretly asking whether there was a next part."
"There's definitely no comparing with Chu Xiaoyao." The deskmate nodded in agreement. He did have some self-awareness.
"And besides, what's wrong with the school newspaper? At least it's a better read than the textbooks." The classmate did not look down on the school newspaper. When he was bored between classes, he could even get absorbed in a medicine leaflet.
He was quickly caught by the front-page headline.
"Hey, look. Class Three founded an acrobatic troupe?"
The deskmate was not buying it. He waved a hand. "Who are you fooling? Don't interrupt my sleep."
"It really is an acrobatic troupe. It's called the Carefree Sect, and the sect master is Zhou You."
The deskmate answered, still bleary. "Zhou You? Why does that name sound so familiar?"
"That Zhou You whose relationship with Su Tingxue is all unclear and improper."
"Him?" The deskmate perked up, snatched the school newspaper, and read the headline several times over.
He had thought a dull third year of high school was about to begin. Who would have thought that only two days into the new term there would be news this explosive.
He only hated that he was not a student in Class Three, and could not be the first to witness Zhou You's grand feat of leading Su Tingxue by the hand on his left and dragging Chu Xiaoyao along on his right.
Truly enviable.
To think that after only a day they had already founded an acrobatic troupe. So many activities.
If only he could transfer to Class Three.
The deskmate stood. "Come on. Bathroom."
"I just went."
"When we pass Class Three on the way to the bathroom, point out which one is Zhou You for me."
"Oh."
...
"Damn you, Fatty Wei! Is that any way to describe a person?" School newspaper in hand, Zhou You stormed over to Wei Hang in a fury.
Today the foot traffic at the classroom's back door had clearly increased. All of them were sneaking over with friends to get a look at him, and the source was right here with Wei Hang.
Nuomi, the deputy sect master, naturally had to keep close to the sect master's pace. Nuomi circled Wei Hang in a spirit-medium dance, letting out sounds of no clear meaning.
"Hei~ Ha~"
Nuomi considered this very intimidating.
Wei Hang felt wronged. He took out the school newspaper and confronted Zhou You. But for some reason, the moment Zhou You drew near, he went so cold he shivered.
Could it be that I'm feeling guilty?
"What's the problem with this? Isn't this all what you people told me to write? That you have the strength of one ox, and can do a one-handed bottle-cap twist."
"Is what you wrote 'the strength of one ox'?" Zhou You said furiously.
Wei Hang understood all at once. "Oh, you mean that. 'The strength of one ox' was too hard to understand. I was afraid the classmates wouldn't get it, so I changed it to something plain and easy. The most important thing about a newspaper is that people can understand it. That's a famous maxim the previous president of the school newspaper club left me."
Zhou You wanted to spit a mouthful of blood onto Wei Hang's face. Who asked you to make it plain and easy to understand? Now everyone thinks I perform acrobatics.
I am a proper immortal cultivator. The divide between immortals and mortals—do you understand it or not?
"All right, all right, don't be angry. I'll treat you to shrimp sticks." Seeing Zhou You's anger, Wei Hang put on a smile and generously played host, shaking the bag of shrimp sticks. The crisp shrimp sticks knocked against one another with an enticing sound.
Zhou You stared at the shrimp sticks for a long while. He wanted to say, Isn't this the bag I gave you this morning? He thought about it, and in the end he did not make the remark. He reached out, grabbed a handful, took one, and put it in his mouth.
Delicious. Wei Hang was forgiven for the time being.
Zhou You returned to his seat, held out his hand to show Chu Xiaoyao the spoils—a handful of shrimp sticks—and glared at her at the same time.
"Still laughing. This is all your fault for insisting on adding that 'strength of one ox.'"
"Sorry, sorry. I really didn't expect it to turn out like this." After getting the school newspaper, Chu Xiaoyao had laughed until her stomach hurt, so it had fallen to Zhou You to lead Nuomi over and settle accounts with Wei Hang.
She took a few shrimp sticks from Zhou You's hand, laughing as she ate.
...
Ever since emerging from closed-door cultivation, Wenchang True Lord had been in a very bad mood.
He woke from a sleep to find the vast Qing dynasty gone.
The Qing being gone was bearable enough. As he reckoned it, this was not the first change of dynasty he had lived through. At worst he would stop studying eight-legged essays, take the next dynasty's imperial examination, and go on being an official.
He had not expected that this time more than two thousand years of feudal dynasties would be gone, and that the examinations for official posts would even have an age limit.
"Ah—"
At his friend Dong Yunzi's home, Wenchang True Lord shook his head and sighed. Literary-path cultivators like him had no way forward.
"All right, all right, stop sighing." Dong Yunzi took off his headphones and complained. Wenchang True Lord had been sighing in his home for two days, and listening to it had left his whole head buzzing.
"You tell me. What am I supposed to do from now on?"
Dong Yunzi rolled his eyes. "You ask me. Who am I supposed to ask?"
"I only emerged from closed-door cultivation a year earlier than you," Dong Yunzi said. "I went to a museum to fetch something of my own, and I was still discovered by a thing called a surveillance camera."
Dong Yunzi counted as a master thief. By his experience of stealing, knock the guards down, grab the thing, and run, and the job was as good as done.
He had not expected this age to have so many methods. Even if a person was not on the scene, they could still see him.
He had miscalculated.
"At dawn a rustic scholar, head bent low; at dusk he ascends the Son of Heaven's treasured hall..."
An ancient-style song sounded from the wide pocket of Wenchang True Lord's trousers. He blanked for a moment, fished a phone out of the pocket, and the contact displayed on it was "Celestial Master True Person Muyu of Mount Longhu."
From the other end of the phone came True Person Muyu's gentle voice. From the voice alone one could picture him: a cultivated middle-aged scholar.
"Senior Wenchang, have you been well of late?"
Wenchang True Lord heaved sigh after sigh, and went through all over again the complaints he had made to Dong Yunzi.
True Person Muyu listened quietly. Only after Wenchang True Lord finished complaining did he speak of the reason for the call.
"If Senior does not know what to do, this junior may have a workable method."
"What method?" Wenchang True Lord asked urgently.
"I wonder whether Senior has looked into affairs abroad? The highest rulers of foreign countries are chosen by vote. There is no age limit."
"There is such a thing?" Wenchang True Lord was astonished. Before his closed-door cultivation he had known a little about foreign lands, but he had not been very interested and had never looked deeply. He had not expected the highest rulers of foreign countries to be chosen this way.
He asked Dong Yunzi, who had one year of experience living in modern times, "What do you think of this idea?"
Dong Yunzi had been listening beside him the whole time. Even without the speakerphone on, he could hear perfectly clearly.
After briefly considering the literary-path cultivation method, his eyes lit up, and he gave an affirmative answer.
"Give it a try."
Those four simple words roused Wenchang True Lord all over again.
"It had to be Fellow Daoist Muyu. You've lived a long time in the modern world, and you've seen a great deal."
"I dare not claim the credit. This was a method thought up by a classmate of my disciple's," True Person Muyu said at once.
"An immortal cultivator as well?"
"Only reached the Qi Refining stage yesterday."
Wenchang True Lord hung up the phone and decided he would thank this classmate properly.
For the moment, though, they still had to discuss first whether going abroad to cultivate was feasible.
"Why don't you try a small country in Africa first?" Dong Yunzi snapped his fingers. A spherical world map appeared in the air. He gave it a casual swipe, and it settled on Africa.
With Wenchang True Lord's abilities, it would be easy to become president of a small African country.
"Isn't Africa all Kunlun slaves? Not going. Not going." Wenchang True Lord refused flatly.
"Which is the strongest country abroad?" Wenchang True Lord asked.
An ordinary literary-path cultivator could raise their cultivation by going to a small African country. But his cultivation realm was too high. If he wanted to advance any further, he had to go to a country of great national strength.
After a slight hesitation, Dong Yunzi showed Wenchang True Lord the country on the far side of the ocean.
"The United States."
"It's here?" Wenchang True Lord was surprised. In his impression this country was quite backward, and it was not even as old as he was, yet it had developed so rapidly.
"But according to the literary-path cultivation method, you need to abide by this country's rules. You probably aren't qualified to be president," Dong Yunzi reminded him.
"How so? Is there an age limit too?"
"Not that. But there are two requirements you can't meet. First, you need to have been born in this country. Second, you have to have lived there for fourteen full years."
"Only that? Neither of those is a problem." Wenchang True Lord hardly cared.
"No problem for you?" Startled, Dong Yunzi reminded his friend, "You literary-path cultivators can't falsify things."
Wenchang True Lord pointed at the United States. "Haven't I told you? Both my parents are cultivators. Five hundred years ago, when they were carrying me, they were traveling the world. I just happened to be born right here."
"It's my birthplace, after all. I've gone back now and then. Added up from first to last, it definitely comes to more than fourteen years."
"The only problem is that when I was born, this country didn't exist yet... But it shouldn't be much of a problem. If it doesn't work, I'll switch to another country." Wenchang True Lord was full of confidence. His eyes were bright and eager as he looked at the map, and he felt he was looking at a broad, level road.
Chapter 15