Chapter 484 – The Ascetic Priest, The Youthful Master Teacher (2/2)
”I once respected Sir.” Tang Thirty-Six paused, then continued to stare at him. ”But Sir's return to the capital this time means that I truly can't respect Sir anymore.”
Priest Bei's gaze moved between him and that youngster of the Orthodox Academy. ”You know full well that I can't attack him.”
Tang Thirty-Six replied, ”Because Sir is a gentleman.”
Priest Bei asked, ”So you chose this child in particular to deal with me?”
Tang Thirty-Six did not deny it, saying, ”I will not conceal it from Sir. The vast majority of the names on this list of opponents were set by Chen Changsheng. Only Sir's match was decided by me.”
Priest Bei fell silent, and then sighed. ”Is the world nowadays really ruled by lowly people?”
Saying this, he turned and prepared to leave.
Tang Thirty-Six had originally planned to say nothing more, but upon seeing the rather melancholy back of this ascetic renowned in the northwest, he couldn't help but open his mouth. ”A gentleman can deceive in the pursuit of uprightness. Of course, I'm not saying this is right. Although I'm not a gentleman, I'm not a lowly person either. But as a once-gentleman like Sir is being used by a lowly person for an ungentlemanly matter, I can naturally only use the ways of a lowly person to respond.”
Priest Bei seemed to have been struck by a thunderbolt upon hearing these words. His body stiffened, and only after a while was he able to raise his feet once more and walk into the crowd.
As that figure and the bamboo hat atop it proceeded further away, Tang Thirty-Six calmly watched on in silence.
”Put down that this match was our Orthodox Academy's victory.”
Not waiting for the surrounding spectators to boo, he calmly declared, “Next.”
Not all matches had a story, and not all stories left behind a profound conclusion. The matches before the gates of the Orthodox Academy continued. With no blood and no shadow of death, there was naturally much less excitement as well. For those ordinary common folk, without these qualities, without any heaven-breaking or mountain-toppling scenes, what difference would there be between the fight of those experts of the continent in the Divine Domain and the fight of those urchins down the street? They merely used a little more strength.
Only the more enlightened people were able to understand the message revealed by these matches.
Those new students that represented the Orthodox Academy in matches, besides Su Moyu with his special circumstances and that youngster, were not able to obtain a single victory, or even the possibility of victory. However, in the extremely brief span of those battles, those students would often display techniques and transformations that were simply unimaginable. Although everyone knew that these students had received Chen Changsheng's direction, that these students were able to realize these instructions revealed a certain possibility.
These children from the counties and the countryside, these weak students disregarded by the Ivy Academies, had suddenly become different.
Besides those common folk that had come to see the fun, the spectators of the matches taking place in front of the Orthodox Academy also included lecturers and students of the Ivy Academies who had changed out of their uniforms. When they saw the students on the steps of the Orthodox Academy, they scarcely dared to believe their eyes. Was that the incomparably stubborn and mischievous Wei Zhuang that I once taught? Is that really that Chu Wenbin who only knew how to sleep every day!?
When compared to their past selves, the new students of the Orthodox Academy seemed to have a sort of luster about them. Crucially, their mindset was different. They were confident and calm, as if nothing could confound them. They weren't even afraid of the seemingly endless string of losses. They still firmly believed that they would be able to obtain the final success. When all this was put together, they gave form to what was called an easygoing temperament.
Because they were easygoing, they could remain calm and collected, could talk and laugh naturally in front of the crowd. It was absolutely impossible for them to become nervous or inferior because of the jeering and disregard of the crowd.
If it were said that last year when Chen Changsheng became a new student of the Orthodox Academy—followed by Luoluo, Xuanyuan Po, Tang Thirty-Six and Zhexiu—was an indication of new life, then this year's Orthodox Academy could be said to have been reborn, just like these young students—or perhaps it was precisely because they had arrived.
The changes in these new students naturally originated from the Orthodox Academy. The two most pivotal figures were Chen Changsheng and Tang Thirty-Six.
Tang Thirty-Six need not be discussed for the moment, but anyone could see Chen Changsheng's importance. If it were not for him relentlessly giving direction and consuming vast amounts of mental strength every night to research the techniques and weaknesses of those experts, how could those new students possibly have had the nerve to directly confront those experts who were many levels of cultivation above them? How could they possibly possess such self-confidence?
After the Orthodox Academy recruited new students, Chen Changsheng no longer emerged to take part in a match and didn't even come out to take a look at what was going on outside the school's gates. However, all the capital knew that from within the Orthodox Academy, he was always looking outward. Through these several dozen matches, he revealed as much as he liked of his unimaginable innate skill and talent in the path of the sword.
That innate skill in the path of the sword was so powerful, that talent so dazzling, that the entire capital was once more shocked.
From a similar time in last year's summer to now, he had already given the capital and the entire human world far too many shocks. The Ivy Festival, the Grand Examination, the Mausoleum of Books, the Garden of Zhou, Xunyang City…many people had thought that they had almost grown numb to the shocks delivered by Chen Changsheng. No matter what else he did, it would not be enough to catch them by surprise. Yet this time, they were still shocked.
At his age, for Chen Changsheng to possess such an unfathomable cultivation in the path of the sword was nigh-impossible to imagine. What was even more impossible to imagine was that he could instruct others in the sword. It must be known that this wasn't a task as simple as teaching a child to write. To lecture, to teach, to dispel doubts: this was a teacher.
Currently, Chen Changsheng already vaguely possessed the demeanor of a master teacher—because he was too young, whenever this thought came up in the minds of others, they would always shake their heads in denial. But no one dared to deny that if he were given more time,perhaps ten-odd years, and he was to truly mature, perhaps he really would be able to live up to his title as Principal of the Orthodox Academy.
While all eyes were fixed on the Orthodox Academy and praising Chen Changsheng's cultivation in the path of the sword in shock, only one person still dismissed him.
”It's just messing around.”
Mo Yu gazed at the Empress's back, boredly fooling around with the ring of grass on her finger. ”I also don't know why the people in the court and the Li Palace want to make such a big fuss over nothing.”