Chapter 46

Song Yi absolutely did not think she was suited to agronomy.

Sword cultivators like her were generally the type of cultivator living beings hated most.

Because their sword intent was so austere, living beings that got close to them were easily injured. Even if they did not die, being nearby still felt awful.

The higher a sword cultivator’s realm, the more everyone hated them, dogs included.

Song Yi had not even refined her lifebound sword yet, and her sword intent had not fully manifested.

But she was certain she would go farther on the sword Dao. How could she possibly have any affinity with these spiritual plants? An ill-fated affinity, maybe.

After Song Yi firmly declared that she was a follower of the sword Dao, the teachers did not force her anymore. They only said, “It’s fine, Student Song Yi. You’re still young. You can take a little more time to explore it.”

The meaning in their eyes was: How did she get led astray at such a young age?

But of course they would not let such a good seedling go so easily. It was perfectly normal for a child to like learning whatever looked cooler. The one who should take responsibility for guiding her was Song Yi’s teacher!

And so, before the homeroom teacher discovered that his student had gone viral again, he was jointly visited by several teachers.

The homeroom teacher was completely baffled. Although they were all teachers, they had basically had no interaction before. Some of them were even experts in agronomy who worked at universities, which put them in an entirely different system from an elementary school teacher like him.

“We came today because we wanted to talk to you about Student Song Yi.”

The homeroom teacher’s heart gave a heavy thud.

He remembered now. The children from the work-study society had been sent to the absolute-spirit pocket realm for “labor reform.” If they were going to have any connection with these teachers, then that was possible.

His expression remained steady, but the complaints in his heart did not lessen at all. You were there to pick fruit. You should have had absolutely nothing to do with these research teachers. How did you manage to alarm all of them into coming here together?!

It was not that the homeroom teacher did not trust Song Yi. It was simply that this group had too many prior offenses.

If they had behaved even slightly, they would not have been sent into the pocket realm over the weekend.

“With a situation like Student Song Yi’s, you should be more cautious when making arrangements,” one teacher said.

The homeroom teacher became even more certain that Song Yi and the others had caused trouble in the pocket realm, which was why these teachers had come in force.

“I’m sorry, everyone. I failed to keep them under control. When they come back, I will be strict—”

A teacher interrupted him. “There’s no need to be too strict. What if it triggers the child’s rebellious side?”

“Yes, yes. With a child Song Yi’s age, you should be a little gentler.”

The homeroom teacher was even more confused. “Huh?”

These people’s attitude did not look at all like they had come to demand accountability. Instead, they looked like protective elders of Song Yi. How had he, the homeroom teacher, become the villain mistreating Song Yi?

“You saw the talent Song Yi displayed in agronomy…”

The homeroom teacher replied instinctively, “I didn’t see it… Wait, what exactly did Song Yi do?”

If they were talking about talent in the sword Dao, the homeroom teacher would believe it. Without some talent, she could not possibly have obtained the ancestor’s inheritance. But agronomy?

That was totally unrelated, wasn’t it?

Several teachers shook their heads and sighed. “You don’t care enough about Song Yi. Aside from daily teaching, you should also pay more attention to a student’s specialties and future development.” As they spoke, they showed the homeroom teacher the recorded replay from the time.

Thankfully, Song Yi and the others had been carrying out a club activity. Otherwise, there might not necessarily have been any footage left behind.

After finally understanding what had happened, the homeroom teacher had complicated feelings.

Song Yi’s collection sword technique was not profound, but what mattered was not the sword technique itself. It was her line of thinking.

At her age, for her to have such an idea and be able to put it into practice, no wonder these teachers valued her.

“So we’ll have to trouble you to guide her more and let her understand that the sword Dao won’t work anymore. We still need to do practical work. Agronomy, for example, is very good. Try to have her take more electives in this direction.”

The homeroom teacher gave a vague answer but did not make any clear promise.

These teachers were in agronomy, so of course they thought their direction was best and that every good seedling ought to come into their bowl.

But as Song Yi’s homeroom teacher, he felt that it was still too early to decide what path Song Yi would take.

Just as he had not expected Song Yi to light up a talent related to agronomy, there were many things she had not tried or understood yet. It was hard to draw a conclusion.

“We can make an agreement. If she is willing to study agriculture in the future, once she finishes her foundational courses, our school can admit her with a lower score,” another teacher said.

The homeroom teacher’s heart instantly grew heated. Compulsory education was the foundational education every child could receive, but higher education was not open to every cultivator. “Intensive study” was the slogan of many universities, and they controlled student quality extremely strictly.

The teacher who had just spoken was even from one of the ten great universities of the East Continent. That carried more weight than an ordinary university. Even with the homeroom teacher’s good self-control, he could not help feeling tempted.

Unexpectedly, that teacher’s words directly caused infighting among the teachers.

“Oh, so you’re already starting to snatch people, are you? Then our school ranks higher. If she’s choosing, she should choose our school first!”

“Our school’s scholarships are higher. All our dorms are newly built, and the conditions for studying and cultivation are ridiculously good!”

They started competing right in front of the homeroom teacher, leaving him dumbfounded. At the same time, his mentality also stabilized.

In the end, he agreed to none of them.

At first, he had been moved by their conditions. But after seeing how they competed over students, the homeroom teacher suddenly felt a little inflated. Universities were nothing special after all.

Thinking about it carefully, Song Yi had the ability to earn favor now. Did that mean she would become especially mediocre later?

As long as she was raised properly and did not stray down the wrong path, her potential was enormous.

So he had no need to worry so early. Once this little cabbage was raised a bit more, she would only have more opportunities in the future.

The teachers, having failed to fool the homeroom teacher, left regretfully. Of course, aside from the university teachers who wanted to reserve Song Yi in advance, there were also teachers from other elementary schools. They said things like, “If Student Song Yi is too difficult to manage, she can transfer to our elementary school. We are willing to share your worries,” and the homeroom teacher ignored them as if nothing had happened.

Although Song Yi and the other little troublemaking leaders gave him headaches and heartburn from time to time, he did not dislike these children. Why would he send them away when everything was perfectly fine?

If he could teach outstanding students, the teacher would share in the glory too.

Of course, the homeroom teacher was also a little worried. It was not that he was worried Song Yi would be poached, but rather—

Had the labor reform plan failed again?

They had agreed to let these cubs experience how hard it was to earn money. And now?

They had worked for a few hours when they first arrived, but afterward it had turned into Song Yi’s show-off time…

Today was yet another day when the educational goal had not been achieved.

Song Yi still did not know that this matter had alarmed even her homeroom teacher. She had taught the key points of the sword technique for half a day before Li Wenwen and Lin Ze finally dug her out of the crowd.

Li Wenwen hesitated before saying, “Little Yi, you went viral again.”

Song Yi’s movements froze.

She was very sensitive to other people’s emotions, especially with children like Li Wenwen and Lin Ze, who were not good at hiding their feelings. She could tell that they were not happy for her.

Song Yi suddenly remembered what the person who had once stabbed through her golden core had said. “You’re always blocking other people’s paths and taking all the opportunities for yourself. How could anyone genuinely like you?”

Li Wenwen and the others were different from the people she had met in her previous life.

When Song Yi displayed extraordinary talent, they would only help support her and think it was fun to play with her. They would not covet her “talent.”

But now that their attitude had changed, she could not help remembering some unpleasant memories.

Was it because she had stood out too much and finally made them unable to endure it?

“You… don’t seem very happy?” Song Yi asked directly.

“Uh, we were afraid you wouldn’t be happy,” Li Wenwen said. “But Little Yi, you have to know that you’re very cute and very pretty. We all really like you!”

Song Yi: ?

Just as Song Yi was utterly confused, Lin Ze came over holding a basin of water. “How about you wash your face first?”

In the water’s reflection, Song Yi saw what she looked like right now. Her face was black in some patches and white in others, and quite a bit of black soil clung to her body too.

Yes. The inner demon had taken a fall, and after Song Yi took back control of the body, she had gained inspiration for a new sword technique. How could she still have paid attention to her appearance?

If this had been outside, it would have been easy. Anyone could have thrown a cleaning spell formula at her and helped clean her up. But this was an absolute-spirit land, and spell formulas could not be used either. So Song Yi had gone around with this face until now.

She really had gone viral. Unfortunately, it was with this face.

Song Yi’s back view when she swung her sword had quite the style, but when everyone saw her from the front… the unscrupulous audience members all decided to record it as a keepsake.

There was no way Li Wenwen and Lin Ze would be jealous of Song Yi. They felt a little sympathetic toward her instead. Too tragic. Leaving behind this kind of dark history was truly too tragic.

When Song Yi saw her own image, her whole self felt unwell.

Although sword cultivators did not fuss over minor details, and there were things more important than personal appearance, that did not mean she did not like being clean! It did not mean she did not care about face!

Just thinking about it: countless people had seen her like this, and this image would spread along with the recordings…

Song Yi thought in a “pull the blanket over me” posture: Could I have brought shame to the image of sword cultivators?

From now on, when everyone thought of sword cultivators, what if they remembered not their image of standing aloof from the world, but the image of a dirty little child?

Good news: her friendships in this world had not soured.

Bad news: her character image had collapsed.

Her tone somehow carried a grief-stricken anger. “They dragged me along to learn and ask for advice, and talked to me for so long, yet not a single person reminded me?”

Li Wenwen and Lin Ze patted her shoulder comfortingly. “A lot of people here care most about efficiency. Maybe they thought cleaning you up would delay things, so they wanted you to teach first.”

Tears welled in Song Yi’s eyes. So the tool was me all along.

“Look on the bright side. There’s no real difference between embarrassing yourself for a while and embarrassing yourself for an hour, because everyone will only remember the version of you that left the deepest impression.”

Lin Ze was good at saying human words to humans and ghost words to ghosts, but he was too familiar with Song Yi and the others, so he accidentally told the truth.

Song Yi wanted to draw her sword and charge at Lin Ze.

Li Wenwen hurriedly pressed down on her hand. “One of us. We’re all one of us.”

Fortunately, the scene did not develop into a bloody incident.

Li Wenwen was better at comforting her where it counted. She said, “Little Yi, don’t worry. The reputation of sword cultivators hasn’t been harmed.”

Because everyone had not treated her as a sword cultivator.

What had been harmed was the reputation of people who researched agronomy. “You want to go research spiritual plants? Take a look at this little kid Song Yi’s image first, then think it over.”

Although agronomy researchers tried to explain that under normal circumstances, farming would not leave someone this dusty and disheveled, it had little effect. Song Yi’s image was more in line with everyone’s impression of this direction.

As for Song Yi’s newly born sword technique, hardly anyone remembered it.

“What? You mean that collection sword technique? I know it. How could I not know it?”

The name that should only have been a nickname showed great momentum toward replacing the original name.

Regrettably, today’s Song Yi had also failed to revive the sword Dao.

Song Yi gazed gloomily at the sky.

The style of her new sword technique was vastly different from before. She had already prepared herself that, in the future, no one would connect her with Ancestor Song Yi anymore. But what she had not expected was that these people had simply changed her faction altogether.

“Little Yi, it’s fine if you don’t like agronomy. It’s not like everyone thinks you’re in agronomy.”

Song Yi’s eyes brightened. “Right? There are still lots of people who think I’m a sword cultivator, right?”

“Uh, no. It’s that the people who research fate studies think you’re more suited to their path, and then some people from talisman studies came out and said what you’re truly good at should be talismans.”

Song Yi: …

“So there’s no sword Dao, huh?”

“No,” Li Wenwen said. “I don’t think it means they don’t think highly of you. It’s just that sword Dao big shots rarely speak on the Spirit Net. They don’t really get involved in things. They’re probably afraid of misleading the younger generation.”

The heartache on Song Yi’s face was still extremely obvious.

She was not afraid those big shots did not appreciate her. Who exactly counted as the big shot was still uncertain.

What she cared about was that people from all those other directions were already fighting over talent, yet you sword Dao people still did not make a sound. If you do not decline, who will?

Alas, these juniors nowadays really gave people no peace of mind!

However, Song Yi’s current mentality was actually quite good. She quickly found information favorable to herself amid this string of “bad news.” The one who had embarrassed herself today was Song Yi of agronomy. What did that have to do with her, Song Yi the sword cultivator?

Then Song Yi’s thinking opened up. If she wanted to revive the sword Dao, she did not actually have to improve the reputation of sword cultivators. She only had to drag down the reputation of the other Daos, just like how she had damaged agronomy’s reputation this time.

She did not have to hurry to acknowledge her identity as a sword cultivator. This would make it even easier to wreck the reputations of the other Daos.

How could this be called despicable and shameless?

It was normal for the various Daos to drag one another down. This was called enduring humiliation for a greater purpose and breaking the opponent from within.

If these juniors had been a little more capable, there would be no need for her to do this kind of thing.

Little Song Yi’s smile gradually turned abnormal.

Li Wenwen and Lin Ze exchanged a glance, deeply worried. Little Yi had been hit a bit hard this time. Even her mental state did not seem very good anymore.

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