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Speaking of which, the reason why Yun Ji wanted to fight with Tang Ao again was because she wanted to cancel her engagement with him that year and retrieve the Eight Trigrams Mirror. Her parents had already passed away from illness, and she was the only one left in this world. That was why she had fought so hard to become one of Feng Lingxue's twelve beauties when she was selected as her plan.
Except, her innocent body had long since been given to the amorous young duke. He couldn't help but feel a bit regretful whenever he thought of her ridiculous behavior of matching marriage in her youth. After all these years, who knows if this Tang Ao had a change of heart or not. Plus, after she found out that Tang Ao had followed the sinister and cunning Murong Xiu, she was even more worried that the honest Tang Ao from back then had already changed his temperament. She felt that Tang Ao would definitely not accept her. However, her strong self-esteem did not allow Tang Ao to despise her.
When she helped Violet Garden break through the Eight Lightning Formation Tang Ao had set up for the Northern Yue Army, she understood that the technique Tang Ao knew about hadn't improved much. Thus, his heart was moved. The best way to break the engagement from that year was to fight him once more. Thus, when Murong Xiu had borrowed Feng Lingxue, Yunji had immediately volunteered to come to the Western City of Mount Li.
However, when she saw her young brother Tang Ao once again, wearing a half-mask, her heart inexplicably tightened. She didn't know what this feeling was. It was just that his desire to fight Tang Ao once again grew stronger.
Murong Xiu quickly arranged a suitable place for Tang Ao and Yun Ji, as well as a hundred civil and military officials to watch from the side. Originally, some of the antiques felt that this kind of formation array was an unorthodox technique. However, when they heard that Tang Ao was able to trap the Northern Yue army with an ”Eight Layered Array”, these antiques became a bit interested in the battle between formations.
Therefore, on the day the two of them fought, the surrounding audience stands were completely packed. Some of the people that Murong Xiu invited were afraid that he would come, but most of them were interested in formations. Some people even bought telescopes from the market, although they didn't know that these new telescopes were actually made by the Regent himself. A small fight like this had unexpectedly made Murong Xiu make a lot of extra money. This money quickly continued to be invested in the development and research of military equipment. From this point of view, Murong Xiu was definitely a winner in terms of military equipment.
In order to improve the content of the duels, Murong Xiu also participated in the discussions. He had rejected Yun Ji's request to compete in high-grade formations, but the reason was that the bystanders couldn't understand what was going on. Mu Rong Xiu even wrote a letter to ask Feng Lingxue for her opinion on this matter. In the end, this guy told him to ask Zi Yuan. Murong Xiu was almost angered to death by Feng Lingxue. She was clearly an enemy to Zi Yuan. However, the thick-skinned Mu Rong Xiu still went out to ask Zi Yuan about it.
When Zi Yuan received the letter, he was extremely surprised. When he found out about Yunji and Tang Ao's matter, Helian interjected, ”These two must have had an affair.”
Zi Yuan felt that his husband was too smart and could already guess the truth. No matter how he thought about it, it wouldn't have much of an impact on the current battle situation. After all, it was a personal battle between Yunji from the East Flatland and Tang Ao from the West Faction. Thus, Zi Yuan still generously replied with a suggestion.
In the end, when this suggestion reached Murong Xiu, he immediately agreed and requested Yun Ji and Tang Ao to follow this procedure. Although Yun Ji meant something, after Murong Xiu said that it was the Empress's attention, Yun Ji, who still had a lot of admiration for the Empress, stopped protesting.
Thus, the process of the sparring that day was very simple and modern.
The first test was to grab answers from the examinees. Yun Ji and Tang Ao each wrote thirty questions on their respective formations. On the day of the battle, the Supervisor, Murong Xiu, randomly selected twenty questions.
The rule was that after Murong Xiu said the question, the person who rang the gong first answered the question, got the wrong answer, and got another person to answer. If the other person answered correctly, the other person would get a point.
The second test was a must-answer test. On the day of the magic battle, the Supervisor, Murong Xiu, drew out the questions twice. Every time there were twenty questions, everyone would answer them. The time limit was one drop of time, and the time limit was approximately three minutes from the time Zi Yuan was born. The answers to the right questions accumulated points.
The third and final trial was where everyone would have an incense stick of time to go to the two identical rooms. They would use the exact same items that Murong Xiu had given them to set up a formation.
In the end, the final score would be the highest score while the others would be the last one.
When the competition officially started, Yun Ji was a little nervous. She was a little worried that Murong Xiu would use tricks to choose the topic, so she deliberately chose Tang Ao's topic. She discovered that she was actually worried that she wouldn't be able to answer Tang Ao's question, and couldn't help but laugh at herself.
The audience below the stage had originally seen a cold woman standing there with a straight face. Although she was very beautiful, because of the lack of temperature, she appeared to be out of reach, causing them to somewhat distance themselves from this woman. But when the woman revealed a smile, the audience felt that the woman's beauty made her seem like a fairy that had descended from the heavens.
As soon as Tang Ao entered the arena, the ladies of the capital began to cheer for him. Although half of his face was wearing a mask, his unmasked face was very angular and handsome. Not only did the mask not give him any points, it instead added a mysterious tint to his appearance, making him look even more dashing.
Mu Rong Xiu also stood on the stage and pressed down with his hands, signaling for the audience to quiet down. Then, with a loud and clear voice, he said with his inner strength, ”The match between Yun Ji and Tang Ao will now officially begin. First, we'll fight over the answers.”
Murong Xiu explained the rules of the competition to the audience in simple words. When the audience heard this, they all felt that it was quite strange. Thus, their interest in watching this match intensified.
In order to comfort Yun Ji, Murong Xiu took out a large box from behind him and said, ”Miss Yun Ji, the two of you will be fighting over the answers here. Little Wang will shake it for a moment, mix it up, and then randomly pick the answers.”