The New Classmate

"How about practicing the motion of gripping a pen more?" Nuomi suggested. "How should I practice?" "Practice with your physical body. Through continuous repetition, let your soul memorize the motion." Zhou You felt Nuomi's suggestion sounded reasonably sound for once. Imagining a pen before him, he reached out his hand and repeatedly went through the motion of grasping empty air. "Don't you think Zhou You's motion looks kind of familiar?" Ma Changcheng and Zhao Zhuo whispered to each other from the desk in front. Ma Changcheng nodded solemnly in agreement. "My great-grandfather with Alzheimer's used to make that movement all the time." As a cultivator, Zhou You possessed extraordinary hearing and caught every word of the quiet muttering from the front desk with crystal clarity. He flared up in anger, not even bothering to hide his identity as an immortal cultivator. "I'm cultivating!" Ma Changcheng nodded understandingly, then turned back to whisper to Zhao Zhuo, "He's got it worse than my great-grandfather." Just as Zhou You was about to explain himself, their homeroom teacher, Old Gao, led an unfamiliar female student into the classroom, prompting a ripple of astonished exclamations. Normally, when the homeroom teacher walked in, the students had the sense to shut their mouths, but this time was an exception. The girl stood poised and pretty before the podium. Unaccustomed to being watched by so many people, she instinctively took half a step back, her gaze darting away like a startled fawn. Combined with her pure, delicate features, her charm was utterly lethal to boys and girls alike. "She's that good-looking?" Zhao Zhuo was amazed. He had only heard a new girl was transferring in, never expecting her to be this pretty. Zhou You raised an eyebrow. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but did the new classmate just take an extra look at him? The homeroom teacher had excellent blackboard handwriting and wrote the girl's name across the board: Tang Shiyin. "This is our transfer student, Tang Shiyin. From now on, she's part of our class," Old Gao introduced. "Go ahead and introduce yourself to everyone." "H-hello, everyone. My name is Tang Shiyin," she said shyly. As an introduction, it was far too brief, but looking at her, managing a single complete sentence had clearly taken all the courage she could muster. "You'll sit over there," the homeroom teacher said, pointing to an empty desk in the back row. Uncomfortable under so many stares, Tang Shiyin walked briskly to the back row, letting out a small sigh of relief as her nerves eased slightly. In the short walk from the podium to the back, quite a few students' eyes followed her every move. The teacher's voice snapped their attention back to the front. "All right, class begins now. Take out yesterday's test papers." First period of the morning: math class. By the end of math, the entire class was completely lifeless. Even students who hadn't been tired were dozing off, heads drooping, on the verge of smacking against their desks at any second—and not even the Carefree Empress was an exception. *Ring, ring, ring—* The piercing bell signaling the end of class rang out, yet the room remained dead and subdued, because the homeroom teacher was running overtime. Six minutes later, Old Gao finally brought the torture to an end. "All right, that's enough for today. Here's your homework." As the teacher stepped out of the classroom, the students gradually came back to life, stretching their limbs like tender sprouts welcoming rain after a long drought. Tang Shiyin proved quite popular, quickly drawing a circle of classmates around her. "Where did you go to school before?" "Are you a local?" "Do you need to borrow textbooks?" "If you run into any trouble, you can always come to me." Tang Shiyin replied in a fluster, visibly at a loss, which only made her look even more adorable. Zhou You merely cast a glancing look her way, thoroughly uninterested. He went back to cultivating his soul, striving to grasp a pen. Cultivation was far more interesting anyway. After three class periods, Zhou You felt he had practiced enough, so he let his soul leave his body to try grasping the pen. "Cough, cough—" Tang Shiyin—or rather, Lian Yi—coughed violently at the sight. Lian Yi was a master of shapeshifting art, capable of vividly disguising herself as all kinds of people without ever revealing a flaw. She even mimicked animals with meticulous care and had never slipped up once. Yet Zhou You's stunt was something she truly couldn't hold back on. *Aren't you in the Qi Refining stage? How can your soul already leave your body? Is that a skill you're supposed to have mastered at this realm?!* Ever since Lian Yi had been messed with so inexplicably that she couldn't even return to her home, her desire for revenge against Chu Xiaoyao had reached unprecedented heights. The trio had gone to Ji Sen's home wearing school uniforms, so Lian Yi had easily tracked down their school. She didn't even need to investigate their grade—anyone wandering around in uniform during summer break was undeniably a high school student in their third year. She had gone to great pains to transfer into Class Three of the third year, all to observe Chu Xiaoyao up close. As for how to take her revenge, she hadn't decided yet; the current stage was gathering intelligence. Yet ever since arriving in Class Three, she had witnessed scene after scene that defied common sense. "I can touch it a little!" The gel pen wobbled slightly, proving it had indeed been affected by Zhou You. "See? I told you this method works." Nuomi was just as thrilled as Zhou You. This was her first time teaching someone, and seeing results so quickly made her feel she was prime material for a great teacher. *And what on earth is the deal with this female ghost?* Lian Yi had wanted to ask this question from the moment she entered the classroom. Before she had even stepped inside, she had sensed a chill—a ghost domain had actually formed here?! She had also discovered that the yin qi emitted by the female ghost perfectly offset the yang qi of the students in Class Three. The yin qi wouldn't harm the students' health, nor would the yang qi injure the female ghost. *An expert well-versed in the Way of Yin and Yang must have laid down an array,* Lian Yi thought inwardly. Controlling the balance of yin and yang to such perfection had to be the work of a master; such precision left even her marveling in admiration. Who could it be? Certainly not Su Tingxue from Mount Longhu—she didn't possess that kind of capability. *Could it be Chu Xiaoyao's Dao-protector, that fellow who uses flame? Or does the Carefree Sect have another master hiding in the shadows?* Speaking of the Red King, Lian Yi felt a deep headache. In terms of cultivation attainment, she was definitely inferior to him; the Red King's flame wielded the might of a Golden Core. In terms of invisibility art, Lian Yi feared no one, yet she had searched the school and its surroundings thoroughly for the Red King's location and found nothing at all. The only things she had turned up were a telescope on a residential building rooftop and an illegal self-built shed—hardly the sort of place a great cultivator like the Red King would inhabit. *What exquisite concealment methods—not a single trace left behind!* Lian Yi repeatedly warned herself that Chu Xiaoyao's Dao-protector was watching her every move. She had to be doubly cautious and never expose any flaw. "Not bad. You found the right training method," Chu Xiaoyao praised Zhou You's cultivation progress. "What people call imagination can actually be referred to as mental energy or the power of conviction. Those with extraordinary mental energy can manifest an opponent out of thin air to battle against. Not only does it familiarize you with your opponent and build combat experience, but it also raises your level of mental energy—killing two birds with one stone." "You can even do that?" Nuomi found the concept completely novel. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists, trying to imagine an opponent. *Who should I think of?* *Let's just imagine that guy called Zhenyue Ghost King. Among all the people and ghosts I know, aside from the Grand Elder, he's the strongest.* Nuomi let out a strenuous humming sound as she concentrated, but when she opened her eyes, the space before her was completely empty. Nothing had materialized. "I failed..." Nuomi slumped dejectedly. Just moments ago she had been mocking the sect master for his poor imagination, only to discover her own was quite ordinary as well. Seeing this scene, Lian Yi was flabbergasted, itching to blow her cover just to march up to Chu Xiaoyao and ask what in the world was going on. Never mind that preposterous method of using mental energy—let's grant that your Carefree Sect has profound foundations and my knowledge is too limited to have heard of it. *How can you, a mortal, see a ghost?!* *Zhou You seeing ghosts? Fine, I'll assume he was born with yin-yang eyes. But what about you? Even Mount Longhu doesn't possess such means!* Lian Yi looked grave, her brow furrowed tightly. Coming here to gather intelligence had definitely been the right call. She had anticipated that the situation with the Carefree Sect would be complicated, but she never imagined it would be even more intricate than she had thought.