Chapter 73

On the Spirit Net, someone had already posted the latest information from the exhibition.

#Wanqi Sect Simulator Artifact Spirit# was undoubtedly the most attention-grabbing topic. Many people were asking, “Really? Then I want to go to the exhibition too.”

Attracting about as much attention as the simulator artifact spirit was probably #The Mental State of Wanqi Sect’s Developers#.

“You probably couldn’t make something like this unless you were crazy.”

“I suggest Wanqi Sect ask a medical cultivator to give them a diagnosis.”

“It’s good stuff, and I’m definitely buying it, but the development team is definitely not good stuff. They nearly scared me to death.”

The bystanders who were not on the cloud whale had their curiosity hooked. “What happened? Can someone spoil it? Don’t keep us in suspense!”

Chu Wen’s goal had been achieved, but only halfway.

The simulator artifact spirit had indeed caused a sensation, but unlike the fame and success he had imagined, those who had already tried it were either roasting the development team or questioning their mental state.

Clearly, everyone unanimously believed this was a prank Wanqi Sect had pulled.

The prank had actually lasted a very short time. After the monster went “ying ying ying” twice, it returned to its normal appearance and smoothly sent the guests into the exhibition.

Only Chu Wen received special treatment. Li Wenwen was very good at holding grudges. At her strong insistence, everyone else was teleported normally, while the dazed Chu Wen felt himself being thrown out of the cloud whale, free-falling from a height of ten thousand li.

He was startled and tried to mobilize his spiritual power.

What terrified him even more was that, like an ordinary person, he could no longer use even a trace of spiritual power.

He tried to activate his magical treasure, only to find that even his storage bracelet could not be used!

“Who are you? What do you want?” Chu Wen roared.

The familiar voice of the simulator artifact spirit sounded by his ear. “Young Master Chu, don’t be nervous. You’re very safe. For someone of your extraordinary status, of course you should enjoy special service.”

That familiar voice felt utterly strange to him.

Chu Wen’s mind went blank.

He felt this was the closest he had ever come to death.

Cultivators could soar through the skies and dive into the seas, capable of anything. Ranging freely at a height of ten thousand li was not supposed to be anything special. But with his spiritual power sealed and his magical treasure useless, he suddenly realized that he was just a coward. He was afraid to die.

Damn it, he clearly still had so many things he had not done. He did not want to die!

In that instant between life and death, he seemed to break through some kind of barrier.

“I absolutely refuse to die here! Tell me, who sent you?” Chu Wen shouted.

His eyes suddenly snapped open, and he discovered that his classmates were all staring at him strangely.

“There’s something wrong with the simulator artifact spirit. It wants to kill me! It wanted to throw me straight down from the cloud whale, and it even imprisoned my spiritual power and magical treasure…”

“Uh, Young Master Chu, are you too nervous? You were teleported down with us.”

Hm?

Chu Wen suddenly thought of something. He was a golden core cultivator. Although artifact spirits did not have the same obvious level divisions as cultivators, they still differed in strength. The cloud whale’s artifact spirit itself was very powerful and might be able to seal him without him realizing it, but the simulator artifact spirit should not have been able to do so.

Why had he been unable to use his spiritual power and magical treasure? Because that had been a “false experience” produced by divine sense.

Judging from everyone else’s expressions, it seemed they had not experienced the life-and-death trial he had?

No one had time to bother with his minor awkwardness, because before the crowd, a person wearing a colorful robe came sweeping through the air. That was the highest-ranking official of the East Continent Sect Supervision and Administration Committee.

With one sword strike, he cleaved downward. The venue, which looked like a giant flower bud, opened like a blooming flower, its petals unfolding layer by layer.

Different petals represented different exhibition halls.

A faint floral fragrance lingered around everyone’s noses, carrying the effect of soothing the mind and nourishing the spirit.

His voice rang like a bell and reached everyone’s ears. “May you all be like the sword in my hand, pressing forward with determination and opening up new worlds. May every great sect be like this spiritual-flower venue, a hundred flowers blooming together, making the cultivation world better and more beautiful.”

“Exchange and progress, exploration and innovation—the original purpose of the sect exhibition has never changed.”

He did not waste many words and stopped after those two lines. As soon as his voice fell, his sword pointed toward the sky. Seven-colored rosy light gathered on his sword and then spilled outward, like countless ribbons drifting in the air.

Song Yi narrowed her eyes. This person was clearly a sword cultivator, and she sensed powerful sword intent from him. The principle behind his sword cutting out seven-colored rosy light was that his powerful sword intent had stirred the surrounding spiritual energy.

The Old Ancestor thought this fellow had quite a bit of talent, but also hated that iron could not become steel. Were all sword cultivators of this era so flashy and gaudy? They were abandoning the root for the branch. Truly abandoning the root for the branch!

Then, from the cloud whale parked high in the sky, countless small gift boxes suddenly scattered down.

This was a common method used at important celebrations. The boxes might contain flowers, fruits, spiritual plants, snacks, pills, talismans, and so on. The specific contents depended on whether the organizers were wealthy and whether the celebration was grand.

The exhibition had officially begun.

Many people could not wait to see the exhibits inside and did not care much about the gift boxes outside. They casually grabbed one or two to test their luck and called it good. The small gift boxes that no one picked up floated in midair, waiting for their fated owners.

The ones most interested in the small gift boxes were basically children.

Of course, people like Lin Ze, who wanted nothing more than to use a storage pouch to scoop up every single little gift box, were still relatively rare.

His eyes glittered with the light of money. “Picking up one means earning one, but missing one means losing one. Taking a loss will make me too uneasy to eat or sleep.”

His cultivation had probably all been used in places like this. His movement technique was extremely fast as he drifted about, almost clearing out the nearby area.

The others looked at their age and did not argue with them. Those who had not wanted to pick any up simply let it go, while those who did want to pick some moved farther away from them.

What else could Teacher Yuan do besides smile helplessly? He only hoped Lin Ze and the others would put this level of energy into their studies. If their grades still failed to improve, he would count that as his loss.

Song Yi was pondering the sword intent of that sword cultivator from earlier. Seeing Lin Ze working so hard, she casually said, “Watch me.”

She imitated that person’s sword intent, using sword intent to vibrate the spiritual energy. But it was not to create rosy light. It was to create a spiritual energy vortex and suck over all the small gift boxes floating in the air.

Then she opened her storage pouch…

“Little Yi, I want to learn this!” Lin Ze and Li Wenwen were extremely excited.

But right then, Song Yi sensed an intense feeling of danger.

She turned her head and saw that Teacher Yuan had already taken out his own lifebound staff. He was lightly tapping it in his hand while looking at her with a very kindly smile.

Lin Ze’s method of taking small gift boxes was still understandable. Other people could still snatch some if they wanted to. His abilities were limited, and at most, he could dominate this small area.

But Song Yi was directly making it so no one else could play at all!

Some children already had tears in their eyes and were about to cry.

Everyone else was also staring at this side in a daze, not knowing how to react.

Teacher Yuan was deeply embarrassed.

He considered himself a moral and high-quality teacher, but the children he had led out were wicked little brats. This would inevitably make people wonder whether there was something wrong with him as a teacher, causing the upper beam to be crooked and the lower beam to slant.

He should have worn a hooded outfit that covered his face and hidden his true identity!

Under Teacher Yuan’s death stare, Song Yi felt her scalp go numb. She hurriedly shook her sword qi and scattered all the gathered gift boxes back out. “Just joking…”

The sword cultivator who had already entered the venue paused mid-step. Was someone imitating his sword intent? The power was weak, so their cultivation should not be high, but the imitation could actually be considered mature.

“Interesting.”

His friend asked, “What is it?”

“I may have found a pretty good seedling. If they’re suitable, taking them as my successor would not be bad.”

His friend’s eyes lit up. “Really? Your standards are so high. Someone who can catch your eye can’t be simple. I want to see too.”

His gaze passed through layer after layer of obstacles and directly locked onto Song Yi’s side. After learning what had happened there, the sword cultivator’s face darkened. He silently withdrew his gaze and said as if nothing had happened, “Forget it.”

His reputation, and the reputation of sword cultivators, could not be ruined in the hands of a wicked little brat.

It was better to let this young student receive more ideological and moral education first.

Fortunately, no one else knew that little brat had been imitating his sword move. Otherwise, he would have to be embarrassed along with her. His extremely cool sword move was not meant to be used like that!

What that brat imitated was not the surface but the essence, and the gorgeous process of drawing the sword had instead been omitted. So people who did not understand sword Dao well enough would not be able to see the connection between the two at all.

Close call. Close call.

Song Yi had no idea she had already been disliked by a current big shot of sword Dao. She obediently scattered the small gift boxes back out, then dove into the crowd to avoid Old Yuan’s death stare.

Chu Wen, however, did not have her good mindset. He had not paid any attention to the opening ceremony at all, and he cared even less about these small gift boxes. He was different from these little brats.

He was thinking about a much more serious problem: their simulator artifact spirit had a problem!

The other members of Wanqi Sect definitely would not have done something like this without his permission. If no one had tampered with it, then the simulator artifact spirit had developed a problem they had failed to detect earlier.

No. He had to go remove the artifact spirit from the exhibition and inspect it again!

The guests on the cloud whale already had opinions about Wanqi Sect. If another accident happened at the exhibition, it would become the greatest Waterloo of their project.

“Sorry, I have something very important to do. Please let me pass first.”

He tried to squeeze out of the crowd. Just then, Song Yi threw out the small gift boxes she had taken in, and they clacked against Chu Wen’s face one after another.

Song Yi put on an innocent face. “Sorry. This time I really didn’t do it on purpose.”

She had not expected Chu Wen to happen to run into them.

Under normal circumstances, Chu Wen could have dodged, but wasn’t this an urgent situation? Didn’t he have something more important to do?

Chu Wen glared angrily at Song Yi. “Move! Only children like you who have never seen the world would be so obsessed with taking petty advantages like this! You’re just getting in the way!”

Song Yi nodded perfunctorily. “Sure, sure. For someone of your extraordinary status, Young Master Chu, what you enjoy is special service.”

Chu Wen did not want to bother with Song Yi and was just about to leave when his footsteps suddenly paused. Why did those words sound so familiar?

They were very similar to what the faulty simulator artifact spirit had said!

He looked at Song Yi in disbelief. “You did it?”

No, no, absolutely impossible. Did a child like her have that kind of ability?

Song Yi grinned. “Are you talking about the pretty big sister turning into a monster, or the high-altitude fall? We came from a small place and haven’t seen the world, so we don’t understand what a simulator artifact spirit is. We just casually modified it a little. Was it fun?”

Chu Wen’s brain was about to turn into paste. On one hand, he felt Song Yi could not possibly have done something to that extent. On the other hand, he felt that only the “true culprit” could know the details so clearly.

Could it be the adults behind her? Did they want to oppose Wanqi Sect?

“Adults? Does something this simple still require adults to do it? In our little place, only children do things like this.”

Those words stabbed Chu Wen’s skull until it hurt even more. He grabbed the much shorter child and lifted her up. “Who exactly are you?”

“I do not change my name when walking, nor change my surname when sitting. I am Lu Shan.”

Chu Wen had absolutely no impression of that name. He only knew that Cloud Elementary had a Song Yi.

This made him start to doubt his life a little. Was any random person from Cloud Elementary, even someone whose name he had never heard, a genius? Was he the one who had never seen the world? Had Cloud City’s education already run ahead of other cities long ago?

No, there was still no final conclusion. He still could not be certain it had truly been her doing.

Chu Wen said coldly, “We’re going to find your guardian. Wanqi Sect is not a sect people can offend at will.”

Unexpectedly, as soon as Song Yi heard this, she slipped straight out of his hand. “Everything above was nonsense I made up. Convictions require evidence. Bye.”

She absolutely would not let Teacher Yuan see this.

As for evidence? The simulator artifact spirit had already returned to normal. How could she possibly have left evidence behind?

Song Yi dove into the crowd again and vanished with a whoosh.

She went back to meet up with Li Wenwen and Lin Ze, then quietly told them what had just happened. “Be careful. Don’t let him catch you. Although he doesn’t have evidence, we’ll be in trouble if Teacher Yuan finds out.”

Li Wenwen thought for a moment, then suddenly said, “If I remember correctly, Lu Shan seemed to have said that her parents would also bring her to the exhibition?”

Song Yi froze for a moment, then waved her hand. “It’s fine. My luck can’t possibly be that bad. I won’t be exposed. Besides, his simulator artifact spirit has already recovered. He probably won’t keep clinging to me.”

After saying that, she huffed and puffed as she stuck several lucky talismans onto herself.

Although she was not superstitious about luck, sometimes she still had to believe a little.

Li Wenwen and the others: Looks like you don’t believe what you just said either.

“Speaking of which, why hasn’t Teacher Yuan come to catch us?” Song Yi asked again.

“We asked Old Yang to hold him back. As long as everyone’s in the same exhibition hall, there’s no problem.” Lin Ze waggled his brows.

Teacher Yuan had their real-time locations on his end, but he had no intention of tying them to his belt. He also knew that was unrealistic. As long as they were in the same exhibition hall, if something really happened, he would still be able to notice in time.

“Then next, let’s tour the exhibition in a low-key way.”

Chu Wen did not immediately come looking for Song Yi. He felt that little brat was right. He needed evidence.

He rushed to Wanqi Sect’s exhibition hall and hurriedly checked the black magnetic stone. But just as Song Yi had said, everything had already returned to normal. He could not find any evidence.

The other Wanqi Sect members naturally also knew about the accident on the cloud whale. “Young Master Chu, this may have just been an accident. Let’s get through the exhibition first. It’s a good thing the artifact spirit has returned to normal. After the exhibition ends and before mass production, we can test it a few more times.”

“Exactly, Young Master Chu. Everyone is very curious about the simulator artifact spirit. Do you want to go up on the exhibition platform and say a few words?”

Chu Wen’s expression stiffened. According to the original process, this step did indeed exist. But when he remembered hearing people say “the development team has pits in their brains,” he no longer wanted to go onstage.

“This was definitely done by someone from Cloud Elementary!” Chu Wen felt this matter was not over. “We should demand negotiation and compensation.”

“Uh, but Young Master Chu, where’s the evidence?”

The others were more inclined to believe this was a loophole. There was absolutely no evidence proving that someone from Cloud Elementary had done it, right? Besides, what would they gain? Spending so much effort just for a prank?

The logic did not hold.

No one responded to Chu Wen’s plan.

It was no big deal for children to make a fuss, but what adult would casually go looking for trouble and make enemies?

Logically speaking, Chu Wen should have calmed down.

But he did have a bit of young-master temper in him. Once he cared about something, he loved getting to the bottom of it.

Since he could not find physical evidence, he went to look for witnesses again. He turned back to find those classmates of his from Spirit Elementary. “Do you remember the few Cloud Elementary students we met last night? I need to find them, especially that little brat leading them, the one called Lu Shan.”

“Young Master Chu, why are you looking for them?”

Chu Wen revealed a face full of bitter hatred. “It’s something very important. Can I ask you for this favor?”

Chu Wen was not liked by Song Yi and the others, but he still had a lot of prestige at Spirit Elementary.

His classmates immediately said, “No problem! We can also ask people we know to keep an eye out.”

The group scattered into the various exhibition halls.

Among the bustling crowd, little Lu Shan was holding her mother’s hand when she heard someone behind her shout, “I think I saw Lu Shan from Cloud Elementary!”

Are they calling me?

Lu Shan turned around and discovered that the stranger had gone straight past her. “Hurry and chase her!”

Mother Lu asked, “What’s wrong?”

“I thought someone was calling me. I probably heard wrong.” Lu Shan scratched her head. Maybe she just had a common name.

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